Nostalgia for Film: The Shift from Mechanical to Digital Cinema Projection

Today, cinema is digital: 95 percent of all movie theatres worldwide are equipped with digital projection, and, to an overwhelmingly high degree, the films are shot with digital cameras. But still, among filmmakers and critics, the debate on whether photochemical film stock and mechanical projection of film prints are aesthetically superior continues, since there is little scientific evidence to back up either point of view. To date the question as to whether narrative films are perceived in different ways by a cinema audience depending on the projection or recording technology used, has hardly been examined. This paper focuses on the influence of analog mechanical projection and digital projection on the audience. Empirical data gained from audience experiments show that mechanical projection of film prints produced higher levels of emotional reactions. The results suggest that the specific characteristics of mechanical projection – flickering lights and image instability – has a nostalgic effect which seems related to the viewer's memory of a traditional cinema experience.