As a younger film lover, there are few thrills greater than seeing a title you’ve always loved through the medium of television and DVD (and, at the risk of dating myself, home video) given new life on a cinema screen, the way nature, or the filmmaker at least, originally intended.
A big-screen reappraisal can heighten already ardent cinephile devotion to a certain title – watching Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now” (admittedly in redux form) on a 20-foot screen in an empty theatre remains the single greatest cinemagoing experience of my life, while a pristine new cut of “Once Upon a Time in the West” at last year’s London Film Festival was one of my highlights of 2008.
Alternatively, the closer scrutiny of a cinema viewing can heighten one’s appreciation for a less-adored title. I had always admired “Barry Lyndon” more than I actively loved it, until a gorgeous restored print at London’s BFI Southbank earlier this year awakened me to the intricate painterliness of its compositions and near-hypnotic stateliness of its pacing. Some films need the immersive quality of the theatrical experience to drive their aesthetic point home.