This guy is suffering from the delusion that some widescreen MGM DVD’s are a rip-off:
What he’s complaining about is movies shot in the Super 35 format, which allows filmmakers to frame their shots properly for a widescreen presentation, while providing room outside the top and bottom of the frame to record extraneous stuff to “pad out” the shot for a square TV, so as to avoid resorting to Pan & Scan.
The widescreen DVD’s are closest to how the film was meant to look in the theatre-- the square-screen versions effectively squeeze the relevant part of the frame down into the center of the screen, so instead of seeing “black bars”, you’re seeing extra material that is irrelevant to what the director considered important to show.
Actually, if you read it, he has a point. What he’s claiming is that they took a pan and scan film and cut off the top and bottom to make it look wide screen.
Disney did something like this in their last reissue of “Snow White.” The film was shot in a 1.33:1 aspect ratio (i.e., like a TV screen – nearly all films before television were), but they cut off the top and bottom to give a widescreen effect when it was shown in theaters.
Both “Hoosiers” and “Rain Man” – the films cited in the complaint – were shot at 1.85:1. Super-35 seems to have a ratio of 2.25:1, so they weren’t shot using that method.
If MGM is actually doing what he’s claiming, they are open to charges of false advertising.
Roger Ebert wrote about attending a film festival that featured a Gene Kelly movie. Like Snow White as RealityChuck mentioned, the movie was filmed in a rather square 1.33:1 ratio. The film festival took it upon themselves to mask the top and bottom of the frame, thereby cutting off the feet of this acclaimed dancer.
It was ridiculous!
When Ebert asked festival organizers what the hell they were thinking, they explained that audiences now expected the “widescreen appearance” at projected movies and they were afraid that people would complain if the film was shown the way it was supposed to be.
If the movies were never shot using the wider format and the studios masked the frames for the cosmetic appearance of a wide screen format, then yes, he has a legitimate beef.
HOWEVER in another Ebert article (and I’ll be damned if I can find a link to it in his “Movie Answer Man” column) he also pointed out that a lot of (faux) “widescreen” films that are presented with 1.85:1 aspect ratio were really shot at 1.33:1. It’s then up to the projectionist to insert as masking plate into the camera for the widescreen effect. It’s so common, that if you see one without the masking you may notice lights, the boom mike and other assorted equipment at the very top and bottom of the frame – they were captured on film, but never meant to be revealed. It was intended to be projected as a widescreen movie all along, shot with the expectation that the top and bottom would be masked.
Granted, in shots where the camera equipment stayed out of the frame, this has made it much easier for pan-and-scan videos. However, there is often a lot of crap in the masked sections.
To suit the plaintiff, MGM could unmask the top and bottom, but he may see a lot of camera junk – Air Force One for example has the boom mike quite low in several scenes and without the masking it’s pretty much in your face and you expect Harrison Ford to bump his head on it.
Holy crap! Well, I’ll be bum-fuzzled. I didn’t pay any attention to which films were the subject of the complaint, because I’m so used to hearing similar-sounding complaints from folks who don’t know shite-from-shinola.
It’s incomprehensible to me that anyone would even consider doing this.
So, in a scene that presumably showed some passing scenery at either side of the car, plus most of the hood, and the sky, you’d be left with a claustrophobically-tight shot of just what’s visiible through the windshield?
There’s precious-little of the movie left! Lopping off the edges, and then lopping off the top & bottom of what remains? Un-fricking-believable!
Can any Dopers provide actual frame-grabs from the “widescreen” dvd’s being disputed here? And why the hell wouldn’t MGM retransfer from film? Wouldn’t doing this also result in a noticable degradation of image resolution?
I don’t think this is quite what’s happening becuase that would be crazy. I don’t think they are cropping pan-and-scan versions I think they are simply using the wrong aspect ratios. A film shot at 1.33:1 or 1.65:1 may be intended to be projected at 1.85:1 (which is a “standard,” intentionally cropped widescreen ratio – as per the plaintiff’s comments). If they have further masked it to something like 2.25:1 then they are undermining the directors intentions and the cinematographer’s frame composition. If they are cropping pan and scanned films, then they are just insane. Period.
In the above linked Ebert article, he writes:
Note, it was also MGM, the defendent in the suit, that tried this little experiment.
Please read this page before you jump on matted Super 35 presentation. Super 35 is meant to be matted. Ever been watching a movie on VHS and been driven crazy by all the boom microphones you were seeing at the top of the screen? Did you notice on the VHS version of A Fish Called Wanda that John Cleese is wearing underwear in the scene in which he is supposedly naked? That’s what you get when you show an Super 35 film unmatted.
