Film vs. DCP: New York, New York

[cgpublic]

Fantastic article in today's New York Times, 'Why New Yorkers Still Love Film' (may need a sub for entire article):

Only a decade ago, film seemed on its way to extinction. Digital technologies promised to reduce the complexity of projection to the push of a button. Movie distributors cajoled theaters into replacing their 35-millimeter projectors with digital ones and phased out the production of new prints. Cinephiles eulogized the disappearing medium. New York City, which had long made projectionists pass a difficult exam to obtain a motion picture operator license, dropped the requirement.

But even as theaters adapted to the digital era, a notable few kept their film projectors. And paradoxically, the threat to the old 35-millimeter technology gave it a new cachet. A live screening of a physical print, with all its hiccups, is a singular event in a way that the digital projection of an infinitely rebootable file can never be.

Some theater owners make a business case for film. Alamo Drafthouse, a national chain of cinemas with three locations in New York City, retains 35 millimeter in all its markets, according to its founder, Tim League. This allows its theaters to draw on a vaster catalog of movies — the chain shows about 2,000 unique films each year — and to tap a broader audience. “You can show weird movies and people will come,” he said. Blockbusters still account for the majority of the company’s revenue, he added, but earnings from 35-millimeter screenings contribute as much as 5 percent.

Of course, Scorsese was asked to chime in...

One of the leading supporters of film preservation is Mr. Scorsese, whose Film Foundation protects and restores hundreds of prints and funds workshops for projectionists. In an email, he fondly recalled screenings at the old Thalia, New Yorker, and Bleecker Street cinemas but conceded that today’s digital technologies have made it possible to watch movies at home that are “almost indistinguishable” from what you see and hear in a theater. And the scratches and splices of projected film, once an intrinsic part of the experience, are beginning to feel jarring. “For me, watching films on 16 millimeter or 35 millimeter is about the history of the art form,” he wrote.

So, actual celluloid or DCP, what's your preference? Given the opportunity to view both, I'll always seek out 35MM.