1290 Eyes Wide Shut

[ryannichols7]

...in 1.85:1

*dives into bomb shelter*

[domino harvey]

I thought they might do both aspect ratios but I get why they didn’t

[CSM126]

We all have our ancient Kubrick collection DVDs for the open matte version. We’ll be fine.

[mfunk9786]

...in 1.85:1

*dives into bomb shelter*

Don’t make me break out the Taschen

[ryannichols7]

Larry Smith approved it and presumably so did the Kubrick estate, so that's more than enough for me

[oh yeah]

Great news, long time coming. Judging from the still frames provided on the Criterion.com page, the transfer looks excellent - very grainy, blown-out whites in the Xmas party scene instead of flat orange-yellow and digital look as in WB's transfers, etc. I'm looking forward to this.

[ivuernis]

...in 1.85:1

*dives into bomb shelter*

Don’t make me break out the Taschen

The Taschen? 1.33:1 in the list of film aspect ratios and then 1.85:1 clearly marked on the back projection panel where Cruise is walking on the treadmill. Notably that list of film aspect ratios is not reproduced in the compact version of The Kubrick Archives.

[EddieLarkin]

The Taschen itself states the listed ARs refer to the stills in the book. Hence why Lolita, A Clockwork Orange and Barry Lyndon are not listed as 1.33:1, because they were all hard matted to widescreen. It even specifies that Dr. Strangelove features stills in 1.33:1 and 1.66:1, because the film was partly hard matted. What it ISN'T doing is saying Strangelove should somehow be projected in multiple ratios. It isn't making any statement on how any of the films should be shown. Eyes Wide Shut was captured in 1.33:1, ergo the stills are 1.33:1.

[mfunk9786]

The Taschen itself states the listed ARs refer to the stills in the book. Hence why Lolita, A Clockwork Orange and Barry Lyndon are not listed as 1.33:1, because they were all hard matted to widescreen. It even specifies that Dr. Strangelove features stills in 1.33:1 and 1.66:1, because the film was partly hard matted. What it ISN'T doing is saying Strangelove should somehow be projected in multiple ratios. It isn't making any statement on how any of the films should be shown. Eyes Wide Shut was captured in 1.33:1, ergo the stills are 1.33:1.

Also has notes regarding Kubrick's preference for framing in multiple aspect ratios simultaneously so the logical ratios could be used depending on context, TV AR, etc... anyway we have a whole big thread about this, no need to belabor it here.

[ivuernis]

Barry Lyndon couldn't have been hard matted to 1.77:1 though since the old DVD is open matted to about 1.59:1 and the Criterion is the correct 1.66:1. A lot of people sure thought it was making a statement about the open matte ratios of the DVDs being the director's preference, and then there was Warner's botched 1.78:1 Barry Lyndon blu-ray and Vitali insisting 1.77:1 was its correct AR. I'm happy it's all been fixed now thanks to the Criterion.

[ivuernis]

And great to see Christiane's and Katharina's unused EWS poster art getting used for the cover art.

[Big Ben]

I did have a good chuckle over Criterion specifying that this will be the uncut version this time pondering if it was only because we were being so anal over A History of Violence and they later amended the film's page to specify that it too was the uncut international version. I am pleased beyond measure that Criterion has elected not to include, and cater to the more odious members of this films fanbase by including supplements pertaining to any of the innumerable, and utterly asinine conspiracy theories surrounding Kubrick and his work. That "documentary" made about The Shining a few years back was...not good in my opinion.

Can anyone attest to what kind of interviewee the subjects of the new interviews will be? I'm not exactly expecting a goldmine of analytic material but I don't really know if that would even help. All I really remember about this film is how profoundly disturbing I found it when I watched it back in High School on a censored (Open Matte!) VHS tape in 2008.

[flyonthewall2983]

I was hoping they’d include Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures. A separate release at some point would seem more logical I guess but I felt that was as good a representation of that film’s production as it was his other films too.

But that’s neither here nor there at this point just glad it’s coming out.

[Matt]

Owners of the current Blu-ray will probably want to hang on to it since some significant extras are not being carried over to this release: the Channel Four documentary The Last Movie: Stanley Kubrick and 'Eyes Wide Shut' as well as interviews with Steven Spielberg, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman which total about 33 minutes.

I'm now pretty skeptical of a Kubrick box set coming anytime soon from Criterion. It'd be quite a dick move to release two 4K UHDs separately just before announcing that they'll be in a box set. And with this announcement, everything but Lolita—which has been confirmed to be coming from Criterion—will already be on 4K UHD. Every person who is a big enough Kubrick fan to want a complete box set will probably have already bought all of these existing discs. Criterion had the very good sense to announce the Wes Anderson box set and the individual releases of Isle of Dogs and The French Dispatch at the same time to avoid such an issue.

[malachi_lui]

Longtime lurker here, just joined so I can comment on threads.

Highly, highly doubt Criterion would ever do a Kubrick box set. The popular heavy hitters (2001, A Clockwark Orange, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket have studio 4K discs and most people who want them have bought them by now. And a box set with Paths of Glory, Lolita, Dr. Strangelove, Barry Lyndon, and Eyes Wide Shut would make zero sense. At least the other incomplete auteur sets (Demy, Fellini) have a selection that survey the respective director's overall career rather than having a massive gap. Criterion Kubrick box would make no sense at this point. The only possible way I could ever see Criterion bringing back 2001 or whatever from the Laserdisc days is if an 8K home media format ever happened, and... it won't.

Anyway, I'm very hyped for this EWS 4K, even if I'm disappointed that the 1.33 version isn't included. Until now, the best has been the illicit UHD scan of a theatrical print, which is fine but this proper release will obviously beat it. Not that interested in the rest of the November lineup but happy we're finally getting this since Janus/Criterion teased it six(!) years ago now.

[colinr0380]

I am pleased beyond measure that Criterion has elected not to include, and cater to the more odious members of this films fanbase by including supplements pertaining to any of the innumerable, and utterly asinine conspiracy theories surrounding Kubrick and his work. That "documentary" made about The Shining a few years back was...not good in my opinion.

I’m not sure how much credence I would give to the participants in Room 237 myself (to say the least!) And I really don’t like how it started out a trend of ‘documentaries’ imposing their own ideas onto pre-existing films in too concrete and final a manner: Interior. Leather Bar and Lynch/Oz, etc. That's why I would agree with you Big Ben about Criterion staying out of that area - provide the material and then let the internet do what it will with it rather than jumping in to concretely explain every symbolic moment! But having said that I enjoyed Room 237 more as Rorschach tests of its participants, and for examples of how if a film is allusive enough it can bring all sorts of ideas out of people. Kubrick’s films can take the weight of all the conspiracy theories in the world on their shoulders and still remain powerful in and of themselves.

And it was interesting to get into notions of Kubrick having been called upon to fake the Moon landings after 2001: A Space Odyssey (wasn't that general conspiracy theory also where the basic plot of Capricorn One comes from?) and then trying to ‘warn’ the public about the cover up by having Danny in The Shining wearing Apollo rocket jumpers! Or the Poltergeist-anticipating idea that the elevator of blood in The Shining is meant to symbolise the Native American genocide, suppressed but bursting out of the walls of the colonial lodge built on top of their lands (the deeper ghosts below even the decadently debauched 1930s ones, layered on top of each other, Stone Tape-style).

[MichaelB]

...in 1.85:1

*dives into bomb shelter*

Don’t make me break out the Taschen

The Taschen? 1.33:1 in the list of film aspect ratios and then 1.85:1 clearly marked on the back projection panel where Cruise is walking on the treadmill. Notably that list of film aspect ratios is not reproduced in the compact version of The Kubrick Archives.

There is simply no way that a mainstream major star-driven studio release that came out in 1999 would be anything other than 1.85:1, unless it had been shot in anamorphic widescreen. Kubrick was more than savvy enough about projection ratios to know this, not least because he had enough trouble getting US cinemas to frame the 1.66:1 Barry Lyndon correctly - since when all his films were composed in 1.85:1 but protected for 4:3 CRTs.

A few years before Eyes Wide Shut, Peter Greenaway ran into trouble over The Pillow Book, which was framed at 1.33:1 specifically because he wanted to mimic the ratio of an open book. He assumed that since it would be an arthouse release, cinemas would be more amenable to that ratio, but for the most part they couldn't handle it and it was generally shown cropped to widescreen - and it created a headache thereafter for video distributors who framed it correctly but were then accused by angry customers of "butchering" it. Which is why the Indicator release made a point of getting the film's editor/compositor to confirm on camera what the intended ratio was.

[foggy eyes]

EWS is an eye test thing - it looks amazing throughout in 1.33. The Shining has too much headroom about 60% of the time open matte, even though the squarer ratio works better for some shots. It's a shame we can't have both ratios for EWS to at least preserve the alternative home video version, but with the niche appeal (for the open matte version) and expense of 4K disc production I can see why they haven't bothered. I'm sure this blog has been linked before but it features some great examples of how 1.33 benefits the compositions in EWS.

[GaryC]

A few years before Eyes Wide Shut, Peter Greenaway ran into trouble over The Pillow Book, which was framed at 1.33:1 specifically because he wanted to mimic the ratio of an open book. He assumed that since it would be an arthouse release, cinemas would be more amenable to that ratio, but for the most part they couldn't handle it and it was generally shown cropped to widescreen - and it created a headache thereafter for video distributors who framed it correctly but were then accused by angry customers of "butchering" it. Which is why the Indicator release made a point of getting the film's editor/compositor to confirm on camera what the intended ratio was.

I can confirm this, as I saw The Pillow Book at its main London cinema, the Lumiere on St Martin's Lane. It was projected in widescreen - 1.75:1 if I remember rightly, maybe 1.85:1. I don't remember seeing any film at the Lumiere in 1.37:1 (it was my favourite single London screen at the time, and I went there quite a few times) though two of their earliest presentations were Yol and One from the Heart, which are in or should be shown in Academy Ratio. So maybe they could have shown Pillow Book that way, but for whatever reason, they didn't.

[Zot!]

Considering the HOURS of credits modern productions are obligated to add to their films that nobody cares about, including ridiculous logos of multiple production companies, I'm surprised directors/DPs don't just stamp the projection instructions into the actual feature and not just provide "projectionist notes" that are invariably discarded. Just like music has regularly had technical instructions, stereo, 33/44, "To be played at maximum volume", etc...

[EddieLarkin]

In the opening scene to It Follows, a car is backed out of a driveway towards camera, and the licence plate reads OAR 235.

[domino harvey]

Ha, I never noticed that

[MichaelB]

Considering the HOURS of credits modern productions are obligated to add to their films that nobody cares about, including ridiculous logos of multiple production companies, I'm surprised directors/DPs don't just stamp the projection instructions into the actual feature and not just provide "projectionist notes" that are invariably discarded. Just like music has regularly had technical instructions, stereo, 33/44, "To be played at maximum volume", etc...

Kings of the Road opens with the specification that it should be projected at 1.66:1, but Wim Wenders later defied his own instructions by sanctioning a fullscreen 16:9 restoration!

But he said that the main reason for that stipulation was that it wouldn't be projected at 1.85:1, which he felt was too tight.

[Never Cursed]

Considering the HOURS of credits modern productions are obligated to add to their films that nobody cares about, including ridiculous logos of multiple production companies, I'm surprised directors/DPs don't just stamp the projection instructions into the actual feature and not just provide "projectionist notes" that are invariably discarded. Just like music has regularly had technical instructions, stereo, 33/44, "To be played at maximum volume", etc...

Actually reminds me of something fun I found while google searching a little while ago: in70mm.com has saved a bunch of projectionist notes and technical information booklets for films that had 70mm releases. A bunch of it is just technical information that is only relevant to projectionists or historians thereof, but there are some interesting little details, like how West Side Story's overture (about the first 5 minutes of reel 1) was supposed to be played with the house lights up or The Untouchables' booklet warning the projectionist that the first reel changeover was very difficult to see. (It wasn't on 70mm, but Barry Lyndon's original release had a similar problem where one of the reel changeover dots came too early and they had to take all the finished prints and draw an "x" on the right frames). The weirdest ones are for Dick Tracy (where reel 1 of the movie is Roger Rabbit cartoon Rollercoaster Rabbit followed by a trailer for Betsy's Wedding - so anyone who wants to mimic the "authentic" viewing experience should play those before watching this!) and Otto Preminger's Exodus, which asks the projectionist to turn the sound waaaaaaaay up from normal settings for the opening/opening of part 2 theme music and for the Acre Prison Break sequence, and also to play the final flaming show title on the closed auditorium curtains themselves (a trick Gone With The Wind did as well in its roadshow screenings).

EDIT: Another website indicates that El Cid did a similar thing to Exodus where the jousting sequence was supposed to have the volume boosted

[GaryC]

One I remember is a French SF film called L'unique, starring Julia Migenes, which I saw years ago at what was then the National Film Theatre in a foreign-language SF season. When the film started there were white horizontal lines near the top and bottom of the frame and text above and below these respectively saying in French something like "This film is not being projected in the intended ratio of 1.85:1." Which clearly the NFT projection staff hadn't noticed.

It's been a while, but don't many Pedro Almodóvar films have "formato Scope" in the end credits? I presume his non-Scope films have "formato 1:1,85" or similar in their end credits but I don't remember if they do or not.