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Nolan's use of 70mm IMAX cameras for his new epic was a monumental achievment, but was it fair?
Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey was a monumental success this summer. Following Oppenheimer and the juggernaut that movie became, Universal Studios wrote Nolan a blank cheque to make whatever he wanted next. And he ran with it- making a sprawling, $250m adaptation of Homer’s Ancient Greek epic. It is the first ever movie to be filmed entirely on IMAX 70mm cameras, Nolan has taken the tech he fell in love with while making The Dark Knight and pushed it further than ever before. And it’s worked; the select few IMAX 70mm screenings globally sold out weeks in advance and sparked a frenzy that doesn’t seem to be stopping soon. But some have questioned if this is fair, to create such a cultural phenomenon that only a small minority of the world can see “properly”?
Quite a technical type of film stock, IMAX 70mm was developed in the late 1960s largely for short nature documentaries. It makes for a very complicated production process (especially in the sound design department- the camera whirs so loud it used to almost drown out the audio recordings) but provides filmmakers a scale and image resolution that can’t be matched. There’s a lot of technical jargon out there but in brief- there are over 1,800 IMAX theatres worldwide and only around 40 that can project film reels the way it was designed.
Other forms of IMAX use loudly amplified sound and as big a screen as possible to capture the same experience but only those 40ish screens can exhibit the movie in the aspect ratio and sound it was designed with in mind. Because of how complicated it is to shoot with an IMAX camera, only a handful of narrative feature films have utilised the camera and film stock since Christopher Nolan was the first back in 2008 for The Dark Knight.
At first only small portions of a movie could utilise the format but with each film since, Nolan and other filmmakers like Brad Bird, Patty Jenkins and Ryan Coogler have pushed the medium forward to the point where a whole movie can be filmed using these incredibly complex cameras.
The demand for watching event movies like The Odyssey in 70mm IMAX has never been higher but the company are stuck with a dilemma- they don’t have enough tech to match the demands. More specifically, new IMAX film projectors haven’t been manufactured in over 50 years due to a lack of materials that aren’t created anymore. As well, there’s not enough multiplexes around the world able to take on the huge cost of manufacturing new screens to match the true 70mm IMAX experience.
There has been much discussion online about Nolan’s obsession with 70mm IMAX and if it’s fair to create a movie that so few will be able to see the way he intended. The majority of IMAX
70mm screens are in North America, with a handful in Europe, and only in Melbourne is there a IMAX 70mm screen across the whole of the Southern Hemisphere.
While it’s fair to question the spread of IMAX 70mm screens globally (especially the accessibility for those from the southern hemisphere), to critique Nolan for pushing the medium forward in a way no other filmmaker has done before doesn’t sit well with me. It feels anti-art to take down a filmmaker who after nearly twenty years of utilising and developing the tech, has managed to make a film on a scale like no other.
In the same way Bob Dylan revolutionised the electric guitar and David Foster Wallace revolutionised the novel, Nolan is revolutionising the epic blockbuster and what can be done with it.
What is the solution? The easiest thing to say is just “make more IMAX 70mm projectors/screens” but it’s more complicated than that. Whilst IMAX are actively retrofitting old projectors and working with cinemas to open new screens (two new European screens opened in Manchester and Marseille for The Odyssey), in the long run there simply isn’t enough tech to open screens on a worldwide scale. Never say never but it seems unlikely Ireland will be getting one soon.
In fairness to IMAX, they are making a big effort to give anyone who can, a chance to see the movie in IMAX 70mm.
Any cinema with 70mm capabilities will continue to exhibit The Odyssey over the next few months whilst most other IMAX screens have moved onto Spider-Man: Brand New Day and everything else that is to come. Dune: Part III, out in December, is the next release to utilise the IMAX 70mm cameras so there will be plenty of time for people in countries with these screens to see it.
As great as it is to see The Odyssey in IMAX 70mm, it’s important to remember that a great movie is a great movie regardless of how it’s screened. The options available in Ireland - like digital IMAX, standard 35 and 70mm or the average cinema screen- are still brilliant ways to see the movie. Over the last three years or so, there’s been a big push from movie studios to see their films in what they call Premium Large Formats- this marketing ploy is a way to increase box office revenue through a more expensive ticket price.
In reality, my best advice is to see it on the biggest screen available near you instead of stressing about seeing it exactly as Nolan intended. Ultimately, he has crafted such a brilliant, moving film that whatever format it’s seen is still likely to astound.