posted 10-03-2012 10:47 AM                       

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Among those Sony showed the film to in the last few weeks were cinematographers Stephen Burum ("The Untouchables," "Rumblefish") and John Toll ("The Thin Red Line," "Legends of the Fall"), who praised the effort -- with reservations.

"They left in the grain," said Burum, "so it had the texture of film. What I thought was really interesting is that after all these years of people going on and on about digital, they finally have gotten to level that's almost as good as 70mm. That means when they go to the next stage they're finally going to have a system that's going to be much better."

Toll said he had "mixed feelings" but that "the idea of ('Lawrence') having another life is fantastic." The two-time Oscar winner said he's seen the film projected about 15 times and felt some aspects of the restoration, especially the desert vistas, benefitted in ways that were dramatic.

"You can see a scene with Peter O'Toole and Omar Sharif in the foreground and two or three hundred guys on camels in the background and you can actually see them all and you can actually see expressions on their faces," explained Toll.

But the d.p. felt the more intimate moments didn't fare as well. "Where you're not looking at a frame loaded with detail, you don't care about detail," he explained. "So it does sort of sanitize it in a way that I think is not an advantage. If it's not so highly resolved it makes it more sympathetic somehow."

The abbreviated theatrical rollout to be projected digitally, presented by NCM Fathom Events and SPE, will be accompanied by a filmed intro by Scorsese and Sharif.

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posted 10-03-2012 05:31 PM                    

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"So it does sort of sanitize it in a way that I think is not an advantage. If it's not so highly resolved it makes it more sympathetic somehow."

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More "vague enough to sound profound, nonspecific enough that I can get away with it" baloney. Any minute now, he'll start going on about "organic, shimmering film grain".

Anyway, I saw the 4k DCP of Lawrence without the NCM stuff just this last Sunday, in a beautiful projection. Looked really damned great, and this is from someone who has seen the same movie in 70mm many times (the last time with several seconds of on-screen sprocket marks). Since the negative is said to be long past a photo-chemical/wet-gate style restoration of this quality, this is probably the best that the film will be seen from now on, unless an 8K projection system appears. It is MORE than adequate.