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Comment by wilg | Hacker News Reader

It's that most digital projectors in movie theaters are terrible: low resolution and dim.

That's part of it for sure but even on a still scene 35mm projectors still had a small bit of movement because it was mechanical and alignments are never perfect. I know in the cinema I worked in even sat in the screen you could still hear the hum of the machines if you knew what to listen for. To me it was all part of the cinema experience. Digital has improved compared to the early generations yes. But if you gave me the option I'd watch 35mm over digital any day

Edited to correct typo

Why do you want a wobbly picture and extra background noise? Those sound like negatives.

Things don't always have to be perfect. It's a personal preference. While I appreciate the helpful suggestion the first part won't really work and but the second part is fair playing the sound at a low level could help with the experience.

What I mean is this is my memory of the cinema and what I enjoyed. Digital achieves "Perfection" but in a way which is lifeless for film. From the point of view of a projectionist every machine had it's own quirks when running a film. I used to run 7 machines in one cinema and once you got to know the tone of the place you would often hear something starting to go wrong before seeing it. A click that shouldn't be there or a platter sounding rough as you laced a film up. The work was interesting in ways that digital never will be. I also prefer some things in electronics to be analogue rather than digital. And no matter the bit rate always remember digital is only ever a close approximation of that colour or that shape it's never perfect. However it may get to a point where the eye can't see the difference and the ear can't hear the difference but it's still only an approximation. I get it I like old tech if that's a crime shoot me.

Edited to clarify and add more context

It looks better. The noise is just nostalgic for me, it doesn't enhance inherently IMHO.

As an example, I recently saw Full Metal Jacket on 35mm. The last Boot Camp scene, the one in the bathroom, while unsettling in any context becomes positively haunting in 35mm. The lower light conditions introduce artifacting even in digital, but the slightly wobbly frame motion and the scratches and dust marks exaggerate that artifacting further. The resulting image is almost expressionistic, as though reality has become so horrifying our very perception of it is starting to breakdown. The same sort of effect recurs with the sniper at the end of the film. In between, the rougher, less pristine frames create a sense of grittiness that amplifies the mood of the film. In short, I thought seeing Full Metal Jacket on 35mm was a fully superior experience over watching it on digital (although I’ve only seen digital presentations of it at home and not in a theater).

You can recreate all those in digital, can't you? If that's actually the artistic effect that the auteur wants.

You certainly can recreate something very similar in post, although that’s a bit like saying chiaroscuro lighting is achievable in charcoal, oil paint, and photography: the effect is still going to be distinct depending on the medium. Digital has a whole host of unique qualities and even some distinct advantages over film. But the image of film has a different quality to it as compared to digital: it simply looks different than digital projection or home video, even if you had a pristine, flawless film print. The difference in image is subtle, but your brain recognizes it the moment the projector starts: “oh, yeah, this is how movies used to look.” Just as photography hasn’t superseded all other 2d visual arts, I think it would be a mistake to treat film as unnecessary in the age of digital. I can certainly understand why a director and DP would choose to work with digital for the average case project these days though.

The vast majority of that is just personal perception, and has nothing intrinsic to do with an analog technology.

For example; maybe for me the perfection of digital reproduction is actually MORE haunting than an "alive" 35mm version.

I totally understand this, but it's something like vinyl. Yeah, the vinyl doesn't have the same sound quality, but there's something about the little crackles and pops, that warm fuzzy sound in the background that gives me, well, a warm fuzzy feeling. Dropping the needle on Stairway to Heaven is just a different experience.

I choose that example in particular because LZ IV is one of the first albums I ever heard on vinyl. My dad had an old crate of records and a truly bitchin stereo setup that he let me dig out and set up in my room in my teens. He had told me the story of the first time he heard Stairway (in his friend's basement, on vinyl) and it just seemed like a fitting first run.

I also vividly remember the first time I heard The Yes Album, also on that stereo. The opening bars of Yours Is No Disgrace made an immediate impression on me and I had a burned CD of the album on repeat in my car for the next month.

This post is already way longer than I intended, but my dad's record collection was also how I realized that he had been a stoner as a young man. The various Pink Floyd, King Crimson, and Santana records should have been enough of a hint, but it was when I found his copy of Cheech and Chong's Big Bambu, and a conspicuously missing giant rolling paper, that I had the realization.

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