With productions labs and resources continuing to dwindle, the march towards a (mostly) digital film future continues, though there are a handful of notable filmmakers hanging on to the old way of doing things. Christopher Nolan and Paul Thomas Anderson are just two of the big names who are sticking by traditional film stock as much as possible, and now, a veteran director is also embracing a big camera negative while he still can.
Production has started on Terence Davies‘ next effort, “Sunset Song,” with the first images arriving, but the news comes with an interesting tidbit: he’s shooting the movie on 65mm. As folks know, that’s the format PTA used on “The Master,” and Variety reports that Davies has selected 65mm to “ensure depth, clarity and emotional impact on the screen,” with the landscape to “feature as a character in its own right.” So yes, eyeballs will be melted.
Of course, the number of theatres equipped to project 65mm is another matter entirely, and folks may recall that even for all of PTA’s efforts, most folks saw “The Master” in cinemas digitally (still looked pretty gorgeous though).
As for “Sunset Song,” it’s an adapation of the classic Scottish novel by Lewis Grassic Gibbon, centering on Chris Guthrie, a farmer’s daughter who struggles to find love admist hardship and family dysfunction, with WWI looming in the background. Agyness Deyn, Peter Mullan and Kevin Guthrie feature in the film, and if it’s half as ravishing to look at and moving as Davies’ last effort, the underrated “The Deep Blue Sea,” we’ll be pleased.