The 70mm revival has been framed, by everyone selling it and most people buying it, as a quality argument. Larger negative. Higher resolution. Richer colour. A better picture.
This is accurate in the way that saying a leather-bound edition of a novel reads better than a paperback is accurate. Technically defensible. Beside the actual point.
WHAT 70MM ACTUALLY DELIVERS
The resolution argument is the weakest part of the 70mm case. 4K digital projection, done correctly, delivers image quality that is at worst comparable to 70mm and in some specific technical parameters superior. The argument that 70mm looks objectively better than digital is only true in specific conditions - original 70mm elements projected correctly in a properly maintained projection booth in a properly calibrated cinema. Those conditions are rare. The 70mm screenings that happen in venues not set up for them are often technically worse than a good digital presentation.
But the audiences attending 70mm screenings are not attending because of the resolution. They are attending because of the event - the specific ritual of watching a film in a format that requires more from both the exhibitor and the viewer, in a space built for the experience rather than just capable of it, with an audience that has made the deliberate choice to be there for this specific presentation rather than any available one.
THE COMMUNAL RITUAL FUNCTION
What the 70mm revival is actually about is the communal ritual function of theatrical cinema - the argument that cinema watched in a specific place, at a specific time, with a specific audience, is a different experience from cinema watched anywhere, anytime, alone.
The streaming era has been extraordinarily successful at delivering cinema as content - films available anywhere, anytime, in better technical quality than most theatrical presentations. What it has not delivered is the communal ritual. The simultaneous experience of a specific film at a specific moment with a specific group of strangers who all made the deliberate choice to be in the same room for this.
The 70mm presentation is a signal of that ritual. It says: this screening is not like watching the film on your television. It requires something more from you - you had to come here, you had to be here at this time, you are experiencing this with these people in this space. The format is the signal. The ritual is the point.
PAUL THOMAS ANDERSON AND THE ROADSHOW MODEL
Paul Thomas Anderson's advocacy for 70mm presentations of his films is the clearest articulation of the ritual argument. The Phantom Thread 70mm roadshow screenings were not primarily about image quality. They were about the experience of watching a film about the specific ritualistic relationship to craft and obsession in a presentation format that embodied a specific ritualistic relationship to exhibition.
The roadshow model - limited engagements, reserved seating, intermission, premium ticket price - is a pre-multiplex theatrical model being revived not because it's nostalgic but because it creates the conditions for the communal experience that the standard multiplex model has optimised away. The multiplex is maximally efficient at delivering films to maximum audiences at minimum per-seat cost. The roadshow is maximally deliberate at creating the conditions for a specific kind of watching.
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR CINEMA
The 70mm revival is a symptom of a genuine need that the streaming era has created: the need for theatrical cinema that makes an argument for itself, that gives the audience a reason to choose the cinema over the living room that goes beyond mere convenience or picture quality. The format argument is a way of making that argument. It is not the strongest version of the argument, but it is a genuine response to a genuine problem.
The stronger version of the argument is not about format at all. It is about programming - about what is being shown, how it is being contextualised, and whether the theatrical experience offers something that the streaming experience structurally cannot. The cinemas that are thriving are the ones that have figured out the stronger argument. The 70mm revival is the format version of it.
The 70mm revival has been framed, by everyone selling it and most people buying it, as a quality argument.