"Eyes Wide Shut" unaltered to come to US (1 Viewer)

[Ken_McAlinden]

I want to see them the way that Kubrick wanted them presented. I can't understand anyone who professes to be an OAR advocate turning a blind eye and/or trying to rationalize away the director's expressed wishes about how his films are best presented.

In the spirit of Seth's last post, I hope that an uncut EWS is indeed on the horizon for R1 even though I may bleat like a sheep when I line up to triple dip on this one.

Regards,

 

[ArthurMy]

Ken, we'll simply have to agree to disagree. I cannot accept that Kubrick, a FILM director, ultimately only cared about how his films looked on laserdisc and VHS. He directed for the cinema. He knew what ratio his films would be projected in and that is how he and his cameramen framed them. That is the ONLY reality I need to know. Comments made for their home video releases in the early nineties (or before) hold no interest for me because those views may have changed if he'd known what was coming. I AM an OAR advocate, which is why I want to see the films the way they were shown in theaters at the time of their release. Do you not think a filmmaker of Kubrick's stature knew the reality of projection formats? Do you think had he wanted his films shown full-frame that he would have had them print a 1:33 image in the middle of a 1:85 print, which has been done with certain films. Do you think his editor and cameraman on The Shining are lying?

But, this argument will have no end until we get (which we will) widescreen versions of the later films. And if you don't think that Mr. Vitali or whoever, will have some justification for doing them, well, think again. At the very least, both versions, the intended theatrical ratio and then Kubrick's "preferred" versions ("preferred" over a decade ago) should be included. And you conveniently side-stepped the Lucas and Spielberg comparison. They are the directors of their films, so they are releasing their "preferred" versions, much to everyone's dismay, because what people seem to want is the film as they saw it on its initial release. Funny that.

 

[Richard Kim]

Please, can we leave Lucas and SW out of this thread? SOME people are dissatsified with the changes. Even those who want the original SW acknowledge that it's Lucas' right to do with his creations as he wishes.

 

[ArthurMy]

Richard, I only brought it up because of its obvious connection to what Ken and I were posting about. I think Ken has expressed his views as he sees them, and I've expressed mine, and hopefully we've both done it respectfully in terms of our language and content.

 

[Jack Briggs]

Arthur, it's called -- and I've mentioned this before -- "shoot to protect." Mr. Kubrick was appalled by how the BBC letterboxed 2001 and how NBC-TV panned and scanned it in 1977. The BBC used starfield-filled letterbox bars, and NBC's pan-and-scan treatment was just awful.

Since then, he shied away from shooting in widescreen, composing instead for both the commercial theater and home presentation in such a manner that nothing would be "lost" in either format. He played around a bit, going ever-so-slightly "widescreen" with Barry Lyndon while mixing things up a bit for The Shining. He settled for shooting at 1.37:1 for his final two films, which were to be matted in the commercial theaters.

What we're seeing at home is what he wanted us to see. That's good with me. Who are we to question Stanley Kubrick?

 

[ArthurMy]

Jack, with all due respect, I understand what "protecting" means. Everyone shoots that way in 1:85. You "protect" the frame so that it can be shown open matte on television if letterboxing isn't an option. But no amount of telling the same thing over and over is going to change the fact that Stanley Kubrick was a filmmaker who made films for the cinema. Why would he make a film in 1:33 or 1:37 (whichever you prefer) knowing it would be shown in 1:85 theatrically? Because the implication is that he was making his films for home video. Me no believe. I think, way back ten plus years ago, what he was saying was that for home video THEN his preference was full-frame transfers of the later films which didn't have mattes. But, as his editor and cameraman on The Shining have repeatedly said, he framed that film for 1:85 and their word is good enough for ME. As I said, the clear answer is to provide both ratios on one DVD. That way we get to see the ORIGINAL theater framing, and his "preferred" home video framing (circa 1990).

Mind you, I'm happy to have nice-looking transfers of these films.

 

[Sean Patrick]

arthur -

well stated.

while the 4:3 remastered dvd's are surely beautiful, there is no doubt these films were made knowing they would be shown a certain way in theaters, then another way on TV. And there's nothing wrong with those of us who prefer to see that first version on our tv.....

 

[Vincent-P]

The new Dr. Strangelove disc is NOT 1.66 anamorphic. I don't know where you people are getting this from, I haven't seen it said anywhere else that it's 1.66...it's 1.33 like it's supposed to be. Strangelove has always been a 1.33 movie. Here's the info straight from the horse's mouth:

http://www.sonypictures.com/homevide...396026162.html

"DVD FEATURES

• Full Screen Presentation
• Languages: English (Dolby Digital 5.1/DTS), French
• Subtitles: English, Chinese, French, Korean, Thai
• Deluxe 2 Disc Set
• Feature presented in original theatrical aspect ratio
• Documentary: The Art of Stanley Kubrick from Short Films to Strangelove
• Inside the Making of Dr. Strangelove
• Original split-screen interview with Peter Sellers and George C. Scott
• Original advertising gallery
• Talent Files
• Production Notes"

 

[Richard Kim]

So it looks like the 40th anniversary DVD will be full frame AND widescreen.

 

[nolesrule]

double post

 

[nolesrule]

Even as recently as 1999 when Eyes Wide Shut was released, DVDs were not a mainstream format and widescreen TVs were not nearly as accepted as they are today. VHS culture demanded pan & scan for every title, and letterbox was a rarity.

Kubrick's open-matte stance was his reaction to not having control over how his films were shown on television and possibly VHS home video. Open-matte was the technology available to him at the time that allowed him to control both the big screen and small screen formats. I'm sure that due to advancement in home video technology (both medium and display), Mr. Kubrick would have been able to release his films to the public on DVD exactly as he would have wanted by taking advantage of increasingly popular and larger anamorphic displays and DVDs.

Unfortunately, he passed away before his input could be given.

 

[Vincent-P]

Yeah, but Ron's info comes from a press release and is less current than the website. Remember, Columbia's press release for the Gidget collection said it would be presented in it's original CineScope dimensions for the first time, and then the DVDs turned out to be full screen. It may turn out to be 1.66, but I highly doubt it. They have no real reason to change the aspect ratio, especially when everything I have ever read says it is SUPPOSED to be 1.33 (and this is different than Kubrick saying he prefers 1.33 for The Shining, etc). I have never heard of Dr. Strangelove being 1.66.

 

[ArthurMy]

Vincent - I hate to be the one to break it to you but at the time of Dr. Strangelove's release there were only a handful of cinemas in the US that could even SHOW 1:33. I saw Dr. Strangelove the day it opened - sorry to tell you it was in 1:85 not 1:33 or 1:66. It was probably 1:66 in England as that was their standard then. I followed Dr. Strangelove from theater to theater in New York and it was always 1:85. I understand that many of the people who post here did not see these films on their initial releases, as their parents were probably barely past puberty back then. So, you are relying on what you read on the internet, never a safe bet. The reality, whether anyone wants to accept it or not, was that the standard "flat" ratio for films from the mid to late fifties on was 1:85. I remember in the late sixties going to some classic films that were being shown in New York and they were all 1:33 films which were projected in 1:85 because they didn't have the ability to do otherwise. In the case of a couple of musicals, it was a joke because the dancer's feet were simply gone from the frame.

 

[Vincent-P]

Arthur, you probably do know better than I. I was just going by what I had read. So now, I wonder...if it was projected at 1.85 everywhere you saw it, why is the new presentation 1.66?

 

[Seth Paxton]

I assume in such cases that 1:66 satisfies the theatrical release ratio for England and since that is just as valid as the American theatrical release ratio this is what they went with.

Perhaps he preferred the English matting ratio?


Clearly it doesn't appear that we are headed to any new info on the EWS release I guess.

 

[Vincent-P]

Well, we know what he REALLY preferred was the range of 1.33 with shifting ratios.

 

[Ken_McAlinden]

There is no basis in fact for this assumption.

Widescreen letterbox presentations have been around on video for quite some time, pre-dating DVD by several years. On transfers for which Kubrick has been consulted, all he has ever asked to do is to show the full exposed image whether there were in-camera mattes (in which case it was letterboxed) or not.

If he preferred the 1.85:1 ratio, but was concerned about the resolution of home video, he would gain nothing by unmatting, since the 1.85:1 center part of the frame would be represented by exactly the same number of scan lines as if it were letterboxed. He did not suggest that anyone alter the framing of 2001 or Spartacus for home video, so the resolution limitations were not a factor.

The only explanation that makes any sense given the facts and record is that he recognized that a wide theatrical release was only feasible at the 1.85:1 ratio, composed his last three films to work at this ratio, but protected them for the 4:3 ratio which he aesthetically preferred. This also happens to jibe with what Leon Vitali has said in interviews.

I believe that there have been Kubrick retrospectives where the projectionist has been instructed to show films that were matted to 1.85:1 during wide theatrical release unmatted as well, but I don't have specific references at my fingertips.

BTW, I'm willing to stop talking about this if everyone else is.

Regards,

 

[Dan Hitchman]

Ken,

Kubrick didn't have Spartacus or 2001 re-framed because it would have caused a loss of almost 40% of the picture. Both were shot in 65mm and the frame is naturally widescreen at 2.20:1.

All of his other films were shot flat on 35mm stock (with Dr. Strangelove being a mixture of different qualities of film and stock footage, some even 16mm I believe).

You have to remember that Kubrick was a bit of an odd duck and video and TV confused him quite a bit (and the studios didn't always respect his films when transferring them and he was upset with that too). From various interviews from the past he didn't seem quite comfortable with it. If he had lived long enough to understand the ramifications of anamorphic enhancement for DVD's and now HDTV at up to 1920x1080p resolution, I betcha just about anything he would have wanted the theatrical aspect ratios (which his DP's, from their own words, composed to) preserved on home video.

Putting them out as "full frame" open matte was his way of compromising with VHS and laserdisc that didn't have much resolution to begin with (in actuality less than even DVD). He felt that if part of the necessary scan lines were taken up with black bars then you would lose too much.

This archaic way of looking at home video has now become a sort of doctrine for those trying to understand Kubrick's mind from beyond the grave.

 

[Ken_McAlinden]

Dan,
I think you missed most of the points I was making. I am also confident that Kubrick was not "confused" by video and TV. Kubrick never used the limited resolution of video as a justification for wanting to have the full exposed frame shown on video.

P.S. Although it doesn't materially alter Dan's point, Spartacus was not shot in 65mm. It was shot on 8-perf horizontally scrolling 35mm film in the "Super Technirama 70" process (sort of like VistaVision with an anamorphic squeeze) which is then used to make 70mm prints for exhibition.

Regards,

 

[AllanN]

Well four pages later of mostly useless debate on censorship and Kubricks preferred AR but no real news on an uncut r1 release. :frowning:

Maybe we can turn this around. Where is the best place currently to buy the R3 disk?