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After covering such varied issues and filmmakers like Luis Buñuel in 2008 or “Dream Girls: Film Stars of the Fifties” in 2006, this year the Berlinale Film Festival's Retrospective goes super widescreen with “70 mm - Bigger than Life”. Celebrating the visual epics of mainly the 50s and 60s from Russia, Europe and the US, the line-up features an impressive list of films that are screened throughout the festival's run and promise a visual feast bar none.
Director Bondarchuk’s 7+-hours War and Peace (1962-67) is, to this day, the most expensive epic produced in Russia. Somewhat similar is 1963’s Cleopatra by Mankiewicz. Adjusted for inflation, the production cost today would be around $300 million for the four-hour spectacle that almost bankrupted FOX despite being one of the decade’s biggest winners at the BO. Brando was sought for the role of Marc Anthony (a brilliant Richard Burton in the film), but was already set to star in Mutiny on the Bounty, another film that was screened at the festival. The selection varies from true classics and masterpieces like Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey or Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia to visually impressive but less distinguished films like Ford’s Cheyenne Autumn. But the focus of the retrospective definitely is the visuals and the unparalleled scope of true 70mm films. The high time of the format was mainly in the 50s and 60s, due to the cost of film stock and projection equipment as well as begging for costly epics that went out of fashion in the 70s. Still, despite advances in technology and digital projection becoming more widespread, hardly any film today can rival the unabashed celebration of studio era Hollywood on its last stand or prestige films from Russia in terms of production or the power of the images.
The Berlinale picked the right cinema to screen them at as well. Most of the Retrospective is shown at the Kino International, one of the few cinema palaces still standing that used to be the GDR’s cinema for premieres and, today, is the only one equipped with true 70mm projectors in Berlin. The fact that most of the copies are restored versions from recent years, screened onto the huge, curved screen of the cinema, make this Retrospective a feast for the eyes as well as offering an opportunity to see these films as they should be – on the silver screen with an audience around you. Yes, The Dark Knight was visually impressive as a film, but pales in comparison to George C. Scott as Patton strutting towards the audience in front of a US flag that seems to be too big to be true or the unparalleled sets of Cleopatra that defy logic and common sense. But this is cinema at its biggest best that makes you wish for the cinematic indulgence of days past. Photo 2: © Annette Seifert |
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