Aspect Ratio discussion for Magnificent Obsession

[swo17]

there is not one cropped head, not one shot doesn't look perfectly framed and none of his caps look remotely like anything posted here

I may be wrong about this, but I don't believe it's Gary's practice to post screen caps from every single frame of a film.

[HerrSchreck]

The DVD Beaver now has screen caps posted for the Criterion MO - there is not one cropped head, not one shot doesn't look perfectly framed and none of his caps look remotely like anything posted here, which leads one to think that maybe the other widescreen DVDs were taken from a zoomed in print. I'm looking forward to seeing the DVD very soon.

Billy, that's lazy thinking. How could you allow your mind to go there, without a voice saying "wait-- rather than compare frames that don't correspond to each other, maybe I should wait to see frame specific comparisons between the CC and other widescreen editions."

And nobody is really going to end up seeing any abominable scenes/framing. Metty and Sirk made the film work in both versions, so that audience members who went into either version wouldn't feel like anything was amiss.

[Gregory]

Oh great, we have a new member. Billy feldman, remember, is the person at Home Theater Forum who engaged in relentless trash-talking about our forum. The stupidity on our forum is frightening. We're a bunch of amateurs who claim to be "experts," he says. And we have the nerve to try to interpret what Sirk was doing artistically even though we can't get inside his head. Sirk was a HIRED HAND, billy feldman says, and Metty was a HIRED HAND, and apparently all directors within the studio system were all HIRED HANDS, HIRED HANDS, HIRED HANDS (all caps retained from original) and so they all just churned the stuff out one after the other to meet the insatiable need for new films, and they never went beyond the needs and desires of their employers in any way. Simple as that.
Anyway so glad he wanted to come aboard nonetheless. See also his wonderful contributions at Dave Kehr's blog.

And nobody is really going to end up seeing any abominable scenes/framing.

The framing won't be abominable for the layperson, anyway. As in domino harvey's earlier post, it depends on how one defines "horrible." It doesn't look obviously horrible (which I'm pretty sure is what he meant) but I would argue that to have a great Sirk film look other than its absolute best is nevertheless horrible.

I did have something more useful to contribute in this post, which is that I did a comparison of the caps at Beaver with the UK disc and the framing seems near identical. Oh well, a teensy bit more information on the top and bottom wouldn't really have mattered anyway.
But so much for this:

While it's been a while since I've run the region two, my memory is that I thought they'd matted a zoomed in source - if that's the case (it looks way too grainy to be anything other than that), then that's why it's too tight - I'm guessing the Criterion transfer will look just right because it will be off a non-zoomed in source. Jack and Bob have explained this repeatedly.

(edited to fix pesky quote tags)

[billy feldman]

The DVD Beaver now has screen caps posted for the Criterion MO - there is not one cropped head, not one shot doesn't look perfectly framed and none of his caps look remotely like anything posted here, which leads one to think that maybe the other widescreen DVDs were taken from a zoomed in print. I'm looking forward to seeing the DVD very soon.

Billy, that's lazy thinking. How could you allow your mind to go there, without a voice saying "wait-- rather than compare frames that don't correspond to each other, maybe I should wait to see frame specific comparisons between the CC and other widescreen editions."

And nobody is really going to end up seeing any abominable scenes/framing. Metty and Sirk made the film work in both versions, so that audience members who went into either version wouldn't feel like anything was amiss.

Well, not seeing the Criterion transfer hasn't stopped you from making a huge number of posts, has it?

Oh great, we have a new member. Billy feldman, remember, is the person at Home Theater Forum who engaged in relentless trash-talking about our forum. The stupidity on our forum is frightening. We're a bunch of amateurs who claim to be "experts," he says. And we have the nerve to try to interpret what Sirk was doing artistically even though we can't get inside his head. Sirk was a HIRED HAND, billy feldman says, and Metty was a HIRED HAND, and apparently all directors within the studio system were all HIRED HANDS, HIRED HANDS, HIRED HANDS (all caps retained from original) and so they all just churned the stuff out one after the other to meet the insatiable need for new films, and they never went beyond the needs and desires of their employers in any way. Simple as that.
Anyway so glad he wanted to come aboard nonetheless. See also his wonderful contributions at Dave Kehr's blog.

And nobody is really going to end up seeing any abominable scenes/framing.

The framing won't be abominable for the layperson, anyway. As in domino harvey's earlier post, it depends on how one defines "horrible." It doesn't look obviously horrible (which I'm pretty sure is what he meant) but I would argue that to have a great Sirk film look other than its absolute best is nevertheless horrible.

I did have something more useful to contribute in this post, which is that I did a comparison of the caps at Beaver with the UK disc and the framing seems near identical. Oh well, a teensy bit more information on the top and bottom wouldn't really have mattered anyway.
But so much for this:

While it's been a while since I've run the region two, my memory is that I thought they'd matted a zoomed in source - if that's the case (it looks way too grainy to be anything other than that), then that's why it's too tight - I'm guessing the Criterion transfer will look just right because it will be off a non-zoomed in source. Jack and Bob have explained this repeatedly.

(edited to fix pesky quote tags)

You know, I hate to tell you but they WERE hired hands working for the studio. You don't want to accept that, which I find peculiar. Sirk wasn't an "auteur" he was a working director - a great one, yes - but he didn't raise the money, and the films didn't belong to him. He did his job. Your view on things, while interesting for you, is all conjecture. What is not conjecture is that Sirk was a hired hand, as was Metty. Neither of them ran the studio, assigned projects, or had final say on anything. All else is Fantasyland, I'm afraid.

[Antoine Doinel]

Richard Cranium '09 has already been decided. Great work, billy!

[Props55]

"Well, if it isn't fat, stinking Billygoat, Billyboy in poison. How art thou, thou globby bottle of cheap, stinking chip oil? Come and get one in the yarbles, if you have any yarbles, you eunuch jelly thou."

Yeah, I guess I'm having a Kubrick reverie what with all the chat at EWS.

Apy polly loggies to all regular forum members for my second rant today. 2009 is not off to a good start for me. The Richard Cranium Award is another matter entirely.

[GringoTex]

Sirk wasn't an "auteur" he was a working director

The French developed the concept of "auteur" to apply to working directors in Hollywood. You don't even have the most basic grasp of the terms you use.

[Jeff]

The French developed the concept of "auteur" to apply to working directors in Hollywood. You don't even have the most basic grasp of the terms you use.

Precisely. Auteurism doesn't have anything to do with running the studio, owning the rights, or calling all the shots. Auteurism and independence are not synonyms. The most revered auteurs in the classical sense of the term are guys like Sirk and Nick Ray and Sam Fuller who turned out genre pictures for their studios that were full of subversive themes and artistic direction. A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies is largely about this concept.

Sirk's rep would have faded into obscurity if it hadn't been for the gang at Cahiers, who revered Sirk as an auteur. Godard wrote about A Time to Love and a Time to Die in the April 1959 issue. Jean-Louis Comolli's "The Blind Man and the Mirror: or The Impossible Cinema of Douglas Sirk" from the April 1967 issue basically defined the modern interpretation of Sirk...as an auteur.

[Sloper]

It isn't my place to weigh in on this train-wreck of a discussion, but I feel moved...

You know, I hate to tell you but they WERE hired hands working for the studio. You don't want to accept that, which I find peculiar. Sirk wasn't an "auteur" he was a working director - a great one, yes - but he didn't raise the money, and the films didn't belong to him. He did his job. Your view on things, while interesting for you, is all conjecture. What is not conjecture is that Sirk was a hired hand, as was Metty. Neither of them ran the studio, assigned projects, or had final say on anything. All else is Fantasyland, I'm afraid.

A lot of people say the same kind of thing about Shakespeare these days – that he was a ‘working man of the theatre’. This is perfectly true, as it no doubt is with respect to Sirk and any other film-maker who ‘didn’t raise the money’ for their productions. The idea is that, by showing an awareness of how Shakespeare (or Sirk) was ‘making a living’ and ‘following orders’, you prove that you have a down-to-earth, realistic understanding of the nature of art, rather than being some bourgeois, head-in-the-clouds ‘armchair expert’.

It’s fine to temper your appreciation of a work of art with knowledge of its circumstances, and although, to my mind, it seems pretty stupid (and in this case highly speculative) to draw simplistic connections between one thing and the other (the studio told Sirk how to make his film, therefore he made it that way), if you really think, in your heart of hearts, that the man was a ‘hired hand’, working like a navvie on a railroad and swinging his hammer the way his supervisor told him, then fair enough. But I always wonder about people who say these things: if your conception of art is so prosaic, why do you even bother with it?

[zedz]

Sirk wasn't an "auteur" he was a working director

The French developed the concept of "auteur" to apply to working directors in Hollywood. You don't even have the most basic grasp of the terms you use.

That Billy Feldman is no Truffaut.

[Gregory]

In case the reception of Billy seemed overly harsh to anyone, here is a link to the thread at HTF where (among many other things) he asked for a link to the thread on Touch of Evil at Kehr's blog so that he could "go over there and raise a ruckus, too" (as he put it, himself). I was worried he was going to do the same here. He complained numerous times at HTF there that he was unable to register here quickly enough to leap into the fray last October (the assumption was that his registration was being blocked by the pro-academy cabal of moderators here).
Fortunately, he didn't stick around too long, although I would've liked to ask him why he thinks the Criterion looks perfect, since he thought the UK DVD seemed so zoomed in, and the two are framed identically.

[cdnchris]

I wasn't going to weigh in on that HTF thread but I have to admit I was amused by the conspiracy theories, especially since I couldn't have given less of a rat's ass about what anyone had to say about the subject (apologies to everyone who is passionate about it, just being honest) and I'm the only one who could stop people from registering. While during the summer there were registration issues that were my fault (now sorted out) by that point the most common issues were spam blockers and incorrect e-mail addresses being the reason why users weren't getting activation e-mails. His account was also activated but he must have used the wrong e-mail because when I tried to write him about his account, once I was informed he was having issues, I kept getting my e-mails bounced back.

I also liked how they flipped when the thread was temporarily moved to the "Infighting" forum and then split off.

Personally, I'm fine with him posting here, as long as its not just to "raise a ruckus" and bait certain members.

[stereo]

What would Billy Feldman do?

[HerrSchreck]

I wish I'd a known in advance someone was going to delete my fricking Billy song. Who deleted it? I wrote it fast right into the reply box, so I don't have a copy of it.. and I got a kick out of it.

Folks who come on the board simply to complain about the sum membership and issue Deadly Serious Withering Condemnations, should be able to expect some tongue in cheek fun in reply. It's better than descending to his level of anger and blowing the board of fully on an already raw peeled topic.

[cdnchris]

I wish I'd a known in advance someone was going to delete my fricking Billy song. Who deleted it? I wrote it fast right into the reply box, so I don't have a copy of it.. and I got a kick out of it.

Folks who come on the board simply to complain about the sum membership and issue Deadly Serious Withering Condemnations, should be able to expect some tongue in cheek fun in reply. It's better than descending to his level of anger and blowing the board of fully on an already raw peeled topic.

That was me, and it hurt to do that. I got rid of a bunch of posts that I felt were going to lead to another sort of flame war and that was one of them I got rid of. I should have just moved them to "Infighting." My apologies for that.

[fiddlesticks]

That post, although outstandingly clever, firmly implanted Billy, Don't Be a Hero into my brain for the better (or worse, much worse ](*,) ) part of a day, with the result that I briefly wished that Herr Schreck himself could be deleted.

[Oggilby]

All this aspect ratio malarkey would be avoided if studios simply did the right thing and expose all of the image including the sprocket holes.

[HerrSchreck]

I love seeing aperture marks and hints of the sprocket holes-- like in the BFI transfers of the Bauer silents. Makes me feel like I have the actual reels in my collection.

[MichaelB]

All this aspect ratio malarkey would be avoided if studios simply did the right thing and expose all of the image including the sprocket holes.

Personally, I think Scope films should not only be shown with sprocket holes but also in their original squished Academy form. After all, that's what's actually printed on the celluloid, and true purists shouldn't need any special lenses - if anything, they're a barrier between the eyeball and the film.

[Oggilby]

I think it's ridiculous that studios even bother with HD transfers. Just stick an HDV camera at a theater screen. Any other way isn't how it was meant to be seen. You don't think Douglas Sirk would want us to see anything but all of the frame and only in a theatrical setting?

[Barmy]

I haven't read any of this thread but I saw this last night in 35mm and it is 1.33 or whatever the term is for a square box. You're welcome.

[Gregory]

I saw this last night in 35mm and it is 1.33 or whatever the term is for a square box.

You saw it in 1:1?

[HerrSchreck]

You're welcome.

To giggle again at your rampant strangeness?

[Barmy]

Sorry, yes 1:1.

[Hofmeister]

Sirk's own 1954 Sign of the Pagan, which Metty shot, was a widescreen pic, though I believe SotP was shot anamorphic, from which an alternative 'flat' version was extracted optically.

The new Sign of the Pagan DVD from Germany delivers both the 2.35 and the 1.33 version. Interestingly enough, they display different set-ups and slightly different editing. While this excludes the possibility that the latter was extracted from the former, it's still conceivable that all of it might have been shot with a single camera.

This could be settled if the two transfers were on an equal footing, for then the material shot anamorphically -- if it was the sole source -- would have to be vastly superior. Ironically, the 2.35 version is letterboxed (yes, this is a 2011 release).

(See also my entry on same in the Sirk thread.)