After 60+ years, a film stock that changed how movies are made is making a return. With the return of this stock, movie studios are hoping for another change in the movie industry.
Vistavision is a film stock created in 1954 by Paramount Studios to compete with CinemaScope, a wide-screen format that was becoming popular. It was created by the engineers for the studio by turning the film stock to its side.
Usually, a 35mm camera would capture film by having the film run vertically through the camera. Panavision engineers built a camera that would have the film stock run horizontally. They called these new cameras VistaVision. Film negatives have perforations on the edges; cameras use them to run film through them. With other 35 mm cameras, the perforations would be on the sides of the film since it runs vertically through it. A VistaVision negative has perforations on the top and bottom, this allows for an image 2x the size and for higher resolution.
The film stock became instantly popular with the first movie shot using a VistaVision camera, the 1954 hit “White Christmas”. A movie still watched during the holidays today, made VistaVision a name to watch for. In the following years, some very important films were made using VistaVision. First, Cecil B. DeMille’s larger-than-life 1956 movie “The Ten Commandments” a monumental film that changed how studios viewed blockbusters. That same year, legendary director John Ford released “The Searchers,” a movie that still makes lists for the greatest movies ever. As well as influencing contemporary movies such as “One Battle after Another,” which was released Sept. 26 of this year. The last movie to use VistaVision in a complete feature film was in 1961 for Marlon Brando’s directorial debut, “One-Eyed Jacks”.
After the production of “One-Eyed Jacks,” Paramount began selling off its VistaVision cameras, deciding the stock would be too expensive to keep when new film stocks were being developed. VistaVision requires a different set of chemicals than other 35mm stocks would; the studio then decided to stop making VistaVision.
Since 1961, the stock was used sparingly in films mainly for visual effects shots in movies. In the ‘70s, a crop of young directors influenced by the movies made with it found it was useful for large scale action scenes. This group, called the “New Hollywood,” consists of Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola, and a few others. It was first brought back for use in the 1977 movie “A New Hope,” the first Star Wars movie released, as well as the other two from the original trilogy. These directors, as well as younger directors like Christoper Nolan and Paul Thomas Anderson, are actively fighting to preserve film for future generations.
The Directors Guild of America hosted a Q&A with Steven Spielberg and Paul Thomas Anderson for “One Battle After Another”. They spoke about the importance of watching the movie projected on film. Spielberg says, “The thing about looking at film it’s an entirely different experience than watching from film transferred to digital. The grain of the film is what makes it alive”. Anderson, in response, “It’s in the room with us, it’s living and breathing, stuff can go wrong with it, which is exciting”.
In 2024, “The Brutalist” became the first movie since “One-Eyed Jacks” to use VistaVision for the entire film. A movie about the life of an architect used the film to capture the giant structures displayed in the movie. Earlier this year, “One Battle After Another” became the second movie to be completely shot on VistaVision. It became the first movie since 1961 to be projected on VistaVision, requiring a special projector for the movie. The only places to watch it this way were New York, Los Angeles, and London since the equipment is rare and not many know how to operate it.
There are six ways to watch “One Battle After Another”; the most rare experience is watching it on a 35mm VistaVision print. Being able to watch a film print is an experience unlike any other; the film feels like it is in the room with us. The equipment, being as old as the stock, carries a few technical issues. There were reports of screenings with issues early on in the run for the movie; the movie would stop playing at some point in the showing. Sean Fennesey, a movie critic for The Ringer, experienced the projector going down 40 minutes into the movie, then having to watch the rest of the movie digitally. “There was a difference between the DCP and VistaVision. To have in real time see the depth and beauty and the screen size they have formatted in the vista… the first 40 minutes is easily the best version I saw, so kinda heartbreaking to go to the DCP”.
This retrieve to a format that had not been around for 60+ years is a sign of change in the studio system. Currently, the movie industry is trying to figure out how to get people interested again in going out to a theater. A return to the magic of old Hollywood is a good place to start by creating a feeling you can only get when watching a great movie.
