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denti alligator wrote:Can someone please post comparison caps of the film in both ARs. Please. This way we can have a better basis for discussion.

Hare posted some prettly illustrative caps on page one (academy) and page two (2.0:1) on this thread.

"Smuggling" against the front office? Come on. Now you're just making stuff up.

I’m curious– have any of you ever seen or run any of the films you’re thinking of in 35mm? How do you know what you’re seeing on TV is truly open matte? Ever sat in on a telecine session? There’s all sorts of zooming in that goes on.

Check out this example from the film, WAR OF THE COLOSSAL BEAST. It’s pretty evident to make the film more “4:3 friendly,” they’ve cropped off quite a bit off of all sides. The blue is the final NTSC video, whereas the black and white picture behind it is a scan from a real film.

Even grossly more exaggerated is the Dark Sky Films transfer to the 1958 horror film BLOOD OF THE VAMPIRE. Check out this frame grab. Note that the film is HARD MATTED to 1.66:1 (actually slightly less, which is the standard in hard matting). When the DVD was released, everyone cried 1.37, not realizing how off the transfer was. The dark section is the DVD, overlaid onto a 35mm scan. Cyan is 1.85, and red is 1.66.

I can’t stress enough that if you aren’t seeing it as an original contact print on film, you're simply out of the picture.

I find it rather amusing that the more documentation is presented on the emergence of widescreen, the more desperate the attempt becomes to rationalize a point. Oh sure, UI was shooting widescreen for 6 months but Sirk and Metty would go against the studio policy and compose MO for Smalltown, USA as well as television 20 years into the future.

Show me something other than speculation to prove your theory, and then it'll have some substance.

But I'll bow out at this point. You can fantasize all you want about what the director was thinking on a 24 day shoot and the psychological meaning of inanimate objects at the top of the frame, but I have no interest in playing this game.

I was just thinking this thread was overdue for some anti-intellectualism

thephotoplayer wrote:"Smuggling" against the front office? Come on. Now you're just making stuff up.

Coming from the guy who said:

thephotoplayer wrote:If either men did not want their film to be seen wide-screen, at that point it would have been as simple as that

it's not surprising you feel that way.

Sir, I'd suggest you take some time and lurk a bit more. We all know what telecine is around here, we all know about hemming in the telecine gate, we all are familiar how some films get crimped in on the edges. I've seen silent films like Way Down East get turned into a near-widescreen shape by goofs in telecine. If you want a really awful example of that, look no further than David Shepard's Vampyr for Image.

This conversation is not about you... or your work with 3D films. ("Oh yeah? What makes you an expert? Oh yeah? Well I've...") You're on a forum with telecine operators, disc producers, newspaper reviewers, Rosenbaum, Schmidlin, Ehrenstein, MoC, Second Sight, etc, and nobody-- and I mean nobody-- talks like this. Keep your discussion on the merits of your own argument, and nothing else.

Smuggling is a term that's pretty old hat, my friend. The most famous use of it is from Scorsese's Personal Journey Thru The Movies, where he carries the theme of filmmakers smuggling ideas and visions and techniques past the front office thru episode after episode as an ongoing part of the text.

HerrSchreck wrote:Coming from the guy who said:

thephotoplayer wrote:If either men did not want their film to be seen wide-screen, at that point it would have been as simple as that

it's not surprising you feel that way.

You took what I said entirely out of context. What I was saying was that Sirk and Metty wanted their films to be shown a certain way, they probably would have worked with the front office, not against them.

HerrSchreck wrote:This conversation is not about you... or your work with 3D films. ("Oh yeah? What makes you an expert? Oh yeah? Well I've..") You're on a forum with telecine operators, disc producers, newspaper reviewers, Rosenbaum, Schmidlin, Ehrenstein, MoC, Second Sight, etc, and nobody-- and I mean nobody-- talks like this. Keep your discussion on the merits of your own argument, and nothing else.

I've never said it was, and I've never used what I do as a crutch (if I told you what I did for a living, you might as well just beat me over the head).

But since we're talking about it, what do YOU do that makes you so high and holy?

It seems that instead of sticking to the facts, you're simply just taking pot-shots, which I don't think anyone, including your own, appreciate.

HerrSchreck wrote:Smuggling is a term that's pretty old hat, my friend. The most famous use of it is from Scorsese's Personal Journey Thru The Movies, where he carries the theme of filmmakers smuggling ideas and visions and techniques past the front office thru episode after episode as an ongoing part of the text.

Agreed, you can "smuggle" all sorts of imagery you want through being subtle, but when you get into that screening room with studio execs and they see that you're cropping peoples heads and everything is incoherent through wide-screen, you'd be finding yourself either on the "B" roster for a while, or if you weren't even established to begin with, out on the street. Bad news for a film maker in 1953.

HerrSchreck wrote:This thread is an abomination.

Lock it furchrissakes.

It's tempting. I'll take the responsibility for the unfortunate tone it has taken. I riled up some of the membership at Home Theater Forum with my comment about "the kids" over there. As I have mentioned, it wasn't meant as a pejorative.

I probably also should not have linked to the unfortunate postings by one of HTF's members regarding the "stupidity" of the members of this forum and Dave Kehr's blog. I found his comments churlish and ignorant, considering the number of learned scholars and cinephiles in both places. I wanted to point the comments out, when they were probably best left ignored.

Obviously, there is no argument about the fact that Magnificent Obsession was shot in a 1.37:1 aspect ratio. There is also little doubt that it was most commonly exhibited at at 2:1 ratio. The question lies in which aspect ratio Mr. Sirk preferred, and which ratio the viewer finds most aesthetically pleasing. The first question is unanswerable, and the second is entirely subjective. Therefore, I can't see that there is a "correct" answer.

Criterion's upcoming release of the film looks to be absolutely essential regardless of the ratio it is presented in. As I said in August when we first found out it was coming, they really should present the film in both ratios, which would please everybody and make for an interesting comparison.

I truly appreciate Mr. Furmanek and Mr. Theakston coming here to share their insight with us. I think that this is a discussion worth having as long as it can remain civil. If this is going to continue to devolve into ad hominems, it will be locked. Here is a link to the parallel discussion going on at Home Theater Forum.

Thank you, Jeff. Your comment is a breath of fresh air in this discussion. I apologize if my tone has come off as harsh.

Clearly we will have to agree to disagree in this case. While I'm sure an amicable resolve could be produced by putting both full-ap and wide-screen versions on the same set, the economics behind it, I'm afraid, don't warrant such a release.

Just a bit of addendum to the color/b&w disposition of television in 1953 and forward, as it was stated above that color television didn't exist in 1953:

Here is the history of the CBS color system, with sales beginning in 1951 of their set viz their technology. The FCC had been trying to develop a broadcasting standard for color that would accommodate the existing b&w standard since the 40's, with a series of long belabored hearings.

As to the standardized NTSC color system still in place (and preparing to be phased out), here's a great little blurb page from an old broadcaster who owns one of the old RCA cameras:

As television broadcasters and their audiences begin the massive and expensive transition to digital High Definition TV, you might be interested in the last major television revolution: the big change to COLOR broadcasting in the 1950's-60's. Until 1953 television had been strictly black and white. There were competing schemes for transmitting color pictures, but in 1953 the RCA "compatible-color" system was accepted as the standard by the FCC. RCA's system allowed color images to be transmitted and received on either monochrome or color receivers.

Color television had been around prior to these dates '51/'53... but 53 (coincidentally the year of the film under discussion) is the year the NTSC color standard was settled upon.

In my opinion, if a director does something a certain way, and someone later removes that, that isn't subjectivity, it's revisionism.

My goal, and point in this discussion, is to prove that Sirk wasn't some renegade director who went against the grain and composed his films for a ratio that was being dropped at the studio that he was working for. He was a talented utility director that Universal handed all of their soap operas to, and as long as he was being paid, he was going to do anything Universal asked him to.

Someone else mentioned earlier in this thread (and I forgot to catch it) that there have been "58-page memos" that prove that directors and studios clash. To that I say-- absolutely correct. So if Sirk and Universal were butting heads, where are all of the stories, production reports, and 58-page memos to prove this? All I've been asking for in this thread from the start is a little less subjectivity and a little more reality. Where's the interview with Sirk saying later that he didn't like wide-screen? Where are the complaints from exhibitors that the wide-screen version wasn't fitting their screen (as was the case with SHANE and THUNDER BAY, two pics that WERE shot for the Academy ratio).

At that point, theaters could still run 1.37 if they had to. But the majority of them had already switched to wide-screen. Why make a product that isn't going to fit the majority of the screens in the country? Doesn't it make sense to compose for that and THEN work around that by making sure there isn't any unwanted information in the cropped area?

I mean, while we're on the subject, what was the point of VistaVision, folks? It was invented in 1953 to make finer grained 35mm print for wide-screen presentations. If wide-screen wasn't so apparent, why go out of your way to make a system so convoluted?!

Announcement:

Third and final chance. I've removed the bitching to the waste disposal subforum. If it does not remain there, this topic will be locked (and who knows, you may even return to find your posts re-edited to say silly and embarrassing things).

Jack, I would be interested to know in what ratios you've seen MO, whether you've done A/B comparisons, and whether you've worked with 35mm elements of it, as you've said is necessary to be able to have a reliably accurate sense of framing issues. I've seen the film on DVD in 1.33:1 and 2:1 and compared them, so to answer your challenge about whether I'm really looking at open-matte, yes of course I can tell open matte when I see it compared to widescreen.

thephotoplayer wrote:In my opinion, if a director does something a certain way, and someone later removes that, that isn't subjectivity, it's revisionism.

I have no idea what this means. What would be "removed" in presenting the film in academy is masking. It's removing what SOME projectionists, did, not what the filmmakers did. Or do you somehow still believe in that mysterious 2:1 aperture plate you referred to in your first post?

My goal, and point in this discussion, is to prove that Sirk wasn't some renegade director who went against the grain and composed his films for a ratio that was being dropped at the studio that he was working for. He was a talented utility director that Universal handed all of their soap operas to, and as long as he was being paid, he was going to do anything Universal asked him to.

No one has said he was being confrontational about the recommendation of 2:1. But why suppose that he and Metty would instantly adapt artistically to the recommended aspect ratio when not eveyone would see the film that way? You're still not willing to accept that directors had to work around multiple aspect ratios during the introduction of widescreen, are you? Again, what was acceptable-looking to Universal for the 2:1 masking is not the same as what is generally preferred by students of Sirk's mise-en-scene as something that represents his approach to composition and spatial organization.
Is it any coincidence that every single hard-line widescreen-only people in discussion of Magnificent Obsession try to change the subject every time Sirk's compositions, use of space and blocking come up, and that they claim no insight or appreciation of these?

So if Sirk and Universal were butting heads, where are all of the stories, production reports, and 58-page memos to prove this? All I've been asking for in this thread from the start is a little less subjectivity and a little more reality. Where's the interview with Sirk saying later that he didn't like wide-screen?

It's a truism that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. We just don't have documentation about most of this, which is why all your studio memos can only tell one little part of the story. That's why this is such a difficult mess, as I've been pointing out all along, not as cut-and-dried as you'd have us believe.
But no one said Sirk was butting heads with the studios the way Welles did -- that'd be silly. The point in mentioning the 58-page memo was to show that directors were not always able to get their way about everything. They compromise artistically sometimes.

Where are the complaints from exhibitors that the wide-screen version wasn't fitting their screen (as was the case with SHANE and THUNDER BAY, two pics that WERE shot for the Academy ratio).

?? If it wouldn't fit their screen in widescreen, they simply didn't mask it to 2:1, obviously. That's the reason why MO and many other mid-50s films were shown in academy in many theaters, regardless of Universal's recommendations about widescreen, as you've acknowledged.

At that point, theaters could still run 1.37 if they had to. But the majority of them had already switched to wide-screen. Why make a product that isn't going to fit the majority of the screens in the country?

Please cite a source for your claim about the majority, not that the argument rests on this. I'd just be interested to know what this turns up. From everything I've read, a lot of theaters were simply not equipped to do the masking to widescreen. It took a significant amount of time for every part of this process to happen. Other types of theater where things were persistently shown in academy were the second-runs and revival houses. Huge, huge numbers of people saw films in places like this. Why, I'll ask again, would Sirk and Metty do nothing of aesthetic importance with this extra space when they knew that lots of people would be watching the film in these venues or in television airings? And these TV showings of '50s films were not happening 20 years in the future, as Bob claimed. That's another made up "fact" from one of our experts.
That's why even if the majority were widescreen in late 1953, for the sake of argument, it wouldn't follow that Sirk and Metty would compose primarily for widescreen and forget all about the benefits of academy, the value of which they understood well (Welles too).

You and/or Bob and repeatedly said that it would take hour to set up a single shot so that it would look OK in more than one ratio. I'm just an amateur here, not a film historian, I'll admit that. But isn't it fairly well known that this is what filmmakers were doing during this period. I've already referred to comments by Hitchcock talking about it. So please cite a source to support this claim that it would dramatically increase shooting time to an impossible length for Sirk/Metty to be able to do this. Doesn't the fact that MO looks more acceptable in 2:1 than All I Desire would suggest that they were doing just that?

Doesn't it make sense to compose for that and THEN work around that by making sure there isn't any unwanted information in the cropped area?

No, and why do you assume that was their process? They could see how it would look at different ratios. Why not suppose they composed it in academy, making sure at the same time there wouldn't be many glaring problems after masking? There is MUCH more to Sirk's approach to composition than just looking at where people's heads are. Anyone who has tried watches these films and can't see that doesn't understand the mise-en-scene -- for example using space around the characters in frame, use of color in this headroom, etc. Creating lines in the frame is another one. I was looking at some original stills from Written on the Wind and All That Heaven Allows today that were more open than what's on the Criterion discs, and these kinds of things were evidently greatly enhanced.
There are all kinds of more minor problems with the 2:1 cropping, at least the way it has been transferred so far. These are evident in the examples on p.1 of this thread, and I will try to provide some further examples once I can download what I need to take screen captures. (I don't really feel there's a big hurry as I hold out almost no hope Criterion will change their plans.)

Gregory wrote:Jack, I would be interested to know in what ratios you've seen MO, whether you've done A/B comparisons, and whether you've worked with 35mm elements of it, as you've said is necessary to be able to have a reliably accurate sense of framing issues. I've seen the film on DVD in 1.33:1 and 2:1 and compared them, so to answer your challenge about whether I'm really looking at open-matte, yes of course I can tell open matte when I see it compared to widescreen.

For the record, I have never run a 35mm print of MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION, but I have seen the film in 35mm at a 1.85 format, and I've seen the film on TV open matte.

I have no idea what this means. What would be "removed" in presenting the film in academy is masking. It's removing what SOME projectionists, did, not what the filmmakers did. Or do you somehow still believe in that mysterious 2:1 aperture plate you referred to in your first post?

What's so mysterious about an aperture plate cut for 2:1? RCA and Simplex offered this plate in their catalog for years.

No one has said he was being confrontational about the recommendation of 2:1. But why suppose that he and Metty would instantly adapt artistically to the recommended aspect ratio when not eveyone would see the film that way?

Because when composing at a maximum aspect ratio (2:1), theaters using that ratio would not be cropping it. Anything less would not be "wrong" in a sense that Sirk and Metty made it "safe" for those ratios, but those aren't the ratios that they composed their shots for.

In other words, they were willing to compromise the integrity of their compositions if it meant more exhibitors showing the film.

You're still not willing to accept that directors had to work around multiple aspect ratios during the introduction of widescreen, are you? Again, what was acceptable-looking to Universal for the 2:1 masking is not the same as what is generally preferred by students of Sirk's mise-en-scene as something that represents his approach to composition and spatial organization.

I think a lot of what you're talking about at this point is subjective. But because there is a science behind it first, I will tell you that yes, I do believe that DPs (to this day) compose for a particular ratio in mind and then base any other plans around that.

I also stick to my opinion that not as much thought was given to other formats than to the "preferred ratio." If that were the case, the shoot would have taken twice as long.

Is it any coincidence that every single hard-line widescreen-only people in discussion of Magnificent Obsession try to change the subject every time Sirk's compositions, use of space and blocking come up, and that they claim no insight or appreciation of these?

I think they're put off by your jargon and overly-convoluted critiques of each of his shots. Sirk was an artist, but Truffaut he was not.

That being said, looking at the DVD caps, I don't see anything wrong with the composition, comparisons being made to films at the time shot in 'scope, or films that we know for a fact were shot for wide-screen.

It's a truism that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. We just don't have documentation about most of this, which is why all your studio memos can only tell one little part of the story. That's why this is such a difficult mess, as I've been pointing out all along, not as cut-and-dried as you'd have us believe.

We could say that Abraham Lincoln was Chinese and was killed in a hunting accident, but it's not so because we're relying on testimony and documentation of the day (ie. photos of Lincoln and newspaper articles). Likewise, there has been a great deal of testimony of directors and articles from reputable news sources presented here. Circumstantially, I would say there is less of a case for the 1.37 side.

Please cite a source for your claim about the majority, not that the argument rests on this. I'd just be interested to know what this turns up. From everything I've read, a lot of theaters were simply not equipped to do the masking to widescreen. It took a significant amount of time for every part of this process to happen. Other types of theater where things were persistently shown in academy were the second-runs and revival houses.

According to an article from BOXOFFICE Magazine from December 5, 1953, in a poll taken by BoxOffice and the American Seating Co., out of 16,753 theater polled, 58% of theaters had installed wide-screen and/or 3-D equipment or would be within the end of the year ('53). I can send you a scan of the article with more breakdowns if you're interested.

And these TV showings of '50s films were not happening 20 years in the future, as Bob claimed. That's another made up "fact" from one of our experts.

Perhaps not 20 years, but Universal didn't license their films for television for another five or six years (their deal with Screen Gems). The point of wide-screen was to combat TV-- to give people what they couldn't get at home.

So please cite a source to support this claim that it would dramatically increase shooting time to an impossible length for Sirk/Metty to be able to do this. Doesn't the fact that MO looks more acceptable in 2:1 than All I Desire would suggest that they were doing just that?

I'm speaking from personal experience of actually being on sets. It takes hours to light a set, and then it takes a very long time (depending on the director) to line shots up, get the focus, sweeten the lighting, etc. It's no joke that some actors sit around for hours while shots are set up.

Again, who said that ALL I DESIRE is supposed to be wide-screen? Bob F. and I refuted that by showing that the film was made before Universal even re-tooled their viewfinders for wide-screen.

No, and why do you assume that was their process? They could see how it would look at different ratios. Why not suppose they composed it in academy, making sure at the same time there wouldn't be many glaring problems after masking?

Because, as I have said, it's easier to do it the other way around. Would you rather have important information cropped, or would you rather have a little bit more space on TOP of your compositions?

A good example are the films of Stanley Kubrick (the aspect ratios of which are also often maligned). THE SHINING is my key example. Many people felt that at 1.37:1, the film "looked fine" and they complained that "too much information would be cropped otherwise." All fine and good, except that the original transfer of the film on DVD was zoomed in a great deal, and two, it's well documented through Kubrick's storyboards that "THE FRAME IS EXACTLY 1.85:1. Obviously you compose for that, but protect for the full 1.33-1 area."

There is MUCH more to Sirk's approach to composition than just looking at where people's heads are. Anyone who has tried watches these films and can't see that doesn't understand the mise-en-scene -- for example using space around the characters in frame, use of color in this headroom, etc. Creating lines in the frame is another one. I was looking at some original stills from Written on the Wind and All That Heaven Allows today that were more open than what's on the Criterion discs, and these kinds of things were evidently greatly enhanced.

OK, if you want to read into those films those things, fine. But paint is paint, and being objective always takes priority before being subjective, which is the realm that you've crossed into here. One might see a phallus, another will see that a cigar is just a cigar.

There are all kinds of more minor problems with the 2:1 cropping, at least the way it has been transferred so far. These are evident in the examples on p.1 of this thread, and I will try to provide some further examples once I can download what I need to take screen captures. (I don't really feel there's a big hurry as I hold out almost no hope Criterion will change their plans.)

In my opinion, that is a good thing. They've stuck to their guns on this, and I think if they were on this board, they could probably explain their end of the case (possibly with sources I don't have).

But in any case, I look forward to your commentary and posting some examples when you have the time.

Wow, I just went to the first page, after freaking out thinking this thread already made it to 6 pages, and saw that this argument began well over a year ago (thanks to whoever merged that into this thread.)

I still don't see the issue with the widescreen grabs when compared to the somewhat similar television 1.37:1 comparison grabs (which is probably why I still don't understand how this conversation could get so carried away.) The one thing that really gets me is that the space above the heads looks far too large when I look at the television grabs. I also have to say I like the tighter framing of the widescreen grabs (though, yes, the Universal logo is cropped a bit) and whatever david was trying to prove there actually didn't work for me. But then I guess that's personal preference.

Looking at those grabs again have me curious now. I haven't seen the film in widescreen and I'm now a little more interested in this release just to see the film in that ratio.

thephotoplayer wrote:What's so mysterious about an aperture plate cut for 2:1? RCA and Simplex offered this plate in their catalog for years.

I'm not doubting that 2:1 aperture plates existed, of course. I was calling attention to your suggestion that MO was filmed with one. Wouldn't this be impossible because if the aperture was 2:1, the whole frame wouldn't have been exposed and we wouldn't have the option of seeing it in a more open ratio and thus wouldn't be having this discussion? The discussion is about the effects of soft-matting on the film's use of space.
You didn't really try to clear up what I said I was confused about, but that's OK -- we should probably be winding this down, at least I'd like to.

Gregory wrote:No one has said he was being confrontational about the recommendation of 2:1. But why suppose that he and Metty would instantly adapt artistically to the recommended aspect ratio when not eveyone would see the film that way?

Because when composing at a maximum aspect ratio (2:1), theaters using that ratio would not be cropping it. Anything less would not be "wrong" in a sense that Sirk and Metty made it "safe" for those ratios, but those aren't the ratios that they composed their shots for.
In other words, they were willing to compromise the integrity of their compositions if it meant more exhibitors showing the film.

That didn't really answer my question. But 'round and 'round we go. What you're speculating here is only one possibility, and I don't see any grounds to assume it to have been the case. It's hard to argue against it because you've merely asserted it. Just to make it clear, though, my response to this is not "No, they definitely did not compose it primarily for 2:1"; it's "That's not necessarily so; there is room for doubt here and that's why we should be able to make comparisons. What I see in the comparison is..."

Gregory wrote:You're still not willing to accept that directors had to work around multiple aspect ratios during the introduction of widescreen, are you? Again, what was acceptable-looking to Universal for the 2:1 masking is not the same as what is generally preferred by students of Sirk's mise-en-scene as something that represents his approach to composition and spatial organization.

I think a lot of what you're talking about at this point is subjective. But because there is a science behind it first, I will tell you that yes, I do believe that DPs (to this day) compose for a particular ratio in mind and then base any other plans around that.

More deadlock here, it seems. I never claimed to be objective, whatever that would mean. But I am also not making up my ideas of Sirk's mise en scène out of thin air, for example what I've tried to observe about his use of space around heads, and so on.

I also stick to my opinion that not as much thought was given to other formats than to the "preferred ratio." If that were the case, the shoot would have taken twice as long.

Source for this "twice as long" figure, please. And it would need to be specific to how Sirk and Metty worked because they were not your average filmmakers. I actually do think it's plausible to say it would be extremely difficult to come up with shots that looked really good in both 1.37 and 2.0. Maybe that's why the framing in the UK R2 DVD looks like absolute shit some of the time. Composing for academy was what everyone was still used to doing in 1953; composing well for 2:1 is what would present the difficulty, and it shows.

Gregory wrote:Is it any coincidence that every single hard-line widescreen-only people in discussion of Magnificent Obsession try to change the subject every time Sirk's compositions, use of space and blocking come up, and that they claim no insight or appreciation of these?

I think they're put off by your jargon and overly-convoluted critiques of each of his shots. Sirk was an artist, but Truffaut he was not.

Yes, I know you think that. It reveals more than you intend about where you're coming from in this discussion, too, in my view.

As for jargon, this amuses me because I'm so anti-jargon. I work in one of the academic fields least contaminated by jargon over the past couple of decades. Film appreciation is a hobby, I've never even taken a film studies course in my life, and I only like to read books on film that are virtually jargon-free. Of course I'm using terms that not everyone would necessarily understand their sense -- everyone does that. But the only jargon in this discussion has been about things like apertures, matting, Superscope, Vistavision, etc. NOT about the mise en scène, which has barely been discussed anyway. Of course lots of film fans would have no interest in discussing the mise-en-scène of a film, but that has to do with the reasons they enjoy film being different from another persons, not because such a discussion would necessarily involve esoteric language.

Gregory wrote:It's a truism that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. We just don't have documentation about most of this, which is why your studio memos can only tell one little part of the story.

We could say that Abraham Lincoln was Chinese and was killed in a hunting accident, but it's not so because we're relying on testimony and documentation of the day (ie. photos of Lincoln and newspaper articles). Likewise, there has been a great deal of testimony of directors and articles from reputable news sources presented here. Circumstantially, I would say there is less of a case for the 1.37 side.

I don't follow you here at all. I stand by my claim that a lot of this is surrounded in mystery because of a lack of hard documentation about things like what ratio Sirk or Metty had in mind for a particular film. That's obvious. And as someone who works in archives, I can attest that there are a huge number of things generally that cannot be researched archivally because the sources just don't exist anymore, or never did.
You're focusing on one part of this equation -- what the studio was attempting to mandate -- and documenting that admirably, but it's only one part of this discussion. But I'm just repeating myself now.

According to an article from BOXOFFICE Magazine from December 5, 1953, in a poll taken by BoxOffice and the American Seating Co., out of 16,753 theater polled, 58% of theaters had installed wide-screen and/or 3-D equipment or would be within the end of the year ('53). I can send you a scan of the article with more breakdowns if you're interested.

I really wonder if the cheap second-run theaters that scattered the map were proportionally represented in that poll -- something we'll probably never know. Even as the figure stands, 58% is barely a majority, and if we factor in all the theaters in other countries that tended to show these films in academy, it's probably a minority of the total theaters showing MO. I could be wrong, of course, but in any case we now have confirmation that widescreen had not saturated so heavily at the time of MO that the filmmakers would be inclined to waste the cinematographic space of the full frame, even though as I've said they had to make sure it looked reasonably good matted to 2:1.

I'm speaking from personal experience of actually being on sets. It takes hours to light a set, and then it takes a very long time (depending on the director) to line shots up, get the focus, sweeten the lighting, etc. It's no joke that some actors sit around for hours while shots are set up.

I'm aware of that, but none of that speaks specifically to the problem of looking at more than one ratio in the viewfinder. I still want to know why it would take dramatically longer to compose primarily for 1.37 but look to make sure that nothing would be horribly amiss in the widescreen ratio compared to composing for 2:1 and protecting the full frame. They both involve a consideration of two ratios simultaneously.

Gregory wrote:Doesn't the fact that MO looks more acceptable in 2:1 than All I Desire would suggest that they were [making sure that the film looked OK in 2:1]?

Again, who said that ALL I DESIRE is supposed to be wide-screen? Bob F. and I refuted that by showing that the film was made before Universal even re-tooled their viewfinders for wide-screen.

Yes, I already knew that All I Desire was academy (and for my part at least there were no initial doubts about this). I am referring to an earlier part of the argument in which I was responding to a point from yoshimori. He was arguing that if MO was composed primarily for academy it would look worse than in fact it does in 2:1, kind of like if someone cropped All I Desire to 2:1. My response was to again acknowledge that some consideration of how it would look matted to widescreen was part of how MO was filmed, unlike with All I Desire.

Gregory wrote:Why not suppose they composed it in academy, making sure at the same time there wouldn't be many glaring problems after masking?

Because, as I have said, it's easier to do it the other way around. Would you rather have important information cropped, or would you rather have a little bit more space on TOP of your compositions?

I would definitely rather lose some space and decor in widescreen presentations and still have it there for when it's shown in academy, rather than have dead space. Neither option is optimal for those who were as expert at using the space of the full frame as Sirk and Metty were before they began to really adjust to the wider means of organizing the space.

This would be a different discussion if we were talking about some average second-unit grade director. Sirk and Metty were artists, and artists often avoid doing what's "easier." This is where I think your view that Sirk was "cranking" these films out and that he was "no Truffaut" really plays into the speculations on both sides about how they worked.
Of course it will appear to some that I'm giving Sirk too much credit for what he put into the films he made and the meaning of the visual information surrounding the people on-screen in this film. Well, they would be wrong -- that's my basic conviction here.
Bob Furmanek left the discussion when mise en scène came up, sniffing that we were free to go on fantasizing about the psychological meaning of table legs. It probably is best to "bow out" at that point.

A good example are the films of Stanley Kubrick (the aspect ratios of which are also often maligned). THE SHINING is my key example. Many people felt that at 1.37:1, the film "looked fine" and they complained that "too much information would be cropped otherwise." All fine and good, except that the original transfer of the film on DVD was zoomed in a great deal, and two, it's well documented through Kubrick's storyboards that "THE FRAME IS EXACTLY 1.85:1. Obviously you compose for that, but protect for the full 1.33-1 area."

Yes, that's very convincing information to show that The Shining is correct in widescreen. That kind of thing has been markedly absent in the case for MO being composed mainly or only for widescreen.
(Edited to correct misspelled name)

I'm just going to say one more thing, perhaps pedantic and semantic, but important to me. Gregory wrote:

"I still want to know why it would take dramatically longer to compose primarily for 1.37 but look to make sure that nothing would be horribly amiss in the widescreen ratio compared to composing for 2:1 and protecting the full frame. They both involve a consideration of two ratios simultaneously."

This assumes that one can "compose for" 1.37:1 and still get viewable compositions in 2:1. First a definition: as far as I (as well as every cinematographer I know, and there are many) am concerned to "compose for" a ratio has first of all to do with the placement of the subject(s) in the height of the selected frame. Now, we know for certain how Mr Sirk typically "composed for" the 1.37:1 frame, as we have many indisputable examples of this. It is also clear that (using this definition of "compose for") MO is NOT "composed primarily for" the 1.37:1 frame. One may find this irrelevant to the larger discussion (though I don't think it is), but I just wanted to be as clear as possible about one of the points I was trying to make. That's it from me.

Stanley Cortez said that "Shock Corridor" was composed for 1.33. That was 1963. (Obviously no one is going to present that film in anything but 1.85.) Perhaps these films just don't have "correct" aspect ratios.

I interviewed Mr. Cortez in 1990 and he was a bit out of it. If that comment was made in his later years, I would question its accuracy.

Research on MO is ongoing, but here's some interesting info from the production files:

On August 17 1953, UI completed installation of a new Raytone wide screen with stereophonic sound in projection room 7. This room is used to screen daily rushes. The morning rushes for the shooting companies were shown in 1.85 with a screen size of 14.3' x 25.6'. The afternoon rushes which were screened for the executives were projected in 2.1 with a screen size of 13' x 26'. Projection room 8 will also be equipped with a wide screen.

You'll note that no mention whatsoever is made of screening rushes in 1.37.

August 19: Two reels each of Saskatchewan, Taza-Son of Cochise (in 2-D) and The Glenn Miller Story are run on the wide screen on the Process Stage in 2:1 using a screen size of 25' x 50'. The print quality and depth of focus are judged excellent.

August 26: Sirk and Metty scout locations in Lake Arrowhead.

September 1 to September 8: Metty and Sid Lund go to Fox for week long instructions on the techniques of CinemaScope photography.

September 8: Rehearsals begin with principals of MO.

September 14: Second unit shoots pre-production scenes at Lake Tahoe.

September 15: Charles Bickford withdraws from the cast. Despite an oral agreement to play Randolph, he has accepted a part in "A Star is Born" which will be shooting at the same time.

September 16: Wardrobe tests are shot of Barbara Rush, Rock Hudson, Agnes Moorehead, Jane Wyman, Gigi Perreau, Donna Corcoran and Shelia James in 50 setups on stage 8. In addition, a story meeting is held. The script is too long and 7 pages are cut with two sets eliminated.

September 17: Sirk is ill so Joe Pevney directs sound casting tests on stage 8 with Hudson, James and Perreau. The second unit returns from the Lake Tahoe location.

September 18: Sound casting tests are shot with Corcoran, Nugent and Hudson. Sirk is ill and Pevney directs on stage 8.

September 21: Principal photography begins. First shot 10:40 AM; last shot 5:15 PM. 1 1/4 pages were taken in 16 setups covering 6 scenes in script, working on Ext. Arrowhead Lake and Roads on location in Lake Arrowhead.

September 22: First shot 10:10 AM; last shot 5:25 PM. 3 1/2 pages were taken in 13 setups, working on Ext. Arrowhead location.

I should also mention that all of this information is from the Daily Minutes of the UI Committee Meetings which were attended by the head of every department.

Thanks Bob--this stuff from the production files is fascinating. Thanks for taking the time to weigh in on this forum.

I removed all my comments earlier because someone had switched the thread over to something called "Maleficent Aggression," which I absolutely did not want to be associated with. This new, revamped thread is better, so I'm ready to weigh in again.

Really, with all the meticulous documentation that Bob Furmanek and Jack Theakston have supplied regarding this film and Universal's production practices generally, the most reasonable conclusion is that MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION was *composed* for 2:1 and *protected* for 1.37:1. (Note the distinction!) This is exactly the kind of research that one needs to perform to verify such things.

I did go back and look at the French full-frame DVD again, and I see what people are saying about the huge amount of headroom. I'm surprised I didn't pick up on that earlier. Out of curiosity, using a software video player I cropped the image in playback to about 2:1 and it was striking how nicely it fit. It became a well-composed widescreen film! Not only were the heads NOT cut off at any point, but the tighter framing really helped focus the interactions between the characters. It also looked better than framing the same scenes in the more open 16:9 ratio, in my view. Mind you, this is NOT the same thing as looking at a 35mm print, since I don't know how much the DVD image was zoomed in during the transfer process.

Now with regards to the UK DVD, of which I've only seen the screen caps, before we judge whether 2:1 looks too tight we have to compare the video transfer with an actual 35mm print of the film and determine how much the video was zoomed in.

According to Bob, Criterion will be releasing the film 2:1. Let's see how that pans out. Their website still says 1.33:1, though I don't know if that means anything at this point.

You're welcome, and I'm glad to help set the record straight.

Quite frankly, I was a bit surprised and disappointed when some regular members of this forum became aggressive and condescending because we didn't agree with their opinions. I'm very glad to see a respectful tone return to this discussion.

September 1 to September 8: Metty and Sid Lund go to Fox for week long instructions on the techniques of CinemaScope photography.

I was pretty indifferent (though I still think something is off with some of the 1.37:1 grabs) but for whatever reason this little blurb has me completely sold.

The fact that their screening room for rushes was converted to widescreen one month before the start of filming is very telling as well.

cdnchris wrote:

September 1 to September 8: Metty and Sid Lund go to Fox for week long instructions on the techniques of CinemaScope photography.

I was pretty indifferent (though I still think something is off with some of the 1.37:1 grabs) but for whatever reason this little blurb has me completely sold.

Yes! This is only a guess, but I would imagine that in addition to learning how to work with anamorphic lenses (not an issue for MO), Metty would have been studying how to light and compose effectively for the wider aspect ratio.

According to the files, on the first day at Fox, they viewed a film in CinemaScope and watched two of the current productions being photographed.

Keep in mind that Metty had already shot a film in widescreen for Universal. Taza - Son of Cochise. which began production in 3-D in late June, was intended for 2:1.

Our 3-D Archive worked with Universal to restore the film several years ago, and we ran it that way at the second World 3-D Expo in 2006. It was the first time it had been shown in 3-D and widescreen since the original theatrical release, and it looked great!

Thankfully the tone of angst has calmed down (but please don't put the responsibility solely at the doorstep of forum 'regulars', apologies rightfully came from both sides so let's let it lie where it is in a good place).

Re the gearing up for widescreen: again I can only re-emphasize that none of this is neccessary as it was all well known. I don't think Gregory, or myself, or Carlotta (who issued it in 1.37), or others who think the film's primary framing is academy had no idea of the widescreen changeover happening. Or that Metty & Sirk operated with the knowledge that their film was going to be exhibited in premium venues in WS.

All of this was well known before this discussion kicked off. I don't want to sound facetious, but it sounds like you're aiming for an "aha!" moment, where the 1.37 camp realizes "It's true, they really did compose MO for widescreen!"

This is historical fact, absolutely incontrovertable ironbound truth. What you're posting in the forum, some of it very interesting info from the Uni files, is absolutely positively true, and nobody is debating that.

The differences between our two camps is on one hand not as wide as it appears, yet still, ideologically, it seems, quite wide. You agree the team that helmed MO responded to the widescreen dictates while still acknowledging the fact of life of academy-- they composed with both ratios in mind. The 1.37 camp agrees the same thing. There is no factual disagreement here. I think the history is full-on acknowledged by all.

The issue resides in the images themselves-- which Jim Steffen put up a very productive post just above, describing his reaction to the film in 2.0:1, how the compositions looked, etc, saying, essentially "the film looks absolutely perfect to me in WS, the compositions look rock-solid, vs 1.37 which feels unsatisfactory," (paraphrasing).

Someone mentioned above that there would be 58 page memos, etc, if Sirk had intended his film to be exclusively 1.37-- I don't believe that's anybody's reading of the situation, as far as I can discern here. I don't think anyone believes Sirk "fought" for anything, much less expected or wanted his film to be exhibited in one AR. There's no fighting between director and studio here, no film taken away from the director, contention in any form. Just the possibility of a belief during this period of transition that WS was a transitory fad, and that he simply put the greater emphasis on the 1.37 compositions, while protecting for WS-- simply the reverse of what is believed by the WS camp.

Like I said, there's no factual difference in terms of history between the two camps (at least on it's face)... where they differ is in response to the aesthetic execution of the shots. And what was being shot for, and "protected" for. Again, since we all agree that both ratios were being acknowledged and accounted for, there's no factual disagreement.

By the way, is anybody familiar with this release of MO from R4 Madman? It features both the STahl version and the Sirk, a commentary, was just released 3 months ago... and was transferred in academy based on their screencaps:

.

So we've got an interesting tally for MO so far viz recent releases: Carlotta and Madman in academy, Universals box which comes in at 2.0, and CC which says 1.37 but....