Out of Africa OAR vs. DVD (1 Viewer)

[MTrotter]

The DVD of Out of Africa says 1.85 and IMDB says 1.85.

But, if you watch some of the trailers you will see the shot of the train going across the landscape, and it appears to be a 2.35 ratio there.

Does anybody remember what the ratio was when they saw it in the theater? Just curious.

BTW, I did a HTF search for this and didn't get anything.

 

[gregstaten]

I'm pretty sure that the film was shot using spherical lenses and has a 1.85:1 aspect ratio.

-greg

 

[Guy Martin]

It was definitely 1.85:1. Sydney Pollock said as much when I went to a talk he delivered at the Virginia Film Festival two years ago. He bemoaned the fact that he shot it that way since he had always used 'scope up until that point, but he just couldn't stand the way it got cropped on video (I guess this was before super35). He thought the African vistas would have looked much better in 2.35:1. Too bad OAR video releases weren't as widespread back then :frowning:
- Guy

 

[Terry H]

I have often wondered about that. I know I saw an interview with him in which he talked about his love for widescreen and how he hated pan & scan. He even shot Tootsie at 2.35:1. I just couldn't understand why he shot Out of Africaat the ratio he did. Now I know. Thanks for the insight.

 

[WillG]

But, if you watch some of the trailers you will see the shot of the train going across the landscape, and it appears to be a 2.35 ratio there.

Often Trailers for Flat 1.85:1 films are shown on prints for Anamorphic 2.35:1 presentations in theaters. This is just vice versa of a 2.35:1 film's trailer being shown on a flat print cropped to 1.85:1 Since the projector would have to be outfitted with it's own anamorphic lens to unsqueeze the image on the negative, the trailer would have to be cropped down to 2.35:1. and be anamorphic on the print. Whatever you might be seeing on the DVD would just be a port of that.