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Nitrate & Camphor: The Habit of Seeing in the Dark

blueshiftjournal
Sep 13, 2016
7 min read

ni∙trate /nītrāt/ n. salt, or ester, or nitric acid. the most water-soluble of all salts.

cam∙phor / ˈkamfər/ n. a white, volatile, crystalline substance with a strong smell and bitter taste. when combined with nitrate, creates celluloid; film.

“Cold? Come on in, get warm, and enjoy the show!”

He scanned our tickets and the wind ushered us inside. I removed my hat and brushed the snow off my jacket. The flakes floated off, joining fallen compatriots on the theater lobby’s linoleum floor. The doors slammed behind us, as our fingers thawed and the flakes on the floor melted away.

We were the first trio to arrive, but the room was already peppered with couples. A young man and older woman swapped words sensually in the first row. A cinephile in the back ranted at her best mate. A bucket of popcorn and butter found themselves in my dad’s hands; cigarettes and a lighter, unopened and cold, were in my best friend’s. Mia Wallace and Mr. Pink drifted in and out of my thoughts. Coolidge Corner Theater was a cinematic coterie of couples – spectators, stilettos, stubs, smokes, and snacks – all gathered in worship of the night’s one divine pairing: nitrate and camphor. The chemical bond behind the creation of celluloid film, Nitrate and camphor are the only pairing common to every great movie. Forget Astaire and Rogers, Dicaprio and Scorsese, Michael Bay and explosions—these lovers and icons wouldn’t have homes if not for the projection houses built to showcase Nitrate and Camphor’s celluloid children. They’re cinema’s first true Romeo and Juliet – only, unlike Shakespeare’s star-crossed lovers, they’re thriving in their twilight years. The three of us – my father, my friend, and me – had just come to their show: a celebration of film, its chemical make-up, and the heart-warming ritual of attending one. Our curator and host on that cold night in Boston was director Quentin Tarantino. The main dish? His latest slate of celluloid paintings: The Hateful Eight – served on a 70mm platter.

There is no lover of movies like Tarantino. His axiom: “I didn’t go to film school – I went to films”. His goal: to take us with him. Tarantino not only crafts celluloid pieces that are unequivocally his – postmodern panoplies with eccentric dialogue, and unpredictable twists – he also, through those pieces, reminds us of every film that made us fall in love with cinema in the first place. Watch as The Bride walks through the doorway built for John Wayne by John Ford, as Vincent Vega and Mia Wallace dance like Fellini’s lovers in 8 ½, as Jackie Brown slides across the frame as Dustin Hoffman once did in The Graduate.

Tarantino’s burning love for cinema has scorched us all at some point. We, like him, cherish the little moments, the quiet sparks: plane propellers whirring to life on Casablanca’s runway; Anthony Perkins’ silhouette looming behind Hitchcock’s shower curtain; Rose’s room-for-two raft floating through waters once home to the Titanic. These are the moments we remember, the moments we return to, and are allowed to return to every time we escape our realities via those of someone like Tarantino’s. If movies and their resultant memories are the hearths we ritualistically visit and gather around, then The Hateful Eight was our fire that wintery night in Boston – and someone was about to light it.

“Hello everyone! Welcome to the, uh, Coolidge Corner Theater! I’m Paul and I’ll be your projectionist tonight.”

His words echoed off of the theater’s crimson curtains and velvet cushions – reds that recalled, at all times, the inside of Ernie’s Restaurant in Vertigo, Hal’s ever-watchful eye in 2001: A Space Odyssey, and – in this particular case – the blood-stained style of Tarantino. Upon hearing his introduction, we slid out of our jackets and into our seats. Things were starting to warm up.

The night’s festivities were housed on the corner of Coolidge and Harvard, on the eastside of Boston, in the dead of winter. The world was invited, and the red carpet rolled down aisles that separated no one. Critics and casuals, lovers and losers, Harolds and Maudes alike were all gathered for the feast. Cinemas – not death – are often times our great equalizers. Within their walls, we are all the audience – no matter our backgrounds, our histories – we are all transfixed, together, by the images ignited before us. Cinemas – and the stories they tell – are our contemporary campfires. The hearths we gather around may have changed, but we certainly haven’t stopped staring into them.

“Tonight’s film will be projected on 70mm, and there’s a, uh, 12-minute intermission. So, I’ll, uh, flash the light during that bit, as a two-minute warning before you take your seats again.

Sound good?”

70mm film meant the screen in Coolidge Corner was twice the size, twice as welcoming, twice as warm. Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds informs us that not only is Hitler great fire-fodder, but celluloid’s an excellent fire-starter. Look no further than Samuel L. Jackson’s Basterds’ narration for evidence: “...35millimeter nitrate film was so flammable, you couldn’t even bring a reel onto a streetcar. Because nitrate film burns three times faster than paper.” A changed hearth, sure, but also, perhaps a more flammable one.

Coolidge Corner’s celluloid was particularly flammable that night. Sure, it was 70mm – but more than that, its frames contained particularly incendiary ingredients: Tarantino’s fiery dialogue, his band of spitfire caricatures, and the provocative topics he navigates in each story he tells. Whether its race and gender or violence and war, he’s brazen in his commentaries, unflinching in his presentations. Films are rarely as explosive as when Tarantino is behind the camera; the added risk of a 70mm fire in the projectionist’s booth above us seemed more fitting than unnerving.*

“Hopefully, uh, the intermission will provide a nice respite, and there’ll be no hitches in the reel switches. I’m sure you’ll all find this was a trip worth taking.”

The Hateful Eight was on its ‘roadshow’: 70mm screenings, 100 theaters nationwide, 100 projectionists at each, 20 additional hate-filled minutes, two additional scores by iconic composer Ennio Morricone (overture and intermission), and one three-hour reminder of the magic great cinema can hold.

As we settled in, I remembered seeing a bit of Inglourious Basterds the year after it came out. It was December 28th, my sister’s birthday. A white winter no different than the one around us that Boston night. My father, ever the film-buff, was desperate to catch Tarantino’s latest – but he couldn’t reel in enough time for a theater trip. Blizzards weren’t windfalls in his quest to do so. Sometimes films are backgrounded in favor of the world from which they so often provide escape. This was one of those occasions. Regardless, in late December 2012, DVD in-hand, my father finally found himself in our family room watching Tarantino’s WWII history-book-bastardization.

Like any kid lucky enough to grow up with a TV in the house, I would always catch glimpses of movies – glimpses that turned into memories. Inigo Montoya’s revenge-filled repetition, Stand by Me’s friend-filled coalition. The flying doorways of Monster’s Inc. the falling one of the Shining. Stray images that have developed into memories, stray scenes that have played endlessly in my head since the days I witnessed them. That particular December night, I slipped downstairs to the sight of Shosanna Dreyfus, the sound of David Bowie, the direction of Quentin Tarantino. I heard Bowie first – his “Cat People” cannoned off our living room walls, up the staircase to my room, and into my memory forever. I rounded the corner, peeked over my dad’s shoulder. Shosanna, Tarantino’s inglourious femme fatale was applying her fatalistic get-up; her red blush: her war paint, her red lips: her armor. Bowie bellowed: “I’ve been putting out the fires with gasoline…putting out fires… with gasoline!” On the last word, Shosanna, clad in a blood-red battle dress, burst through her theater doors and into her Nazi-filled lobby.

I’ll never forget the black veil spider-webbing over those eyes, the red of that dress, the steam rising from those stilettos as they scorched that red carpet…well, maybe I only imagined the steam.

Just before her fiery entrance, Shosanna, was standing by her window, her reflection matched visually with Bridget von Hammersmark’s (Inglourious’ fictional German movie-star), on a film poster across the street. Tarantino’s two dazzling blondes were ready to perform their final scenes, add their last layers of blush, and complete their history-altering last acts – their takedown of the Reich.

Shosanna Dreyfus’s, the Jewish Frenchwoman, and her black lover, Marcel were ready to ignite 300 nitrate film reels that would burn the genocidal Nazi’s, the Cinema, and themselves to the ground. Tarantino proves the equalizing ability of cinema via the immolation of Shosanna, her theater, and its inhabitants.

“Now that you’re all settled in, I’m delighted to present

Quentin Tarantino’s eighth film: ‘The Hateful Eight!’”

Finally, our theater was full. Couples turned into groups: the front-row May-December lovers greeted their opposites – an older man and a younger woman. A little more Hollywood, I guess. The film fan and her friend welcomed the rest of their party, and I was rejoined by the rest of mine. My dad had grabbed another bag of popcorn for me, my best friend returned, seeming warmer, smelling smokier.

There we all were: misfits and outcasts, ready to watch eight more just like us.

The curtains opened, the houselights dimmed, and Paul rolled the first reel.

We opened in the midst of a Montana blizzard. Someone behind us opened the theater door, rushed to her seat.

A biting Boston breeze blew in behind her.

The film – stoked by our eyes, warmed by our hearts, and kindled by the reels in Paul’s booth above us – wasn’t affected in the slightest. I looked around; every eye was fixated on the world flaring before it. Fires, sometimes, burn warmer in the winter.

“See these eyes so red, red like jungle burning bright…I can stare for a thousand years…”

– “Cat People (Putting Out the Fire)” David Bowie

Nitrate and camphor, the chemical couple that birthed celluloid, play host a thousand times a week, in a thousand cities, in a thousand hearts. Join them. I’ll see you there.