by Karen Finkelman

“People are taking more pictures now than ever before. Billions of ‘em. But, there’s no slides, no prints. They’re just data, electronic dust.  Years from now, when they dig us up, there won’t be any pictures to find. No record of who we were, how we lived.” So prophesizes Ben Ryder, a famous photojournalist, in the 2017 film Kodachrome.

The movie recommendation came from someone I met at a holiday party after mentioning I enjoyed photography as a hobby. Little did I realize at the time that this so-so rated film (Rotten Tomatoes gave it 71%) would be the catalyst for a series of discoveries that would include National Geographic photographer Steve McCurry, Robert DeNiro, and Paul Simon. And, it would also leave me pondering the photographic legacy of my own life.

Kodachrome is largely a fictional study of bad boy photojournalist, Ben Ryder (convincingly played by Ed Harris), who is dying of cancer. He asks his estranged son Matt (Jason Sudeikis), a failing record executive, to drive him cross-country to Dwayne’s Photo in Parsons, Kansas, so he can develop some old rolls of Kodachrome before processing of the beloved film ceases forever. The character plot is fiction, but Dwayne’s Photo, a small family business, was catapulted into history when it became the last processor of Kodachrome film in the world.  Dwayne stopped accepting rolls of film on Dec. 30, 2010, and the last rolls of Kodachrome were developed on Jan. 18, 2011.  After that, there were no more chemicals and the processing machine was shut down and subsequently sold for scrap.  The digital age had arrived.

This article is not meant to be a movie review, although I have to say I believe it deserves a much higher score than the Rotten Tomatoes rating. Admittedly, the road to redemption theme to mend a decade’s broken father-son relationship was a bit on the cookie-cutter side for me. However, the underlying depictions of grappling with one’s own mortality and the parallel story line of the extinction of an iconic photographic film is not lost on the viewer. Matt’s career in the music industry is also making the transition to digital. Things change, we grow, and life goes on. I won’t divulge the ending in case you watch the movie (on Netflix).

Yet, it was the movie’s closing credits which had me chasing internet links until 3 am! First, the movie was shot in 35mm Kodak film. With my untrained eye, I had no clue. I also discovered that the movie was based on a New York Times article, “For Kodachrome Fans, Road Ends at Photo Lab in Kansas,” by A.G. Sulzberger. After retrieving the article, I was fascinated as the author related how Parsons Kansas was transformed into a mecca of sorts as photographers from all over the world descended, anxious to have their memories and work preserved in living color during the last weeks of processing. One such visitor was an Arkansas railroad worker Jim DeNike, who drove to Parsons to pick up 1,580 rolls of film.  He paid $15,798 to have them developed. All 50,000 pictures were of railroad trains; he said he had to borrow money from his father’s retirement to pay for the developing. Rolls of film came to Dwayne’s Photo from six continents.  For its 75-year run, Kodachrome was the film of choice among professionals and the general public, rendering a deepness of color and exhibiting a unique quality of light. Even as digital cameras began flooding the market, many photographers felt the quality of those photos unmatched when compared with Kodachrome. It was the end of an era in which some of the most iconic and historic photographs of the 20^th century were captured and preserved.

Enter Steve McCurry, a well-known National Geographic photographer famous for his cover portrait of the Afghan girl with piercing green eyes. His image was taken in 1984 using Kodachrome film. McCurry approached Kodak and requested the last roll of Kodachrome be given to him. He wanted to pay tribute to a film that he had been using for 30 years, and which had had such a huge impact on his life. Kodak agreed and gave him the last roll to come off the line in 2009. The project to capture the last 36 images was initiated. In the end, McCurry personally hand delivered this last roll to Dwayne’s stating, “I wasn’t going to take any chances.” 

It was both an honor and a huge responsibility to shoot the final roll of Kodachrome film. McCurry relates that he wanted these last images to represent a common thread, to share a common bond with the end of the film’s era. Appropriately, he chose to photograph a tribe in India whose nomadic way of life was disappearing. He also chose to photograph New York City, focusing on some of the iconic faces and places that made the city what it is. Robert DeNiro was among the faces captured in the first six frames. National Geographic traveled with Steve the entire time, documenting his every shot, frame by frame, in pursuit of the last images. As seen in the 30-minute documentary on YouTube, McCurry uses a DSLR for practice shots, switching to the Kodachrome film camera only when he felt the shots were deserving. You can view the National Geographic video titled, “National Geographic: The Last Roll of Kodachrome” on YouTube:

https://youtu.be/DUL6MBVKVLI  You can also see the final cut of all 36 images.

In closing, I was very happy to discover that Dwayne’s Photo is still in business and continues to process film, slides and digital images.  Although Kodak announced the last roll of Kodachrome film made was for Steve McCurry, the last roll of Kodachrome film to be developed was exposed by owner Dwayne Steinle.  He took photographs of his family and of the town.  Fittingly, the very last exposed frame was a group shot of the employees at Dwayne’s Photos.

As Paul Simon sang, “Kodachrome, They give us those nice bright colors, They give us the greens of summers, Makes you think all the world’s a sunny day, oh yeah. I got a Nikon camera, I love to take a photograph, So mama, don’t take my Kodachrome away.”

One final thought, will the moments of our lives and how we lived turn to digital dust when we’re gone? It’s not an absurd question when you think about where we digitally store all of our treasured moments, travels and day-to-day experiences.

Kodachrome: take in the movie and see what develops for you.