The about-to-happen screening I’m most interested in catching is the IMAX 3D version of Victor Fleming‘s The Wizard Of Oz, which is showing on Sunday morning at 10 am in Manhattan. I’m naturally presuming that the Warner Bros. technicians made extra-double-sure that this 1939 classic was converted with the utmost care and exactitude. This will be the first time in my life seeing a major-studio golden-age film from the 1930s in 3D, or any venerated classic from any era in this format. Would I like to see Howard Hawks‘ Only Angels Have Wings in 3D? Or Red River or White Heat or Young Mr. Lincoln or The Big Sleep? Nobody needs to see 3D versions of any of these films but I would be genuinely interested and beat a path if the conversions were done right.

Incidentally: During last spring’s 1.37-vs.-1.66 Shane brouhaha Warner Home Video’s Vice President of remastering Ned Price (i.e., one of the guys talking about the Oz 3D conversion in the above video) told me in an email that “I for one, don’t think you are worthy of anyone’s time.” I hereby forgive Price for saying this. It is always a good thing for the victor to be magnanimous.

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.

The above-mentioned conclusion to John McElwee’s Greenbriar Pictureshow piece on “The Shane Showdown” asks what director George Stevens publicly said about the 1.66 presentations of his film, which was shot between July and October of 1951 at 1.37. Any public statements Stevens may have made are, of course, immaterial. He shot the film at 1.37, period. Anything Stevens said in the wake of Shane‘s April 1953 release can be read as mere political tainted, given his natural interest in wanting Shane to be a commercial success and not wanting to throw any spitballs at Paramont.

Nonetheless McElwee offers a Stevens quote from a 5/8/53 edition of Variety. “New screens to stimulate and hold audience interest must have height as well as width,” Stevens said, adding that “it’s wishful thinking and nothing more to look at the large screen and see in it the miracle that will cure [a given] film’s problems.”

McElwee also offers a 5.3.53 comment on the two versions of Shane from N.Y. Times critic Bosley Crowther, the first seen at a private screening room and the second at the Radio City Music Hall:

“Let’s not be secretive about it,” Crowther wrote. “Shane on the Music Hall’s large screen looks not one whit better to this viewer than it did on the screen of a preview room. For purposes of comparison, we caught the film first in a preview where its handsome display of western drama filled the whole end wall of the small room. And then we saw it in the theatre, where the ratio of the screen was slightly changed — not quite as tall as usual in proportion to the width — and we’ve got to confess the grandeur of it was slighter, if anything.

“Does the moderate enlargement of the screen and the slight alteration of its aspect ratio really do anything to improve the pictorial magnificence and dramatic qualities of such a fine film as Shane?,” Crowther asked. “It is the opinion of this viewer, based on studious observation, that it does not. If anything, the fractional narrowing of the shape of the screen cuts it down. Many of its separate compositions are in the up-and-down vertical plane — just as many are in the horizontal — so the post-imposed narrowing of the frame detracts just that much from the harmony of the vertical image.”

Jeffrey Wells to Roger Ebert: Are you going to weigh in on the Shane aspect-ratio brouhaha? Team 1.37 needs guys like you to stand up and do the right thing. Too many political-minded people who know better are saying “well, maybe the 1.66 version will look good!” and “George Stevens Jr. is such a wonderful and gracious and respected man that maybe it’s okay if he helps to suppress or restrict his father’s original vision.” The thinking seems to be that if you’re a member of the family it’s okay if you let the matter of original artistic intent fall by the wayside. Do you agree, Roger?

Arthouse Cowboy‘s Moises Chiullan reported today that Warner Archive Instant is up and running and open for business to the U.S.-residing public. Hundreds of Warner Bros., MGM, RKO and Allied Artists features and TV shows for $9.99 a month, but for now you need a Roku Player to get HD-quality. (Web browser playback is standard definition only.) No way am I buying a Roku Player, but presumably WAI will be available down the road via Apple TV and other devices.

This could be part of the solution to the Shane aspect-ratio problem. Presumably Warner execs will eventually come out from behind their castle walls and agree to make the 1.37 version of George Stevens’ classic available via Warner Archives, but if they get their act together it could be made available concurrent with the release of the much-reviled 1.66 version on June 4th. But I’m not watching anything on an effing Roku Player — eff that.

A little while ago Glenn Kenny tweeted that “while I wanna do what’s actually right (support a 1.37 aspect ratio for Shane) I’m concerned about being mistaken for a Lyndon Larouche supporter.” I swore and knocked over a chair and punched the refrigerator. That’s ugly slander, dammit. I wrote right back and said “I’m getting really sick of this, Glenn!” and for the 637th time explained my aspect-ratio theology.

“Being a proponent of headroom and ‘boxy is beautiful‘ and saying to hell with 1950s and ’60s theatrical aspect-ratio mandates is hardly a case of Larouche-ian extremism. It’s an aesthetic preference based on the bedrock principle that cleavering visual information captured for a ’50s or ’60s film is fundamentally vile as it destroys information rather than allows it into the film. And for no sensible reason at all except to pay homage to the fearful impulses of theatrical distributors of the ’50s and ’60s who were afraid of television.

“The principle, therefore, is that if you must cleaver a film from that era so it looks better on a 16 x 9 screen it should be done at 1.66 (as those Larouche-ian nutters at Criterion did with On The Waterfront) and not the reprehensible & oppressive 1.85. Where the double-triple-fuck do you get Lyndon Larouche out of that?”

Kenny replied that I was making up my aspect ratio theology as I went along and I said “nope — it’s a clear, consistent standard. More height is better, cleavering is bad, multi-a.r. Blurays are best, 1.66 > 1.85.”

He then said okay, maybe not Larouche but certainly not Andre Bazin. And I said if he needs an appropriate analogy to a venerated old-time film critic he should try Otis Ferguson.

Apparently the 1.66:1 version of George Stevens‘ Shane, or the basis of the forthcoming Warner Home Video Bluray streeting on June 4th, will be screened at the TCM Classic Film Festival sometime between 4.25 and 4.28. If by that time WHV declines to offer a solution to the Great Shane Bluray Debacle, which ignited when they decided to release the 1.66:1 version rather than a Bluray mastered at the correct 1.37:1 aspect ratio (or at least a double-disc package containing both versions), I will show up with a picket sign outside the Chinese. All alone. Like Alan Ladd riding down to Grafton’s.

I’m thinking it will attract more media attention if there are, say, ten people carrying signs rather than one. So I’m looking for volunteers if anyone wants to join the cause. I guess I’ll need some kind of permit. I’ve never done this before. But I’ll create and provide the signs.

I haven’t decided what slogans to use but I’m thinking about the following: (a) “SHANE” IN 1.37, NOT 1.66, (b) GEORGE STEVENS ROLLS IN HIS GRAVE, (c) SAY NO TO 1.66 “SHANE”, (d) BOXY IS BEAUTIFUL and so on. I can’t think of any Shane dialogue that fits but let me think it over. I certainly can’t think of any succinct way to analogize Warner Home Video’s decision and “lowdown Yankee liar.”

The only solution I can think of is for WHV to make the 1.37 version of Shane available for rental or purchase via Warner Archives.

I was thinking a day or two ago about how John Frankenheimer‘s The Train (’65) — the last Hollywood-produced action flick shot in black-and-white, and a reminder of how wonderfully alive and detailed monochrome could look — really needs to be remastered for Bluray. Jean Tournier and Walter Wottitz‘s cinematography is lighted and captured to perfection — it’s just heavenly, and I don’t what the hangup is. The last MGM Home Video DVD of The Train was created 13 years ago.

The Train at its proper aspect ratio of 1.66 to 1.

The Train is especially valued by me because of its 1.66 aspect ratio, which the 1.85 fascists….okay, I’ll restrain myself. One hopes that if and when The Train is Blurayed the fascists will consider the fact that all United Artists releases (which this was back in ’65) were projected theatrically at 1.66, and that The Train was issued on laser disc and DVD at 1.66. Anyway, I was imagining how I would feel if and when this Bluray were to be somehow Furmaneked, and how angry I’ll be if and when this occurs.

But today this anger went away when I read a nearly month-old article by Kyle Westphal about aspect ratios (called “Invasion of the Aspect Ratios“) on the Northwest Chicago Film Society’s website. It’s an an intelligent, perceptive, fair-minded essay, and it says some things that even the 1.85 fascists might agree with. Well, you never know. But I know it made me realize that at least some people out there get what’s really been going on with the aspect-ratio battles.

Here’s part of what Westphal said — fascists should consider the boldfaced portions:

“In some sense, it’s only natural that home video releases stir [highly emotional] feelings. DVD and Blu-ray versions tend to fix a film in time and space; the image is immune from the scratching and cinching that occasionally afflict film prints, but it’s also removed from the realm of interpretation and manipulation available to the projectionist or archivist. There’s no adjusting the focus or framing after a studio QC tech has ruled the matter closed.

“Magnificent Obsession is either 1.37:1 or 2:1, but not both. The recent vogue for 16:9 HDTV sets, which approximate fairly closely the 1.85:1 theatrical ratio, often dictates the ultimate answer, just as decades of 4:3 sets once assured a very different outcome, with the left and right edges panned-and-scanned away for cropped consumption. For asset managers and telecine operators alike, the question of the proper aspect ratio can yield but one valid answer.

“Longtime fans often dispute this answer. They recall television broadcasts or 16mm prints seen in decades-old campus film society screenings and the widescreen versions simply contradict the emotional and aesthetic unity they found in these open-matte prints. Trade papers and studio records may dictate a wide aspect ratio for a given film, but the fan holds onto details at the far reaches of the frame that look artistically indisputable.

“In some sense, this is the ultimate form of auteurism: the director intended things that the entire motion picture industry, from mogul on down to projectionist, conspired to cover-up. The great auteurs defiantly went about their business anyway.

The same shot Furmaneked at 1.85.

“What’s the right answer? We can argue about intent all day, but whose intent matters here in the first place? Is it what the studio dictated in their press book or what the lab printed in the leader? Is it what the director wanted on screen or what the cinematographer saw in the viewfinder? And what if that intent is deliberately confused or clouded? Famously, Paramount produced Shane in 1.37:1, but released it with a suggested ratio of 1.66:1 at the dawn of the widescreen era, fearful that its backlog product would look antiquated in wider pastures.

“Rather than jockey for the ‘correct’ aspect ratio for a given film, we should respect the multiplicity of possible answers suggested by material circumstances of the exhibition sector.

“During the transition to widescreen and again today in the waning days of the multiplex, the intended ratio (whether conjectured, intuited, or proven on paper) often ran up against the constraints imposed upon (and often by) the exhibitor. In the tumultuous year of 1953, studios weighed and hedged against various technological innovations (widescreen, 3-D, curved screens, magnetic sound, etc.) and announced new in-house aspect ratios before the autumn unveiling of Fox’s The Robe in Cinemascope and high-fidelity, four-track surround sound.

“Until the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers standarized non-anamorphic American productions to 1.85:1, the studios released product in a variety of ratios. RKO and Paramount preferred 1.66:1. Disney and United Artists suggested 1.75:1. Columbia and Warner Brothers put out 1.85:1 product. Universal-International released 2:1. These prints often looked identical to the naked eye, with the different ratios being entirely dependent on the proper lens and aperture plates for the projector. Surely these ratios prevailed at studio screening rooms but were these dictates respected anywhere else?

“Cinemascope was itself an expensive proposition, with many showmen balking at the high cost of equipping a theater for magnetic sound. Did exhibitors, historically disinclined to spend a cent more than necessary to get an image on screen, invest in equipment for all these variant ratios, especially when the anamorphic Cinemascope was the only one that carried any name recognition with the public?

“Paramount allowed its VistaVision prints to be shown at a number of different ratios, as the conceit of the brand had more to do with high-quality origination on an enlarged camera negative than with the final shape on screen. Anyone who’s seen an original 35mm IB Technicolor print from VistaVision elements will likely agree with Paramount’s reasoning.

“Aside from the investment in lenses, plates, and masking controls for these competing widescreen ratios, what of the inherent limitations of theater architecture? Whether working in former legitimate houses or purpose-built cinemas, the exact ratio on screen was often determined by relatively pedestrian factors like the throw distance between the projectors and the screen, the focal lengths of available lenses, the shape of the proscenium, the constraint of the curtain, and the pictorial sensibility (or lack thereof) on the part of the management. “

A failing aspect-ratio grade is hereby given to Sony Home Video’s new Bluray of The Caine Mutiny, and particularly to Sony’s restoration guy Grover Crisp for approving a 1.85 masking of a film that was absolutely intended to be seen in a 1.33 or 1.66 to 1 aspect ratio.

Image from the recently released Bluray of Edward Dmytryk‘s The Caine Mutiny.

Same scene (although perhaps not same shot) with boxier cropping. What do we gain as viewers from not seeing a bit more sky, and a fuller view of the lecturn that Humphrey Bogart is standing behind?

Wider aperture plates were only just being introduced to theatres in 1953 and ’54 with The Robe, the very first CinemaScope film, debuting in ’53 and the need to simulate widescreen images relatively new. The Caine Mutiny was released on 6.24.54, and there’s no way in the world that Caine dp Franz Planer expected viewers to see this film within a 1.85 frame. Okay, maybe some stickler exhibitors in New York and Los Angeles might have projected it with 1.85 aperture plates, but Planer knew that most of the country would be looking at a boxier version. And Crisp knows that.

George Stevens‘ Shane was also shot in 1.33 and released only about 15 months before The Caine Mutiny, and you can bet no one at Paramount Home Video ever considered putting that classic on DVD with a 1.85 or 1.66 to 1 aspect ratio. Not a chance. You can bet that the people mastering the Gaumont Bluray of Jules Dassin‘s Rififi, which had its European debut in 1954, never dreamt of masking it off at 1.85.

Loyal Griggs‘ Shane cinematography won an Oscar, and I recall Pauline Kael writing that it was thought to be some kind of sick joke that the tops and bottoms of his images had been severed with a fake panoramic cropping of 1.66 to 1 when Shane played at the Radio City Music Hall.

The 1.85 Caine Mutiny Bluray is following the lead of the two or three DVD versions that came out between ’98 and ’07. The VHS and laser disc versions of The Caine Mutiny presented the film at a full 1.33 to 1 aspect ratio, which made it look very handsome indeed. But you know the old story. People want their 16 x 9 high-def screens to be completely filled when they watch their Blurays so the tops and bottoms were chopped off and to hell with what Planer and director Edward Dmytryk wanted people to see.

This is the worst mis-masking of a Bluray since Psycho, which also should have been released in 1.33. Or at least in two versions — 1.33 and 1.85.

I don’t believe for a second that Crisp would approve a 1.85 cropping of On The Waterfront, which was released on 7.28.54, or a month after The Caine Mutiny. And I don’t think Crisp would be crazy enough to approve a 1.85 masking of the long-delayed Bluray of From Here To Eternity, which opened in August of ’53. Can you imagine the outcry if a 1.85 cropping of Eternity on Bluray was released? But a 1.85 cropping of The Caine Mutiny draws nary a peep.

The answer to the Touch of Evil aspect-ratio controversy contained in the release of the 50th anniversary DVD is simple, and shame on those who would needlessly complicate it. All 1950s film that were captured with a protected aspect ratio of 1.37 to 1 should always be mastered for DVD at that aspect ratio. Or at least at 1.66 to 1. I can’t over-emphasize how despicable I find 1.85 to 1 croppings of Eisenhower- and Kennedy-era films.

There is no aesthetic benefit at all — zero — to chopping the tops and bottoms off an image that was protected for 1.37 to 1. The reborn Gordon Gekko’s new slogan: Tall and boxy is good. It harms no one to release a taller fuller image. The DVD distributors are simply looking to put out an image that fits within 16 x 9 aspect ratio of high-def plasma and LCD screens. They want everything to be “wide.”

Don’t believe so-called experts who claim that 1.85 was the projection norm in the ’50s — it wasn’t absolutely. It was 1.66 to 1 here and there, and 1.85 here and there; it was even 1.37 here and there. Why have so many ’50s and ’60s films been masked for laser disc and DVD at 1.66 to 1? For the hell of it? Remember the travesty of Shane, shot in 1.33 (or 13.7) to 1, and then projected in theatres at 1.66 to 1 to accomodate the then-new appetite for wider-screen imagery? The same kind of revisionist horseshit has been happening for years in the DVD market.

HE reader Robert Hunt contends that Hollywood historian Richard Maltby, writing in his book “Hollywood Cinema” (which I’ve read but have no copy of right now), argued that “1.85 wasn’t accepted as the standard aspect ratio by the SMPTE until 1960.”

Some Came Running‘s Glenn Kenny was written about this in a fashion that I find a little too laissez-faire. Here it is:

“The facts are these: Director Orson Welles and cinematographer Russell Metty shot Touch of Evil in the so-called ‘Academy ratio’ of 1.37:1. And…well, actually, as far as the universally accepted facts are concerned, that’s where they end.

“There is plenty of documentation attesting that it was Universal Studios policy, mid-1953 or so, to have all their releases theatrically projected at the wider 1.85:1 ratio, via a ‘hard matte’ (a plate with a rectangular opening placed in front of the projector’s lens), with the Academy ratio reserved for TV airings of films (1.37 fitting almost exactly correctly on old-style television screens).

“Kehr’s commenters include a great number of folks who have seen Touch of Evil screened theatrically at 1.37. Did the projectionist make an error? Is the documentation concerning Universal’s policy wrong? Did Welles and Metty compose for 1.37 without realizing that the film would be projected at 1.85?

“A lot of questions with no, apparently, definitive or cut-and-dried answers. What is sure is that the new Touch of Evil edition offers three versions of the film–the compromised but still absolutely classic theatrical release, a ‘preview’ edition that hews closer to Welles’ vision than the eventual theatrical release, and the ingenious, controversial 1998 ‘restored’ version put together by scholar/preservationists Rick Schmidlin and Jonathan Rosenbaum — all in 1.85. Former Cahiers du Cinema critic Nicolas Saada calls this a ‘disaster’ over at Dave’s site.

“A host of others, who are also discussing the decision over at the Criterion forum, point to the evidence apropos Universal’s policy. The Lafayette Theater’s Pete Appruzzese, a man I defer to in all manners technical, says he’s run Touch of Evil in both 1.37 and 1.85 and that to his eye the 1.85 version is correct. Dave Kehr feels the 1.85 version looks ‘tight.'”

Then again Kenny wrote the following within Kehr’s talkback section: “Let’s start a collection to raise enough money so that Craig and the MOC guys can convince Universal to license them Touch of Evil for a Blu-ray MOC release in 1.33. Put me down (seriously) for $500 in support.”

Here’s a German comparison site, copied from Dave Kehr’s TOE page.

There’s no earthly reason to believe or presume that Welles and Metty would have preferred that Touch of Evil be seen by future generations in a 1.85 to 1 aspect ratio. Any idiot can look at the 1.37 version on tape and the new cropping and come to this conclusion. There is a word for the 1.85 cropping on the just-out three-disc DVD set, and that word is “vandalism.”

Kingdom‘s Lure

A few days ago a story about alleged right-wing disdain for Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven (20th Century Fox, 5.6) appeared in the London Times. **

The paper’s L.A. correspondent John Harlow reported that “Christian hostility” to the film (the righties don’t like it that some of the Crusaders are portrayed as selfish and “mean-spirited,” and they really don’t like it that Saladin, the Muslim military leader, is portrayed in “chivalrous” terms) may prove “damaging” at the box office.

Orlando Bloom during relatively early scene in Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven.

Harlow wrote that “a spate of hostile reviews are due to appear in the increasingly influential religious press this week [that] will urge America’s 80 million born-again believers to avoid the $130 million film.”

Trust me — the righties are loony. One of the things I admire about Kingdom of Heaven is that it doesn’t draw crude stereotypes and is fairly even-handed in its portrayals of Christians and Muslims. Christian foam-at-the-mouth views about this are agenda-driven and skewed.

I wonder, in any case, if fans of The Passion of the Christ care all that much about the reputations of Christian Crusaders? As Revolution Pictures exec (and former 20th Century Fox distribution chief) Tom Sherak says, “That [Times] story is interesting but you know something? If people want to go to a movie, they’re going to go to it.”

And yet it’s significant, I feel, that the right-wing Christians vs. Kingdom of Heaven story is being seen as some kind of good thing. Controversy creates curiosity and leads to ticket sales, etc.

Others suspect it may be a case of too little, too late. The fact is that Ridley Scott’s big-budget epic — a beautifully made, epic-styled drama about the Muslim siege of the Christian-defended Jerusalem in the 12th Century — is looking to number-watchers and data crunchers like a passable performer, at best.

Before I get into this, let me say one thing: forget all this crap and just go. If you’re a fan of fine pageant-level filmmaking, Kingdom of Heaven is an essential. What do you care what others think?

That said, I think it’s fair to ask, as other journalists have done, whether Kingdom of Heaven will do better domestically than Hollywood’s last three historical battle epics — Alexander, King Arthur and The Alamo — which all turned out to be duds.
Especially considering that Heaven opens only a week from today (5.6) and research data suggests that average-viewer interest isn’t where it should be.
How many people really know what Kingdom of Heaven is about, given that the basic story comes off as a bit vague in the trailers?
How many people out there give that much of a toss about the Crusades, or have a clue what they were about?
How big of a mainstream draw is the film’s star, Orlando Bloom? He rules with 15 year-old girls but does he mean anything to the 25-and-over crowd?
Is Kingdom going to be a Troy-styled success, with modest returns in the U.S. but double-sized or better grosses overseas?

Bloom and Kingdom costar Eva Green.

Ask around and opinions vary. Some marketing executives are pessimistic or doubtful; others are uncertain or mildly positive.

A senior marketing executive based at a major studio said a couple of days ago that audience interest in Kingdom of Heaven is, according to tracking data, not that great.

“It’s hard to say what [Fox marketing] could be doing differently at this point,” he said. “But if I were handling this film, I would definitely be very nervous at this point. It’s a difficult story line to communicate…the biggest problem they have is communicating that. But it’s not over until it’s over.”

“I don’t have any delusion that this movie is going to be a colossal blockbuster, but you’ve got to watch the numbers every day,” a seasoned box-office analyst said Friday morning. “If the numbers don’t move after this weekend, they’re in trouble. If they do move, they’ll be fine.”

Two days ago an executive from a marketing boutique agency said, “What’s making me happy about Kingdom of Heaven is that it seems to have a solid older audience, which means it’s the kind of film that won’t drop a lot. People are going to go to it over a period of weeks, and interest among the four quadrants — young males and females and older males and older females — is averaging about 39, which is fairly good. So I don’t think you can count ’em out.”

“Right now, this movie is positioned somewhere in between where Gladiator, King Arthur, Troy and The Last Samurai were,” said Sherak. “This movie is really about Ridley Scott. The question is, will it have any heat going into the marketplace next week? It isn’t Gladiator, but right now the numbers are solid.”

A veteran marketing executive disagrees. He says the film “is an ill-conceived project and it stars Orlando who? Think of Master and Commander without Russell Crowe. The title is lousy, the ending doesn’t work, the creative materials don’t tell you anything, they don’t have an advance-review campaign underway, it sounds like a three-snore picture and I’m telling you that the Fox people are worried sick.”

It was suggested during research on this story that I examine “comparables” to get an idea how Kingdom of Heaven is doing compared to the awareness and interest levels in Gladiator, King Arthur, Troy and The Last Samurai one week before their respective openings.

The figures come from a private industry tracking service called Cinesys, which provides its data to clients through National Research Group (NRG).

Based on telephone polling, it measures levels of unaided awareness (i.e., people knowing about a film without being told what its title is), general awareness, definite interest, and whether or not seeing this or that film is a first-choice selection.

As of today (Friday, 4.29), one week before opening, Kingdom of Heaven‘s unaided awareness is at 4%, general awareness is at 65 %, definite interest is at 40 % and 7% of the respondents called it a first-choice selection.

A marketing guy says, “One week from the opening and a 7% first choice for a movie of this cost and stature is toilet time, no matter how you look at it.”

One week before its 7.7.04 opening, King Arthur‘s unaided awareness was 4%, general awareness was at 76%, definite interest was at 48%, and 6% called it a first-choice selection. I don’t have the whole spreadsheet before me, but the IMDB says that King Arthur took in just over $51 million domestic.

The next three films had big stars in the lead role, so take these comparisons with a grain of salt.
One week before its 5.14.04 opening, Troy‘s unaided awareness was 17%, general awareness was 84%, definite interest was at 59%, and 18% called it a first-choice selection. Troy took in $133 million in the U.S., but the foreign totals were at least double that.

One week before its 5.5.00 opening, Gladiator‘s unaided awareness was 6%, general awareness was 75%, definite interest was 44%, and first choice was at 13%. It ended up with about $187 million domestic and a very healthy overseas gross.

One week before its 12.5.03 opening, The Last Samurai‘s unaided awareness levels were at 9%, general awareness was 81%, definite interest levels were at 42%, and first choice was at 6%. It was a groaner, but it wound up making $111 million domestic.

One way to build up interest in a high-profile film is to run advance rave reviews from major critics or get Time or Newsweek to run a feature story a week or two out. This hasn’t happened.

A friend tells me he heard a Kingdom of Heaven radio ad this morning that used a plug from CNN talk-show host Larry King. If that isn’t a sign of trouble, I don’t know what would be.

I disagree with the marketing veteran’s notion that Kingdom of Heaven ‘s ending doesn’t work.

I’ll repeat what I said in my 4.18 column: “Has there ever been a big expensive film about warring armies in which one side didn’t triumph absolutely? In which the loser wasn’t totally beaten down and slaughtered?

“I felt amazed and lifted up when this didn’t manifest…when life and sanity, in effect, is chosen over death and fanaticism.

And I think Orlando Bloom acquits himself in the lead role. Grimy and unshaven, he stands up and shoulders his responsibility like a man.
In the previous piece I called Heaven “a textural masterpiece” and “a big-canvas historical drama that dares to be different. It’s a complex and unusual thing… and what got me is the beauty of the brushstrokes. That and the avoidance of the usual usual.”

I’m seeing it again tonight and I`m looking very much forward to this. I only wish more people felt the same way.

Hold On…

There’s some kind of confusion about whether Focus on the Family film critic Bob Waliszewski is leading some kind of San Juan Hill charge against Kingdom of Heaven. It’s been suggested by Fox publicity sources that John Harlow of the London Times may not have it right, but I’m not sure either way because I can’t reach him.
In any case Fox sent me a statement from Bob Smithouser, editor of a site called Plugged In, which casts doubt upon the Waliszewski angle:
“Due to one journalist’s recent misrepresentation of Bob Waliszewski’s comments regarding the new Ridley Scott film Kingdom of Heaven, some people have been misled to believe that Focus on the Family is rallying forces against the movie. That’s simply not true.”
“Mr. Scott’s film about the Crusades actually deserves credit for carefully avoiding the wholesale vilification of either Christians or Muslims. While people of faith may object to individual moments, statements or characters in Kingdom of Heaven, the movie is not extreme or malicious, and we are content to let it succeed or fail on its own merits.”
This has no bearing on the marketing data aspects of my lead article about Kingdom of Heaven. I could rewrite the damn thing and just cut out the right-wing stuff at the beginning, but it’s easier to do it this way…for now.

Crop Calls

I absolutely swear to God there’s a great-looking Warner Home Video DVD of Elia Kazan’s A Face in the Crowd (1957) hitting stores a week from Tuesday (5.10).
It has terrific monochrome values, I mean…sharp and super-clarified and almost color-like in their fullness.
There’s only one problem: WHV technicians have cropped the image too tightly and presented it in what looks to me like a 1.85 (or 1.78) to 1 aspect ratio, with too many hairdos and foreheads sliced into for no reason.
A Face in the Crowd was photographed by Harry Stradling, who started out in the 1920s, shot A Streetcar Named Desire and ended his career working on a string of ’60s Barbra Streisand movies, including Funny Girl and Hello Dolly.

A scene from John Frankenheimer’s The Train, presented in more-or-less correct 1.66 to 1 aspect ratio on the MGM/UA Home Video DVD. Notice the sense of visual balance and breathing space around everyone’s head.

An early scene from Elia Kazan’s A Face in the Crowd, presented with an overly severe aspect ratio (seemingly 1.85 to 1) on an upcoming (5.10) Warner Home Video DVD. Notice the top of the frame scissoring into Andy Griffith’s pompadour.

Trust me when I say that old-fashioned guys like Stradling never used the top of the frame to crop into people’s heads, unless there was an emotional or compositional point to be made by doing so.

DVDs of almost all non-Scope movies shot in the 1950s and ’60s should be presented with 1.66 to 1 aspect ratios. I don’t care if the dp on a certain ’50s or ’60s film composed the shots with an expectation that 1.85 aperture plates would be used in theatres (because 1.85 was being used back then) — just use 1.66 and don’t think about it and don’t get creative and just shut up.

That is, except for special-dispensation films like Shane and Dr. Strangelove, which look much better when presented with a full-frame aspect ratio of 1.33 or 1.37 to 1.

MGM/UA Home Video’s DVD of John Frankenheimer’s The Train does it right. There’s a perfect sense of balance and proportion in every shot, and here are no scenes with anyone’s hair or forehead sliced into except when this kind of shot is appropriate and intended.

Sticks and Stones

There’s a scene in Lawrence of Arabia that comes just after General Allenby (Jack Hawkins) tells his artillery officers to bomb the hell out of the Turks. “Pound them, Charlie…pound them,” he says.
Cut to Lawrence (Peter O’Toole) and Ali (Omar Sharif) riding their camels at the head of the Arab army at night, looking at the flashes of artillery fire on the horizon and listening to the distant thunder. “God help them,” says Ali. “They’re Turks,” says an unconcerned Lawrence. “God help them,” Ali repeats.

It’s 11:55 pm on Tuesday night, Oliver Stone’s Alexander opens tomorrow, and the Rotten Tomatoes artillery is raining death upon it. When a movie gets hammered this hard, my tough-guy thing goes out the window and I start feeling all soft and mushy. “Poor Oliver,” I hear myself saying. “He tried so hard, wanted so much to make this film great.” Forget it, most of my colleagues are saying. He’s fried, he’s over, the movie’s a mess. “He tried so hard,” I repeat.
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All right, Alexander is a mess. There’s no way around that. You don’t need to hear any details from this corner. Go to Rotten Tomatoes…it’s amazing. The page is soaked in green. 37 pans out of 43 reviews.
“It’s one of the greatest adventure tales of all time,” Stone told the Toronto Sun ‘s Bruce Kirkland the other day. “It’s equal to Sinbad or any of them. You would have to say that this guy outdid Achilles, he outdid Jason, he outdid Dionysus. He’s a god! And the guy did it in his lifetime. It’s a great story.”
But it’s not a great story. That’s the odd thing about it. It’s a military saga writ large, a fascinating ancient myth, a tale of great hunger and ambition and mother-loathing and competing with dad…but a great story it’s not. Not the one that Stone tells, at least. But I still worship Rosario Dawson’s breasts.
I have this half-formed idea kicking around in my head about the fact that Stone started thinking about making a movie about Alexander the Great 30 years ago, and then spent major portions of the past 15 years working to bring his story to the screen.

Maybe sometimes when a film stews inside a filmmaker for too long, it becomes too big like some swollen oversized fetus, and gets all caught up in itself with the umbelical cord wrapped around its neck, and a successful delivery is impossible. This happened also with Toys, Barry Levinson’s long-delayed dream movie.
And yet Clint Eastwood’s years-long effort to make Unforgiven turned out splendidly. But then Clint didn’t write it or work it through in his head (that was David Webb Peoples’ job), so maybe that’s a different deal.
I wrote a big report on Alexander the Great for my Ancient and Medieval History class when I was twelve or thirteen. I really wanted this movie to work. I’m not happy that it doesn’t.
I was even mildly disappointed by the big battle scene between Alexander’s troops and the much larger forces of the Persian king Darius. I was expecting a battle pumped up with adrenaline and ecstasy and all kinds of Oliver craziness, but Stone doesn’t handle it that much better than Robert Rossen did in the 1956 Richard Burton version. And Rossen shot his version without title cards.
I was also surprised to learn that the Persian king’s name, according to Stone’s film, is pronounced Dar-EYE-us. Wow, I’ve been saying it wrong my whole life.

Palookaville

The single overriding concern henceforth for any journo writing about Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby (Warner Bros., 12.17, limited), even cryptically, is to not spill the plot. That means don’t even hint at it…right?
I went into Monday night’s screening expecting some kind of Clint riff on Girlfight, and it is that for the first 100 minutes or so….but then it turns and does something else and it’s like “whoa, daddy…oh, man” time. It hits you like a freight train and leaves you saddened and bent over and coping with the backwash.
Before seeing it the night before last I didn’t know anything about the source material — “Rope Burns: Stories From the Corner”, a short-story collection by the late fight manager and cutman Jerry Boyd, who wrote under the pen name of F.X. Toole — and not one iota of buzz had gotten through. It’s a great thing to see a good movie cold.

Okay, I’m warming it up a little for the readership, but I’m holding my water. I don’t trust critics to keep their hint-hint instincts at bay, so play it safe and put on your blinders and don’t read any reviews on opening day. See it first, I mean.
Repeating my WIRED praise, Baby is a major art film. It is in the same realm of accomplishment and penetration as Clint’s Unforgiven, and may be his best film ever. In the view of at least one major critic who attended Monday’s screening, it emphatically is that.
It follows that it’s an Oscar contender on several fronts — Best Picture, Best Director (Eastwood), Best Actor (Eastwood), Best Actress (Hilary Swank). I’m not alone on this — the four or five serious journos I’ve spoken to who’ve seen it are all seriously impressed. Nobody’s hedging.
All right, one former critic I spoke to was shaking his head, but mainly because he wanted to see something else.
My kids, I fear, are going to be reluctant to see it, much less embrace it. It’s as far away from an MTV heebie-jeebie movie as you can get. Eastwood may be the only major director left in this industry who paces his films without regard to velocity for its own sake…..who just lets his stories unfold according to their own speed. Baby takes its time but it gets where it’s going.
The widescreen cinematography by Tom Stern (Mystic River, Blood Work) is straight and unpretentious, but I love the more-than-occasional detours it takes into darkness and shadows. It felt to me like the return of Gordon Willis or Gregg Toland in their respective heydays.
All the hoo-hah means that Swank is once again up against Annette Bening — they faced each other before in the ’99 race when Swank’s Boys Don’t Cry performance beat out Bening’s in American Beauty.

What’s partly amazing about Million Dollar Baby is how quickly it was thrown together.
I’m told it went into production only last August 1 and wrapped in late October, or something close to that. The script by Paul Taggis (who also wrote and directed Crash, one of the hits of last September’s Toronto Film Festival…which Lions Gate is opening next year) was, I’m told, put into production only a couple of months after Eastwood first read it. Eastwood said okay, hired his cast, called up his crew people and said “let’s go, we’re doing this”…wham.
Here’s a letter from a guy named Kyle Long. He says he’s a legit screenwriter (sold a spec, gotten two jobs since) and not a Warner Bros. plant. I think I believe him:
“I saw this film last night at the DGA. Wow…what a movie! Thanks to the fact that the idiots at WB have yet to produce one trailer or commercial, I wasn’t that excited going in — I just thought it was some chick boxing flick, and who could get excited about that?
“But in my humble opinion, what I saw rivals Sideways as the best movie of the year.
“Without ruining it for you (if you haven’t seen it already), Million Dollar Baby is really two movies in one. The first is an excellent take on a kind of boxing movie that we’ve seen before. It’s funny and inspiring and it just works. The second movie (basically the third act) completely caught me by surprise and moved me to tears on several occasions.
“Based on what I’ve seen so far, it gets nominated in every major category and may be my favorite right now for Best Picture. Paul Haggis is a lock for best adapted screenplay. Eastwood (in his best performance…well, maybe ever) gets a nod, as does Hillary Swank and Morgan Freeman (is there another actor on the planet who delivers voice-over lines better?).

“Eastwood has hit his stride at 74…unbelievable.
“I really can’t believe how poorly a job Warner Bros. has done marketing this flick. I mean, I live in LA, work in the biz and I barely knew about it. Not only will this flick be a critical fave, but it could be a major hit as well (it will play everywhere). Meanwhile, the suits have decided to blow their wad on Alexander, which makes no sense at all.
“This biz can suck the creativity right out of you sometimes and if nothing else, movies like Million Dollar Baby and Sideways recharge me and remind me why I wanted to write movies in the first place. Just a great, great flick.”
I included Long’s rant about Warner Bros. publicity only to debunk this impression. The Burbank crew only just saw Baby a little while ago because Eastwood played it that way. True to form, the guy’s been holding his cards to his chest. Clint runs his own show on his own clock, and won’t be muscled into anything he doesn’t feel like doing.
So lay off WB marketing — they’re just playing cards they’ve been dealt.

Talking Funny

If there’s a choice, movie stars should steer clear of exotic accents unless they can do them perfectly. Sometimes it’s not even a good idea if they can.
For the most part U.S. audiences don’t want their name actors to try and be Laurence Olivier. Stars become stars partly because people like their unchallenging steadiness.
Exceptions crop up every now and then. Owen Wilson is a star because he’s Owen Wilson in everything he does — same delivery, same intelligent-stoner phrasing, no variations. And yet he manages a surprisingly good Kentucky accent in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. I’m impressed.

Renee Zellweger didn’t have a choice with Bridget Jones Diary: The Edge of Reason (Miramax, now dying in theatres everywhere). Bridget is a London working girl and that’s that. Zellweger went with what I remember was a passable English accent in the original Bridget Jones Diary three years ago, but some feel she fudges it in the sequel, and she’s taking a shellacking for this.
A less confident director than Mike Nichols might have asked Julia Roberts to go with a British accent for her performance as Anna, a divorced London-based photographer, in Closer (Columbia, 12.3). But he didn’t, wisely, and it’s fine.
You might think for a minute or two as this London-based drama begins, “Hey, she’s not sounding British”…and then you’ll forget about it. Roberts probably would have blown it if she’d tried. She’s not Cate Winslet.
Ancient-era period dramas can get away with any kind of accent as long as it’s uniform. I have no problem with Colin Farrell and his Macedonian officers speaking in Irish accents in Oliver Stone’s Alexander.
Same deal with Jesus Christ, John the Baptist and the twelve disciples sounding like New York-area goombahs in Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ — a uniform system. It’s also acceptable that Kirk Douglas and his slave army lieutenants in Spartacus use regular-guy American accents and their Roman opponents talk in British or cultivated mid-Atlantic accents.
As long as everyone sticks to the scheme…

Angelina Jolie’s Russian accent (Time critic Richard Corliss describes it as “crypto-Carpathian”) obviously goes against the system in Alexander. The idea, apparently, is to convey that she’s a Medusa snake woman who has no allegiances or agenda other than her own, but it threw me anyway. The campiness seemed overbaked.
Actors shouldn’t do medieval English history dramas without sounding vaguely like like they belong in the milieu, but half-assed attempts are worse than none at all.
Kevin Costner could have easily gotten away playing himself in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, but he went with a mid-Atlantic accent instead and seemed off-center all through the film. His Boston accent in Thirteen Days made me want to hit him, and I still flinch at the memory of his Jim Garrison Nyawlins-speak in JFK.
Clark Gable played Rhett Butler accent-free in Gone With the Wind, and it was one of his smartest moves ever. He would have sounded grotesque with an attempted Charleston drawl.
Even character actors need to watch their step with this stuff. Every time I watch Shane Elisha Cook, Jr.’s Alabama accent (“Ain’t no one runnin’ me off maaah cleem!”) makes me wince.

Blowing Town

This column is shutting down until Monday. I’ll be doing the Thanksgiving thing in Connecticut with my parents. I may tap out a WIRED item or two if boredom creeps in but don’t hold your breath.

Two Strangelove‘s

I said this in a short piece a few weeks ago but it’s gift-buying time so here goes again for good measure. Dr. Strangelove fanatics should think twice before buying Columbia Tristar Home Video’s 40th anniversary two-disc special edition, which hit stores three weeks ago.
The extras are great (four doc featurettes plus a quickie interview with former Defense Secretary Robert MacNamara, who never gets around to actually mentioning the film) but the presentation of the film isn’t right.
The problem is the decision by CTHV to present Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 black comedy in a matted 1.85-like format, with black bars on the top and bottom of the image.
In accordance with Kubrick’s wishes, it should be framed instead in a 1.33 to 1 aspect ratio with an occasional shifting to a rough 1.66 to 1. This is what you get on the still-purchasable CTHV Strangelove DVD that came out in February ’01. That’s why it’s the better buy, even if it doesn’t have as many extras as the new version.

On top of which I did a comparison of the ’04 and the ’01 versions on my TV set, and I swear the ’04 didn’t look as bright or sharp as the earlier version…even though it makes no sense that CHTV would degrade the quality.
Kubrick wasn’t into having his films shown in 1.85 matted formats. He was a full-frame type of guy, and you may have noticed that the full-frame images in his films really are full frame — not just 1.85 images with sides chopped off.
In any event, the framing on the ’01 DVD is quite beautiful, I feel, because of all the extra space in each shot. I don’t know why I just used the word “extra” because it looks just right — exquisitely framed and airy, and no boom mikes popping in.
The irony is that the Amazon.com description of the transfer of the 40th anniversary DVD explains exactly how it should look but doesn’t — or didn’t, to be precise, on the screener I was sent by CHTV a few weeks ago.
The Amazon copy reads, “Because this movie was originally shot using various aspect ratios, the proportions of the screen image will change periodically throughout the movie. This transfer (with its changing aspect ratio) was approved by director Stanley Kubrick himself.”
If anyone has a purchased copy of the 40th anniversary Strangelove that conforms to this standard (which would mean I was sent a screener that hadn’t been formatted correctly by accident), please write in and say so.

Prick Up Your Ears

Vikram Weet of Los Angeles was first to identify last Friday’s dialogue clips.
The “lesson in civics” in Clip #1 is spoken by Otto Kruger in Fred Zinneman’s High Noon; the lawman he’s speaking to is Gary Cooper. The interrogator in Clip #2 is Peter Sarsgaard in a third-act scene from Shattered Glass; the irritating little twinkle-toes with the nasal Toronto accent is Hayden Christensen; the dialogue in Clip #3 and Clip #4 is spoken by Gene Hackman and Jeanne Tripplehorn in Sydney Pollack’s The Firm.
Today’s clips are it for a week because there won’t be a new column on Friday, 11.26. Clip #1 is an actor of international renown using metaphor to lay some moves upon a young man he happens to fancy for the moment; Clip #2 and Clip #3 are two longish confessionals, one spoken by a despairing middle-aged character (and played by a certain Oscar-winning actor) and the other by a renowned Broadway character actor; and Clip #4 is an interrogation scene between a somewhat older woman and a teenage male.
Send in your answers before the holiday starts. I’ll post the winner on Wednesday, 12.1.

More Alexander

“I went to a recent screening of Alexander feeling reasonably sure that it would be superior to Troy, which it somewhat resembled. On the way out, however, I wasn’t at all sure that that’s the case.
“What was Oliver Stone thinking? Angelina Jolie as Colin Farrell’s mother? A mother who ages at least 20 years over the course of the story — which is set in a time when the average life expectancy was, what, maybe 35? — without so much as gaining a wrinkle or a gray hair?
“And all of Alexander’s men speaking in Irish accents? I would never have guessed Macedonia was a stone’s throw from Dublin.
“How about all the pointless flirting with that dancer who looked like he was auditioning for a remake of The Crying Game, or the irritating will-they-or-won’t-they? scenes with Farrell and Jared Leto?

“And what about those dozens of endless, stilted speeches that seemed to stop the film dead every time it needed a strong shot of adrenalin instead?
“And once again, Stone proves that in his world women exist only to be painted in the most vicious and unflattering colors. There are only two major female roles in the film: a demented, snake-charming man-eater of a mom, and an ill-tempered hottie whose few lines are dripping with venom.
“A few of the battle sequences were impressive (and most of the others were ruined by the shaky cinematography, which made the scenes in the Indian jungle stuff seem like Alexander and company had strolled into Jurassic Park by mistake) and the sets looked great…
“But what a horrible waste of Farrell: an inventive, charismatic actor is reduced to little more than a wide-eyed, slack-jawed mannequin, crowned with an amateurish dye job that reminded me of the girls in my junior high who tried to emulate Farrah Fawcett and failed miserably.
“The critics I saw it with were silently respectful for the first hour, but they eventually lost control and began giggling (and at times groaning) at the folly of it all. When Alexander gazed into the bowl of wine and saw the image of his mom as Medusa just about everyone in the room was roaring.
“Warners must be thanking Zeus that they’ve got Ocean’s Twelve and Phantom of the Opera to replace this one on first-run screens within the next few weeks. It’s gonna bomb but good.” — James, Portage, Minnesota.

Wes Speaks

To me, Wes Anderson was always this very smart, ultra-particular, vaguely dweeby guy who happened to be this great filmmaker. Then he evolved into this Manhattan clothes horse with his suits cut a tiny bit shorter and tighter than the norm. And now he’s got shoulder-length hair and a copy line next to his portrait on last week’s cover of Paper that says, “Wes Anderson makes us wet.”
He’s definitely morphed into this other person, and I guess all I’m saying is that it’s interesting when people you’ve known from an earlier stage in life spread out and adopt dramatic flourishes and all. It’s fascinating. In any case, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou is a seafaring adventure thing and kind of splashed all over with salt water…I guess that’s what the copywriter meant, in part.

Anderson and Zissou costars Owen Wilson and Jeff Goldblum did a q & a on Monday night after a Variety series screening at Hollywood’s Arclight theatre. I would have made it but I was off seeing Million Dollar Baby. Moderator Pete Hammond told me all about it the next day.
“[Wes] was very good, very upbeat, but there wasn’t anything that he really said that he hasn’t said before. I opened it by reading an interview he did three years ago when Tenenbaums came out, about what he wanted to do next. He said, ‘I want to do something with big sets and but at the same time smaller and more emotional with a doumentary feel,’ and that’s exactly what he did with Aquatic.
“I asked him this time what he’s going to do next, and he said, ‘I don’t know….I think I’m gonna do something in India.”
Oh, no…he’s thinking about doing a Bollywood film? Or some kind of deadpan comedy about some New York advertising guy who burns out and goes to an ashram in northern India and meets up with the corrupt and bisexual son of Mararishi Mahesh Yogi? The mere thought of Owen Wilson sitting in the lotus position gives me the willies.