By God’s grace or some other influence, non-Scope films produced by United Artists in the ’50s and ’60s have been mastered for home video (laser disc, DVD, Bluray, streaming) at 1.66 for the most part. This tradition has led Kino Lorber to issue their forthcoming Bluray of Stanley Kramer‘s On The Beach (’59) in that blessed aspect ratio and not, thank fortune, in the dreaded 1.85. I’m presuming there is ample documentation to prove that On The Beach was projected in many U.S. theatres at 1.85, and I’m fairly certain that aspect ratio historian Bob Furmanek would be happy to provide this documentation and in so doing push for a 1.85 masking if Kino Lorber asked him for advice, but thank God they haven’t.
This is a portion of a DVD Beaver frame capture from the new Arrow Bluray of Robert Altman‘s The Long Goodbye (’73). So $5000 bills (last printed in 1934) were actually kicking around in the early ’70s? Printed money doesn’t gain in value as the years roll on, of course, but the U.S. Labor Department inflation counter says the purchasing power of $5 grand in ’73 was/is equal to around $26 grand today. So finding a $5000 bill “in a box of Crackerjacks,” as Elliot Gould‘s Phillip Marlowe explained to Mark Rydell‘s Marty Augustine, was quite a discovery.
I attended a yacht party in Cannes today for Martin Scorsese and Silence, the long-gestating, much-delayed historical drama set in 17th Century Japan that Scorsese will finally begin directing in June 2014. Andrew Garfield, Ken Watanabe and Issei Ogata will costar. The floating soiree was thrown by Emmett/Furla Films, which is producing. The hosts were producers Randall Emmett and Emma Tillinger Koskoff.
(l.) 42West honcho Leslee Dart, (r.) director Martin Scorsese during yacht party earlier today for Silence.
Scorsese arrived about a half-hour after things began, and his publicist Leslee Dart allowed me to speak with him for about four minutes. Mainly we talked about the restored Shane (“I’m waiting to see it…I hear it looks fantastic”). He and George Stevens, Jr. conferred about Shane, he said (presumably about the aspect-ratio situation) and just before they were about to get in touch with Warner Home Video, which will release the Shane Bluray in August, they were told that WHV had flipped on the 1.66 aspect ratio position and that they’d decided to go with 1.37.
Sometimes writing this column is a huge blast, and sometimes it’s drudgery. Sometimes the back-and-forth gets really funny or passionate and sometimes angry, but it’s always an adventure. I always try to cut the fat out and get down to the nub of things as a rule. I can be mouthy and egoistic at times, but you know what I never do, ever? I never go after another columnist or critic or reporter and say, “God, that person is a waste of skin” or “Jesus, what a slimy disreputable jerkwad” or words to that effect.
Unless they go after me first, of course. Then all bets are off. But I never take the first shot because I don’t believe in hating on fellow journos unless, you know, they’re lying or being slanderous or are dealing heroin or molesting minors.
But I get hated on all the time. Every day of the week and twice on Sundays. Haters on comment threads are part of the rough and tumble — you have to roll with that — but what kind of a journalist/columnist/critic likes to shove a sword between the ribs of somebody who works on the same side of the fence? Life is hard enough, guys. I mean, seriously…how do you grow your uglies into a permanent tumor? I read one of their comments and I ask myself, “Oh, so I’m really bad, huh? Okay. So am I supposed to…what, stick my head in an oven? Throw myself on the steps of the nearest church and beg for forgiveness?” And then you have to stifle an urge to write them back and say something even snarlier.
Yesterday I posted a little note called “Little Marty Nudge” in which I asked the great and powerful Martin Scorsese to try and give a little thought to the Shane aspect-ratio scandal, which I wrote him about a week ago. It was just a thought so I posted it…big deal. And in response Newark Star Ledger critic Stephen Whitty tweeted the following: “Is there anything more sadly self-aggrandizing than ‘An Open Letter To’ someone who’d never take your call?”
The fuck? I’ve never been dumb enough to call Scorsese for that reason, but after I’ve received no response to a note I wrote a week earlier I don’t see what harm a little nudge-note amounts to. The shape of a Bluray-ed Shane is an important issue that I’m sure Scorsese has a strong conviction about so what’s the problem? Is Scorsese too important to be addressed in this manner? Does he poop Tiffany cufflinks? Is he given to secrecy and subterfuge and would therefore be grossly offended by an open letter?
I can tell you that if Whitty ever writes something that I don’t agree with, I will never tweet that he has disgusted or appalled me. Not my style.
An hour or two earlier JHoffman6 tweeted that “I can’t deny that I’m a little impressed Woody Allen weighed in on wellshwood’s windmill tilting.” In response to which Kris Tapley tweeted, “Yeah, but if he knew what we know…” What kind of a shitheel do you have to be to throw little dingleberries like that? “Yeah, we know better about what a problematic ayehole wellshwood is,” blah blah. Allow me to respond by saying that Tapley is a cranky, judgmental sourpuss who’s always looking to piss on something I’ve written or throw some kind of “nyah-nyah” or whatever. That is the kind of sour and diseased attitude I never fire at other journalists…unless provoked.
All I know is that there are some journalists who seem to live in order to condemn others in their field. It gets them off on some level. These are people who have Alien acid blood running in their veins. And I really get sick of this from time to time.
We’ve never technically met but we did a phoner while you were cutting Casino. It was for an Entertaiment Weekly piece I was working on about a restoration of The Wild Bunch. This is the same email I’ve sent you via the Film Foundation email address. I’m double-posting out of concern that it might not get through with your editing of Wolf of Wall Street demanding all your time and attention.
You may not have heard about the great Shane Bluray brouhaha by now so I’ll just summarize. Warner Home Video has licensed the rights from Paramount for a Shane Bluray that was prepared by George Stevens, Jr. and, I’m told, the folks at Technicolor. As you probably know Shane was shot by George Stevens and dp Loyal Griggs between July and mid-October 1951 with a 1.37:1 aspect ratio. And yet I’ve been told by Stevens, Jr. that the WHV Bluray will present his father’s film at a 1.66:1, which Stevens Jr. was apparently asked to compose by Paramount Home Video execs.
Stevens, Jr. has been very exacting, he told me, in making sure that the 1.66:1 compositions do not compromise his father’s classic film, and that given a choice between presenting a 1.37 Shane with big black bars on either side of the image and a 1.66 Shane with slender borders on either side he believes that the latter will be commercially preferable. He also said he’s confident that his father would be pleased with the 1.66 version.
I’m sorry but Stevens Sr. and Griggs shot Shane in 1.37 and that’s the end of it — there can be no other consideration. Stevens Jr. told me that a 1.37 “Academy ratio” version was also prepared for Bluray. If WHV wants to release the Shane Bluray at an alternative 1.66 aspect ratio for commercial purposes, fine, but out of respect for the vision of Stevens Sr. and Griggs they need to make the 1.37 version available via Warner Archives. If you review the comments about this issue on Home Theatre Forum you’ll see that the overwhelming majority agree that both versions of Shane need to be made available.
Respected archivist Bob Furmanek has written on HTF that Shane “was clearly composed for 1.37:1. I prefer to see it in that ratio. I feel that is how it should be seen.” And restoration guru Robert Harris says on HTF that “while I would love to also see the film in 1.37…hopefully, a dual format release can occur, as the data would have been completed both ways.”
I’m assuming that you agree with the 1.37 crowd, and am also hoping that perhaps you could make your opinion known. Anything you could do, say or write would, one assumes, greatly influence WHV’s decision regarding the 1.37 version being made available down the road. Many thanks and best of luck with Wolf of Wall Street.
Jeffrey Wells, HE
p.s.: Here’s a link with two HE articles about the Shane dust-up.
Martin Scorsese, the most gifted, tireless, prolific and devout Movie Catholic director of our time, sat down last night for a longish (160 minutes, give or take) on-stage interview with Leonard Maltin, and it was some kind of beautiful and sublime to take a surface-level nostalgia trip into Martyland and to revel in 40 years of Marty memories, Marty anecdotes and Marty insights.
Murky, not-quite-focused shot of Martin Scorsese taken by yours truly from my seat.
It happened at Santa Barbara’s Arlington theatre from 8:20 pm to 11 pm, more or less, as part of a presentation of the American Riviera award. I sat on the right side, about six or seven rows from the front, right next to Awards Daily‘s Sasha Stone.
“Surface-level” because a good three-quarters of Scorsese’s films, spanning over 40 years, weren’t verbally mentioned, much less discussed. This was necessary in order to keep the presentation in the vicinity of two hours, or course, but it felt like a greatest-hits primer for people who have only an ADD understanding of Scorsese’s life and career…no offense.
Maltin told me at the after-party that Scorsese himself chose the clips.
A brilliantly-cut career montage started things off, and then clips were shown from Mean Streets,Taxi Driver, Italian American, Raging Bull, The Last Waltz, Goodfellas, No Direction Home and Hugo.
The best clip was one of Muddy Waters singing “Mannish Boy” in The Last Waltz.
Honestly? The Hugo clip, shown in 3D, was by far the least intriguing one shown. It was all about Ben Kingsley‘s Georges Melies fuming at Asa Butterfield‘s Hugo, and then Hugo being chased by Sacha Baron Cohen and the Doberman through the train station, blah blah. I thought they might take a cue from people like me and show a clip from the glorious third act with those recreations of Mellies’ career, but no.
No clips were shown from Who’s That Knockin’ At My Door, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, New York, New York, The King of Comedy, After Hours, The Color of Money,
The Last Temptation of Christ (one of Scorsese’s absolute greatest), Cape Fear, Casino, Kundun, Bringing Out The Dead, Gangs of New York, Il Mi Viaggio in Italia, The Blues, The Aviator, The Departed, Shine A Light, Shutter Island, Letter to Elia or George Harrison: Living in the Material World.
In Contention‘s Kris Tapley, Stone and I had natural notions about chatting with Scorsese at the after-party. But it didn’t happen. This was partly due to Scorsese’s decision to huddle in the back of the room with inner-circle homies (his wife, Hugo costar Ben Kingsley, festival honchos), partly due to our lack of hunger and aggression and partly due to the aggression of others. A trio of super-model blondes barrelled right in there and got their photos.
It was a metaphor for life, in a way — you can’t hang back in the corner and expect things to happen. You have to be direct and willful and even coarse to some extent to get what you want. Tapley, Stone and I were too respectful of Scorsese’s space, and so we missed our shot.
I asked Kingsley about why there’s still no DVD or Bluray of Betrayal, which will observe its 30th anniversary next year. I said that I’d been told it has something to do with the family of Betrayal producer Sam Spiegel refusing to accomodate would-be distributors. Kingsley said he’d heard the same thing. “I’ll look into it,” he said. And I said, “Okay, cool, but…uhm…well, how could I follow up…?” Kingsley smiled like Don “ya ponce!” Logan and said, “I’ll look into it and we’ll run into each other again at another party and we’ll see where it is!”
Paramount’s decision to open Hugo on 1277 screens last Wednesday indicated (to me at least) that they were hedging their bets and hoping that critical raves and a word-of-mouth groundswell might materialize. As of last nightHugo had pulled in $8,545,000 after three days (having opened on 11.23) in 1277 theatres. That works out to a $6691 per-screen average…not bad, could be better. But it was fifth-placed after Breaking Dawn, The Muppets, Happy Feet 2 and Arthur Xmas (none of which I give a damn about).
Let’s spitball and say Hugo, which yesterday earned $4,532,000, ends up with $14 million for the five days and maybe $12 million for the Friday-to-Sunday period. It’s considered a decent-to-healthy theatrical run when a film earns triple its opening weekend haul. An exceptional run means a quadrupling or quintupling of the same tally. Even if Hugo quintuples the $12 million weekend figure, it ends up with $60 million…but I think it’s more likely to triple and end up with $35 million, if that. There’s also foreign plus DVD/Blurays, digital downloads and broadcast TV sales ahead, but it still seems like a bust when you factor in Hugo‘s reported cost of $170 million.
“There’s no doubt it’s going to lose money,” says boxoffice.com‘s Phil Contrino. “But with that said, I wouldn’t be surprised to see it scratch and claw its way to $50 or $60 million domestically. It needs to make as much as it can before the the Christmas releases come along and cripple it.”
I know, I know — what do we care if Hugo is a financial bust or not? Are we Paramount stockholders? Let’s just see it and love it and recommend it to our friends. Except I can’t honestly tell my friends that it’s a jump-for-joy experience. The only part of Hugo that really sings is the last 20 or 25 minutes. The “let’s-all-rally-round-Marty-because-we-love-his-moviemaking-heart” critical fraternity has nonethless amped up the chatter to a point in which Kris Tapley is forecasting that Hugo could be one of the top three Best Picture contenders along with War Horse and The Artist.
That could happen (as much as that scenario perplexes me) but there’s always a certain deflation of value and spirit when a Best Picture contender that has obviously cost a lot to make fails to earn sufficient coin.
I still maintain that Hugo‘s 127-minute length limits the family audience. If it had only been, say, 90 or 95 minutes, it would have been a lot easier sit for kids and for people like me as well. The first 75% is too long, too indulgent, too taken with itself.
I wonder if Hugo would have made the same or slightly less so far if it had kept the original title of Hugo Cabret?
Two days ago I wrote about Paramount’s planned remake of Karel Reisz and James Toback‘s The Gambler (’74), and expressed curiosity about Paramount’s hiring of William Monahan (The Departed) to rewrite Toback’s jewel-perfect script. “Monahan is too good of a writer to just update or do touch-ups,” I noted, “so I’m wondering if Paramount wants to make The Gambler into a somewhat different thing?”
Leonardo DiCaprio, James Toback at a Revolutionary Road luncheon, thrown by Manhattan blue-chip party madame Peggy Siegal and Paramount Vantage in the Plaza’s Oak Room bar and restaurant — Wednesday, 12.3.08, 1:10 pm.
I called Toback about this right away and he didn’t pick up. I assumed, naturally, that he knew all about this Martin Scorsese project, especially as he’s friendly with Leonardo DiCaprio (who’s attached to play the James Caan part) and because Leo and Marty are longtime allies and why would Leo sign off on any kind of “fuck you Jim” move? I presumed this was understood all around and that Paramount had called Toback and talked it out with him, if for no other reason than courtesy.
No, reportsNikki Finke — Paramount didn’t call and talk it out with Toback. They didn’t even tell him through his agent. They’re not legally obligated to consult Toback, apparently, so they didn’t. Nice manners!
A few minutes ago Deadline‘s Nikki Finke posted an angry letter from Toback about this announcement. It expresses his justifable outrage. By all means read the entire Toback letter on Deadline — good stuff about the making of (and particularly the casting of) The Gambler.
Toback explains that Brett Ratner, for whom he’s writing a John Delorean screenplay that Reliance and Bob Evans are producing, told him Friday night about Mike Fleming’s story about the intended Scorsese remake. Here’s how he describes that moment:
“‘Not my Gambler!’ Toback said. ‘That’s not possible! No one said a word to me!
“‘Who owns it?’ Ratner asked.
“‘Paramount.’
“‘I guess they didn’t have to.’
“‘Legally, I guess you’re right,’ I said.
“‘Maybe that’s all anyone gives a fuck about: whether something is legal.’
“The film in question, The Gambler, was financed and distributed by Paramount in 1974 and directed by the late Karel Reisz,” Toback explains. “It was derived without a syllable of alteration from the final draft of my blatantly autobiographical original screenplay and starred James Caan as Axel Freed, a City College of NY literature lecturer whose addiction to gambling overrides every other aspect of his richly diverse life.
“It might seem odd that my initial response to the news of the purported remake would be something south of ‘flattered and honored,’ but the truth is that my main feeling was one of disbelief that I was learning of these plans at the same time and in the same fashion as any of the regular devoted readers of [Deadline Hollywood],” Toback continues.
“It struck me as particularly odd since I have been a friend and unlimited admirer of Leonardo’s since our initial encounter in 1994 when we were, in fact, all set to close a deal on his playing the lead in Harvard Man – a deal sabotaged only by Bob Shaye‘s overriding the greenlight which Mike DeLuca had conveyed to Jeff Berg and Jay Moloney.
“Equally odd was not hearing anything from Irwin Winkler who, I was soon to learn, is to be the producer on this projected new version as he was on the original.
“Perhaps my inability to view this ‘tribute’ as primarily flattering was additionally influenced by a recent and infinitely more felicitous experience which involved remarkably similar circumstances. My movie, Fingers, was remade as a Cesar prize-sweeping film, The Beat That My Heart Skipped by Jacques Audiard, the great French filmmaker who called me from Paris and then flew to New York to discuss Fingers in great detail before redoing it, apparently not sharing the current group’s quaint — if indeed entirely legal — notion that as long as they ‘own’ something — even a movie — they are fully entitled to do whatever they wish to it without even bothering to consult its creator.
“Of course, the French have always had an entirely different set of laws and values governing intellectual property based on the poignant notion that a writer’s work cannot be tampered with by anyone even including someone who paid money to take ownership of it. This current experience conjures up memories of a banker who owned Harvard Man and once said to me: ‘To you this is a movie. To me this is a pair of shoes. My pair of shoes. And I will do whatever I like with it.’
“Learning of the plan to ‘remake’ my movie at the same time and in the same fashion as any other devoted reader of this esteemed column, I suppose I should feel…what? That a tribute is being paid to a creation I left behind? I suppose. But one doesn’t always feel what one is supposed to feel.
“As the late, great Jackie Wilson sang:
‘Just a kiss
Just a smile
Call my name
Just once in a while
And I’ll be satisfied.’
“Rudeness, on the other hand, and disrespect yield their own unanticipated consequences.
“Footnote: Now that such an esteemed bunch of luminaries seems so inspired by The Gambler that they are contemplating the devotion of masses amounts of time, money and energy to redoing it, perhaps the home video crew at Paramount will consider making The Gambler available on DVD and Bluray which it presently isn’t. And perhaps by On-Demand as well — if it isn’t there already. They can look it up and find out if they have the time.”
Wells note: The Gambler may not be an active DVD title by Toback’s reckoning, but I ordered a new copy from Amazon two nights ago.”
The Criterion Bluray of Albert and David Maysles‘ Gimme Shelter, the legendary doc about the 1969 Rolling Stones tour that ended with violence and death at the 12.6.69 Altamont Speedway concert, struck me as an overpriced burn. It’s a typical Criterion-level high-quality package as far as it goes, but it’s not worth $40 because it doesn’t look all that different from the last DVD, which was issued in 2000 and was clearly an upgrade at the time and looked pretty good on my Sony 36″ analog flatscreen..
Gimme Shelter was originally shot on 16mm so it can only look so good — I understand that. But when you pay $40 bucks you want a little of that ring-a-ding-ding eye-pop schwing, and Criterion’s high-def mastering just doesn’t deliver. It looks good but not “oh, mama.” You could pop in that same nine year-old DVD into your Bluray player and not, I’m betting, see any discernible difference. Or so my recollection is telling me.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I know I was underwhelmed the second I started watching the Criterion Blu-ray. My first thought was, “This?”
I don’t have an amplified stereo system connected to my Bluray player but the sound that came out of my Panasonic plasma speakers sounded murky and distorted and basically unpleasant. Yes, I know — DTS HD Master Audio with surround and stereo mixes, and it sounds like shit.
I was able to detect visual improvement in WHV’s Bluray of Michael Wadleigh‘s Woodstock, which was also shot on 16mm, but not at all here.
Amazon says that the regular DVD version of this Criterion release is going for $30. Even that is too much for what you get.
Frame capture from Gimme Shelter of Meredith Hunter (dressed in green) a millisecond before he was stabbed at the Altamont concert by Alan Passaro (directly to Hunter’s left).
The Grateful Dead are filmed as they approach the Altamont fairgrounds and are told by Santana’s Mike Shrieve that some members of Hells Angels, the California motorcycle gang hired by concert organizers as security guards, have been beating up onlookers and musicians alike (including the Jefferson Airplane’s Marty Balin, who was knocked unconscious) — but you’d never know from the Criterion Bluray.DVD that the Dead declined to play because of this.
You’d also never know that Santana, the Flying Burrito Brothers and Crosby, Stills and Nash also played Altamont.
Amy Taubin‘s essay reports that four people died during the Altamont concert, but she doesn’t mention that aside from the stabbing of Meredith Hunter by a Hells Angel that the other three deaths were accidental — two by a hit-and-run car accident and one by drowning in an irrigation canal.
You’d also never know that Alan Passaro, the Angel who stabbed and killed Hunter, was found not guilty of murder due to a claim of self-defense. You also wouldn’t know that Passaro was found dead in 1985, floating in Santa Clara’s Anderson Reservoir with $10,000 in his pocket. (Wikipedia reports that “foul play was initially suspected but was never confirmed” — hilarious!)
