With all due respect to Mr. Wahlner, in matters such as this, I would prefer to side with a greater authority. In this case, the Swedish Film Institute (Svenska Filminstitutet). On their website, they provide extensive fact sheets on all Swedish films (including info about aspect ratios). Here are the links to the films in question:

Persona
Hour of the Wolf
Shame
The Passion of Anna

You can see that the first three have an aspect ratio of 1.37:1, whereas The Passion of Anna has an OAR of 1.66:1.

In my mind, the case is closed. MGM screwed up. No sale.

This has been my line of thinking. I don't think I've been persuaded one way or the other yet, it is hard to know exactly what was intended sometimes. It seems though, that they would have indeed hacked up Persona too if this was their intention (infact, I've only seen Persona on VHS and I assumed the theatrical ratio was 1.66, I might not have noticed if they did matte it).

I just hate it when I'm looking forward to something and a wrench gets thrown in the works. I'm leaning towards picking the set up anyway and seeing how it looks. I really want that Doc and the cropping on Persona (althought maybe not optimal) is acceptable to me.

I dunno.... i'll still probably pick it up. I don't see MGM fixing the problem any time soon. Have they ever fixed a problem like this before?

A 4:3 (1.33) image cropped to a 5:3 (1.66) ratio loses 20% of the image from the 4:3 image, assuming the widths are kept constant.

4:3 = 20:15
20 x 15 = 300 sq units

5:3 = 20:12
20 x 12 = 240 sq units

300 sq units - 240 sq units = 60 sq units

60 / 300 = .20 = 20%

Pants, fortunately "Persona" has not been rematted to 1.66:1, simply reframed slightly so that a small portion of info is lost around the borders. A tad more than, say, excessive overscan, but I'm not letting this stop me from getting "Persona".

I'll rent the others. And probably would've done that anyway.

Have you looked at the screencaps? The matting is really a non-issue.

Still, something tells me there will be a better version somewhere down the road.

Exactly what about cutting the actors' heads off at the top of the screen is a "non-issue?"

Folks, we're not getting a better version of this. MGM ain't gonna care about techno-nerd wailings. And frankly, four slightly matted Bergman pictures accompanied by an ungodly load of supplemental material (and shoudn't we be thanking MGM for actually putting this stuff on there when they certainly wouldn't have been expected to?) is a lot less of an outrage than a fullscreen DVD of "I Could Go On Singing"...

My box set remains on order from Amazon, and if you DVD fascists cause some kind of recall I'm gonna be pretty sad...

OH NO!! I've been waiting SOOOO freakin long for this!

C'mon ppl, someone has to contact MGM regarding this! Recall or whatever, we can't let this go!

That wasn't very nice.

Have you looked at the screenshots? There's no cutting any actors' heads off at the top of anything.

In fact the comparisons between the two editions are nearly IDENTICAL framingwise.

In any case, the framing differences are mostly on the sides, which you won't notice on a standard CRT due to overscan anyway. And when I say you won't notice, I mean it will be completely imperceptible.

I got out my digital ruler to check the frames posted at DVD Beaver - most of them are framed identically - there was one shot where the Tartan release has 18 pixels more information than the MGM has on the right and left sides. That's about a millimeter on your set.

As I said, a NON-ISSUE.

if 1:85 was the intended ratio (or 1:66 and heads were half chopped off, all of us would say "it was the director's intent"

What are you blind? Parts of heads are cut off at the top of the screen.

[sarcasm]Ah, so now those of us who demand OAR are not only techno-nerds, but also fascists? And we should all be eternally thankful that MGM decided to put these "obscure" films on DVD at all (never mind that trivial "slight matting")? Bravo, new-member Yancy for elevating the discussion around here.[/sarcasm]

What a lame argument. Am I going to trust some guy who has some unproven aspect ratios on a website, or am I going to trust my OWN eyes when I saw both "Shame" and "Hour of the Wolf" at 1.37:1? The answer is easy.

And for all of you saying that there is no better version coming soon - that is a total cop-up. For example, you can ALREADY order a better version of Persona from Tartan.

jough said:Screen cap from HOUR OF THE WOLF
French version

MGM version

With all due respect, jough, I suggest you contact your optometrist.

(Screen caps courtesy DVD Beaver)

With all due respect, you need to see your reading comprehension coach. We were talking about framing in "Persona" only.

And you should also contact your optometrist - those "comparisons" aren't even from the same frame of the film!

As they are in the Tartan version as well. That's how it was framed. Blame the director.




OH MY GOD, PART OF HER HEAD IS CHOPPED OFF IN BOTH VERSIONS!!!!!

IT MUST BE MIS-FRAMED!!!

Do you really think that there is no difference between an intended framing and an obviously "chopped head" due to wrong aspect ratio?

Cheers

Mark Renton

Edit: Whoops. Missed out you're only writing about "Persona".

I actually hadn't seen the other caps before you posted them.

But yes, god, that's just horrible. I had only heard people complain about Persona and didn't realise that other discs in the set were much much worse.

Well, I'll still pick up the Persona disc, but this boxed set:

I've never actually seen the film in question, but just looking casually at those two pictures you just posted, the bottom one clearly has more image on both the top and the bottom (notice the elbow, which is full in the bottom picture and cut off in the top one; observe the hair along the top, how much more space there is at the top for it to curve). So I'm confused as to why you posted them in order to show that there was no difference? I'm only following this as a curiosity, but it does seem to matter to some people, so I don't understand what you were going for.

I posted the link to the website to illustrate the fact that for every person out there who claims he saw it in 1.33:1, there will be somebody else out there who saw it at 1.66:1.
I've seen Citizen Kane projected at 1.66:1. Now if I hadn't known any better I might have complained to Warner about them releasing the DVD in a wrong aspect ratio and that I wanted to see it the way I had seen it in the theatre. Of course I would have made a complete ass of myself.

On the Criterioncollection forum, Hamish Ford (a teacher of cinema studies at two Australian universities and the writer of this excellent piece on Bergman http://www.sensesofcinema.com/conten...2/bergman.html) says he recently saw Hour Of The Wolf on an Australian art channel and it was in 1.66:1. He says he is not sure what the right aspect ratio is (or better, what Bergman's intention was) for Hour Of The Wolf but he does say that it looked fine matted at 1.66:1. You can read his entire post here: http://pub125.ezboard.com/fcriterion...t=201&stop=220 (you'll have to be a member of ezboard though).

What is the right aspect ratio for Shame and Hour Of The Wolf? I don't know. All I am saying is that, so far, I haven't seen any compelling evidence that proves that MGM screwed up. Complaining about "head chops" in close-ups and medium close-ups is total nonsense and if I have to choose between the opinion of a guy who compares DVDs on a website and the opinion of Mr. Ford, I'll choose the latter for now and give MGM the benefit of the doubt. I am not cancelling something I've looked forward to so much on the basis of "head chops".
If it turns out that DVDBeaver is right after all - and I hope for his sake that he is because otherwise MGM might have a good case in court against him as he's actively persuading people not to buy this set (and thereby damaging MGM) based only on some screencaps and his personal opinion - I'll just rebuy the two films in question on R2. The rest of the set is in no doubt after all and I'm sure I wil enjoy it.

I am already a regular member of the Criterion forum - see my posts on the same thread.

And an Australian art channel on TV does not serve as an evidence for me - I saw Hour of the Wolf in the theatre, and the print was provided by the Swedish consulate. It was in 1.37:1. The Swedish Film Institute says Shame and Hour of the Wolf are 1.37:1, and I saw it in that ratio. There is nothing more to argue. I expect the DVD to be the same, and I could care less if anyone else saw it in 1.66, 1.85, or 2.35.

My point was that the difference was minor enough that it could result not in a framing error but in slightly *different* framing.

I mean, the new "Alice in Wonderland" disc (to use a recent example) is framed differently than the Gold Collection version, but no one is complaining about the cleaned-up picture and different framing.

EVERY TIME a film is re-transferred, especially by a different company, there will be ever so slight framing differences. With Persona, it's so barely different than unless you examine the frames very closely to *try* to find framing differences they're difficult to see at first glance.