From: MKERBEL@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu (Michael)
Subject: Re: wide screen movies on TV (was INTOLERANCE)
Organization: Yale University
Date: Tue, 08 Sep 92 08:43:44 EDT

In article <01GOHSZI9MVM8WYKJ8@depauw.BITNET>
PARADOX@DEPAUW.BITNET writes:
 
>
>Friday, Michael Kerbel said:
>
>>  it should bother us that we are missing picture
>>  information on the sides, top and bottom.
>
>I'm not sure that I entirely agree.  Certainly, for films (relatively few)
>shot in wide-screen before the days of TV, this is true.  But, subsequent
>films (ones made in the US, anyway) are made in the awareness that they
>will be transferred to video tape, with framing decisions made relative to
>this awareness.
>
   Reply: 1. I don't understand your point about relatively few films shot in
wide screen before the days of TV.  If you are referring to films like THE BIG
TRAIL (1930), you are correct.  However, if you mean the Cinemascope era and
after (1953 on), you're right.  But in the 50s and even in the 60s,
filmmakers were not composing with TV in mind -- they had no idea that their fi
lms would end up on TV.  In addition, it wasn't until a dozen years ago that
home video really existed.  So maybe you really mean the films made since home
video became a reality (let's say 1979 or so).  While it is true that many
filmmakers have either composed with TV in mind or abandoned Scope processes
completely (what a shame!)this still doesn't mean that a film shot in a wide
screen process from 1979 on looks good on TV without letterboxing.  Also, what
about the hundreds of films made before then?  At the risk of using up too much
of the list's valuable band WIDTH -- here is a BRIEF list of films made in
various widescreen processes that are ruined if they're shown panned & scanned
(that is, not letterboxed).  This is just off the top of my head -- I am sure
that others could come up with many more.  In no particular order:
     Kubrick: 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY
     Altman: NASHVILLE, MCCABE AND MRS. MILLER, M*A*S*H, THE LONG GOODBYE
     Nicholas Ray: REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, BIGGER THAN LIFE
     Kazan: EAST OF EDEN
     Truffaut: THE 400 BLOWS, JULES AND JIM, SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER
     Spielberg: RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, JAWS, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THIRD KIND
     Minnelli: SOME CAME RUNNING, GIGI, HOME FROM THE HILL, LUST FOR LIFE
     Wilder: THE APARTMENT
     Coppola: APOCALYPSE NOW
     Lynch: BLUE VELVET
     Scorsese: CAPE FEAR
     Nichols: THE GRADUATE, CARNAL KNOWLEDGE
     Penn: THE CHASE, LITTLE BIG MAN
     Wyler: BEN HUR (the producers of the videotape even letterboxed the
      chariot race scene, because IT DIDN'T ONTO THE NORMAL TV ASPECT RATIO,
      although they chickened out and presented the rest of the film panned
      and scanned)
     Lean: DR. ZHIVAGO, LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (restored version is letterboxed)
     Kurosawa: THE HIDDEN FORTRESS, YOJIMBO
     Wadleigh: WOODSTOCK
     Ridley Scott: BLADE RUNNER, THELMA AND LOUISE
 
      I could go on and on.  I guess the simple answer is: if someone wants to
    watch any of these panned and scanned, go ahead, be my guest.  Otherwise
    invest in a laserdisc player and get the letterboxed discs (if you are
    luck enough to find them -- and in some cases, they are not even out yet
    letterboxed).  Incidentally, note that many of the movies listed above were
    made in the so-called TV era, including the past decade. -- M. Kerbel
 
>Louis Smogor  <paradox@depauw.bitnet>
 
 
 
 
 
 
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