This is a beautiful print from a painstaking and expensive restoration over 10 years ago. The sound quality is predictably awful, especially since it was the first sound film to be totally filmed outdoors. There is no distinction between foreground and background noises and the end result is drummy and muffled chaos. The wind machines used during the snow-storm are a deal-breaker for the "fourth wall" audience experience. But it was very moving to see the care and attention given to an early commercial sound film in the USA: the one nation to take its film legacy extremely seriously. As do I.
From the earliest, widescreen and colour were available for film-making and this belies the myth of primitivity which surrounds the earliest decades of film and sound-film. There was so much to consider: editing equipment, lighting, projection, processing, distribution, film stocks... these all developed rapidly and by 1915 DW Griffith had established a 'grammar' for film production. "The Big Trail" is a long film (over 2 hours) and you can see that animals would have been killed in the making of it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGJSAfDy3s8
Here is the cinecamera used for the 'Grandeur' 70mm process: Arthur Edeson shot The Big Trail" and he had a distinguished reputation as a cinematographer. This is the exact camera model he would have used:
Mitchell FC cameras were specially designed for William Fox to shoot the 70mm Grandeur wide film system that Fox was developing in the late 1920’s. In basic design, the Mitchell FC is a Mitchell Standard that has been enlarged to accommodate 70mm film.
The camera in this image is paired with its original matching serialized matte box, 2 Grandeur format lenses, a 1000’ 70mm magazine, a later Mitchell BFC sidefinder, a Mitchell FC pan/tilt friction head, and a period Mitchell wooden tripod.
Cinephiles like myself love all this technical data!