All movie screens are created equal, right?
Not in some of the smaller, independent theaters across the country. One theater in Washington, D.C. I visited infrequently years ago had a screen so small I kept scrambling to find the invisible remote.
The bigger the screen, the more immersive the experience. That’s particularly true for “The Tree of Life” starring Brad Pitt and Sean Penn. Director Terrence Malick’s film is dividing audiences and critics alike, although those who favor the film’s mercurial spirit can’t sing its praises enough.
But a fellow film critic tells me “Life” isn’t getting as appreciate a reaction when it’s shown on a small screen here in Denver. He reports audiences seeing it on that undersized screen get fidgety during the film’s more experimental moments. In contrast, patrons who take “Life” in on a large screen are more willing to process the film’s artistic risks.
Have you had a similar experience? Can screen size make or break a movie for you?
(Photo: Brad Pitt stars in “The Tree of Life.” Photo credit: Merie Wallace & (c) 2011 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation.)
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{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
When I was a young boy, my father took me to see a movie in “Cinemascope” (think early Imax). The screen was immense and the two sides wrapped around a little. I looked back and could see three (THREE!) projectors working to fill up the screen.
It was “Battle of the Bulge”.
When the scene placed the camera behind a jeep driver and his passenger I felt like I needed to hold onto the seat for dear life.
Screen size matters in the theater and in the home and for this reason I can’t see the (long term) allure of small hand-helded screens to play movies on.
I love to see sci-fi movies in theaters because it really helps you become immersed in the alternate reality. Seeing the Matrix, Dark Knight, and 300 on TV is just not the same experience. Feeling the vibrations of the sound effects is part of it, too.
My only concern about the prevalence of movie viewing on hand-held devices is that this will push directors to frame their shots to accommodate these small screens (more close-ups, less visual subtlety, etc.)
One of the newest Smart Phones offers Avatar the movie as a built in feature. Insane! Can’t imagine a worse choice for such a tiny screen.
I have always been a proponent to seeing movies with large screens, to me it adds immensely to the expericance. I sometimes go with friends and I head for the front rows to get the full effect while they go to the back seats because they complain it is too close. As I tell them, if I wanted to make the screen look like my TV at home why would I pay $9 to come to the movies.
I lived in Abilene, TX for a few years and they had a restored old-school movie theater that showed old films on a huge screen
http://paramount-abilene.org/
I can safely vouch that Patton, Ben Hur, The 10 Commandments, need a big screen for full enjoyment…. the chariot race is just incomplete without the wide and big screen experience with great sound.
I popped for 300 in IMAX — it was awesome.
300 and Dark Knight in IMAX defy definition (not so much Shine a Light, but, um, interesting seeing every crack and crevice on Keef’s face). Seeing Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith at the Hollywood Cineramadome also made up for the film’s, er, shortcomings.
Still will go with seeing Blade Runner at the drive-in back in ‘82 will always be the greatest visual experience of my movie-going life (tin-box in the window notwithstanding). Braveheart on a murky, foggy night, also at a drive-in, a close second.
In short, bigger is better.
I couldn’t list all the films I’ve revisited on DVD and found diminished. Conversely seeing a classic on the big screen after knowing it only from small screen viewings can be revelatory. Some movies suffer more than others (action movies, historical epics, etc.), but it’s not entirely a question of genre or scale. The better the filmmaking, the more important it is to see the movie the way it was meant to be seen to fully appreciate it.
Aleric is right. I like to sit in row 4 to 8 to get the full experience.
A friend demanded I see “Dead Ringers” with him and sit in the REAR. Big mistake. Not only was the sound distorted but the experience was wasted. Never again.
If you b*stards want my big screen experience, you can pry my ticket out of my cold, dead hands!
The absolute best place to watch a movie from is the middle seat of the middle row. The back rows are OK unless you have a huge theatre with a tiny screen (although they do tend to be full of obnoxious kids), but the front rows are an awful place to watch a movie from (unless, again, you have a tiny screen). When you are in the front rows with a big screen it makes it hard to see the whole screen at once, which makes watching any movie with significant action scenes a chore. It also reduces immersion, by making you acutely aware that you are staring at a screen. In the middle you are far enough away to see the whole screen at once, but close enough to see detail. Also, in my experience, the audio sounds best in the middle.
Lawrence of Arabia in 1993, St Louis beautiful big screen, restored 70 mm. Changed how I thought a movie could be seen.