We recently published a report on historical nostalgia, where we collaborated with the Human Flourishing Lab at the Archbridge Institute to explore how historical nostalgia helps young people shape their identities, spark creativity, and tackle modern challenges by drawing from the past. In preparation for presenting at Discover's upcoming cinema night and Quirks Chicago, Senior Strategist Helen Vicary reflects on her personal moments of cinematic nostalgia.
A Moment of Cinematic Nostalgia – Wide Eyed Wide Screen Wonder
Odeon Leicester Square promised a spectacle with their 2016 screenings of Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight roadshow, in glorious Panavision, with 70mm film projected through a rare (and coincidentally named) Hyperion H88 anamorphic lens, resulting in a stunningly detailed ultra-wide picture with a 2.76:1 aspect ratio. The extended director’s cut, musical overture and intermission programming added to the experience but, for me, the opportunity to witness a screening with such a meticulous technical production that had embraced the challenges of working on vintage equipment was the main draw.
My nostalgic moment came, out of the blue, as I was sat enjoying the film, during a long, perspective-twisting shot, pulling back from a blizzard-battered landscape, through a window, into the cabin interior. I found myself suddenly transported, not to 19th century Wyoming, but rather to a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, among the sand dunes of Tatooine. Or, to put it another way, it’s 1997, I am 8 years old, and Dad has gathered the whole family in front of our new TV with a mixture of barely-contained excitement and solemn appreciation, to unbox the digitally remastered VHS of Star Wars Episode IV, A New Hope; crucially, the special edition silver (carbonite) packaged wide screen letterbox format. This is momentous. My little brother and I have never seen Star Wars before. Dad hasn’t seen it in wide screen since seeing it at the cinema 20 years prior.
I was entranced. A particular scene near the start of the film is indelibly etched in my visual memory – two droids struggling to traverse an unfamiliar desert landscape under a steel blue sky. What a desolate place this is. Odd that this simple frame is what struck me, compared to the dazzling effects of the rest of the film, but the wide format itself, spanning the rolling landscape effortlessly, the black borders starkly bounding the brilliance of sand lit by multiple suns, gave me a feeling I will remember forever. This is magic. I don’t know how they did it, or why it makes me feel this way, but I believe it.
Few movie moments have replicated this spellbinding effect in me, where the flashback to that moment is immediate. The full, immersive effect of wide screen visuals sucks me in, so that I’m looking not at a screen but through a window, feeling the sun and sand, or wind and ice, on my cheeks, and simultaneously my parents’ living room carpet under my little crossed legs. Even with the benefit of art-school cultivated nerdiness about film and photography and curiosity about exactly how they did it, drawing me to events like the H8 roadshow, I still can’t quite explain why it makes me feel that way. It makes me believe, in the way that a wide-eyed 8 year old believes. Cinema is magic, and evokes the strongest sense of nostalgia I’ve known.
Interested in an exploration of how historical nostalgia serves Gen Z psychologically? We have a separate report on just that. We collaborated with the Human Flourishing Lab at the Archbridge Institute to explore how historical nostalgia helps young people shape their identities, spark creativity, and tackle modern challenges by drawing from the past. Dive into this thought-provoking analysis of a phenomenon shaping the cultural and psychological dynamics of today’s youth.