Cinerama, a process by which three simultaneous projections create one widescreen image, made its premiere with This Is Cinerama in 1952. Martin Scorsese recalls, “I will never forget what it was like to see the Cinerama process for the first time as a kid. We wanted wider screens, and thanks to This Is Cinerama, we came to expect a moment like the famous roller coaster sequence in every single film—a moment where vision merged with pure physical sensation. It is hard to overestimate the importance of Cinerama…the widening of the screen was a turning point in the history of the movies . This enjoyable film brings it all back…[it] tells the story of Cinerama itself, how it was developed, and how the films were made…in some cases at the cost of human lives.”
Organized by Laurence Kardish, Senior Curator, Department of Film.