The 90's Movie Theater Experience

If you ever wanted to know what it was like watching a movie at the theater in the 90s, watch this trailer. The grainy flicker on the picture. But mostly the sound. I think it had something to do with early Dolby Digital, DTS, SDDS and other digital compression technologies being used. Or maybe it was the sound mix done by the studio itself. But there's this unmistakable, nearly inaudible dirty tonal echo or reverb that you could hear in theaters at the time. I remember Jurassic Park, Beethoven, Twister, Honey I Shrunk The Kids, Star Trek VI, and so many others all had this touch.

The closest I've come to recently was Tarantino's roadshow for The Hateful Eight a year ago. He sent out a 70mm film projector for that one. So the picture quality was similar. But the sound was not the same, as they used the existing modern digital speakers that were built into the Quail Springs theater.

Spike Lee and the Double-Dolly Shot

Watching "Inside Man", I recalled Spike Lee's use of what I would say is his signature shot: the double-dolly shot. You see when filming, the camera is sometimes placed on what is known as a dolly. Essentially a miniaturized train car on miniaturized train tracks. The movement of the camera is then smooth and fluid as the platform coasts along the tracks. This shot has been utilized since the early days of film, when cameras were large and bulky and heavy and required such a mechanism to achieve any movement at all. Well, in his shot, Lee places the camera on a dolly, and the actor on a second dolly. Thus when the dollies move the actor appears to be seamlessly floating through the scenery.

Lee usually seems to incorporate this shot to signify an inevitability on the part of the character involved. For example in Malcolm X, when Malcolm is walking to the theater where he is gunned down, the shot gives the feel that his destiny is approaching.

In Inside Man, Detective Frazier's rage compels him to the door of the bank in probably the quickest double-dolly shot Lee has ever used.

And in The 25th Hour, Anna Paquin's character floats through a club as if on air.

Lee uses this shot in most of his films, in my opinion to ultimate effect. Not as a gimmick but as a tool of the narrative. The actors are more or less motionless in the double dolly, as opposed to the reverse-POV camera shots (think "Requiem For a Dream") which capture even the tiniest of movements. With the double dolly an almost out of body experience is projected onto the character. Keep an eye out for it.