Redux - framing screenshots (1 Viewer)

[Patrick Mirza]

I decided to check the 2.0:1 framing of Apocalypse Now Redux to its original 2.35 composed frame.
I used the trailer included on the DVD.
The results were disheartening...

I have 15 more screenshots here

 

[CharlesD]

Ouch! Those screen shots are a good example of why cropping a movie is just as bad as pan&scan. This concept of 2:1 as a standard (see link in the original post) is simply ridiculous IMO.

If I had known this I probably would not have bought the DVD. Luckily I have not had a chance to watch it yet, so it is still sealed, maybe I should just return it!

 

[Patrick McCart]

The DOP shot the film with 2:1 in mind with a full availible picture of 2.35:1.

Incidentally, this new Redux DVD has a little different image framing than the original AN DVD (also transferred at 2.0:1). I grabbed screenshots from Redux and also the 2.35:1 theatrical trailer. The screenshots are linked at the right - you be the judge if the cinematographer was right to do what he did.

This is the same kind of weird logic like the new cut of E.T. Can't the people who made the film have some right to do what they want with the film? They know their movies better than we do and we just need to trust them on how they want to present their work.

If Coppola wanted to show AN in 1.66:1, I'd still accept his decision just because it's the artist's intent.

 

[Moe Dickstein]

Storaro and Coppola did NOT compose AN for 2.0

Storaro has made this decision in the last few years to re-format his ORIGINAL 2.35:1 frame to 2.0 for TV

newer films he has shot HAVE been composed for 2.0 - Picking up the pieces, etc.

AN and Tucker, however, were NOT composed for the 2.0 ratio and should be released in their full ratios. Shame on Coppola for going along with this foolishness.

Please look at the panning and scanning on the tucker end credits and tell me they MEANT that...

 

[Patrick Mirza]

Moe's right. AN was composed and shot in 2.35... this 2:1 reframing was an afterthought by Storaro which he adopted and forced onto Tucker and AN.

Redux's transfer and color pallette are outstanding, but there is definite picture information that is missing.

If Coppola wanted to show AN in 1.66:1, I'd still accept his decision just because it's the artist's intent.

That's the point: it doesn't seem to me like this is Coppola's idea. This has everything to do with Storaro. The Rainmaker is in 2.35:1 - isn't that a Coppola film too?

And I highly doubt that you'd enjoy Apocalypse Now with almost 40% (1.66:1) of the screen image gone.

 

[MathewM]

After watching Redux, and liking what Copolla has tried to do with the film dramatically (I always felt the movie until Redux to be too distant) I was really pissed to watch the trailer in it's 2.35 glory. Storaro is senile if he believes that he framed this film for a 2.1 transfer. The whole thing feels like you're watching it in a shoebox. There's no breathing room on the sides of the framed, everyone is cramped. I'll give him some leeway on a couple of wide establishing shots that keep the subject enough in the middle not to lose effect, but the rest of it is severly butchered.

For the guy who said that AN would be fine framed 1.66, you're, well no offense a little off.

 

[Dick]

How can Storarro (and/or Coppola) say the film was "composed for 2.0"? In the example above, one of seven helicopters is completely MISSING! If this was the intent from the outset, Storarro is a much lesser DOP than I'd thought. Further, as pointed out above, there are shots throughout the film in which characters (even ones speaking) are cut in half. 2.0 might have been a good compromise for VHS, but for DVD it is a pitiful choice and I too am severely disappointed with Coppola for allowing one of his three or four finest works be massacred by the musings of a brain-dead DOP.