“You’re not watching somebody else’s story.
You’re experiencing a story. It’s more
immersive. Your attitude toward it is different.
It’s a different language.”
“Gemini Man” will be major test-case for those
possibilities that could, potentially, remake the
theatrical experience years after the promises
of a 3-D revolution largely fizzled.
“It’s hard to duplicate in the living room, let
alone on a smart phone. Eventually I’d like to
see theaters change, the format of theater:
the size, the shape. And I hope someday some
smart person can figure out a way to get rid
of those glasses,” says Lee, chuckling. “What
we’ve done here is a new baseline for digital
cinema, I believe.”
Heller (“The Diary of a Teenage Girl,” “Can You
Ever Forgive Me?”) is more focused on the
communal aspect of moviegoing, something
that could be quite powerful for “A Beautiful
Day in the Neighborhood.” Heller is quick to
caution that her film, based on Tom Junod’s
1998 Esquire article, isn’t a traditional biopic
but dramatizes the relationship between
Rogers and a skeptical visiting journalist
(Matthew Rhys), who functions as a kind of
stand-in for cynics everywhere.
“At its best, it’s a collective human experience
we get to have in making these movies and
a collective human experience we get to
have seeing these movies in theaters,” says
Heller, who shot the film, with her young
family in tow, around Rogers’ hometown of
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. That included filming
at Fred Rogers Studio, where “Mister Rogers’
Neighborhood” was shot.