Posted by moviePig on 10/21/05 11:50

Joseph S. Powell, III wrote:
> "Nick Macpherson" <NMacphe421@AOL.com> wrote in message
> news:1129811625.445058.73920@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
>
>>Derek Janssen wrote:
>>
>>>moviePig wrote:
>>>
>>>>Jay G. wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>Black Locust <bl2112@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>Widescreen DVDs spread - Along with wider TV sets
>>>>>>By Susanne Ault
>>>>>>
>>>>>>A representative of specialty retailer Tower reports noting an
>
> uptick
>
>>>>>>of about 5% in widescreen purchases over the past year, though the
>>>>>>broadest releases such as Buena Vista Home Entertainment's Oct. 4
>>>>>>Cinderella still sell 75% in fullscreen versions.
>>>>>
>>>>>Actually, in the speicifc case of Cinderella, 100% of the purchases
>
> are
>
>>>>>"fullscreen", as the 4:3 ratio is the original movie ratio of the
>>>>>film, and
>>>>>thus the only option available on DVD.
>>>>
>>>>Not at all. For us "connoiseurs", there's a version with *four* black
>>>>bars...
>>>
>>>Yes, but the article citing was to be meant in the traditional a.v.d
>>>spirit of "Why won't Warner release the widescreen 'Gone With the
>>>Wind'?--Sign my petition!" ;)
>>>
>>
>>Stanley Kubrick preferred 4:3 to widescreen but if he was alive today
>>he'd realize he was wrong so we need the Kubrick DVDs re-released in
>>widescreen no matter what his family says.
>
> But Kubrick shot his films (with the exception of 2001) in 4:3 ratio, so if
> these were to be re-released in Widescreen, we really WOULD be missing
> material that the director intended to be seen.
> That's not to say that I don't wish Kubrick would have embraced Widescreen
> at the time he filmed them, it's just that in this case it really would be
> slapping black bars over the screen - we wouldn't be gaining anything, and
> Widescreen advocacy has always been about gaining the missing material on
> the sides that's missing with Pan & Scan.
> But Kubricks 4:3 films are 4:3 matted, not pan & scan.

Regardless of what image is on the original "negative", what matters (at
least to this letterbox zealot) is to see exactly the content as
released. E.g., if there's a vertical pan to some sort of reveal, it's
(ideally) cut to present/remove its compositional elements at the proper
instant, to the nearest 24th-second... and subsequent re-matteing
interferes with that meticulous timing and flow. Even if that and more
subtle examples happen infrequently, why mess with them?

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