It is impossible to see 'The Odyssey' in Catalonia as Christopher Nolan conceived it

BarcelonaChristopher Nolan's new movie, The Odyssey, has arrived in theaters with a Trojan horse: its cinematic format. A feature that has sparked a heated debate about the aspect ratio in which the film is projected in different exhibition formats, to the point that the critic and communicator Alejandro G. Calvo has loaded against the display system of The Odyssey, which he describes as "demonic" and "a lack of respect for cinematic language", because "you can only see the film as Nolan shot it in a handful of cinemas, and in the rest you see 75% of the frame, or 73%."

The Odyssey is shot entirely in 65mm IMAX format with 15 perforations and then projected in 70mm, an almost square format (1:43:1) that offers up to 40% more image than the conventional panoramic projection in most commercial cinemas. This experience, however, can only be enjoyed in 41 theaters worldwide, the IMAX 70mm theaters. In Catalonia there is no theater that shows it in this format; the closest is the Gaumont IMAX in Montpellier, France.

In the vast majority of cinemas, therefore, The Odyssey is projected in the 1:85:1 panoramic proportions, a rather horizontal standard that in the United States is called flat –very similar to the 16:9 of panoramic televisions– and that forces to crop 27% of the surface of the frame filmed by Nolan. In Catalonia, as in Spain, there are digital IMAX cinemas, but without 70 mm projection. In these theaters, Nolan's original image The Odyssey must also be cut, but only by 25%. In Barcelona, there is one of these digital IMAX screens at the Diagonal Mar shopping center, which has already sold out almost all tickets for The Odyssey until the beginning of August. On this link you can see the different aspect ratios in which the film is projected around the world.

An obsession that comes from afar

Christopher Nolan's obsession with the IMAX format goes back a long way. In previous feature films like The Dark Knight(2008) and Dunkirk (2017), the director had already filmed some action scenes in this format. Nolan had been dreaming for years of shooting a film entirely in IMAX 70mm. In an interview with a Canadian newspaper he recalled that, as a child, he was amazed when he saw nature documentaries in this format at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. Nolan's fascination is due, in part, to the difficulties of shooting with a 70mm IMAX analog camera. “The real revolution of The Odyssey is being able to record direct sound with the actors at close range of that camera,” explains Pol Turrents, director of photography and digital image specialist. Turrents points out that these cameras are very noisy, and for this reason Nolan and Hoyte van Hoytema, his director of photography, designed a silencer called a blimp that works as a kind of soundproof casing.

According to Turrents, the miracle of The Odyssey lies in the exceptional fact of having carried out both the filming and the screening in theaters in analog IMAX format. "A film can be projected on IMAX screens having been shot digitally; on the other hand, Nolan shoots everything on analog, with the technological complications that this entails – says Turrents–. The main difficulty in processing such a large negative is the time it delays the shooting": the negative has to be sent by plane to a laboratory thousands of kilometers away to then check if it is correct or not.Turrents recalls that this method is not new, as films like Lawrence of Arabia (1962), by David Lean, were shot this way. Furthermore, to shoot with cameras of this format, Nolan had to devise a method with mirrors to film the shot and reverse shots. “There is another handicap, and that is that the IMAX 70 mm camera does not allow recording for more than three minutes, which causes continuous interruptions and pauses for the actors,” adds Turrents.

Regarding the controversy over cuts in different versions, Turrents opines that “what is removed in conventional screens are not essential elements, because Nolan’s intention is to place the characters at the center, where they are visible”. According to the director of photography, Nolan uses the IMAX 70 mm format to offer an immersive experience: “This trend already happened with Cinerama and has happened throughout the history of cinema: seeking how to overcome the current model, which today are streaming platforms. In this case, Nolan wants a new experience that cannot be seen from the sofa at home,” he says. Nolan's Odyssey continues, according to Turrents, “the trend towards ever larger cinemas, with better technology, and also more expensive”.