Imax format and Christopher Nolan: the 1.43:1 ratio imposture according to director João Ganho

Portuguese filmmaker João Ganho (awarded the Audience Award for his documentary Play it Again, Yuki in 2024), who is also an editor and sound designer with 14 years of post-production experience, spoke out on professional networks following the theatrical release of The Odyssey. His goal? To deconstruct the myth of Imax and its image ratio cherished by Christopher Nolan.

 

Imax, a historical mistake in the face of Cinemascope? In his column, the director poses a fundamental question: isn’t Imax a narrative regression? According to him, the 1.43:1 ratio is a historical mistake, born of a simple technical constraint in the 1960s, far from the immersive ambition of Cinemascope (2.35:1). The latter had in fact been designed to match the human field of vision, which is much wider horizontally.

 

Christopher Nolan, trapped by ultra-high resolution? The criticism then targets Christopher Nolan directly. Once a master of the widescreen format (Memento, Insomnia), the British-American filmmaker would have allowed himself to be blinded by the extreme definition of 70 mm film to the detriment of storytelling. As a result, he would lock himself into a “almost square” frame resembling old 4:3 televisions on steroids.

 

The floor goes to director João Ganho To learn more about Joao Ganho’s statement, here it is faithfully translated and without omission: “I am tired of the film versus digital debate. Like digital sound versus analog sound. It is not a question of format and medium, but of what you put into it and how. The issue with The Odyssey should not be whether Imax cameras and Imax 70 mm projectors are superior to modern 17K digital cameras and Dolby Vision 4K projection. It should be about something much more intrinsic to the story. And that is... the frame aspect ratio!

 

Imax, and its single projector, was born in the 1960s for specific venues as a substitute for a popular format that used multiple 35 mm projectors. Its original 1.43:1 aspect ratio came from the aspect ratio created by the sum of that multi-projector 35 mm projection, a format Imax intended to dethrone. It was not about telling stories. It was a cheaper technical imitation than having multiple 35 mm projectors creating a projected image in 1.43:1. An aspect ratio that was wrong from the start…

 

Long before Imax, in the 1950s, Cinerama and Cinemascope were invented to bring audiences back into movie theaters. The new broadcast television, with its 4:3 aspect ratio and black-and-white electronic frames, was pulling people away from the big screen projected in the old Academy format in 35 mm, with its 1.33:1 ratio. Audiences felt that staying home to watch a 4:3 image was exactly the same as going to the movies in front of a screen that had almost the same proportions. Frankly, they were partly right, no matter the many cinematic masterpieces that were shot in the Academy ratio (Editor's note: Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the American institution responsible, for example, for organizing and awarding the famous Oscars every year).

 

 

Cinerama had an aspect ratio of 2.59:1 and Cinemascope 2.35:1. The filmmakers’ idea was this: the bigger the screen, the more story the audience would have in the frame. That is why Imax, with its 1.43:1 aspect ratio, was already obsolete as a storytelling format in the 1960s! In the years that followed, large aspect ratios such as Cinemascope and 70 mm (2.20:1) became the preferred choice of major directors for shooting larger-than-life stories. Kubrick, Lean, Visconti, Leone, Peckinpah, Spielberg, Mann, Tarantino and Christopher Nolan come to mind.

 

Unfortunately, Nolan, a master of 2.35:1 framing in his early films like Memento and Insomnia, decided to start shooting some scenes for his upcoming films in Imax 70 mm with a 1.43:1 aspect ratio. He reworked Imax, an old and aesthetically obsolete format, without guessing the dead end this decision would put him in for far too long...

 

Being a master of 2.35:1 framing, why did he stick to an almost square frame? Because he was mainly interested in Imax’s 70 mm high-resolution film and its immense screen. But in this pursuit, he moved away from the true aesthetic reason behind every great film format such as Cinerama and Cinemascope. Their inventors wanted to be bigger than broadcast television in the right way. And that meant expanding according to the way human vision sees the world...

 

Our angle of vision is much wider horizontally than vertically. That is why, in films, the hero sometimes goes unnoticed and stays safe by hanging from the ceiling! The inventors of Cinerama and Cinemascope understood this. Imax never did...

 

Watching larger-than-life stories shot and projected in Imax’s original 1.43:1 aspect ratio (or Imax Laser 1.90:1) is like watching a 4:3 television screen with hyper resolution and hyper dimensions. Its “square” frame limits storytelling because human vision does not work that way. Any director who thinks otherwise misses half the story and the wide angle, no matter whether they shoot and project in analog or digital. Simply tell the story the way the audience’s field of view sees it. Everything else is marketing gibberish...”.