Review of Side by Side (2012) by Kenneth L — 11 Oct 2013

This is an excellent documentary and, as it happens, a very useful source for a research paper I'm beginning. It traces the history of digital cinema as it has developed over the past fifteen years or so from a disreputable format to the likely successor to celluloid cinema.

The movie, which was produced and hosted by Keanu Reeves, incorporates a wide variety of interviews with various directors and cinematographers, including James Cameron, George Lucas, Martin Scorsese, David Fincher, David Lynch, Robert Rodriguez, Steven Soderbergh, the Wachowskis, Richard Linklater, and many others.

It proceeds chronologically from the mid-1990s through the present, persistently raising questions about the comparison between digital and celluloid cinema. It features straightforward illustrations of how both film and digital cameras actually work, and provides a brief history of specific camera models that have influenced the film industry lately, such as the well-known Red cameras.

I'm writing a paper about digital cinema soon, and this movie was the absolute perfect source to get me started. It'll be a little odd citing Keanu Reeves in a scholarly paper (well, him and the film's director, Christopher Kenneally), but this movie really is a solid example of research into recent film history.