| It was surprising how much more powerful films were, including films I had seen many times previously, when I saw them "Big". It first happened around 1970, when I received 16mm prints from Janus Films and showed them on a large sheet on York Avenue in Toronto (if it did not rain). It was amazing seeing Bride of Frankenstein BIG. Not a different film, yet it was. I'd watched it on tv dozens of times. For a film like 2001, which was designed for an extraordinarily large screen, you really are missing something just watching it on tv. The original cinerama was a three screen process. By the time Kubrick did 2001, the multiple cameras (with visible verticle lines running down the screen, splitting it into thirds) were gone and it was one, huge, seamless image. If you sat towards the front row centre, the image completely filled your field of vision. What an experience! Plus, of course, you could see all the detail, and in the 70mm print there was tons of detail. You just get only a bare hint of that experience watching it on tv. The films you mention also, of course benefit from viewing on the big screen. You may not be surprised, given my comments about PJ's King Kong and its nativeds, that I would see Gone With The Wind (get ready, here comes heresy) as a racist film. Terrific story telling, absolutely. Great acting, photography, music, absolutely. But can one call the film anything but racist when it is around four hours long, is all about the Civil war (before & after) and yet does not use the word "slave" even once? Yes, there were African Americans with speaking parts, and everyone was embarrassed enough by their depiction to award the Academy Award to Butterfly McQueen. Was she the one who played the idiot? The other two Black characters with speaking parts were the "Mammy" and the "Butler." Y'know, watching Gone With the Wind as a child, on tv, I thought those African Americans on Scarlett's ranch had great great jobs. They stayed with her through thick & thin. What a wonderful employer Scarlett was! Why, she must have given them dental benefits! It was only later that I learned that the Black people in the cast were Scarlett's slaves, subject to her whims. The avoidance by Gone With The Wind of dealing honestly with racism and slavery, and the promotion of white Southerners as wonderful people who did not kidnap and own other human beings, is what makes GWTW racist. Sorry. |