More Real Than Real: THE HOBBIT, HFR

December 18, 2012, 09:31 PM

http://twitchfilm.com/2012/12/fantasy-more-real-th...

Earlier this year, I found myself at a friend of a friend's apartment watching Tod Browning's 1932 masterpiece Freaks through the "motion smoothing" filter on his HD TV. For me, the resulting video-like image of what should be the opposite (which is to say, an absorbing film image - not so much sharp and immediate but lush and rich) robbed Freaks of its intended "filmic-ness", stripping it of the subtle texture and patina that is so accepted as what cinema ought to feel like.