A Bluray of Delbert Mann and Paddy Chayefsky‘s Oscar-winning Marty (1955) will be released on 7.29. It gives me no comfort or satisfaction to report that the Bluray’s aspect ratio will be in the dreaded 1.85 with the tops and bottoms of the protected 1.37 image (seen on TV, VHS, laser disc and DVDs for the last five or six decades) severed with a meat cleaver. In early May aspect-ratio historian Bob Furmanek noted in a Home Theatre Forum post that (a) the Marty Bluray will (a) be presented “for the first time since the original theatrical release with Mann’s intended 1.85:1 compositions,” and that (b) “we provided the documentation to insure mastering in the correct ratio.”

I thought I’d post this back-and-forth between myself and Bob Furmanek, which happened yesterday morning (or Monday, 1.28). It shows the difference between the mentality of a neutral-attitude, data-chip statistician vs. that of an emotional film lover like myself. Never the twain shall meet.

It’s interesting because Furmanek has been a noted provider of meticulous research that has convinced certain Bluray distributors to present 1950s-era films within a 1.85-to-1 aspect ratio because this is how films were generally projected starting in mid 1953. The point of contention was a 1.27 HE story called “Historical Precedent,” which concerned the forthcoming Criterion Bluray of On The Waterfront.

Furmanek: In case you’re wondering, On The Waterfront was originally presented theatrically in 1.85:1.

Wells to Furmanek: I’m not wondering about this because it’s common knowledge, thanks to your research. I stated in the piece that OTW was shot with the understanding that it would be shown at 1.85 in urban theatres. Under duress, of course, but Kazan did frame each scene so it would look good within a 1.85 to 1 aspect ratio. But Kazan also composed for TV. Because he knew his film would be shown on the tube down the road, and because he was used to shooting boxy going back to A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Remember that WOR TV’s Million Dollar Movie began airing in 1955, or a year after OTW opened. The writing was on the wall.

Back to Furmanek: However, Grover Crisp‘s recommended ratio is 1.66:1. His credentials are exemplary and I respect his opinion.

Wells to Furmanek: Good for Grover, but what do you think, Bob? What do you want? How do you feel? You call yourself a neutralist and a stats man, but do you have a secret yen to see everything cleavered down to 1.85? You say you’re not on a campaign to see naturally boxy (1.33) or at least somewhat spacious 1950s and early ’60s compositions compressed into a 1.85 to 1 space? Who cares what exhibitors and distributors wanted to see in 1954 in order to make films of the day look cooler than television? Who gives a shit? Why should that be a factor in how we see films of the ’50s and early ’60s today?

Are you a boxy-is-beautiful type of guy (like me) or at least a 1.66-is-better-than-1.85 type of guy or what? Or are you strictly a neutral-minded research guy without any aesthetic preference? Because you never explain what you like and why. You never express who you really are.

You’re a very mellow, meticulous and well-mannered guy, Bob, but you seem to be comme ci comme ca about cleavering the tops and bottoms of iconic images, and for the life of me I don’t see why anyone who ostensibly cares about motion pictures would want images chopped down or otherwise reduced.

I am a boxy-is-beautiful guy, and if not that at least a 1.66-is-better-than-1.85 guy, and I’m extremely proud of being that. I say eff what the exhibitors and distributors wanted in 1954. Eff their priorities and their fears and their mid ’50s thinking. I am here now in 2012 and I like fucking breathing room or headroom, and if it’s viewable on the negative I said open it up and let God’s light and space into the frame. I really don’t like that horrible Being John Malkovich feeling of the ceiling pressing down upon actors, of walking around in a bent-over position like Orson Bean and his employees in order to exist within a 1.85 realm. I hate, hate, hate 1.85 fascism. Stop being a stats man, Furmanek, and let your real self out of the box. Who are you? What are you? What kind of a visual realm do you want to live in?

Back to Furmanek: Columbia — as a matter of studio policy — never utilized or recommended 1.66:1 as a presentation ratio. Beginning with principal photography of Miss Sadie Thompson on March 31, 1953, they were 1.85:1 for all non-anamorphic widescreen films.

If you are looking to experience the film as it was seen in first-run theaters around the country, including the world premiere at New York’s Astor Theater on July 28.1954, I would go with 1.85:1. The Astor had re-opened with a new panoramic screen on June 30, 1953.

In the UK, it was probably seen in most major theaters in 1.65:1 which was their widescreen standard at that time of release.

For the record, I have never endorsed an overall non-anamorphic widescreen standard of 1.85:1. I have always recommended honoring the ratio intended by the director and DP which would have been dictated by studio policy at the time of production. That can vary anywhere from 1.65:1 to 2.00:1.

Paramount was the first studio to officially adopt 1.66:1 as their house ratio on March 24, 1953. The only other studios to utilize that ratio domestically were RKO and Republic, both converting to widescreen cinematography in May of 1953.

Paramount retained 1.66:1 as their house ratio until September 21, 1953 when White Christmas began filming in VistaVision and was recommended for 1.85:1.

Sabrina is the odd AR title in Paramount’s output at that time. Wilder initially announced 2.00:1 but settled on 1.75:1 as his preferred ratio when production commenced in New York on September 28, 1953.

In the UK, the initial widescreen ratio was 1.65:1. That remained in effect from June 1953 until late 1954 when it changed to 1.66:1. At that time, the Cinema Exhibitors Association recommended the UK standardization of 1.75:1 which would remain in effect throughout the 1960’s. Documents can be found on this page: http://www.hometheaterforum.com/t/319469/aspect-ratio-research/1140#post_3989270

Every studio had their own policy. For information on Warner Bros, check out http://www.3dfilmarchive.com/dial-m-blu-ray-review

Information on Universal-International can be found here: http://www.3dfilmarchive.com/an-in-depth-look-at-creature-from-the-black-lagoon-1

You might like to know that shorts, cartoons and newsreels were also changed to widescreen composition in 1953: http://www.hometheaterforum.com/t/319469/aspect-ratio-research/720#post_3974959

I hope this answers your questions. If not, please contact me through the website and I’ll be glad to help in any way that I can.

Best,
Bob Furmanek
www.3dfilmarchive.com

Occasionally Criterion jacket-cover art will convey an alternate-universe take on a well-known film that half convinces you that you haven’t quite absorbed everything the film has to offer, even though you’ve seen it 15 or 20 times. The white birds (which have to be seagulls and not pigeons) are an interesting invention. Their presence suggests that Elia Kazan‘s 1954 Oscar-winner was directed by Vittorio De Sica or Roberto Rossellini.

The goodies: (a) new 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition, (b) presented in 1.66, 1.33 and 1.85 aspect ratios (a landmark decision that brought about, in my humble view, the eternal discrediting of Bob Furmanek‘s research-fortified 1.85 fascism, and thank God in heaven for this), (c) commentary from Richard Schickel and Jeff Young, (d) new conversation between filmmaker Martin Scorsese and critic Kent Jones, (e) Elia Kazan: Outsider (1982), an hour-long documentary, (f) New documentary on the making of the film, featuring interviews with scholar Leo Braudy, critic David Thomson, and others, (g) New interview with actress Eva Marie Saint, (h) Interview with director Elia Kazan from 2001, (i), Contender, a 2001 documentary on the film’s most famous scene, and (j) New interview with author James T. Fisher (On the Irish Waterfront) about the real-life people and places behind the film.

Plus a booklet featuring an essay by critic Michael Almereyda and reprints of Kazan’s 1952 ad in the New York Times defending his testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee, one of the 1948 New York Sun articles by Malcolm Johnson on which the film was based, and a 1953 Commonweal piece by screenwriter Budd Schulberg.

Yes, another 1.85 vs. 1.33 aspect ratio piece on Criterion’s Anatomy of a Murder Bluray. But no, not another “1.85 fascism” rant. I’m…well, I guess I am talking about fascism. Otto Preminger‘s 1959 film looks sublime at 1.33. Needle sharp and comfortable with acres and acres of head space. Plus it’s the version that was shown on TV for decades. It looks stodgy and kind of grandfatherly, and that’s fine because it’s your grandfather’s movie in a sense. Boxy is beautiful.

It is perverse to deliver the Bluray — obviously the best that Anatomy of a Murder has ever looked on home screens — with one third of the originally captured image chopped off. Flip the situation over and put yourself in the shoes of a Criterion bigwig and ask yourself, “Where is the harm in going with the airier, boxier version?” Answer: “No harm at all.” Unless you’re persuaded by the 1.85 fascist view that a 1.33 aspect ratio reduces the appeal of a Bluray because the 16 x 9 plasma/LED/LCD screen won’t be fully occupied.

The above comparison shows that cropping the image down to 1.85 from 1.33 doesn’t kill the visual intention. In the 1.85 version James Stewart simply has less breathing room above and below his head. But the comparison below makes my case. A scene in a small jail cell. The boxier version is clearly the preferred way to go. It feels natural and plain. The 1.85 version delivers a feeling of confinement, obviously, but Otto Preminger wasn’t an impressionist. He was a very matter-of-fact, point-focus-and-shoot type of guy.

…is reportedly causing episodes of cardiac arrest among your 1.85 fascists. For Akira Kurosawa’s 1954 classic was out and about for roughly a full year after the April 1953 mandate for 1.85 theatrical framing had been instituted in the U.S.

Japanese exhibition standards may have been different 70 years ago, granted, but Kurosawa was no dummy — he knew his technical shit as well as Stanley Kubrick or any other top-of-the-line maestro — and therefore understood that The Seven Samurai would most
likely be projected stateside within a 1.85 a.r.

The sole criteria for 1.85 fascism, remember, is that it doesn’t matter if a given film was shot with an open aperture or with an ethos on the part of a d.p. that “more height is always right” (a longtime HE motto), but what the prevailing exhibition standards were when the film was released.

Hence the fascist shrieking being heard right now in certain quarters.

Way back in early February I tapped out a rave review of Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel. I did so from my room at Berlin’s Grand Wyndman Hotel during a Fox Searchlight junket for the film. The piece is fairly well written if I do say so myself. It also seems appropriate in this, the height of Derby season, to remind everyone what a superb film Budapest is, was and always will be because…you know, films released in February are sometimes presumed to be not as good as those released between Labor Day and late December. Here it is again:

Rest assured that while Budapest is a full-out ‘Wes Anderson film’ (archly stylized, deadpan humor, anally designed) it also delights with flourishy performances and a pizazzy, loquacious script that feels like Ernst Lubitsch back from the dead, and particularly with unexpected feeling — robust affection for its characters mixed with a melancholy lament for an early-to-mid 20th Century realm that no longer exists.

A combination of (a) zonking out for four hours late this afternoon (2 pm to 6 pm) and (b) the nostril wifi agony that was injected into my life by the Grand Wyndham Berlin Hotel has delayed my review of Wes Anderson‘s The Grand Budapest Hotel, which I’ve seen twice now — in Los Angeles last Monday afternoon and again today at Berlin’s CineMAX plex. Rest assured that while Budapest is a full-out “Wes Anderson film” (archly stylized, deadpan humor, anally designed) it also delights with flourishy performances and a pizazzy, loquacious script that feels like Ernst Lubitsch back from the dead, and particularly with unexpected feeling — robust affection for its characters mixed with a melancholy lament for an early-to-mid 20th Century realm that no longer exists.

Budapest (Fox Searchlight, 3.7) is a dryly fashioned experience but a sublime one. It feels like a valentine to old-world European atmosphere and ways and cultural climes that began to breath their last about…what, a half-century ago if not earlier? This is easily Wes’s deepest, sharpest and most layered film since Rushmore, which, believe it or not, came out 15 years ago.

A clear indication of the weakened state of the 1.85 fascist cabal is their odd silence about the 1.66 aspect ratio used for the just-released Bluray of Peter Bogdanovich‘s At Long Last Love (’75). As I believe in 1.66 as an eternal idea in the mind of God, I’m naturally delighted that this notorious clunker has been released in this format. The boxier the better, I say; especially for a film that sought to revive the spirit of 1930s musicals, when 1.37:1 was the rule. But I’m not aware of any historical justification for 1.66 being used for this 1975 film. Every stateside film was being shot in 1.85 in the ’70s except when otherwise specified (Stanley Kubrick‘s Barry Lyndon, etc.) and/or in the case of European films, and by ’75 every theatre in the U.S. was working with 1.85 aperture plates.

This afternoon I sent the following to a person who may very well be and most likely is Roman Polanski. This person identified himself in a 7.17 HE thread as “RRT Polanski,” and expressed himself in such a way that I’m 85% to 90% persuaded it’s probably from the Real McCoy:

“Roman — This is a response to what appears may be a legitimate post from you on a 7.17 Hollywood Elsewhere comment thread about my mistaken belief (which I’ve since admitted to) that Rosemary’ Baby was once composed and issued on home video at the aspect ratio of 1.66 to 1.

“You wrote that while my ‘righteous fury amuses [you] beyond measure,’ you feel ‘under the obligation to scholars and in defence [sic] of [your] magnificent friends at Criterion to set the matters right. Rosemary’s Baby is being released by Criterion in 1.85:1 because that is the aspect ratio I directed the film to have, because that is the aspect ratio that I prefer, and because that is the aspect ratio I insisted upon.’

“You added that ‘while there was protection in the filming for the possibility of inadvertent projection at 1.66:1, it was never my intention to allow such projection if I could maintain control of the circumstance of projection. This film is and will always be properly framed at 1.85:1.’

“If you’re really Roman Polanski. as you seem to be, I’ve obviously been chastised and bitch-slapped here, and I humbly admit error (as I did yesterday) in insisting that 1.66 is, or should be, the proper aspect ratio for your 1968 film. It’s your film, your call, and I defer to your judgment and authority.

“Except on some level, and I’m speaking in a purely conversational way here, I can’t entirely do that. Not wholeheartedly. I know for a fact that William Fraker, your Rosemary’s Baby dp, was a gifted man with a great eye, and I completely trust (and on some level recall. perhaps due to some viewing of Rosemary’s Baby at 1.66 in a Paris revival theatre) that what he captured within that protected 1.66 aspect ratio was aesthetically pleasing and balanced. I am what you might call a ‘light, air and breathing space’ kind of guy, and I believe that Rosemary’s Baby would be somewhat more pleasing (to me anyway) if it was cropped around…oh, let’s say 1.75 to 1. Just a little bit of breathing room. No biggie.

“Who am I to tell you what aspect ratio I prefer when you’ve clearly stated what you like and what you’ve firmly decided and that this is the end of it and shut up? Well, first of all we’re just talking here. Secondly, I’m a bigmouth. But thirdly, having been a film fanatic all my life and a licensed projectionist for a brief period in the early ’80s, I am seriously mesmerized by the right kind of motion picture framing for films that I love and respect, and I guess I’m caught up in a belief that I know a thing or two about what looks right.

“I don’t mean to imply that I know better, but deep down I sort of feel that…how can I put this? I feel that what I believe in this matter has a certain validity. I’m obviously not ‘right’ and you, the creator of Rosemary’s Baby, are certainly not ‘wrong,’ of course. But there’s a little man inside who wants to nudge up the frame height when I watch your film. Just a little bit. Anyway, that’s what I was trying to say the other day before I admitted error on this matter. The little man tells me what to say, and I just say it. Because the little man knows.

“I also believe very passionately what I said about the steak in that get-together scene between Mia Farrow, John Cassevettes, Ruth Gordon and Sydney Blackmer. I don’t have a Rosemary’s Baby DVD with me right now and I haven’t seen the Criterion Bluray transfer, but I’ve been led to believe by a source who has examined the film closely that the viewer may — I say ‘may’ — not be able to see the steak they’re eating. Again — I don’t know that the steak is missing, but I’ve heard that it may be. And if that turns out to be true when the Criterion Bluray comes out, I very respectfully don’t think that’s right.

“Anyway, it was good to hear from you, even under this circumstance. I humbly accept your criticism that my passionate argumentative tone strikes you as fascistic. I will try to keep this in mind during future debates over aspect ratios.”

“Regards, Jeffrey Wells, Hollywood Elsewhere”

APPARENT 7.17 POLANSKI COMMENT: “A colleague has made me aware of the discussion under way here, and while it amuses me beyond measure, I feel under the obligation to scholars and in defence of my magnificent friends at Criterion to set the matters aright. “Rosemary’s Baby” is being released by Criterion in 1.85:1 because that is the aspect ratio I directed the film to have, because that is the aspect ratio that I prefer, and because that is the aspect ratio I insisted upon. While there was protection in the filming for the possibility of inadvertent projection at 1.66:1, it was never my intention to allow such projection if I could maintain control of the circumstance of projection. This film is and will always be properly framed at 1.85:1. And Mr. Wells, while I admire your sense of righteous fury, let me say to you that I know a little bit about fascism, and disagreeing with you is not the hallmark. However, your response to disagreement looks familiar. Polanski” — i.e., RRTPolanski.

In my latest piece about 1.85 aspect-ratio fascism (“Will Dial M For Murder Be Mauled By Fascists?”, 4.28), aspect ratio know-it-all Bob Furmanek contended that Elia Kazan‘s On The Waterfront was initially projected and was intended to be seen in a 1.85 to 1 aspect ratio — a truly sickening notion given the compositional balance and perfect framing contained in the 1.37 to 1 version of this 1954 classic.

Waterfront in 1.37 is all anyone has ever seen on the tube, VHS, laser disc and DVD. But if guys like Furmanek have their way…

To explain the correctness of his Waterfront position, Furmanek reported the following sequence of events: (a) April 7, 1953 — Columbia announces their new ratio of 1.85:1; (b) April 28, 1953 — Columbia announces 100% widescreen; (c) November 17, 1953 — On The Waterfront commences with principal photography; (d) July 14, 1954 – Variety review, 1.85:1; (e) July 14, 1954 — Exhibitor review, 1.85:1; (f) July 24, 1954 — Boxoffice review, 1.85:1.

I’m not disputing Furmanek’s Waterfront reporting, however repellent his aspect-ratio aesthetics may be. But how does he explain a new Bluray of Fritz Lang‘s The Big Heat, a Columbia release, being presented on the Twilight Time Bluray at 1.34 to 1, given that Lang’s film opened in October 1953 — a full six months after Columbia laid down the 1.85 law? According to a Bluray.com review, the Big Heat Bluray was “culled from HD masters provided to Twilight Time by Sony-Columbia” — in other words by Grover Crisp.

Lang was an esteemed, old-time director who’d begun in Germany in the 1920s, so you can bet he composed The Big Heat and intended to have it seen at 1.33. But if everything had to be 1.85, why didn’t Columbia just give orders to projectionists to show The Big Heat within a 1.85 to 1 aspect ratio and to hell with Lang’s 1.33 compositions?

I don’t know for a fact that The Big Heat began shooting in April 1953 — it might have begun a bit earlier, or in late 1952 even. But an edict is an edict. Did Cohn have a soft spot for Lang? Was Cohn a tough guy or wasn’t he? Cohn ran Columbia with a bullwhip and typical big-studio shooting schedules were tight, and a five- or six-month turnaround (the beginning of principal photography to theatrical release) would have fit within the norm.

Somehow or some way a person in control of the shape of The Big Heat wimped out — Cohn, Crisp, somebody in the food chain.

If Crisp’s intention is to make good on Cohn’s meat-cleaver aesthetic then Blurays of all April 1953-and-beyond non-Scope films have to be 1.78 or 1.85, and fascists like Furmanek should support Crisp in this effort. In fact, if Crisp and Fuhrmann were truly committed to chopping off the tops and bottoms of 1.33 films they would cleaver Sony Home Video’s endlessly delayed From Here To Eternity Bluray to 1.85. Why Not? Don’t fudge it, guys. You have to be hard.

A Criterion Bluray containing a slash-and-crop 1.85 to 1 version of Otto Preminger‘s Anatomy of a Murder will be out on 2.21. DVD Beaver has posted a review with screen captures comparing Sony Home Video’s exquisitely boxy 1.33 to 1 DVD version to the Criterion Bluray. I’m not saying the Criterion (which I haven’t yet seen) won’t have value. A Bluray of an excellent courtroom drama that shows 2/3 of what dp Sam Leavitt originally shot is better than nothing.

A visually compressed, jail-cell cropping, captured from Criterion Bluray.

I’ll allow that the Criterion Bluray seems to offer more visual information on the sides than the Sony Home Video 2000 DVD version. This is a good thing, but there’s still no excuse for whacking off a third of the originally photographed version — one that was seen during who-knows-how-many hundreds of TV airings during the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s and ’90s, and which was contained in the NTSC DVD version.

From the ample-head-space version provided by Sony Home Video in 2000.

The buzz on Alfonso Cuaron‘s Children of Men (Universal, 12.25), which had been teetering since Universal bailed on its original early fall opening in favor of a Xmas debut, has now downshfted due to a yes-and-no Venice Film Festival review Variety‘s Derek Elley, along with a similar view posted by Screen Daily‘s Steve Marshall.

Children still sounds like an absolute must-see, but these reactions leave me with no choice but to scratch Children from Best Picture consideration, and to scratch Cuaron from the Best Director ranks. Sorry, Uni publicity pallies, but it’s a tough world out there and cigars cannot be handed out for “pretty good” with two exceptional standout selling points.
Elley gives Children of Men a passing grade, but says the only aspects of this futuristic melodrama that really and truly kick ass are Emmanuel Lubezki‘s hand-held cinematography and Michael Caine‘s supporting performance as an eccentric hippie-ish type. Otherwise, he says, it’s not bad, spotty, touch-and-go.
Elley praises the “gritty, docu-like sequences [in which] Cuaron and camera operator George Richmond orchestrate several lengthy single takes that have a front-line feel….these include an attack in a car (a single take that required a special rig for the camera to get inside and around the car) and the movie’s showpiece climax. Latter single take recalls Full Metal Jacket in its landscape and Black Hawk Down in its intensity.”
He also singles out Caine for bestowing “some heart and soul due to a wonderfully eccentric [turn] that’s awards-season-worthy. Caine’s beatific performance, in hippie spectacles and shoulder-length hair, is treasurable, and provides the two shafts of sunlight in the otherwise gray and wintry movie,” he says.
Otherwise, Elley calls Men “an often grippingly realized portrait of a not-so-futuristic Blighty, in which fascism and infertility have become uneasy bed partners” but ” a fine but flawed exercise in dystopia. Much more effective when it’s a down-and-dirty actioner than when the script tries to grapple with the multitude of personal and political issues raised, pic suffers from cold lead playing by Clive Owen.
“Set only 21 years in the future, in November 2027, pic — based on the 1993 novel by British writer P.D. James, better known for her murder mysteries — posits a world racked by infertility and social chaos, in which terrorism is the norm. The U.K., however, is a relative haven of peace — ‘The world has collapsed; only Britain soldiers on,’ trumpets Brit-TV propaganda — and as a consequence immigration is out of control.
“Cuaron clearly got to know Blighty when shooting Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. He paints a grungy, Orwellian country of perpetual security announcements, prowling armed police, garbage in the streets and illegal immigrants in cages — in fact, not so different from the U.K. today, and far more believable in every respect than in the feeble V for Vendetta.”
Elley says that “Cuaron’s decision not to shoot in widescreen actually accentuates the movie’s gritty power” — which means what? That Cuaron went with a 1.33 to 1 aspect ratio like Gus Van Sant‘s Elephant and Last Days, or that he shot it in standard, no-big-deal 1.85 to 1? Is Elley hinting that the normally effective way to shoot a dark futuristic flick is to shoot it in widescreen scope (2.35 to 1)? This part of the review lost me.