Feature films shot on celluloid are becoming an endangered species in Hollywood. Huge advances in digital camera technology over the last fifteen years have meant that many directors and cinematographers are now wholeheartedly embracing a method of film-making which offers filmic quality without the excessive cost and inconvenience of utilising traditional film cameras. This paradigmatic shift from the photo-chemical to the digital is the subject of Side by Side, a documentary produced and narrated by Keanu Reeves, which mainly consists of a series of interviews with personalities as prestigious as James Cameron, Martin Scorsese, David Fincher, David Lynch, Christopher Nolan and many others, all of whom have strong opinions about the advent of digital film-making.
While a few individuals sit on the fence, the majority end up in either the “film” or “digital” camp. The likes of Christopher Nolan and his favoured cinematographer Wally Pfister argue forcefully in favour of the aesthetic superiority of celluloid film, and warn against the false promise of the digital revolution, while James Cameron, Steven Soderbergh and Davids Lynch and Fincher express their affinity for the new technology, as well as disbelief that anyone could downplay the benefits of such a cost-effective and artistically liberating approach to their art. Alongside this debate emerges an additional but related discussion about the “democratisation” of film-making enabled by digital technology, with a recent boom in independent cinema fuelled in part by the relatively low expense of digital cameras. Many contributors are also at pains to emphasise the synthesis of art and technology which underpins the process of movie-making, and how the give-and-take between the two has influenced the rapid rise of digital technology in the film industry.
The spectacle of these cinematic luminaries talking about such a contentious issue is both entertaining and enlightening, and Side by Side also succeeds as an informative short history of the technology behind film-making. Arguably the only weak point in the film (beyond its overly US/Euro-centric focus) is Reeves himself. Although he makes for a perfectly adequate interviewer who clearly has an interest in his subject matter, he is on screen far too often, and director Christopher Kenneally’s decision to feature him almost as frequently as the film’s interviewees seems misguided in a documentary setting. This aside, though, Side by Side makes fascinating viewing for anyone with even a passing interest in how films are made, and forms a compelling chronicle of the most significant technological advancement in cinema for a hundred years.
Side by Side is currently on limited release in the UK, and is also available on Netflix.
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