M
ilwaukee is home to one of fewer than 20 movie theaters in the U.S. that can screen 70mm film year-round. And this week, the Oriental Theatre is taking advantage of that distinction with its 70mm Series, running Aug. 28-Sept. 4.
The East Side theater – operated by Milwaukee Film – will be showing five movies originally printed or re-printed on 70mm film: 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Master, West Side Story (1961), Sinners and Lawrence of Arabia.
“A lot of cinemas just ripped out their film projectors and scrapped them. They’re in storage somewhere or they’re not being taken care of,” says Gini Connell, a projectionist at the Oriental. “70mm is so specific – not many theaters show it, and we’re the only one in Wisconsin. We’re in a lucky place.”
Check out the City Guide!
To the uninitiated, one question might pop up surrounding the showing of these acclaimed movies – What’s the big deal with 70mm?
“Film is made up of these light-sensitive crystals, essentially, on plastic, and the more of those that you can fit on a frame, the more clarity to an image,” Connell explains. “70mm is a bigger frame, which means that more light is being transferred. It’s the smallest grain you can get, and visually there’s more depth. It has a different look from digital projection. It’s more dimensional, and the colors are always brighter and more vibrant.”
Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey put a recent spotlight on the art of film. The summer blockbuster was the first feature-length movie ever shot entirely on IMAX 70mm film. The Oriental’s ability to project it on 70mm gave audiences a rare chance to experience the movie on film rather than digitally. Connell says 70mm is being taken from a “film nerd” realm to a wider, intrigued audience.
“I think the draw for [the 70mm series] is that these are classic, epic movies, which people want to see on a grander scale – and 70mm lends itself to that,” Connell says. “You can watch an older movie that you might have seen before and notice the differences between when you watch it on your TV, and going to see it in theaters on film.”
But it’s no simple feat to screen 70mm films.
While the Oriental owns a few in-house prints – such as David Lynch’s Lost Highway and Mamoru Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell – the 70mm prints for this series were sourced from archives and companies with ownership, such as Warner Brothers and Park Circus, and are returned after screenings.
These films are precious and easy to scratch or damage. When received, it’s important to carefully inspect these “archival materials” for any existing damage, and handle them with care during all screenings – wearing gloves, limiting air exposure and tuning projectors.
This projection process is a “niche” skill, with only four employees on the Oriental’s tech team who handle it. It includes an “old-fashioned” two projector system that allow the projectionist to switch between reels of 70mm film without interrupting the movie.
“It’s a trade skill you learn,” Connell says. “It took me years to be confident in projecting. It can be stressful to be the only one who is responsible for this very expensive or archival thing, so you have to get to a point where it’s muscle memory – but I still think it’s the coolest thing whenever I get to do it.”
Because these 70mm prints are shown around the world, they often come with the visual history of being “well loved,” like small scratches or specks of dust. Connell says that these imperfections are part of the draw. “When we show Space Odyssey, or Lawrence of Arabia, or West Side Story, they’ve been projected many times by cinemas across the world and the country, so you’re gonna be able to see these imperfections that make it so that you’re looking at the history of a movie. It just gives it a character.”
Connell says the “magic trick” of light and sound on physical film is the driver of theater-goers across age groups.
“It’s more like a physical, tactile thing, so people get excited to see it because they know that it is like a physical object that someone is handling and taking care of,” Connell says. “The audience is very much a very mixed bag. We have older people that remember seeing movies on film, and then I feel that Gen Z is going to the theater a lot more. That’s how I want it to be – it is so much more fun when it’s a mix of people who can have a conversation after the movie and learn something.”
You can buy tickets to any screening in the 70mm Series here. The first screening is 2001: A Space Odyssey on Friday, Aug. 28.
