Properly Screened

  Seeing this seminal piece of science fiction in a theater, especially with booming Dolby Atmos sound on a pristine 70mm print, is nothing like streaming it at home. And I don't care how good your home theater is. I had forgotten that the film begins with an overture. About three minutes of atmospheric music plays over a black screen before any images appear. As the lights dim and the curtains remain closed, the music feels ceremonial and unnerving. At home, it’s easy to overlook. But in the theater, it signals that the audience is entering something. Then the first thunderous blast of Strauss’s “Also sprach Zarathustra” hits. The brass and timpani explode as the sun rises over the earth and moon and the title of the film appears. It’s not background music. It’s an announcement. Strauss's “The Blue Danube”  turns a jump cut from bone tossed into the air to spacecraft floating in the galaxy into one of the most famous edits in film history. The docking sequence turns into a ...

After the show, I immediately texted a friend, “That film was pointless and deranged.” Apparently, I wasn’t alone in finding it morally repugnant. When A Clockwork Orange (1971) was first released, it was met with fierce criticism for what many saw as its social irresponsibility and glamorization of sexual violence. In the UK, reports of copycat crimes intensified the backlash, and the controversy ultimately led Kubrick to withdraw the film from British cinemas for decades. I spent most of the movie distracted and angry at the sense that Kubrick wanted us to feel sympathy for Alex, the sadistic teenage gang leader, whom he called “a victim of the modern age.” I understand the argument: Alex is a monster, but the state’s punishment and attempts to reform him are monstrous too. The problem is, I  just don’t agree. The moral equivalency felt forced. His sadism is so gleefully staged that when the government turns cruel, it doesn’t deepen the film. What unsettled me most was the way ...

If you go into this three-hour, 18th-century period drama expecting a gripping plot, you’ll be disappointed. This isn’t a film you watch to see what happens next; you watch it to look at it --- the compositions, the light, and, if I’m being honest, Ryan O’Neal, who does less acting than posing, but that turns out to be enough. I didn’t fully appreciate Barry Lyndon (1975) until I learned about the lengths Stanley Kubrick and cinematographer John Alcott went to make it appear entirely naturally lit. Kubrick looked to artists like Hogarth, Gainsborough, and the Dutch Masters to inform the masterful lighting design.  The candlelit scenes, like the card playing and gambling sequences, are the most famous example. Kubrick used Zeiss Plantar f/0.7 --- ultra-fast --- lenses originally developed for NASA to photograph the moon, and even then production had to create thousands of special candles with multiple wicks just to generate enough light. The effect is extraordinary. It’s perfecti...