#mivan?

Rupe: Have you met Christopher Nolan, Martin Scorsese, Paul Thomas Anderson or Quentin Tarantino? They are all huge proponents of shooting on and projecting film. Spielberg also shoots on film.

Nemes: And he edits on film. I don’t feel it’s being part of the past. I don’t understand why zeroes and ones must be killing cinema.

Rupe: The people who use oil paints don’t say, ‘Do not use pencils! Pencils aren’t as good! Look how wonderful and bright my colors are!’

Nemes: Although it’s different because pencils and oil are about physical objects leaving a physical trace whereas zeroes and ones are immaterial and don’t exist in a physical world.

Rupe: And a film strip is something you can hold, an actual document that you can leave behind.

Nemes: I think we need, as human beings, the physical link. If we don’t have that, we are at a point in civilization where technology will completely destroy us. It’s just a world that we cannot relate to anymore.

Rupe: It’s hard to talk to the digital people. They show you their digital versions and their ‘bright’ and ‘crisp’ images, and get angry when you don’t agree.

Nemes: It’s good. Anger is good. Because they know we are right.

Rupe: It’s radiant energy. The silver halide particles are actually picking up different wavelengths of radiant energy.

Nemes: You should speak to my cinematographer. He’s fully aware of this.

Rupe: When I saw Son of Saul it just glowed as a 35mm print while everything else in the festival was digital, which makes everything looks flat. They don’t seem to be able to see it.

Nemes: They can.

Rupe: They get so angry when you mention it.

Nemes: They know they’re wrong. Digital is the first regression in the history of cinema. And it doesn’t last, even if you print it with a computer. Photography is a photochemical process. It’s more like reality.