The Great Aspect Ratio Debate...is done forever.

[Kirkinson]

Eddie, just so you have this for the future, to avoid confusion: an 18.5mm would generally be referred to as a "wide" lens -- in fact, for 35mm film, an 18.5mm lens would be considered ultra-wide. A "long" lens would have a higher number, like 85mm and beyond (telephoto lenses and such). Anything in the middle -- say, 40mm to 70mm -- is usually called a "normal lens" because in theory lenses in this range correspond most closely to a human being's field of vision.

EDIT: And David, on that note, can you point me to a resource that talks about Welles & Metty's lens choices for Touch of Evil? I'm curious because a lens having a wider focal length doesn't necessarily correspond to its ability to take in more light. In fact lenses in the normal range tend to have better exposure, and if you're doing complicated camera movement and you have a lot of information in your frame, you wouldn't necessarily want to have your aperture set to its lowest stop because it would compromise your depth of field and make it more difficult to keep everything in focus (less so with an ultra-wide, but still). Not that the likes of Welles and Metty weren't up to the challenge, of course...

[EddieLarkin]

Your clarification is very much appreciated, thank you.

[david hare]

Kirkinson, the reference to the 18.5 lens is from Peter Cowie's A Ribbon of Dreams. You can find it in the chapter on ToE, US edition page 147.

I may have misunderstood the relationship between super wide angle lenses and light sensitivity. Interestingly however looking back at Cowie's book (which I haven't re-read for decades) he talks a lot about the wider than normal human focal range allowing Welles to amplify the duration and content of shots with more people, background and movement into the frame usually coming from outside of peripheral view. He never however discusses aspect ratio.

I'm certain I've also seen the references to the lenses elsewhere, possibly Joe McBride.

[Kirkinson]

Thanks very much, David! Looks like the library here has Cowie's book, so I'll pick it up next time I pass through.

[Roger Ryan]

I no longer buy the theory that Welles composed ToE for Academy and "protected" for 1.85:1. I still think it's a valid way to watch the film, unique from other examples in that Welles spoke out against widescreen and rarely used it again (and certainly never used 'Scope).

Actually, Welles shot nearly all his subsequent films in widescreen with the exception of the projects intended for television and sections of THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND (which was meant to show a mixture of aspect ratios). THE TRIAL and CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT are even hard-matted somewhere between 1.66:1 and 1.85:1. This is one of the reasons I believe a 1.85:1 TOUCH OF EVIL is acceptable; Welles was aware this is what the marketplace demanded and followed in suite.

The use of wide lenses is a Welles trademark going back to KANE; he preferred more depth of field than the shallower focal lengths found with longer lenses. By the way, much of the talk regarding "coating" the lenses in KANE or using special lenses that allowed more light was just made up for publicity purposes to avoid revealing that a number of the deep focus shots were achieved using superimposition.

[EddieLarkin]

You're right. I totally forgot about The Trial, and figured F for Fake was 1.33:1 but I've just checked my DVD and it's 1.66:1 too!

Very interesting.

[david hare]

Falstaff/Chimes of Evil is best spared the 1.85 squeeze. I have two PAL discs of it, the Suevia/Spanish disc which is 1.66 but from a lousy 3rd gen print. And the frequently OOP/ suppressed Studio Canal disc which is from an excellent print but which has the tighter 1.85 mask . The latter is WAY WAY too tight with the signature Welles low angle shots to roof beams cropping the headspace right down

This was never hard matted. I saw it on first release in Sydney 1966 and the picture was not even matted to 1.66. The projectionist had an open matte 35mm first release and was working from intuition on a slight matte, something like 1.50. It looked just fine.

The Trial was also never originally hard matted. Its first screening in OZ was on ABC Television circa 1965 from a 35mm print (35 TV screenings on Oz TV in the 60s were not unheard of.) There was no conception of letterboxing or matting prints especially direct to telecine in those days so the ABC presented it with only very slight horizontal masking, again to something even narrower than 1.66. One can make one's own guess as to what an "Ideal" ratio might be for it, but I wouldn't be pushing it past 1.66 myself. Like so much of Welles these pictures were so wholly outside the mainstream studio and distribution arena, even as "arthouse" they were virtually never screened in 35mm in anything near modern widescreen. And this includes Arkadin which was filmed (and released) post 53.

[Moe Dickstein]

Hard to judge framing on any multiple gen PD release. Zoomboxing can become a major factor there.

[david hare]

I don't know if you can call the Spanish Chimes a PD, like a lot of things released there it's sort of "Semi legit". ANyway here's what I'm talking about:

Studio Canal legit disc (Suppressed) top
Spanish disc bottom:










You're right. The height is the same in both, but the Spanish disc crops both the RH and LH!!!

[Moe Dickstein]

and who knows which generation introduced the crop, or each might have had a different one.

I still remember looking at awful PD Metropolis copies and now looking at either BD version is just an amazing night and day experience. I have to want something really bad to get those sort of releases these days

[Fred Holywell]

Welles' "The Immortal Story" (made in 1966 for French TV, but not shown until two years later) was released on DVD by Madman in 2010. The disc features the 48 minute, French language version (w/English subtitles), as well as the 60 minute, English language one. The two editions have slightly different color grading, as well as different aspect ratios and alternate cropping: the French is at 1.78:1, while the English is approximately 1.66:1.

French (1.78:1)


English (1.66:1)


Combined (1.37:1)


Additional Screencaps

[Kirkinson]

Wow, that's a pretty huge difference. Has anyone watched the version Criterion put on Hulu to compare? If they're working on a DVD/BD release one hopes they'll actually consult Willy Kurant (and that he has a good memory). He supervised their transfer of Masculin féminin, so there's a relationship there already.

[david hare]

Nice work! It's obvious isn't it what the damn thing should be.

It's a safe thing to say Immortal Story which was produced by French TV was shot for and in 1.37 but "protected" (as it were) for 1.66 for anticipated non TV theatrical play outside its initial TV broadcasts. Close to this time Le Petit Theatre de Jean Renoir also made for TV was shot for and in 1.37 and to my knowledge has never been shown in another format.

The French version of Story on the Madman is atrociously color graded and the ratio is clearly damaging. I have the disc as well. I have always preferred the English track too, given Moreau speaks her own part.

[Fred Holywell]

While the 1.66:1 may look like the more attractive of the two crops, neither actually seems to be ideal. The 1.66 reveals too much headroom, while the 1.78 shows too little (as well as some additional manipulation). A more appropriate 1.66 framing, cropping equally from both the top and bottom of the 1.37 image, might look like this:



I haven't seen the Criterion version since it played on TCM a while ago (and just placed my Hulu account on hold -- so I can't check that!). Would be curious to know how their version compares with these, though.

[EddieLarkin]

Who the hell OK'd that 1.78:1 version? The fucking matte is placed at the bottom! The 1.66:1 is almost as bad, with the matte at the very top! I'm sure both 1.66:1 and 1.78:1 would be fine (for that single frame I mean) if the matte was more centered (thanks Fred)

[Roger Ryan]

David - I'll defer to your memory of seeing the CHIMES screening in '66 (as well as the televised screening of THE TRIAL) in regards to the hard matte issue*. I think we're in agreement that Welles' European-produced films of the 60s/70s (sadly, only four were completed/released with the intention of cinema showings - I view FILMING OTHELLO as more of a television project) look very good in the 1.66:1 aspect ratio which would have been the European widescreen standard. I think ARKADIN was made too close to the beginning of widescreen filmmaking (and in Europe) for anything other than 1.37:1 to be considered. This leaves TOUCH OF EVIL to be the sole completed Welles film produced in the U.S. during the widescreen era; no wonder it's such a touchstone for aspect ratio debates!

*My conclusions regarding the hard-matting of THE TRIAL and CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT come from seeing both of them screened in 35mm (probably 1.66:1 for CHIMES, potentially a little tighter for THE TRIAL) and from the various public domain home video releases that seem to have a slight matte when under-scanned but are always cropping the left-and-right of the frame to fill a 4:3 screen (as with your CHIMES screengrabs above).

[MichaelB]

I'm fairly sure we played The Immortal Story in Academy, on the grounds of its made-for-TV origins. It certainly wouldn't have been any wider than 1.66:1.

[martin]

A version of Immortal Story shown on Danish TV was definetely 1.66:1. I'm not sure how it was centered as I've nothing to compare to (apart from the screencaps above which doesn't match the 1.66 TV screencaps I've found). There are a bunch of lo-res TV screencaps here (parts of the tv logo is missing because the black letterbox borders have been cropped. No cropping has been done to the actual image).

Academy seems like the most likely ratio for a tv showing, but perhaps they only got a 1.66 master for this (by chance)? Hard to say. And I wouldn't put too much emphasis on these VHS captures (although Welles' compositions are stunning)!

[Fred Holywell]

Thanks, martin. Some of those Danish caps compare nicely with images I pulled from a YouTube upload of scenes from the English version, with French subtitles. Not sure of the source, though -- not the Gaumont DVD (it doesn't include the English version) -- nor the Madman or RHV discs (they don't offer French subs) -- French TV, perhaps?

[Charles]

If the following has been discussed at some point, please excuse - and I'll be glad to be pointed in the direction of where this should go:

On the subject of Lord of the Flies, I'm finding it looking just about perfectly framed when zoomed to fill the 16x9 frame on my TV. Not perfect, but watchable -- because the Panny plamsa is actually cutting a bit off the sides. Therefore, the ideal solution for a reasonable at-home simulation of proper matting is to use my OPPO's zoom control which steps through a number of levels, one of which always works out beautifully. The TV's zoom functionality is crude in comparison. So what's the problem?

Just this: Criterion BLUs disable the player's zoom control. WHY?

They're not alone; some manufacturers' Blu-ray discs allow the function, some don't. But when such a correction works, it makes the enjoyment of the movie like night and day. One good example would be some of the MGM Midnite Movies DVDs issued in open matte, and they look fantastic -- both in composition and even picture quality -- zoomed.

Ideally, no well-authored transfer should have to be manipulated in such fashion. But we don't live in a perfect world, and even a high level company like Criterion leaves plenty of room for disagreement on these matters. So their disabling of the goddamned feature is particularly infuriating.

[Gregory]

I don't know about the zooming function being disabled, but it seems to me the "ideal solution" is watching it in the original aspect ratio as approved by the film's cinematographer and not trying to zoom it in.
There's a dedicated thread for each Criterion release, and the ratio has been discussed a bit already in the Lord of the Flies one.

[EddieLarkin]

There's a dedicated thread for each Criterion release, and the ratio has been discussed a bit already in the Lord of the Flies one.

All of that discussion got moved here. Indeed, it led to this threads creation.

There was some recent discussion about Lord of the Flies on HTF, and I assume that is what has inspired Charles' post, and his desire to try the film zoomed in:

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/topic/3 ... ?p=3979244" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Props55]

Is it possible that disabling the zoom could be a contractual stipulation of the encode. I've never heard of such a situation but I believe Polanski required that the encode for KNIFE IN THE WATER prevent freeze framing. Or so I recall.

[sinemadelisikiz]

I'm pretty sure that all of Criterion's discs disable any player zoom fuctions (actually, a lot of Blurays do). I used to attach my Oppo to a HDTV with overscan (not mine!) and I could never use the its "underscan" zoom setting to correct this when playing Criterions. That being said, I haven't checked all of them.

[Gregory]

Eddie, all I see in that thread is some obfuscation, jokes, unintelligible rambling, and marked aspect ratio lines on a single screencap from Beaver. I confess to having little patience with people who scream "excess headroom!" or "unbalanced" (?) whenever they see some sky above the actors and want to zoom in so that various portions of heads are chopped off in many shots. God forbid that filmmakers actually intended to show some air and landscape above the actors in some shots, usually just a small amount in the close-ups.
And of course every single film made in the early 1960s must have been composed with a preference for widescreen. Just ignore what the cinematographer says. He obviously didn't know what he was doing when he oversaw the telecine.
These people apparently have no awareness that there were films made according to principles that were outside the norms of the commercial mainstream.
I love the post where one member writes, "I took some of the Beaver caps and reframed them in Photoshop, assuming a centre mask" and there's a link, but it's not to any images the guy is mentioning but an embedded eBay link so that I can buy Photoshop. So helpful!