The projectionist as protectionist, SPLICE HERE is an epic exploration, examination and explanation of why film matters, it’s evolution, devaluation, and resurrection.
Just as Digital sounded the death knell for vinyl, it similarly sealed film’s fate as the predominant server of films. But just as vinyl is not dead, film is not extinct, thanks largely to a passionate underground cohort of projectionists.
Film maker and projectionist, Rob Murphy, travelled Australia and the world to compile this fascinating document of film legacy, a homage to the unsung heroes of the cinema experience – the projectionist.
These dinosaurs of the pre-digital age become raiders of the lost art, protectors, promoters and presenters of a cinematic legacy that deserves to be preserved as long as possible.
Super luminaries such as Quentin Tarantino, Douglas Trumball and Leonard Maltin are consulted and give tremendous talking head about the past, present and future of cinema.
Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard famously said I am big. It’s the pictures that got small. And with digitalisation, the screens have shrunk.
Murphy’s marvellous movie harks back to the advent of Cinerama some 70 years ago and compares it to the modern era of streaming services and personal devices.
The craft of the projectionist changed overnight with the coming of Cinerama, ditto with the dominance of digital but to a detrimental effect. For exhibitors, the prospect of a projectionist free future gave rise to mass sackings and disillusionment of the digital aesthetic.
Fortunately, there are film makers with clout who still feel film warrants a place in the art form. Quentin Tarantino’s past holding greater sway over his imagination than the future, he instituted a grand roadshow presentation of The Hateful Eight where select theatres projected an extended cut of the original 70mm format, an emphatic reassertion of the cinema.
And Rob Murphy was one of the projectionists who ran the film.
SPLICE HERE: A PROJECTED ODYSSEY is a fantastic journey of passion and eccentricity and deserves to be seen on the big screen.
The Ritz, Randwick, Tuesday Nov 29 2022. Movie at 630pm. Meet The Filmmaker at 830pm.
Hayden Orpheum, Cremorne, Wednesday Nov 30 2022.Movie at 6:30pm. Meet The Filmmaker at 8:30pm.
