"The glory of 70mm is the sharpness of the image it offers"
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Kenneth Branagh celebrates a very specific virtue of large-format filmmaking. Seventy millimeter, more precisely a 65mm camera negative with 70mm projection prints, multiplies the image area several times over 35mm. That extra real estate translates into resolving power: textures on skin and fabric, detail in architecture and landscape, the fine gradations of light and shadow that give images dimension. Sharpness here is not the brittle crispness sometimes associated with digital hyper-detail; it is a luminous clarity, a sense that the frame can breathe while still yielding nuance wherever the eye wanders.
The association runs deep in cinema history. Epics like Lawrence of Arabia and 2001 used 70mm to create vistas that hold together in wide shots as if one could step into them. Contemporary champions like Christopher Nolan and Paul Thomas Anderson revived the format for its presence and scale. Branagh himself knows its strengths from both sides of the camera: Hamlet was photographed in 65mm, and Murder on the Orient Express luxuriates in large-format film, letting period decor, snowbound landscapes, and the micro-expressions of suspects coexist in a single, legible frame. One can stage scenes theatrically, avoid frantic coverage, and trust the audience to read faces and relationships without cutting away, because the image remains readable at a distance.
Calling sharpness the glory is also a statement about storytelling priorities. Clarity enables a particular type of performance cinema, where subtle eye movements and the play of light on a tear are legible even in a grand composition. It allows spaces to become characters, not just backdrops. And when projected properly, 70mm has a tactile smoothness, with grain and color separation that keep detail from feeling clinical. The technology serves emotion and scale at once, marrying intimacy with spectacle. Branagh’s praise lands on the point where craft heightens presence, and presence heightens drama.
The association runs deep in cinema history. Epics like Lawrence of Arabia and 2001 used 70mm to create vistas that hold together in wide shots as if one could step into them. Contemporary champions like Christopher Nolan and Paul Thomas Anderson revived the format for its presence and scale. Branagh himself knows its strengths from both sides of the camera: Hamlet was photographed in 65mm, and Murder on the Orient Express luxuriates in large-format film, letting period decor, snowbound landscapes, and the micro-expressions of suspects coexist in a single, legible frame. One can stage scenes theatrically, avoid frantic coverage, and trust the audience to read faces and relationships without cutting away, because the image remains readable at a distance.
Calling sharpness the glory is also a statement about storytelling priorities. Clarity enables a particular type of performance cinema, where subtle eye movements and the play of light on a tear are legible even in a grand composition. It allows spaces to become characters, not just backdrops. And when projected properly, 70mm has a tactile smoothness, with grain and color separation that keep detail from feeling clinical. The technology serves emotion and scale at once, marrying intimacy with spectacle. Branagh’s praise lands on the point where craft heightens presence, and presence heightens drama.
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