Stanley Kubrick Collection

[Nothing]

For once, Jeferrey Wells is right and Glenn Kenny is the idiot.

I'm frankly shocked to see WHV treating a Kubrick title this badly. They used to be the best studio in the business, what the hell happened?!

[Oedipax]

It is absolutely mind boggling to think we're getting a correctly pillarboxed transfer of Lolita - a film that can easily stand to lose or gain a bit of the frame - and a compromised Barry Lyndon, i.e. one of the most carefully composed, exquisitely photographed films of all time. Who is making these decisions? Lord Bullingdon, a little help here???

[oh yeah]

Mind boggling, indeed.

This is almost like some kind of bad joke on Warners' part against us Kubrick fans... Well played?

[MichaelB]

There's no doubt whatsoever that my Barry Lyndon Blu-ray is 1.78:1. Believe me, I triple-checked the display settings!

[movielocke]

lmao, theatre projection loses more information on all sides than any of those screencaps are showing. whether its in the right ratio or not. No one composes that tight, because you're going to lose some information around the edges, even in the best house.

[Nothing]

Um, I've seen Lyndon projected and there was far more information on the top and bottom than in the new transfer (especially once you factor in television overscan). Also, it's not just about 'information' per-se but about the balance of the composition, which is totally thrown when you display the film at the wrong aspect ratio.

Someone should make Kubrick's estate aware of the problem, this release needs to be recalled and re-mastered.

[frankiecrisp]

Someone should make Kubrick's estate aware of the problem, this release needs to be recalled and re-mastered.

How do we know Kubricks estate have not approved of this release?. I watched Barry Lyndon last night and I'm sure its 1.78 and while its not the same ratio as my old dvd (1.59) I still thought it looked good

[MichaelB]

Ironically, 1.59 is almost as "wrong" as 1.78, though in the other direction.

[frankiecrisp]

Ironically, 1.59 is almost as "wrong" as 1.78, though in the other direction.

Who approved the 1.59 release? it always seemed a strange choice.

[MichaelB]

I think Kubrick's former PA Leon Vitali (who played Lord Bullingdon in Barry Lyndon) was directly involved with earlier DVD releases. In the absence of either Kubrick or cinematographer John Alcott, he's probably the main authority now.

[Gregory]

lmao, theatre projection loses more information on all sides than any of those screencaps are showing. whether its in the right ratio or not. No one composes that tight, because you're going to lose some information around the edges, even in the best house.

Um, I've seen Lyndon projected and there was far more information on the top and bottom than in the new transfer (especially once you factor in television overscan). Also, it's not just about 'information' per-se but about the balance of the composition, which is totally thrown when you display the film at the wrong aspect ratio.

Also, I think comparing the cropping on the Blu-ray to projection masking assumes that the old DVD release showed the fullest possible extent of the film at 1.66:1 ratio, which can then be safely cropped from. I don't believe that's normally true.
Filmmakers do compose for 1.66, and 1.78 just wouldn't look or feel right much of the time, at least not to me. Preserving an original 1.66:1 ratio is something that any studio does if they have any idea what they're doing, save perhaps a few examples where something is released "open matte" in 1.33:1.

[Nothing]

Kubrick himself approved the first set of DVD releases.

Isn't is also possible that the delayed release of Barry Lyndon on BD has something to do with this aspect ratio gaffe? Perhaps the estate did notice and were blocking it and WB's attitude was "well, we're not going to pay for another transfer, so like it or lump it..." Either way, people clearly shouldn't buy or support this release.

[MichaelB]

Glenn Kenny recants - it turned out that he'd had his television incorrectly calibrated, and now acknowledges that the Blu-ray is indeed framed at 16:9/1.78:1.

Potentially more usefully, he says he's interviewing Leon Vitali about this tomorrow.

[jedgeco]

Kubrick himself approved the first set of DVD releases.

Isn't is also possible that the delayed release of Barry Lyndon on BD has something to do with this aspect ratio gaffe? Perhaps the estate did notice and were blocking it and WB's attitude was "well, we're not going to pay for another transfer, so like it or lump it..." Either way, people clearly shouldn't buy or support this release.

Kubrick approved the transfers for the first (1999) DVD release -- but only because it used the old transfers that he had approved in the mid-90s. He was not alive to approve the actual DVD release.

Personally, I'm happy to finally have an edition of BL that is not based on a decade-old transfer and that doesn't sacrifice 1/3 of the available screen resolution. The difference between 1.77 and 1.66 is less than the overscan on most monitors or what you'd lose to image spill in a theater, so I have a hard time becoming indignant about it.

[domino harvey]

But then your monitor overscans the overscan and, well

[MichaelB]

Kubrick approved the transfers for the first (1999) DVD release -- but only because it used the old transfers that he had approved in the mid-90s. He was not alive to approve the actual DVD release.

Yes, that's correct - they were sourced from the old laserdisc master. He died just as DVDs (and 16:9 televisions) were about to break through into the mainstream, but I suspect he didn't have much time to research the subject in his usual obsessive depth, what with being bogged down on Eyes Wide Shut.

Personally, I'm happy to finally have and addition of BL that is not based on a decade-old transfer and that doesn't sacrifice 1/3 of the available screen resolution. The difference between 1.77 and 1.66 is less than the overscan on most monitors or what you'd lose to image spill in a theater, so I have a hard time becoming indignant about it.

Same here - I know it should be 1.66:1, and I'd obviously prefer it to be 1.66:1, but it's really very hard to get especially worked up about the loss of just 3% of the picture at the top and bottom, especially not when the image quality is otherwise so massively improved over the old DVD. In fact, watching it in motion last night, I'd forgotten how many of the shots are slow zooms outwards rather than static tableaux.

Anyway, I look forward to what Leon Vitali says about all this.

[jedgeco]

But then your monitor overscans the overscan and, well

Yep. And my monitor has significant overscan, even after being ISF calibrated. I recently solved the problem by building an HTPC, through which I can manually scale the output, but I can't say that overscan has significantly diminished my enjoyment of hundreds of movies that I'd previously watched. So that probably is what makes me sanguine about the whole matter, but I get that others may feel different.

[swo17]

It's honestly the sort of thing that most people won't notice and you can still very much enjoy the film, but every once in a while, as part of the curse of bothering to understand the technical aspects of film presentation, you are taken out of the film by this niggling voice that echoes into the very recesses of your soul: "You're not seeing 7% of the image." Sort of exactly what it's like to be dating a Nazi.

[MichaelB]

Yep. And my monitor has significant overscan, even after being ISF calibrated. I recently solved the problem by building an HTPC, through which I can manually scale the output, but I can't say that overscan has significantly diminished my enjoyment of hundreds of movies that I'd previously watched.

Amusingly enough, it seems that Glenn Kenny can say the same thing, given what he's just discovered about his reviewing set-up.

[Roger Ryan]

My understanding is that Kubrick lived long enough to sign a contract allowing for DVD releases of his films...and expected to approve new transfers when the time came. After his death, WHV issued the first box set which only ported over the old laserdisc transfers which had Kubrick's estate (and everyone else) furious at the lousy quality. This box set was quickly recalled and reissued utilizing new transfers.

I think it's safe to say that given the industry change-over to HD widescreen televisions, Kubrick would be on board for anamorphic widescreen editions of his films to be issued, but now the question is how widescreen the widescreen films should be! The official line on why the last Kubrick box didn't have LOLITA or BARRY LYNDON was that those films were going to require more time to do the transfers. I think their absence came down to the fact that they were perceived as the least profitable of the Kubrick films, that no bonus features were going to be included on these titles and that their inclusion would make the initial Blu-ray box set cost-prohibitive for many customers looking to upgrade.

[MichaelB]

Well, I've just watched the first half hour of Barry Lyndon, and if I hadn't known in advance that it was in the wrong aspect ratio, I honestly wouldn't have guessed. Hand on heart, there wasn't a single shot that I thought was even slightly compromised, let alone "ruined" - and in fact I got sucked into the film so quickly (I hadn't watched it for about a decade) that I completely forgot that I was supposed to be watching a hideous travesty of Kubrick's intentions.

Obviously, if Warner decides to re-author it and introduce a disc exchange programme, I'll take advantage - but I won't slit my wrists if they don't, as the Blu-ray is clearly massively superior to the DVD on every other score. I haven't seen the film looking this good since I first saw it on the big screen in Paris in the 1980s, and that print had quite a few scratches.

[zeroism]

Ironically, 1.59 is almost as "wrong" as 1.78, though in the other direction.

Who approved the 1.59 release? it always seemed a strange choice.

I've always wondered about this as well. Perhaps this anomaly is a result of the image on the old DVD being vertically stretched, if it was indeed vertically stretched, as it appears to be to some (including myself) after seeing it compared with the blu-ray?

[MichaelB]

Beaver on Barry.

At least at the time of writing, he doesn't seem to know the OAR.

[MyNameCriterionForum]

To quote a character Vitali himself played in Eyes Wide Shut:

Red Cloak: That's unfortunate! Because here, it makes no difference... whether you have forgotten it... or whether you never knew it. You will kindly remove your mask.

REMOVE THE MASK, LEO!

[Jeff]

Here's Leon Vitali with what will undoubtedly not be the last word on the Barry Lyndon aspect ratio. You couldn't ask for a more straightforward response though.

Glenn Kenny: "Well, there’s already controversy brewing because the Barry Lyndon Blu-ray is 1.78 and there’s some feeling that it should have been 1.66..."

Leon Vitali: "Well I can tell you what now, okay; never was it ever 1.66, it wasn’t shot in 1.66, we never released it in 1.66 in any format whether it’s film or television or DVD. It was 1.77. It was shot it…I mean , the difference between 1.77 and 1.78 is miniscule, you couldn’t see it with a magnifying glass. And anyone who thought it was meant to be in 1.66 is sadly delusioned. Seeing as I was there, at every stage of it; shooting and everything, I should know. I should know."

Glenn Kenny: "Well, that’s about as definitive an answer as we’re likely to get; so where does it come from, then? Where’s the 1.66 idea come from…?"

Leon Vitali: "It comes from people who think they know and weren’t there and have something to say about Stanley all the time. You know, when I first went to Los Angeles, I could go to a party, and somebody’s voice would go up saying, ‘Oh, yes, that’s Stanley,’ and ‘Oh, Eyes Wide Shut,’ and I thought ‘Do they know Stanley, is this common that people at parties talk about him in a loud voice?” But it wasn’t that, it was because they knew…I was there. And you get those idiots…truly, who think they know. [adopts orotund voice] ‘Stanley was a very philosophical guy.’ I say: bullshit."

There's also this:

the massive Taschen book The Stanley Kubrick Archive, edited by Alison Castle "made in cooperation with Jan Harlan, Christiane Kubrick, and The Stanley Kubrick Estate" has a "Note About Aspect Ratios" on the contents page...which lists the aspect ratio of Barry Lyndon as...1.77. Not only that, all of the frame enlargements from Lyndon contained therein are in precisely that ratio.

And here's what Robert Harris has to say:

A note about aspect ratios. There has been discussion that Barry Lyndon was composed for projection at 1.66:1, and this is an interesting thought. The problem, even in 1975, would have been that few cinemas were equipped to project that aspect ratio unless specially set up. In a very general sense, much of the world was running spherical at 1.75:1, while here in the colonies we were running at 1.85:1. 1.66:1 was a specific setup for revival theatres equipped with the necessary aperture plates, optics and maskings.

My feeling has always been that I would be thrilled if Barry Lyndon were to be released on Blu-ray at the HD native aspect ratio of 1.78:1, and the incorrect technical information on the reverse of the packaging aside, that is precisely what has occurred.