I really wish I didn't have to work Monday night because downtown at the Gene Siskel Film Center a panel discussion exploring the future of celluloid film — and the domination of digital images as they increasingly dictate our moviegoing experience — convenes following the 6 p.m. Monday screening of "Side by Side."
What is "Side by Side"? "Side by Side" is director Christopher Kenneally's spirited documentary hosted by Keanu Reeves grappling with film versus digital. Or is it film and digital?
It is if you're Martin Scorsese. The director, one of dozens of sharp, invested filmmakers and technicians interviewed on camera by Reeves, says he loves the photochemical process on which he was raised. But he enjoys the speed, the flexibility and the ever-better visual palette the best new high-definition digital cameras bring to the party.
Director Steven Soderbergh, an ardent devotee of digital, says he "hates" the film image (scratchy, underlit in the projector, degraded) as it's typically projected in a multiplex, and probably won't be for too many more years. But Christopher Nolan still favors film, as does his frequent cinematographer, Wally Pfister. "I'm not going to trade my oil paints for a set of crayons," Pfister says in the movie.
To which director David Fincher, like Soderbergh an early adopter of all things digital, counters with tales of how lovely it is to keep shooting, keep the actors going and going and going, without having to change the film magazines every 10 minutes. Fincher mentions in "Side by Side" that shooting digitally (and doing dozens of retakes on every shot, as Fincher does) isn't for everyone. Robert Downey Jr., co-star of Fincher's best film to date, "Zodiac," registered his feelings regarding Fincher's "let's keep shooting" approach by leaving Mason jars of urine around for all to
see.
The Siskel Film Center, part of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), is an exhibitor with some skin in this digital-versus-film game. The Film Center has a Digital Cinema Package outfitting its largest auditorium, and plans to add another for its second screen. Next week, the Landmark Theatre Corp. chain will convert auditoriums from film to digital at the Century Centre Cinema and Renaissance Place in Highland Park. What, if anything, are we losing visually with this technological transition?
Panelists include Barbara Scharres, the film center's programming director; Ben Sachs, film critic for the Chicago Reader; Chicago director Dan Nearing; and Daniel Eisenberg, SAIC film professor and filmmaker. Alison Cuddy of WBEZ-FM moderates. The documentary's catnip for cinephiles — general-interest enough for the technological idiots among us, wonky enough to intrigue and engage the lifelong lover of cinema.
"Side by Side," 5:15 p.m. Saturday, 6 p.m. Monday and 8:15 p.m. Thursday, Siskel Film Center.
Movies on the radio: Michael joins co-hosts Adam Kempenaar and Josh Larsen for a "Best Films of 1981" episode on this week's "Filmspotting," 11 p.m. Friday and midnight Saturday on WBEZ-FM (91.5). For the director's cut edition, go online to filmspotting.net.
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