Posted by Joshua Zyber on 10/11/05 23:53

"Matthew Kirkcaldie" <m.kirkcaldie@removethis.unsw.edu.au> wrote in
message
news:m.kirkcaldie-2B6188.23420811102005@un-2park-reader-01.sydney.pipenetworks.com...
>> 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.

Kubrick's preference for home video (again, made after the fact, not
during the films' production) was to show the entire image on the camera
negative, regardless of original compositional intent. 2001 was shot in
65mm, and has a native aspect ratio of 2.2:1. A Clockwork Orange and
Barry Lyndon were shot in "flat" 35mm, but with hard mattes in the
camera masking off an approximately 1.5:1 image. What we get on DVD is
everything on the frame. Strangelove was shot in a hybrid process, some
shots hard matted and other shots not. The film was *never* intended to
be shown in a varying aspect ratio.

Had Kubrick wanted these last three movies to be composed for a 1.37:1
Academy Ratio, he would not have used hard mattes in camera, especially
not for only a random sampling of shots in Strangelove. All of these
movies were composed for theatrical exhibition at either 1.66:1
(European standard) or 1.85:1 (American standard). Home video was not
even a valid concern when these movies were made. They were made to be
seen in theaters, and those were the ratios he knew they would be
displayed at.

Because he was rather eccentric, Kubrick got it in his head that he
didn't like black letterbox bars on his television and would rather see
everything on the photographic negative, raggedy in-frame camera mattes
and production flubs included. However, at a restrospective screening of
his films prior to his death, Kubrick himself instructed the festival
organizers to project his films at the 1.66:1 European ratio, which was
his preferred theatrical framing.

> 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?

There's no great mystery here. The book shows the entire camera
negative. This has nothing to do with how the movies were intended to be
projected theatrically.

> 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.

In the wake of his death, a great many people stepped forward claiming
to be the definitive arbiter of Kubrick's final wishes. Steven
Spielberg, from seemingly out of nowhere, proclaimed himself Stanley's
best friend in the whole world, and just look at what a mess he made of
the long-in-development "A.I." project. He couldn't even deliver a
decent tribute to the man at the Academy Awards. Remember all that
nonsense about Kubrick's films being infused with "hope and wonder"?
It's like he never saw a Kubrick movie in his life, and was just trying
to describe his own treacle.

I would take anything Leon Vitali says with a grain of salt. I think
time will prove him less knowledgeable about Kubrick's intent than he
would have everyone believe.

>> 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'm just telling you that I am more than familiar with the article.

>> 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.

The plain fact of the matter is that Leon Vitali had no idea what
anamorphic enhancement was in relation to DVD transfers, and yet he was
the final authority in making all technical and artistic decisions
regarding the presentation of Kubrick's films on DVD. He was, cut and
dried, not qualified to make those decisions.

> 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.

Here's my question for you: We know that Vitali was Kubrick's
"assistant". In what capacity? What qualifies him to make definitive
statements about technical and artistic matters that he clearly did not
understand?

> Besides, if you actually look at the films, the
> strength of the 4:3 shot compositions speak for themselves.

I would recommend that you actually take another look at the 4:3 shot
compositions of Kubrick's later films. They are very poorly balanced and
feature an awkward amount of dead space at the top and bottom of the
screen. Close-up shots of actors' faces are centered too low in the
frame.

Professional cinematographer David Mullen (Twin Falls Idaho, Northfork)
used to post in this very newsgroup and had this exact same discussion a
few years ago. Here's what he had to say on the subject:

-----------------
http://tinyurl.com/cm8mu

That's inaccurate. The later films were composed for matted widescreen
theatrical release, which means matted to 1.85. On the Kubrick
newsgroup,
someone who worked with Kubrick as an assistant editor on "The Shining"
has
stated that all camera and editing equipment were marked to indicate the
1.85 cropping. The steadicam operator Garrett Brown has also stated
that
all of his steadicam work was framed for 1.85.

Ths is also blatently obviously in all the medium close-ups in the film,
which are unusually low in frame in the matted TV version. In the
transfer
of "Eyes Wide Shut", which Kubrick did NOT supervise, the headroom and
framing has been adjusted to look "correct" in full-frame, while the
transfers of "The Shining" and "Full Metal Jacket" are straight unmatted
transfers with no framing adjustments -- hence the odd headroom and dead
space above people's heads in a number of shots.

Kubrick simply preferred that his films be shown unmatted on 4:3 TV's --
he
didn't compose them for 1.33, or else they would have been oddly
cropped-looking in the movie theaters (ever seen an old Academy 1.37
film
cropped to 1.85? Looks terrible.) He wanted them to be transferred
full-frame to 4:3 video, hence why "Dr. Strangelove" comes out as having
multiple aspect ratios (since now some in-camera mattes have become
visible
that weren't seen theatrically), and why "Clockwork Orange" is slightly
letterboxed but has one scene with a different hard matte, and why
"Barry
Lyndon" is slightly letterboxed, since it also used a camera matte. His
last three films were shot unmatted, so no mattes appear in the
transfer.

When he's been asked about his PREFERRED projection format for film
festivals, he's asked for a 1.66 : 1 matte to be used -- not to show
them
projected in 1.33 even though a film festival could do that.

Apparently for "Barry Lyndon" he had 1.66 mattes sent to all the
theaters
showing the film that only had 1.85 mattes. But by "The Shining", I
think
he realized that 1.85 was going to be used, since it was going to get a
much
wider release than "Barry Lyndon" and 1.85 was becoming the world-wide
standard for matted widescreen projection.

So to say that a matted widescreen version would be "butchered" is
inaccurate and misleading. Kubrick never indicated what he thought
should
be done for his films if 16:9 TV ever became commonplace (which is
hasn't
yet.) I doubt he would have insisted on a 4:3 image boxed on the sides
of
16:9.

In any case, a 1.66 : 1 matte would preserve the aspect ratio that
Kubrick
seemed to prefer for theatrical projection. It wouldn't be a
"butchering"
of the image since Kubrick was making films primarily for widescreen
movie
theaters, not for 4:3 TV. Anyway, the 4:3 full-frame transfers of his
films, the ones that he supervised, are currently available for those
who
want to see them.
------------------------

Back to me again. I will further add to this that the HDNET and INHD
networks have recently broadcast high-defintion transfers of A Clockwork
Orange and Full Metal Jacket reframed for 16:9, which is much closer to
their theatrical ratios, and both movies look substantially better
framed there than in their full-frame DVD transfers. HBO has done
likewise with Eyes Wide Shut, which also looked better than the DVD.

[Back to original message]