Posted by Matthew Kirkcaldie on 10/11/05 13:42

In article <_0O2f.12286$vw6.5494@newsread1.news.atl.earthlink.net>,
"Joshua Zyber" <jzyber@mind-NOSPAM-spring.com> wrote:

> "Matthew Kirkcaldie" <m.kirkcaldie@removethis.unsw.edu.au> wrote in
> message
> news:m.kirkcaldie-E24334.13324311102005@tomahawk.comms.unsw.edu.au...
> > Open matte WAS the original aspect ratio - have made this point
> > elsewhere but the stills in the Kubrick Archives book pretty much wrap
> > up that argument.
>
> Not at all correct. The movies were composed for a 1.85:1 theatrical
> release. The camera viewfinder was marked for that ratio. The decision
> to make the video releases open matte was made after the fact, because
> Kubrick was a black bar hater.

Strangelove, 2001, Clockwork, and Lyndon all had black bars - in order
to be in their correct ratios.

If open matte wasn't the desired composition, why are the stills in
Archives in Academy ratio for those films, and in wider ratios for the
other films? Or haven't you seen the book?

As the interview states, for the later films Kubrick kept an eye on the
1.85:1 "safe" frame because most cinemas of the 1980s couldn't project
anything less than that width - a concession to the commercial reality
of the business and not an aesthetic decision.

> > Sigh. Maybe you'll believe Leon Vitali, his technical assistant of 25
> > years, and overseer of ALL the transfers to video and DVD, instead
> > (from
> > www.dvdfile.com):
>
> I've read that article. In fact, I was working for DVDFile at the time
> it was published.

In what capacity? And how is that relevant?

> I suggest that if you read the whole thing you'll find
> that Mr. Vitali is significantly less knowledgeable about any technical
> matters than he would have you believe. His explanation for why the
> 1.66:1 DVDs for Barry Lyndon and A Clockwork Orange are not
> anamorphically enhanced shows a complete misunderstanding of what the
> term means.

His comments refer to the literal meaning of the term "anamorphic",
meaning a picture distorted in order to fit a format (e.g. 35mm
anamorphic in which the picture is stretched vertically on the film and
corrected using a complementary lens in projection). As I'm sure you're
aware, 1.66:1 won't fit a 16:9 frame unless you pillarbox it, crop it or
squash it vertically by a tiny amount. His answer was to explain why
the 1.66:1 films weren't slightly anamorphically distorted to fit the
1.78:1 of a 16:9 widescreen, hence the comments about change in
perception, and perspective. The DVD formatting issue about presenting
in 16:9 is a specific example of an anamorphic technique; having worked
in cinema, Vitali addresses the question more from a film background
than a DVD format background.

With respect, I'll take the opinion of the guy whom Kubrick chose as his
technical overseer for video, and worked with for 25 years. If you feel
he was wrong that's your entitlement, but I strongly doubt Kubrick would
have put things in the hands of an incompetent. You only have to look
at the quality of the current DVDs to assess whether things were done
properly, and apart from some black levels on 2001 and grain softening
on EWS caused by the DVD encoding process, they are pretty much
reference quality. Besides, if you actually look at the films, the
strength of the 4:3 shot compositions speak for themselves.

Cheers, MK.

[Back to original message]