Criterion's January release of Magnificent Obsession: all good news (1 Viewer)

[James 'Tiger' Lee]

Yes, there's some pretty agressive people there.

 

[CineKarine]

I am hoping Criterion may eventually devote an Eclipse set to the earlier Sirk films - my favorite of all of his films is his very disarming, lightearted Take Me to Town (53) with Ann Sheridan and Sterling Hayden. I have always been impressed with All I Desire (53) also - Barbara Stanwyck turns in another brilliant performance in it. And I never could resist Meet Me at the Fair (53). All three very sincere, heartfelt slices of Americana with All I Desire, the only actual drama out of the three. For some odd reason, I have always preferred Sirk's pre-1954 work though I do admire all of his finest films also and will definitely be buying the Magnificent Obsession DVD.

 

[Matt Hough]

I'm another great fan of ALL I DESIRE.

 

[MilesH]

I wouldn't bother. If you express an opinion that differs from the majority opinion, the mods will delete it. I'm not kidding. They are that insecure over there.

There's a reason why real experts and DVD professionals like RAH post here and not there. They can't even get Criterion to give them the time of day. That should tell you what Criterion think of the nutters at that forum. And forget about chats with studios. They can't even get Criterion to chat with them.

 

[MilesH]

Do you really think those kids were around in the laserdisc days? Their very limited knowledge of these movies is a pretty good indication that they haven't been watching them for very long. I will give them points for holding firm to their laughable assertions in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

 

[BillyFeldman]

I guess a board like that is meaningless - but it takes on some sort of cache because it's "Criterion." I've never read such pathetic mewling in my life.

EDIT: Well, they're getting a little hot-headed over me on that board. Making personal comments that I cannot respond to - very brave, very courageous and, above all, very childish. And they call the people on this forum "kids." As Jack posited earlier, if the director came down from the heavens and said he'd shot this film in 2:1 they'd question him. But, they wouldn't, that's the joke. They would slink away into the good night like the little cowards they are or they would say, "Yeah, it really does look right at 2:1. Just like all those people who defended the open matte The Shining all those years, until presented with the irrefutable proof they were wrong.

 

[Charles H]

I love the early Sirk. TCM showed SHOCKPROOF (from a Samuel Fuller script) last Saturday. Also THE FIRST LEGION, THUNDER ON THE HILL, and SLEEP, MY LOVE (the latter available in R2) mandate dvd attention.

 

[CineKarine]

Indeed, I especially love Sleep My Love and Thunder on the Hill.

And let's not forget No Room for the Groom

 

[Robin9]

The missing Douglas Sirk film I want the most is There's Always Tomorrow.

 

[Thomas T]

While I think that Tarnished Angels and There's Always Tomorrow deserve the full Criterion treatment, a no frills Eclipse set of All I Desire, Time To Love And A Time To Die, Take Me To The Fair, Thunder On The Hill and his underrated Interlude would be most welcome.

 

[Bob Furmanek]

I just posted this information on the Criterion board, and felt that members of this forum would also find it of interest.

Some have questioned how a director deals with composing for multiple ratios. Here are some quotes from George Sidney in an 11/8/53 LA Times interview discussing "Kiss Me Kate."

"Besides being in 2D and 3D and color, Kate is also in three different aspect ratios - 1.66, 1.75 and 1.85 to 1. That means wide, wider and widest screen. When I shot the picture, I had to keep all those ratios in mind - in addition to depth and non-depth. Six ways in all!

My cameraman, Charles Rosher, and I had to compose every shot three different ways at the same time. What would be good for one width would not be good for another. It was tricky, but we got around it by building more tops on sets, more floor and more sets in forced perspective to enhance the depth. The wider the screen, you see, the narrower: we had to compensate for those cut-off tops and bottoms."

You'll note that Sidney makes no mention whatsoever of 1.37, even though Kate is indeed protected for that ratio. That's very telling of how unimportant that ratio had become within the industry. By that period late in 1953, full Academy theatrical presentations were becoming the exception, not the rule. If you're inclined to do some research with primary source materials, you'll find exhibition trends well documented in Variety, Boxoffice, Hollywood Reporter, Motion Picture Herald, Film Daily and Exhibitor. These are not fan-boy news stand periodicals, but trade journals intended for people within the motion picture production and exhibition industry. They accurately document the turmoil within the industry during that time - warts and all.

For the record, many people believe that Kate had a limited 3-D release. Not true. It played most engagements in its wide screen, dimensional version.

Regarding MO, it was in production for about 4 weeks. That's not nearly enough time for the film-makers to spend hours on each set-up for two different ratios. That's why they composed for widescreen and protected for standard ratio. If they included a shadow at the top of the frame behind Rock's head knowing it would not be seen in 2:1, then surely that shadow must not be terribly significant. Otherwise, don't you think they would insure it's visibility in the widescreen version?

 

[BillyFeldman]

As always great information. It will, of course, fall on deaf ears over there. They're too busy making fun of me (while not being able to dispute one point I made) or being snarky and obnoxious. In fact, of all the film and DVD messageboards I've seen, that one is the worst in terms of the people who post. If they want to deride me and make fun, then they should have a little guts and come over here, where I can at least respond. But they are cowards.

 

[James 'Tiger' Lee]

And if that David Hare is expecting to be taken seriously about aspect ratios, he needs to set his DVD capture properly

 

[BillyFeldman]

I went back and read the thread when the region two was released. This guy Hare is so typical of film pseudo-intellectualism - and he continually makes suppositions that are not based in reality while deriding others for posting things that do have a basis in reality. He's got an excuse for everything. Someone posted a press release from Universal - that's just publicity says Mr. Hare. But what does he say to Theakston or Furmanek posting the Box-Office trade magazine list of ratios? That's not publicity - that's in your face proof positive. But I'm telling you, he's one of these guys who, I'm sure, thinks Stanley composed The Shining for Academy because, you know, he was just a filmmaker who knew how his films were going to be projected, but only cared about TV showings (video was not in the equation when The Shining came out). Now that it's been proven and I mean proven and now that we have a proper Shining on DVD these guys are nowhere to be found.

 

[Bob Furmanek]

I've made my point on that thread - repeatedly. But some individuals seem to have a difficult time accepting documentation and evidence from primary source materials. They want to ignore it and fantasize about what the director was thinking. That's fine for them, but I'm not interested in playing that game.

In fact, some people become downright rude and arrogant when you ask them to support their theories with tangible proof.

 

[BillyFeldman]

Certainly Mr. Hare was rude in that original thread, and there are several people in this new one who are really rude, and then accuse others of being disruptive. It's funny. If they found documented proof from Mr. Sirk himself that he framed for 2:1 one of two things would happen - they would disappear and never acknowledge it, or they would just act as if they'd never said anything to the contrary - suddenly all those compositions would be Sirkian.

 

[BillyFeldman]

And now they've conveniently moved that part of the discussion elsewhere, and it requires a username and password, which, of course, for whatever reasons, I have not been sent. The cowardice continues unabated. Perhaps someone can do a direct link to where the discussion has been moved.

 

[Adam_S]

Don't worry about it Billy, there are folks there who think that bad color corrections are better than criterion's accurate corrections because they saw the bad dvd first or saw a bad print first and assumed that was accurate. They then rationalize this by saying the extreme tinting difference is just the agfa color bias coming through (I've hand corrected stills from agfa, kodak and fuji stock, and they're decidedly wrong on this point) and that because the green makes it look older, more "other", and more asian (enhances japaneseness!) that's what the filmmakers intended, for it to be more green, because good color correction would be too western and therefore bad.

 

[Bob Furmanek]

I find a lot of people are so used to seeing these early widescreen films in full frame on television and in theatrical revivals, they feel that is the way in which they were intended to be seen. They even pretend to have some insight into the film-makers creative process and will tell you what the director was thinking on the set. If you try to educate them with information from primary source materials, they resort to ranting and raving. At that point, you have to just walk away.

Thank goodness the tech people at Criterion did the right thing and didn't listen to armchair historians with their "mise-en-scene" fantasies.

 

[Eric Vedowski]

I think Bob hit's the nail right on the head with this comment. I've seen this movie many, many times on TV-once in a revival house-and I never realized it was meant to be seen WS. I always assumed it was before the big switch to WS. In full screen it always seemed a bit "old fashioned" to me-looking more 1940s than 1950s. I'm really looking forward to the DVD. Also must say I really appreciate all the knowledgeable comments from the people on this board.