Is 3D finally here to stay?

Technology only a tool – beauty of cinema endlessly varied

By Philip Horne, London Daily Telegraph

‘Will the cinema of the future be stereoscopic?” These words were spoken by the great Soviet director and theorist Sergei Eisenstein in 1948 (enthusing after a 3D Russian Robinson Crusoe). But today we’re prompted to ask his question again by the re-release in modern 3D of Alfred Hitchcock’s hugely enjoyable Dial M for Murder. This theatrical not-quiteperfect-murder story, starring Grace Kelly and Ray Milland, was originally made 60 years ago in 3D, but released in 1954 only in 2D, because the short-lived craze for 3D of the early Fifties – a way of competing with television – had already subsided. “It’s a nine-day wonder,” said Hitchcock, “and I came in on the ninth day.”

In fact, the illusion of 3D in one form or another has been around since Sir Charles Wheatstone’s invention of the first stereoscopic device in 1838. As early as the 1890s, British pioneer William Friese-Greene filed a patent for a 3D movie process.

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