HTF DVD REVIEW: The Last Emperor - Page 2

Re: HTF DVD REVIEW: The Last Emperor

well at least i learned from that blog, The Ice Storm is being Criterioned.

Re: HTF DVD REVIEW: The Last Emperor

This is just craziness. When have 70mm prints EVER been framed at 2.35:1 or 2.33:1? 70mm has always been 2.21:1 for Todd-AO or Super Panavision 70, or films blown up to 70mm, be they shot in 35mm anamorphic or Super 35. The fact they even bring up 2.35:1 (let alone 2.33:1!?) when discussing 70mm prints suggest they are all a bit confused.

Re: HTF DVD REVIEW: The Last Emperor

Simon: Can you help me understand this (based on your quote below and mine)? I've never worked with movie film (either as a camerman or projectionist)...except for some inspired 8mm work as a teen with the family camera!

Re: HTF DVD REVIEW: The Last Emperor

You can find a few comparison shots in the DVD Beaver review.

You might also find my post over in the other thread of interest when you do your own comparisons.

_Man_

Re: HTF DVD REVIEW: The Last Emperor

I think Storaro has been taking lessons about revisionist history from George Lucas. If he intended Last Emperor to be 2.00:1 all along, why does the framing look OFF sometimes on the Criterion DVD? Makes no sense.

And as others mentioned, his decisions for ANow make him less credible in this case. He just has some weird boner for 2.00:1 DVDs, I guess. Man, can anyone else think of a cinematographer who prefers to see his original compositions CROPPED?

Re: HTF DVD REVIEW: The Last Emperor

Thanks for the review Matt, I have this in my Netflix queue

Re: HTF DVD REVIEW: The Last Emperor

The cropping is not terribly distracting unless you do a comparison like DVDBeaver did between the original and the cropped frames. But it is MAR nonetheless - a sort of film-maker sanctioned (and imposed) pan-and-scan. This issue aside, the theatrical version looks marvelous (for some reason the DVDBeaver caps don't do justice to the picture quality). I have not even scratched the surface when it comes to all the extras that this set is crammed with. And the package itself (I mean the actual digipak) is one of the most beautiful that I have ever seen for a DVD release. But I guess it better be for the $35-40 you end up paying for a single film when you can get a whole boxset from Warner for that price (containing as many as 10 films - take the Film Noir V4 set for example).

-D

Re: HTF DVD REVIEW: The Last Emperor

What Storaro and Bertolluci are struggling against is the fact there are no standardised camera or projection formats that have a 2.00:1 aspect ratio. So instead they want us to believe that they used 35mm anamorphic Technovision, which has a 2.4:1 A.R., but were composing for a 2.0:1 section inside of that format.

I think this is crazy for lots of different reasons. Wouldn't it of been easier to shoot 1.85:1, but crop the top and bottom? Or Super 35, and crop the top and bottom? It just doesn't add up shooting a film in 35mm anamorphic if you intend to hack off ~17% of the image. You are correct in saying that 70mm is closest to 2:1 without going under. Films projected from 70mm prints have a 2.21:1 aspect ratio. You can see an image from a piece of 70mm alignment film here. There are only two exceptions to this - Ultra Panavision films, which are anamorphic, so the ratio is 2.76:1.

The other exception is that it is possible to convert 1.85:1 films to 70mm by placing black bars down the sides of the 2.21:1 image, thus cropping away the width to produce the narrower ratio. This is not common, but it has been done for Jacques Tati's film Playtime, Cameron's Aliens, and I believe Spike Lee's film Malcolm X. Surely others can think of more 1.85:1 films blown up to 70mm prints.

If Storaro REALLY wanted to preserve the 2:1 aspect ratio of The Last Emperor on 70mm prints, they could've made such "non-standard" 70mm prints with bars down the sides. Thus cropping the 2.21:1 image down to 2.00:1. I see absolutely no reason why a big laboratory doing work for Storaro / Bertolluci on a very expensive production wouldn't of done this.

Others have pointed out to me that perhaps the only problem is that some theatres have curtains that can only move to 1.33, 1.85, 2.2 and 2.4 ratios. 2:1 could cause problems for some theatres. But most cinemas would just compromise and leave the curtains at the 2.2 spot.

Now the fact they didn't make 2:1 prints suggests to me that this whole 2:1 business is an afterthought, and that they were perfectly happy with the film being presented at 2.21:1 - the standard 70mm aspect ratio. If that is the case, why couldn't they present it at 2.21:1 on DVD? To me that would've been a perfect compromise between 2.4 and 2.0.

Incidentally, they could've also had 35mm prints cropped at the sides to preserve a 2:1 ratio. However, this would've required an optical printing step which would've degraded the quality somewhat, so it is understandable that this was avoided, but that meant they couldn't avoid the 2.4:1 35mm anamorphic ratio.

To make the 70mm prints from the 35mm original going through an optical printing step is unavoidable (you need to remove the anamorphic distortion, and make the image bigger for a new 65mm element that the 70mm prints are made from). So they could've cropped the image to 2:1 at that point, producing 70mm prints with black bars down the sides of the image.

The last thing to remember is that Bertolucci contractually had to produce a 1.33:1 version for television. Given that fact, it would've made a lot more sense to shoot the film in non-anamorphic Super 35 if they wanted to protect for both 2.00:1 and 1.33:1. They could've preserved roughly the same width of the image on both versions, but just opened the matte for the TV version, thus avoiding panning and scanning. It would've looked a bit strange with extremely loose compositions on the TV version (It would've looked like a 1940s film, which isn't a bad thing). But it would've avoided cropping the image at all on the 35mm and 70mm versions. Super 35 inherently requires an optical printing step (or now a digital intermediate) so that would've made it easy to set the image to 2:1, rather than the usual 1.85:1, ore more commonly, 2.4:1.

Re: HTF DVD REVIEW: The Last Emperor

The amazing thing is....I understand all of that!

Simon: Thank you so much for taking the time to type that exhaustive post. That answers all my technical questions about the issue and pretty much leaves dangling my questions about why, if they really intended 2:1 back in 1987, they didn't find a way to make it 2:1.

It's sad when everything seems so illogical that you cannot bring yourself to believe the talented cinematographer about why he's made this decision. It's a shame too that Criterion's got to be put in the middle of this mess.

If Man's speculation that the cropping is not from the dead center of the original image, I don't know how Storaro could ever pretend to make the claim that he was composing for 2:1 in his head.

So what do we do? As so many have already pointed out--especially those who fought the fight during the release of Apocalypse Now--there's no changing his mind.

Re: HTF DVD REVIEW: The Last Emperor

They could've, the fact they didn't suggests to me they weren't actually thinking of 2:1 in 1987. I know they want us to believe they were, but for me there is too much evidence to the contrary. I agree it is very sad. Criterion should've got them to compromise by using the 2.21:1 70mm aspect ratio. They could've gone back and used the 70mm sound mix as well. If not, then they could've offered to do a 2 disc version of Last Tango in Paris instead.

Criterion should've put a poll on their webpage asking their customers which ratio to use - 2:1, 2.21:1 or 2.4:1. My guess is they then would've transfered the film in whatever format was considered more popular in the poll. To hell with the filmmakers intent if it means more people are willing to buy the DVD!
EXACTLY! If it was just the central 2.0 for every shot then maybe that meant Storaro had the viewfinder marked up with that ratio (he certainly would've had to include the 2.21:1 safe area to ensure 70mm prints were properly framed). But since it seems the transfer has been pan and scanned, it just makes the whole proposition more dubious. Was Storaro keeping notes for the video transfer as he composed? Why didn't he compose with that area in the middle of the frame? The panning and scanning just raises more questions than it answers. Not much we can do, well, other than not buy the release. Get the ~2.35:1 European version instead. Send Criterion an email saying you think they made the wrong decision, and perhaps buy The Naked Prey to see how exceptional a Criterion transfer of a 35mm anamorphic (Panavision) film can look.

Re: HTF DVD REVIEW: The Last Emperor

Colin this is exactly what I was thinking, and Storaro's discussion of the issue sounds very much like Lucas's excuse making. But I love this film and just don't see another full scope release of it coming any time soon. Like the original Star Wars trio, I'll be buying this because it's the only way I can have it.

Re: HTF DVD REVIEW: The Last Emperor

I'm puzzled. "The only way you can have it?" Both the original Star Wars trilogy and the full 2.35:1 version of The Last Emperor are available on DVD. In the case of Emperor you'll need a region-free DVD player, but they're extremely easy to come by these days and won't cost you much more than the $40 Criterion is asking for their release of Emperor.

Re: HTF DVD REVIEW: The Last Emperor

This revisionist cropping is all about Storaro pimping Univisium, and Criterion let themselves be used in the furthering of this still-born film "format".

2.00 is and never will be the proper aspect ratio of this film. But it doesn't matter to Storaro, so long as the cause of Univisium is moved forward. I will not buy this disc.

Re: HTF DVD REVIEW: The Last Emperor

I purchased the Star Wars trilogy before the eventual re-release of the special editions with the original versions as extras. Mr Lucas has enough of my money at this point and besides, in his own words those transfers are state of the art for 1993. So yes, I could purchase them on DVD if I want to re-purchase the special editions all over again with less than the best transfers of the originals.

As for the Last Emporer, yes I guess I could own the European version if I want to but a region free DVD player for just one movie.

Re: HTF DVD REVIEW: The Last Emperor

What player do you have? Perhaps it already can be made region-free (and handle the needed PAL->NTSC conversion). Some/many Denon and Philips players w/ the Faroudja FL23xx series DCDi chip can be for instance -- and often, it only needs some remote control code, not even a firmware hack. IIRC, some Toshiba's can also do it like that...

_Man_

Re: HTF DVD REVIEW: The Last Emperor

It is very strange that so many U.S. players still have region coding.

It is very difficult in Australia buying a player that HAS region coding! Most players are now region free out of the box, while the minority that having region coding turned on can have it turned off by a remote key combination.

Re: HTF DVD REVIEW: The Last Emperor

Amazon has dropped its price on this to $39.99.

==============================

Has anyone picked this up (since the conversation has died down) and care to share their thoughts?

Re: HTF DVD REVIEW: The Last Emperor

It's a fantastic set, first-class Criterion all the way. If you can live with the compromised AR--and I'm not saying you should have to--I can't imagine not purchasing it, simply to enjoy the bounty of extras. (It's only two dollars less than what I paid for it, so it's not that big a difference, perhaps more of a psychological one, "under $40" and all that.)

Re: HTF DVD REVIEW: The Last Emperor

I was curious if there were more comments on this set. AR issues aside, it sounds like an excellent set. My interest was distracted, but I saw a few bits of this film on PBS last night and it reminded me of this set.

I was going to buy it, but I read, of all places, a discussion on IMDB that said Criterion will be issuing this on Blu-Ray in October. All extras included and the pricing was to be the same.

I might wait then and continue to study Bu-Ray player options.

Re: HTF DVD REVIEW: The Last Emperor

Finally got round to watching it.

I am not overly familiar with the movie only seen it once in the TV cut form. I have to say the cropping did hurt it a lot. There were far too many scenes where people were cut off from the edge of the screen. I simply can not believe for one second it was intended to be 2.00:1.

I'm not sure whether to pick up the R2 version. The TV cut doesn't look great in the Criterion edition and I can imagine the R2 one being a lot worse.