I’ll 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’s hard to overestimate the importance of Cinerama – it set the standard for everything that came after. The widening of the screen was a turning point in the history of movies – that glorious shape, introduced to us for the first time through Cinerama, created a sense of excitement that I still feel today. It altered the historical course of movies as dramatically as the introduction of sound.

This enjoyable film brings it all back. First of all, it tells the story of Cinerama itself, how it was developed, and how the films were made under the most treacherous conditions – in some cases at the cost of human lives. Cinerama Adventure also gives you a sense of what this wonderful technology was like, how it felt to walk into a theater, sit down and see those remarkable, 3-paneled images.

Martin Scorsese
December 6, 2004