I’m not calling the recently released Barefoot Contessa Bluray (Twilight Time) a problem, much less a mockery of a sham of a sham of a mockery of a sham. I haven’t seen it so what do I know? I know this: Twilight Time‘s decision to mask the film within a whacked-down 1.85:1 aspect ratio rather than the much more pleasant 1.33:1, which offers the usual extra headroom…the decision to do this is truly a shame. Really. A friend of DVD Beaver’s Gary W. Tooze has been quoted as calling this decision “a travesty…I’ve seen it in open matte in Academy ratio and to me it’s balanced perfectly that way. Thank goodness there’s a 1.33:1 DVD.” Yes, the 1.85 fascist view is that a mainstream studio film released on 9.2.54 should be cropped at 1.85, but that’s not what many others feel. Where is the harm in opening up this Joseph L, Mankiewicz film and letting it breathe? None…none whatsoever, and up above the ghost of Contessa dp Jack Cardiff would approve.
Last night I caught a screening of Bullitt at the American Cinematheque Egyptian. I was fearful when I read it would be shown in 35mm, but the print was fairly pristine. (If a wee bit faded.) And I was especiallly pleased that it was being shown in 1.66:1 — the finest non-Scope aspect ratio, the a.r. of the Godz, HE’s own, etc.
If one of the leading 1.85 fascists had been there with me (Bob Furmanek, say, or Pete Apruzzese), they would’ve sat bolt upright and said “whoa, wait a minute…theatres projected mainstream non-Scope studio films exclusively in 1.85 starting in mid-1953, and Bullitt was released in ’68 or 15 years after the big aspect ratio changeover so what is this?”
Bullitt in 1.66:1 as projected last night at the American Cinematheque Egyptian.
Same scene at 1.78:1 as presented on the Warner Home Video Bluray — the richer Bluray colors are par for the course.
I went to the lobby and asked to speak to the projectionist. The manager declined (there must be some ironclad rule about protecting projectionists from the rabble) so I asked if he’d ask the projectionist himself if Bullitt was indeed being shown at 1.66, and if so, why not the allegedly uniform standard of 1.85? I didn’t say “the 1.85 fascist cause hangs in the balance” but that’s what I was thinking. Nor did I say “Bob Furmanek and Pete Apruzzese are going to be very upset if you come back with the wrong answer.”
The manager returned three minutes later and said the projectionist wasn’t in the booth. So I went up to the balcony and noticed an older, cool-looking guy standing near the booth. “Are you the projectionist?” I whispered. ‘Yeah,” he said. “I think it’s really great that you’re showing this in 1.66,” I said. He said that 1.66 was a suggested format or that it looked best that way or something like that. I wanted to give him a hug. Every hateful emotion I’ve felt over the years while dealing with Furmanek, Apruzzese and the rest of those Home Theatre Forum fascists just flew away and were replaced by a feeling of warmth and comradeship.
There’s something about this clip from Full Metal Jacket that is very strange and almost alien-like, or at the very least un-reflective of life on the planet earth. Give up? The entire company is singing on-key — they’re hitting each and every note correctly, and they’re adhering to a steady tempo. Which never, ever happens when any group at a restaurant or party sings “happy birthday.” As I reported last week.
Yes, the image is cropped at 1.37:1, but that’s fine around these parts. As Christmas is a time of great affirmation and rejoicing, there are few things that give me a better feeling than the thought of the dwindling 1.85 fascist crowd (Bob Furmanek, Peter Abbruzzese, et. al.) suffering heart palpitations when they see a boxy image like this one.
Today is Angela Lansbury‘s 91st birthday — born on 10.16.25. So the scheming communist agent mother in The Manchurian Candidate wasn’t shot on that stage in the old Madison Square Garden but went on to a great career on the Broadway stage. Good for her! Lansbury was 36 or 37 when she portrayed the 33-year-old Laurence Harvey‘s mom, Eleanor Shaw Iselin, in that John Frankenheimer classic, which opened on 10.24.62 but was shot, I think, in early ’62. Lansbury has always been the spry, spirited type on stage, but Hollywood began casting her in middle-aged parts when she hit her late 20s and certainly by her early 30s.
Incidentally: In Richard Condon‘s 1959 novel of the same name, Mrs. Iselin has sex with her son Raymond (Harvey’s character). The film omitted this, of course, but the clip below ends with Lansbury giving Harvey a mouth-to-mouth kiss — a clear hint. This was probably the first time that incest was specifically alluded to in a mainstream Hollywood film.
“This 1960 picture, long considered lost, and newly restored courtesy of the bold indie distributor Cinelicious Pics, is a sex-crime thriller that teeters on the edge of morbidity before its galvanic climax. Seen today, it’s also a fascinating mélange of cinematic semiotics.” — from Glenn Kenny‘s 6.30 N.Y. Times review (“Once Lost, Private Property Is A Genuine Rediscovery”) of Private Property.
Leslie Stevens‘ 1960 film, which costars Corey Allen (“Buzz” in Rebel Without A Cause), Warren Oates and Kate Manx, will screen on Thursday (7.7) at the Aero.
I’ve never used “semiotics” in a review and I probably never will, but that’s okay — there’s no right or wrong way of conveying passion. I don’t recall having used “galvanic” either, but give me time.
Sidenote: The aspect ratio of the Private Property trailer seems to be 1.37, which is probably some kind of mistake, right? I’m sure that the film itself will be presented in 1.85. The 1.85 fascists have been explaining for years that almost all standard Academy-ratio films were projected at 1.85 from roughly 1954 onward. (Occasional detours into 1.66 happened from time to time, but 1.85 generally ruled the roost.) If Private Property is screened at 1.37 at the Aero I’m sure that Bob Furmanek or Pete Apruzzese will have an explanation.
Here’s an open-letter proposal addressed to the Academy, Quentin Tarantino‘s New Beverly Cinema and the programmers of the American Cinematheque’s Egyptian and Aero theatres to devote seven days to the glorious 1.66:1 aspect ratio. They don’t have to call it the Hollywood Elsewhere 1.66:1 Celebration Festival, but seriously…who else has stood up for 1.66:1 like I have? Who else has gone mano e mano with 1.85 fascists (Bob Furmanek, Pete Apruzzese) whenever a new Bluray of a 1950s or early ’60s comes out with a 1.78 or 1.85 aspect ratio? Who else has pleaded with Universal Home Video for a 1.66:1 aspect ratio for the forthcoming One-Eyed Jacks Bluray?
The idea would be to schedule this festival sometime in the dog days of August. It’ll create a lingering impression, a kind of stamp upon the bicoastal film culture. People need to be reminded that once there was a realm called 1.66, and that it was one of the most visually gratifying rectangles in the history of 20th Century cinema. Think of it — nothing but 1.66 films back to back for five or seven days straight! Plus a chance to correct previous Bluray mis-croppings (i.e., The Manchurian Candidate and A Hard Day’s Night Blurays presented at 1.75 but easily croppable at 1.66).
The following should be included: (1) Alfred Hitchcock‘s Psycho (easily croppable at 1.66 despite Universal Home Video’s decision to issue the Bluray in a “rape” aspect ratio of 1.78); (2) Roman Polanski‘s Repulsion; (3) Francois Truffaut‘s The Last Metro; (4) Wim Wenders‘ The American Friend; (5) Merchant-Ivory‘s A Room With A View; (6) Elia Kazan‘s On The Waterfront; (7) the first three James Bond films — Dr. No, From Russia With Love and Goldfinger; (8) Wong Kar Wai‘s Chungking Express; (9) Otto Preminger‘s Anatomy of a Murder (Criterion Bluray presented this 1959 pic within a 1.85 “rape” aspect ratio); (9) John Frankenheimer‘s The Manchurian Candidate, Seven Days in May and The Train; (10) Stanley Kubrick‘s Lolita, Dr. Strangelove, Barry Lyndon; (11) John Schlesinger‘s Sunday Bloody Sunday; (11) Clive Donner‘s What’s New, Pussycat?; and (12) Guy Hamilton‘s The Devil’s Disciple.
Ask any 1.85 fascist (like occasional HE commenter Pete Apruzzese) to explain the basic aspect-ratio laws and you’ll hear the same thing time and again: All non-Scope films released after the fall of 1953 should be presented at 1.85 unless otherwise specified by the director. They’ll allow for exceptions among some 1950s and early ’60s releases (various British films, United Artists releases) and/or when the director specifies 1.66 or 1.78 or whatever. But their general attitude is 1.85, 1.85 and 1.85 unless otherwise noted. Most of the 1.66 Bluray croppings are found in films from the ’50s and ’60s, but they begin to radically thin out when you move into the ’70s and beyond. (One glorious exception: the 1.66 aspect ratio of John Schlesinger‘s Sunday Bloody Sunday.) Which is why my heart soared when I noticed a 1.66 aspect ratio being used for the Criterion Bluray of James Ivory‘s A Room With A View (’86). The fact that the a.r. was approved by Ivory kills any pushback, but the thought of Apruzzese and Glenn Kenny and all the other 1.85 strict constructionists seething and gnashing their teeth is just heaven to me.
Two and a half months ago I insisted that the forthcoming One-Eyed Jacks Bluray, which is now being rendered by Universal senior vp technical operations Michael Daruty and Film Foundation vp Jennifer Ahn, has to be 1.66:1 and not the dreaded 1.85:1. Marlon Brando‘s film was shot with 8-perf VistaVision, which was more or less Paramount’s “house” process during the burgeoning widescreen days of the mid 1950s. VV delivered an in-camera aspect ratio of 1.5 but aspect ratios of 1.66:1, 1.85 and even 2:1 were allowed or recommended. Plus the Paramount laser disc of One-Eyed Jacks was cropped at 1.66 and that’s good enough for me. But these two clips (one after the jump) are cropped somewhere between 1.78:1 and 1.85:1, and to be fair and honest I must admit that they look decently framed. So I’m offering a 1.78:1 compromise, which I think is gracious on my part. I would prefer 1.66, of course, but there are still plenty of 1.85 fascist jackals insisting that adding a little extra height is somehow a bad thing, and I am only one person. So I’m willing to accept 1.78.
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, a boxy version of Stanley Kubrick‘s Lolita was issued on Criterion CAV laser disc. By this I mean a version that was partly presented in a 1.37:1 aspect ratio with occasional 1.66 croppings from time to time. Dr. Strangelove was also presented this way (1.37/1.66) on an early Columbia-TriStar Home Video DVD, back before the 1.85 fascists muscled their way in and started cleavering everything. Yes, I’m happy that the current Lolita Bluray is cropped at 1.66, but boy, would I love to get hold of a high-def version of that 1992 Criterion laser disc. You think Kubrick (whose birthday is being celebrated today) didn’t sign off on the boxy Lolita? Of course he did.
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.
Kino Lorber’s Bluray of Richard Brooks‘ Elmer Gantry pops on 9.23. I don’t know what the aspect ratio will be but I’m guessing 1.66:1, in keeping with the United Artists standard for non-Scope films of that period. (1.85 fascists need to acknowledge the 1.66 masking in the clip below.) If you’re a real movie star like Burt Lancaster was at the time, you can sell this scene. But you need a certain largeness of spirit and stand-up confidence. Who could do this scene today if Gantry were to be remade? Who could generate at least a semblance of this planted, here-I-am energy? Chris Evans? Chris Hemsworth? Give me a name. Update: See? No submissions.
Ignore the 1.85 aspect ratio info on Amazon’s Marty Bluray page. Why? Because it’s incorrect. I’ve been asleep at the wheel for the last month but in mid-June Kino Lorber vp acquisitions and business affairs Frank Tarzi announced a decision to issue the Bluray of Delbert Mann‘s Oscar-winning 1955 drama in the preferred Hollywood Elsewhere aspect ratio of 1.33 (or is it 1.37?). I love the smell of napalm in the morning, and especially when someone ignores the advice of aspect-ratio historian Bob Furmanek, who, if he had his druthers, would chop every standard-Academy-ratio 1950s film made after April 1953 down to 1.85. Being on the winning side of these battles is wonderful!
Look at the headroom in this frame capture from DVD Beaver’s review of Kino Lorber’s Marty Bluray, which streets on 7.29.
All the 1.85 fascists were hopping mad about this last month, and here I am just joining the party. Did I miss anything?
On June 7th I reported that KL’s Marty Bluray would be presented “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.” A month earlier aspect-ratio historian Bob Furmanek noted in a Home Theatre Forum post that (a) the Marty Bluray would (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.”
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