Why are 'purists' so adamant about the fact that film (35mm, etc) gives you a better experience?
I would think the content alone should give you what you are looking to get out of a movie? Am I wrong?
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Answers ( 1 )
It's not just abut content, it's about appearance. Film has a different appearance than digital. Film has always had this look of unreal, a bit of dreaminess in the quality of any work in film. It's so very noticeable when a movie or show is made with digital, the work seems harsher and more real, there's a crispness to it that brings it home it's reality. And the difference from my perspective is that movies on film always had a sense of taking you away from the real world, into another word in a story you could get lost in for awhile. Digital on the other hand is so almost shockingly real world that you can't sense a distance from reality, it all feels so real, and that takes you to another place that's not as much fiction or imagination, but in a place that's right out on the street.
In fairness, I like digital photography, it's opened far many more options for me as a photographer and artist, but I still like the faraway feel of film that it does have a sense of fiction there, a sense of distance, behind a veil of imagination. Any movies and shows made with film no longer feel as separate from us, it's in some ways almost to real to allow the imagination to go on a trip to another place, where film can do that for you. I feel the same way about books. There's a sense of reading a physical book that you can lose yourself in the pages, get lost in a story, where reading a digital book, there's not that homeyness and comfort with the words on a page, but just a glaringly bright screen with words there - the sense of story isn't there as much.
Some may not know it, or see it, but for me, it's a feeling, a sensation of difference of being able to go far away from the room, and exist in the place on the film, and in the pages, where we can get lost in those words, in those characters, in their place, for a little while.