Kubrick Set - New Vs. Old
 

I'm aware that a new release is coming out, but I wanted to know will the new widescreen versions be cropped? Considering he filmed several of the films in fullscreen. I have the old release and I'm contemplating selling it in exchange for the new release. I think if I understand correctly that Kubrick filmed the movies in fullscreen format and cropped off the bottoms and tops for theatrical release. So really it's the widescreen formats that I'm getting the cropped versions not the fullscreen as most people think. I just wanted to know if I'm right, and if I should keep my original fullscreen set?

Here's a picture of the Eyes Wide Shut old release back cover which reads "This feature is presented in the full aspect ratio of the original camera negative, as Stanley Kubrick intended."

Here's a picture of the new release back cover which reads "Presented in a "matted" widescreen format preserving the aspect ratio of it's original theatrical exhibition, enhanced for widescreen tvs."

So should I keep my original set? I don't want cropped versions of his films.

will the new set have the uncut version of eyes wide shut? It really sucked that they only had the censored version released over here in the us.

Yeah both Rated and Unrated versions of EWS will be included in the set.

If you do a search, you'll find more than you'll ever want to read about Kubrick and aspect ratio. There's literally dozens of threads with hundreds of posts. Have fun.

However, your specific issue is simple:
If you want fullscreen versions of these movies... yes, you should keep your original set. The new set will be in the ratio shown theatrically.

So the new versions will be cropped?

I've read a whole lot on the debate and in my opinion these are the definitive versions. The consesus is that they were formatted full screen for television distribution.

Correct.

Which versions? Old or new?

Kubrick filmed all of his movies starting with The Killing for at least 1.66:1. His last three films were shot for 1.85:1.

When approving masters in 1991 for Warner Home Video (as well as MGM/UA Home Video since they were distributed by WHV at the time), he opted for his films to be left unmatted. He never had the chance to sign off on newer masters. For Eyes Wide Shut, WB initially opted to go with unmatted since he wanted that for the 1991 masters.

So, for this DVD, we're seeing Eyes Wide Shut correctly matted to 1.85:1 as it was filmed and presented in theaters. Kubrick never filmed for 4x3 on these films, but rather was fine with keeping off mattes for the masters he approved. Seeing any of his films after Killer's Kiss in widescreen is exactly how Kubrick intended.

Since someone is going to bring up a single Vitali interview, he's mistaking 16x9 enhancement with anamorphic photography. Two different things.

^^ Good explanation. The widescreen movies aren't cropped because then you can say any movie filmed open matte and then formated for widescreen would be considered "cropped"

And, since someone will bring this up as well... The Stanley Kubrick Archives book that came out 2 years ago:
http://www.amazon.com/Stanley-Kubric...2373421&sr=8-2

Has the following storyboard for The Shining on page 452:
http://img111.imageshack.us/img111/7809/shiningfo5.jpg

Which include "Kubrick's instructions for the crew". Those instructions clearly show that he composed for 1.85:1, but protected for 1.33:1.


The discs are coming out with the proper theatrical framing. That's good news to me. Others may prefer to hang onto their 1.33:1 versions. Po-tay-to, po-ta-to.

^ now if only you could just post the remaining 543 pages :D

Your tech talk is confusing to me. I'm not really knowledgeable about ratios. I apologize for my lack of technical savvy. I've taken a grab from the current DVD and made a diagram mainly to make my it simpler for myself to understand. So who can clarify for me 100% (I'm sure it's already been said) what the new release will be. Either 1. or 2.?

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...en/addcopy.jpg

I want multiple opinions on this guys.

Your just misunderstanding how it all works, and I'm going to be crap at explaining it. Many movies (maybe most) are filmed with a 1.33 negative, with the intention of them being seen at a different aspect ratio (the cropping you are talking about). Calling them cropped isn't really accurate, it's the way the director intended them to be shown.

Now Kubrick screws this all up a bit because he apparently didn't like how they looked on TV with the black bars. So when he filmed some movies, he protected for full screen. He still intended the movies to be seen theatrically in 1.66 or 1.85 depending on the movie, but since he didn't like how the black bars looked on the TV, he made sure nothing that didn't belong would show up in the 1.33 AR either. If people back then had the equipment they do now (widescreen televisions and all that) he probably wouldn't have bothered.

To me, the real version of the movie is the theatrical, which wasn't full frame, so I'm looking forward to these. Yes, it's closer to number 2, but that is, in my mind, how the director optimally intended the movie to be seen.

I'm going to get the new versions but I don't want to get rid of my old copies if they show more of the actual picture. Which so far is what I'm understanding.

1.85:1 framing isn't centered, but rather shifted up a bit generally. From how the 35mm print of EWS I saw, the DVD crops the sides a little. I think a lot of people will be pleased with the 1.85:1 matting since it works a lot better than open matte. The shots of Tom Cruise walking on the sidewalk are more tense because he's tighter in the frame. There's too much headroom in the open matte.

For those worried that the matting will cover up boobies, this is one film that shouldn't have that problem.

It will most likely be option two.

Films shot flat (1.85:1) are generally shot at the "fullscreen" ratio of 1.37:1 (which is very close to the standard 1.33:1 TV screen) and, when shown in the theater, the top and bottom of the image are matted off to the appropriate 1.85:1 size.

If you have a 1.85:1 DVD with both widescreen and fullscreen versions, find a spot in the movie and compare the two different images.

There's a common misconception out there -- perpetrated mostly by widescreen evangelists -- that widescreen always offers more image than fullscreen. In most cases (unless the movie was shot in scope 2.35:1) this is false.

Thank you for Josh-da-man, for the direct answer.

Yes but there's also the case where movies are indeed shot in 1:33, and since the director knows it's going to end up being 1:85 in theaters, they don't pay too much attention at the matted parts, where sometimes you could see equipment, which to me is not cool.

There's a site too showing a scene from A Fish Called Wanda where the whole joke is ruined by the fact that the movie is shown open matte.

i've never known anyone to say that widescreen always offers more image than fullscreen - but rather that widescreen offers a more correct image than fullscreen. (maybe i just don't know many "widescreen evangelists" though). by getting the widescreen DVD, you guarantee (though there may be a few exceptions) that you're getting the film in its original theatrical aspect ratio. a fullscreen dvd that is open matte was not composed by the director primarily for 1.33:1 (including Kubrick who only secondarily ensured that the open matte framing would be acceptable), even if it does give you "more image."

But what people need to consider is that MORE image isn't important. It's the INTENDED, theatrical image. Which is 1.85:1.

It's pretty much the same thing with animation cels.

I have a couple from some anime, and the cels and the backgrounds are much larger than the image as they were actually presented in the shows. Both of them have several inches of extra art all around the frame.

In fact, one of them even has the loose brushstrokes going off from the desired art in the background where they knew that it wouldn't get shown. It's very cool looking, but it would be really irritating to watch the whole show like that.

One of my cels from the original Ghost in the Shell movie is of one of the main characters, where the cel shows him full-bodied down to his knees, and in the show, he's cut off on the right side of the frame, so that vertically, barely even half of him is there.

Filmmakers often work the same way, sometimes to leave room for open-matte presentations. Sometimes, just to have room to make corrections or changes to the way they want the composition to work or to cover up unseen problems in the frame.

I love the Kubrick threads... :)

I'm keeping my old box and buying the new one... It's Kubrick. :shrug:

Agreed. I think, with most films, the ultimate goal is to get MORE of what was INTENDED. When there has been extensive cropping, pictureboxing, etc., we are not even seeing the intended image. We have the entire image with Kubrick. Which one is correct? Here's my take:

Since Kubrick protected the 1.33:1, if you still have an old, non-widescreen, CRT t.v., he would probably want you watching the fullscreen.

If you have a new widescreen t.v., I think the answer seems pretty clear that he would want you watching the 1.85:1. This is how he intended the films to look; his framing/blocking (with examples on the page copied above) supports that proposition. So to watch "MORE" image (1.33:1) when you have equipment perfectly capable of displaying his original intentions subverts those intentions.

Think of it this way: the idea of a theater showing the 1.33:1 image, and advertising it as "Come see the ENTIRE image!" is ridiculous. Due to matting, there is a difference between "the entire image" and "what the director intended." I believe it is the latter that we must support. But to each his own.

But he specially filmed them the way he did for a reason. And that's certainly important to me.

It's like deja vu all over again. :) This is how all of these threads go.


Kubrick framed his movies for 1.85:1, but protected for 1.33:1 (for home video). This is not unusual. Tons of movies are filmed this way. It allows you to present "full screen" television versions that do not lose picture information.

That's a double-edged sword. While you don't lose info, you do disrupt composition and sometimes introduce info that was never meant to be seen (the helicopter blades at the open of The Shining, for example).

Presenting open matte 1.33:1 versions made a lot of sense for a lot of years. But it's making less and less sense when home video is switching to a 16x9 environment with higher resolutions -- an environment that is getting much closer to the theatrical presentation than old, small 1.33:1 standard def sets.



If you want to hang onto the 1.33:1 versions because they have "extra" info... that's definitely a valid choice. But understand that the "reason" Kubrick filmed them that way was as a compromise for home video.

Widescreen.org is a bad offender of this. There's so much bad information out there and combined with posters that will ignore any corrections, it's a nightmare to explain all the technical details. Even scope films require proper framing. People insist on films like Ben-Hur to be seen a 2.76:1 when they were actually shown at 2.55:1 at the widest. Some prints were even made for 2.20:1. So, opening up image just to have "all of it" is unnecessary.

But don't always trust open matte. For the Beatles film "Help!" the telecine engineer insisted that the image was opened up totally for the 1998 MPI DVD. Well, the trailer for the new Apple/Capitol remastered DVD (which is 1.66:1 anamorphic widescreen) has clips that show that the MPI transfer cut off a lot of image off the sides. I'm sure that the Kubrick 4x3 DVDs were opened up as much as possible, but I won't be surprised if the 16x9 versions will reveal that the sides were cropped a bit.

Aside from framing issues, has it been confirned that the new release of The Shining will only be the 119 min version?

Does anyone know where to get these pics of the back covers?

I hope you're kidding. When Kubrick became a FILM maker, he didn't have television in mind as the ideal medium in which to show his work. No director works that way - it's ass backwards.

Many directors and cinematographers used to keep the eventual television version in mind when composing shots but no one designed their films strictly for 1.33 TV-safe aspect ratios once widescreen was introduced.

Well Kubrick did put a lot of detail in filming 1. 33 He was very concerned about the long run of how his films would be viewed. So the notion that he would "compose" for full screen is a very real possibility.

The picture from the Stanley Kubrick Archives states "the frame is exactly 1-1:85. Obviously you compose for that but protect the full 1-1:33 area". That clearly indicates he prefered 1.85:1

Oh god, didn't we know this would happen? The endless subjective interpretations of a dead man's supposed intentions?

Given the huge amount of memory in the next-gen discs, there is no reason save scrimping and corner-cutting for Warner not to have released those films where there's controversy in both ratios. Back at the start of the DVD days, there were double-sided widescreen/pan-and-scan releases. It's just a shame that this wasn't done here.

(And not only because I greatly prefer "EWS" in Academy ratio, but because we all have our preferences, and we can only go so far in discerning Stanley's.)

Make it stop, please.

Basically I've come to the conclusion that there is no right or wrong version. It's personal preference. I'll be keeping my original 2001 DVD set, and getting the new set as well. This seems to be the only answer. Maybe one day they will just release the DVDs including both ratios and everyone will be happy, watch their preference, shut up and enjoy the many classics of Kubrick. -smile-

Post #12 explains everything.

2001: A Space Odyssey was filmed 2.35:1, Kubrick was apparently very upset when he viewed the "cropped" version aired on TV. His films since were filmed to "protect" for 1.33:1, as has been said a zillion times here.

In other words, all his movies were meant to be "matted" to 1.85:1 for theatrical release, with the full-negative (1.33:1 ratio) still acceptable for television viewing. He did this so that when his movies were watched on standard TV no picture loss would occur.
If you want the film the way it was meant to be seen in theaters get the new ones. I think it's arguable that Kubrick would support 1.85:1 DVD versions of his films had he known that that home video was trending toward a more theatrical experience as opposed to the "formatted for TV" approach.

I'm sure he knew that this trend was coming, always on the cutting edge, he just never made anything official because he didn't intend to die at 70.

Kubrick, above all, hated (or maybe feared) the black bars. It's stands to reason he would hate them as much on the sides as he did on the top and bottom. Thankfully for him he, had he lived longer, this would've been a non issue as he would've been able to keep the theatrical aspect ratio when it went to home video.

Certainly it's a personal preference at this point, but I'm more concerned about Kubrick's preference than my own. It's his film, I'd like to watch it the way he intended it.

Warners re-re-release a Kubrick collection.... nahhhhh, would never happen :lies: -wink-

His films have been presented in fullscreen in the past (even on DVD) because of some comments that he made nearly 20 years ago about preferring full-screen presentation on home video.

Warner and the Kubrick estate folks decided that the had to "honor" his wishes and present his films that way, apparently until the end of time. The logical error here (that they have since corrected with the high def FMJ and this larger release in October), is that he made these comments during the early days of home video. Think VHS and a few laserdisc owners... mostly watching on 27" (or smaller) tube sets.

This was before most people had home theaters, large 16x9 sets, 1080p resolution, etc. -- stuff that gets people's living rooms much closer (and sometimes *better*) to the theater experience than they were in 1990. I'm sure there are lots of directors that preferred to not letterbox their films for old 4:3 sets (James Cameron comes to mind), but have since embraced widescreen in the 16x9 era. We have no comments from Kubrick about this home theater environment... when there are no statements, going back to the theatrical presentation (where there were no compromises required) seems the logical approach.


It's impossible to decide what a dead man thinks. But I don't think it's a stretch to assume that he'd want the theatrical presentation available at home. That's certainly less of a stretch than thinking he wants 4:3 open matte versions released in 2007.