How the spectator's brain receives the message through film or digital..

I just viewed Side by Side on TV replay -- have wanted to see it since it came out four years ago... How quickly things change, and now film is regaining territory. What always interests me in these kinds of discussions is that no one, but no one, ever mentions the effect that a digital image projected on a big screen, or not so big screen, has on the spectator, as opposed to the effect that a film image has. In truth, the "medium is the message," and the human brain does not read digital in the same way that it reads film. For which reason, they are forever different media which cannot replace one another. The film image, being continuous and composed of moving silver halides viewed by the reflected light of the projection, tends to draw the spectator into the story -- traditionally in old movie palaces on such enormous screens and grand settings -- and elate him or her, lifting the audience out of their ordinary lives, and carrying it as a collective thing (all breathing together with the rhythm of the film, music, etc.). That was the cinema experience -- "trip" -- that used to be. Digital is, as everyone knows, a mosaic of electronic points of light beamed into the eyes of the spectator, and the brain has to work to interpret what this mosaic may be. The resolution, lighting, color palette, of digital of course have constantly improved, and will no doubt continue to improve, but they still do not quite match the quality of celluloid, and in any case, digital is such a radically different assault on the human eye and brain, that the two media are hardly comparable at all. I hope that film and digital will co-exist forever, spawning undreamed-of more new media in the future, complementing each other to everyone's benefit forever. Meanwhile, since cinema is visual and aural, the same phenomenon plagues the world of recorded music: It is simply not a good thing to chop art into bits and listen to samples of sound, any more than it is a good thing to watch bits of visual art in mosaics... although digital of course offers other qualities of expense, speed, movement, etc. that make shooting so much easier. And finally, as the documentary points out, film remains the archival standard for durability, just as vinyl does for music, durability and quality. Zeros and ones certainly have their place in our developing world, but they cannot replace everything, any more than they can replace painting on canvas, or sculpture in marble, etc.