The question should be asked, film by film, without any preconceived answers. Gigantism is not necessarily a great loser, nor the Lilliputian the great winner. The strangest thing is that the cinephilic generation born after the war knew only the decline of large cinema halls, even as, in the 60s, it lent its support to the adventure of art and experimentation, small halls and then multiplexes. Just as the exhibitors of art and experimental cinema, currently threatened with depleted audiences, would be wrong to have us believe that the quality of projection in their halls is not, for the most part, somewhat pathetic. But if it is the film that counts and the film was already a work of genius in a hall, ask yourself if this genius is so volatile that it disappears with the mere change of medium.
Chances are rather stronger, perhaps, that the word 'genius' has been used lightly.
The fact that, in close-ups or in long shot, things do not happen differently. The film does not change when we move from a spectacular shot with elaborate sets and a large cast to a scene with two characters enclosed within four walls. It is this mastery of distances that really differentiates a film from a tele-film. Not an iota of emotion is lost in the meeting. Our conception of films that moved us strongly in the theater must be very poor if we imagine that they will not touch us at all if shown on television.