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Ishmael wrote:And considering that he'll never really admit that he's objectively wrong about this, he's gonna be crowing for the rest of his life about his fabled debates with Polanski (with whom Wells no doubt sees himself as being an equal in terms of artistic judgment and integrity).

I've been led to believe by a source who has examined the film closely that the viewer may -- I say 'may' -- not be able to see the steak they're eating. Again -- I don't know that the steak is missing, but I've heard that it may be.

Ishmael wrote:The sickening thing about all this is that Wells wins, big time. Here's Wells, a small-time loser, getting all this attention and personally communicating with Roman Polanski. It doesn't matter that Wells is clearly playing the strutting ass. The more he does that, the more attention he's gonna get. And considering that he'll never really admit that he's objectively wrong about this, he's gonna be crowing for the rest of his life about his fabled debates with Polanski (with whom Wells no doubt sees himself as being an equal in terms of artistic judgment and integrity).

hearthesilence wrote:LOL, if he actually crows about that one post for the rest of his life (and I doubt anyone will consider the interaction a "debate"), that's not going to look like a feather in his cap, it's just going to look SAD.

mfunk9786 wrote:

I've been led to believe by a source who has examined the film closely that the viewer may -- I say 'may' -- not be able to see the steak they're eating. Again -- I don't know that the steak is missing, but I've heard that it may be.

Hey, at least the guy has perspective and has his priorities straight. I mean, this is the ultimate sin against humanity! Won't someone please think of the steak?!

Jeffrey Wells wrote:If Mia Farrow and John Cassevettes are eating a steak dinner with Ruth Gordon and Sydney Blackmer in the latter's apartment, you want to be able to see the steak, and if you can't see the steak then you need to write a letter to Bob Furmanek and tell him to go eff himself and change the aspect ratio to whatever you need it to be in order to see the meat on the plate. Because Rosemary's Baby dp William Fraker was, I believe, the kind of guy who liked to show the audience what the characters are eating, and I'm the kind of guy who likes to see that also.

If the Criterion Bluray shows the steak, fine -- let's put this issue to bed. But if it doesn't show the steak, let's at least acknowledge that it doesn't do this and that the steak is lost and gone and that Criterion and Polanski and Furmanek have had a hand in this, and that I, at least, was one person who stood up and said, "Keep the steak! Let's see the reddish-brown juice on the plate!"

Polanski also agreed to write two brief inserts for Ken Tynan's erotic revue Oh! Calcutta!, which the director collectively called 'The Voyeur'. In the first, a girl would appear and strip, but her breasts and crotch remain concealed by the strategically positioned furniture, a gag used to good effect by Austin Powers thirty years later. Another girl then enters, also strips and makes similarly veiled love to her friend. In the second sketch, Polanski's script opened with a man and a woman sitting opposite one another in a train compartment. Each character in turn would expose themselves, an act suggested solely by their partner's facial expression, before they dive below the window frame, and thus decorously out of shot, apparently screwing. Tynan thought the two pieces classic 'cock-teasing' Polanski films, but in the end, for budgetary reasons, never used them.

tarpilot wrote:I can't imagine him not obsessively checking his Google alerts every hour and seeing this thread; has he ever posted here?

MichaelB wrote:Wells' bizarre steak argument reminded me of something Polanski proposed not long after completing Rosemary's Baby:

Polanski also agreed to write two brief inserts for Ken Tynan's erotic revue Oh! Calcutta!, which the director collectively called 'The Voyeur'. In the first, a girl would appear and strip, but her breasts and crotch remain concealed by the strategically positioned furniture, a gag used to good effect by Austin Powers thirty years later. Another girl then enters, also strips and makes similarly veiled love to her friend. In the second sketch, Polanski's script opened with a man and a woman sitting opposite one another in a train compartment. Each character in turn would expose themselves, an act suggested solely by their partner's facial expression, before they dive below the window frame, and thus decorously out of shot, apparently screwing. Tynan thought the two pieces classic 'cock-teasing' Polanski films, but in the end, for budgetary reasons, never used them.

(Source: Polanski by Christopher Sandford)

In other words, I propose that Polanski is deliberately denying Wells the sight of "the reddish-brown juice on the plate", and that Wells' comical desperation is precisely the reaction that he intended.

domino harvey wrote:That is legitimately the stupidest thing quoted in this thread, and it comes from such a deep place of wrongness that it's astounding

Wells to C.C. Baxter: I'm sorry, but I feel I know as much if not more than Preminger about the best way to project and appreciate Anatomy of a Murder. It's an Eisenhower-era movie, and it needs to breathe a bit. It needs a little air, a little head space. It really does. You have to be able to look up and feel the breeze on your face and savor the sky and the trees and the birds. I'll relent on the 1.33 a.r. for the sake of argument, but 1.66 would have been a much more agreeable way to go. You're not going to tell me that Preminger didn't know in his gut that many if not most audiences (i.e., those outside of the big cities) would be seeing Anatomy in a boxier shape. And don't talk to me about what's been written down about what he wanted. He wasn't delusional. He was a very tough hombre who lived and worked in the commercial realm, and he KNEW that TV airings were the main thing. On top of which all history is malleable. History is written by the winners.

CSM126 wrote:I just wish he'd explain why he hates the 1.85 aspect ratio so much. It's like he gets piss-boiling angry every time he sees a film in that format, and it seems completely irrational. Like, does he get mad at directors who deliberately choose 1.85? Does he demand that the films be shown some other way? I can easily envision this guy storming the projection booth and busting it down Shining style just to fuck with the plates. It's really kind of disturbing. I'm surprised he hasn't written some lengthy hate letter to Wes Anderson for switching to 1.85 for Moonrise Kingdom.

Because I believe in height and head space and air that characters in a film can breathe in and out.

CSM126 wrote: