MovieChat Forums > The Omen (1976) Discussion > Are older films ill fitted for the moder...

Are older films ill fitted for the modern big screen?


Like I said in another thread I went to see it at a Cinemark, they gave us the shittiest room of course, I'm not sure what they use to project, a dvd? a special digital file? it had the resolution but the film was still grainy and soft. That's usually the 1970's shit cinematographic style but it doesn't look good on the big screen. I wonder how it would be back in the day and furthermore how would films like Sunset Boulevard would fare in it.

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I don't know about this movie in particular, but older movies should still look good (glorious in some cases) on the big screen if the 'source' they use is good. That is to say, if they have a good print, or a good scan. Also, if they use a print, it would depend on their projector/projectionist.

Grain will be there, but shouldn't be distracting. Sharpness would depend on the cinematography style, apart from focus mistakes. Black and white movies from the 50s usually look sharper and more detailed than 1970s colour movies, with finer grain. This is partly the film stock used and partly the cinematography style.

Judging by blu-rays of older movies from quality labels like Criterion Collection or decent masters (projected several metres wide), most movies should look very good and hold up well, while others simply look bad because they probably always did... 35mm prints should exceed these blurays in quality so should look good.

Judging by a clip from The Omen, it seems the underexposed or dark scenes are grainy possibly from push processing. I think it was shot that way. Also, judging from the way light sources bloom the filmmakers have probably used filters to soften the image, or had chosen lenses with those qualities. As you say, that 70s look (although different filters have always been used in filmmaking).

A friend of mine watched several Kubrick movies recently in 35mm at a good theatre in London. He said the quality was excellent. This included older movies like Paths of Glory from 1957.

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maybe it's just a really ugly film, I've only seen Chinatown, A Space Odyssey and Rosemary's Baby on the big screen, on digital projection of course, Chinatown looked great, Odyssey a little fussy and Rosemary's Baby always had ugly cinematography. Indeed black and white movies look sharp on bluray but not like films shot today, so I wonder if they could withstand those giant screens of today or if the ones of that time were just as big.

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Rosemary's Baby


What'd you think about that film, Cake? They've been showing it a lot on my cable the last few months

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I like it although it can get boring at times, it was groundbreaking at the time and it can still entertain.

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I agree
I saw it in 76 and all I remember was Excessive cigarette smoke making the big screen extra silver!

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I do like a sharp black and white film. Much easier to watch than a lot of the dimly lit or poorly defined colour films.

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It's still looks kinda grainy and soft on blu ray (I have the Scream Factory box set) but it doesn't bother me, it's just how the film was shot.

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Here are 20 screenshots, the last 8 are comparisons between the old and new blu-rays. 1,2,9 are grain-free because of bright lighting. Dark scenes will be grainy because high-speed film is.
https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/The-Omen-Blu-ray/145724/#Screenshots

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On the contrary. Older films (pre-vhs) are better fitted for large screens. Newer films starting from VHS-era are composed for 4:3 television screen. If the aspect ratio of a film from that era is 2.35:1, the rest of the image area is usually just filler that can be cropped off.

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Films have been wide screen since 1960. Only old TV movies were 4:3.

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Even earlier. So?

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Theaters were much larger in 1960 with larger screens too. I doubt many people remember the difference between 35mm and 4k cinema projectors. 35mm was grainy with less detail because you're seeing a 4th generation copy!

The OP was made before Shout Factory remastered it from the 35mm camera negative. This site has a review and 2k screenshots. Nobody ever saw such detail in theaters.
https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/The-Omen-Blu-ray/145724/

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