Touch of Evil aspect ratio - what's the real deal?

[Jaime N. Christley]

There's a minor storm-in-a-teacup over on another message board that I visit regarding 1950s films and the aspect ratios in which they're presented on video and DVD.

The central film of discussion at the moment is TOUCH OF EVIL.

Now, the Universal DVD presents the film in 1.85:1, as far as I can tell.

Can we be absolutely certain that this is the ratio Welles "intended" for the film to be presented?

What is the correct ratio......and as you answer that, what is your source?

To get an idea about the fence I've chosen to sit on, here's a post I wrote prior to posting this question on Wellesnet:

http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/a_film_by/message/13587

[Wilson]

Well, all I can tell you is this: in a previous thread, linked below, Rick Schmidlin wrote "According to the records of Phil Lathrop and Russel Metty, both well documented and easy to find a AFI and The Academy Welles intended and composed TOE to be 1:85. This film like Pshycho were shot full frame for future T.V. use. At the time of release and all screenings Welles attended it was screened as labled on the orignal neg. can 1:85. In regard to the DVD , I offered to produce it and was told NO!"

Earlier Ratio Thread

I've been meaning to do a comparison between the DVD and full frame restored version with screen caps on the site, but I still have to transfer my videotape to DVD. I find it hard to believe Welles didn't compose the image for both ratios while preferring 1.33. He had to know it was going to be screened at 1.85.

[Jaime N. Christley]

Thanks for that, Jeff!

[blunted by community]

http://www.wellesnet.com/cgi-bin....atesman

this is the thread you want to read. scroll down to the letter welles sent to the newstatesman, read the last paragraph.

i don't beleive anything schmidlin, or any of the other experts have said. the film, and welles are your best sources to form an opinion.

i have the unrestored windowboxed. it's like seeing it for the first time. if any one has a dvd of the restored, not in letterbox, i would trade.

[jbrooks]

Blunted,

Was Welles in his letter really saying that he preferred 1:1.37 to 1:1.85 (matted) or was he perhaps just saying that he didn't like anomorphic lenses.

Here's an excerpt from the letter--

"Nowadays the eye is tamed, I think, by the new wide screens. These 'systems’ with their rigid technical limitations are in such monopoly that any vigorous use of the old black -and-white, normal aperture camera runs the risk of seeming tricky by comparison."

Certainly shooting open matte for an intended flat projection cropped to 1:1.85 would not have involved any "'system" with "rigid technical limitations" (which I think must refer to the technical requirements to shoot and then project film in a scope format). So I don't think this letter should be read as a definitive statement by Welles on his intended aspect ratio for "Touch of Evil" I am, however, open to persuasion if anyone has a different view.

JBrooks

[blunted by community]

my opinion of that letter is that welles was pissy about having to use the old equipment, and a hack like jack arnold had panavision for man in the shadows. welles was very forward looking, and graver did say that welles would always send him out to get anything new that had just come out. would a man like welles reject the opportunity to film in panavision?
i don't think he would.

i don't take that letter as the gospel, but it has to be taken into consideration.

the gospel should be watching the film, not what the experts have said.

we should have one of our experts here, or several experts, watch it both ways, windowboxed, and letterboxed, then report back.

i know there is a lot of goodwill for the restoration, and i love it, but to me the truth is that some conglomerate types wanted to boost up sales and pulled the wool over every one's eyes making it letterbox. who would beleive such a thing could happen in this great country of ours.

[Jaime N. Christley]

the gospel should be watching the film, not what the experts have said.

we should have one of our experts here, or several experts, watch it both ways, windowboxed, and letterboxed, then report back.

So are you in favor of experts or aren't you?

Presumably the experts that you disagree with also "watched the film," and came up with a different conclusion.

[R Kadin]

I'm having a bit of a difficult time understanding how one might purport to devine Welles' actual aspect ratio intentions merely from viewing the film in the two formats. How could a viewer be certain that the composition in one is the more authentic of two?

For example, even if the layout in the more traditional format is found to be more reminiscent of Welles' earlier studio efforts, one could always argue that such is simply an expected holdover; an artifact or an "old habit", as it were, despite which the Master's "new" vision can properly be seen in the new format.

Even if one were to note that compositions in either format appear more awkward or atypical, the problem with an innovator like Welles is that you can never be certain that such results weren't intentional. TOSOTW, The Trial, Arkadin, and F fo Fake, for example, offer plenty of examples of a studied awkwardness. And Welles made no bones about trying to avoid repeating himself.

And it's not as if the style and subject matter of TOE don't lend themselves to off-kilter framing techniques. In fact, employing compositions that are ever-so-slightly off balance and imperfect would be an ideal, though subtle, visual means of generating a sense of unease in the viewer and conveying Quinlan's influential and equally off balance morality.

Then again, perhaps a parallel viewing of the two formats would, indeed, reveal all. It would certainly be an interesting experience, regardless. As long as the debate doesn't lead to blows, that is...

[Roger Ryan]

The anamorphic widescreen version of TOE presented on the Universal DVD does not present any obvious errors in framing or composition (i.e. cutting off the top of heads), so I tend to believe that Welles was "shooting" for widescreen. I went to a theatrical presentation of "Kane" a number of years ago at an AMC theatre where they inexplicably projected the film at a 1.85 to 1 ratio; the result was you never saw above Welles' nose in group shots! The reverse problem occasionally showed up on television: I recall a couple of films shot for widescreen that were shown full-frame on TV revealing previously hidden boom mics and studio lighting! In fact, an associate of mine claimed to have viewed an improperly matted theatrical print of Adrian Lyne's "Unfaithful" in which the boom mic made a pronounced appearance in 15 different scenes. Since TOE has no such problems, it is harder to determine what the correct aspect ratio is; at the same time, it could mean Welles shot it so it could be viewed both 1.85 to 1 and 1.33 to 1.

[blunted by community]

since day one, almost every one, experts, and non experts have disagreed with me on the framing. but it's amaizing how the controversy, like a bad meal, just keeps coming back. it just doesn't go away. i wonder what we can read into that?

when i look at the letterboxed version i see clipped compositions. when i watch the windowboxed version i see complete compositions that are nothing short of breath taking.

jaime, you know welles' style. in the full screen version look at the labrynth feel of the framing in the first tilt up the camera does from the time bomb in the opening shot. then look at that same frame in the letterboxed version. i don't understand how any one familiar with welles' work can look at those 2 frames side by side and say the letterbox version is the one welles intended. there are dozens of such instances all through the film that i'm not going to waste my time listing. it's already been posted here somewhere.

i found more beauty, and astounding frame compositions in the full screen version that i felt the wide screen version threw off balance. that is my opinion and i have no problem voicing, especially when it ruffles the feathers of 'the experts.'

roger, my opinion has always been that if booms sticks and mics end up on the negative, it's a flaw. i don't see any other way to look at that. i've looked through bunches of 35mm and 16mm negatives of films and never saw one that had a bunch of sightings across the top of the screen. i've read whining filmmakers blame the movie theaters for the way the projectors are aimed and showing the boom mics across the top of their film. if the boom & mics had never made it to the negative, they would not have this problem.

rkadin:
you look at the film both ways, then you decide which framing most reflects what you have seen from welles in other films. for me it's easy to spot a clipped composition.
compositions from welles are always geometrically balanced. if it's not, do we blame welles, or the letterboxing if it's balanced when it's full screen? if all the experts here are right about the letterboxing, then we have to blame welles.

[blunted by community]

jaime said:
Presumably the experts that you disagree with also "watched the film," and came up with a different conclusion.

My reply:
amaizing how that happens. i will go see a movie that the experts say is good, and it sucks. it also happesn the other way around. i guess it just depends which expert has your point of view, your intellegence, and your taste. obviously i side with the stupid experts. but i'm happy there.

i sent mteal a windowboxed version of touch of evil, and he emailed me back that he was knocked out by it, and that what i sent him answers the framing controvery. when i said, "why don't you post that at wellesnet," he refused. he didn't want the heat. i thought that was funny, and very telling of people's opinion of the letterbox version, and how fervently the protect it. so fervently that mteal didn't want to voice his opinion.

i think TOE is a gloriously beautiful film that was botched on the dvd. not in the restoration. the restorers did the best they could with what they had to work with.

[R Kadin]

Would it be unreasonable to suggest that he composed for both formats but with something of a compositional bias (conscious or otherwise) in favour of the one he knew better? It's not as if Welles was averse to having multiple versions of the same film.

I agree that, in widescreen, there are a lot of head and hat-tops pressed unusually close to the top of the screen. But, by the same token, there are a number of compositions (e.g., Vargas, background, extreme right, borrowing the phone of the blind storekeeper, foreground, extreme left// Vargas driving Al, post-accusation, at some speed through the town's narrow streets ) which are particularly striking in that format.

All the same, I'd love to see it in a windowbox format, as well. With the near-monopoly enjoyed by the Restored-version DVD, does such an edition still exist?

[mteal]

R. Kadin,
Of course it's not unreasonable to suggest that. I agree with Jeff Wilson that Welles probably composed TOE for both 1.33 and 1.85 ratios, and this is probably because he knew the film would be seen in both ratios- 1.85 at the theatres and 1.33 on television. As I've posted before, to my eyes the 1.33 version looks better, and the windowboxed 1.33 TOE that blunted sent me closes the case as far as I'm concerned. But people are free to choose whatever version they like.

Roger Ryan,
There actually is one shot at the beginning of the 1.33 TOE where you can see a mike at the bottom of the picture for a second or two. Someone pointed that out on another Wellesnet thread a while ago if anyone cares to try and excavate that one too. To me it's a minor flaw that shows Welles was human as a director just like everyone else. As Peter Conrad's book points out, CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT contains an outrageous flaw too, although you'd never know unless someone pointed it out: during the scene where Hal kills Hotspur, you can see an automobile in the background!

Blunted,
Thanks again for the great windowboxed TOE you sent. You should make that available to some more Wellesnetters so they can see for themselves how much better the film looks full-frame. It's not that I was afraid of getting heat from people here. I simply felt (and feel) the whole TOE aspect ratio argument has become something of a bore. I am curious though, to see if there are any full-frame versions of THE TRIAL and CHIMES AND MIDNIGHT out there somewhere. Those might be revelatory too.

[Jaime N. Christley]

during the scene where Hal kills Hotspur, you can see an automobile in the background!

That may not be a flaw so much as it could be a sly reference to Don Quixote!

Interesting that the consensus seems to side with the "both 1.85 and 1.37" conclusion. Welles obviously created some of the most extraordinary Academy compositions of all time. The urge to side with "Academy is correct" is very strong, especially if one doesn't see boom mics and C-stands in the frame while watching it un-letterboxed.

A letterboxed film may not cut off heads and hats and feet, but it will emphasize the horizontals and create a different dynamic with diagonal lines, vertical lines, and curves (like Janet Leigh's curves). This may be "interesting" and even exciting, composition-wise, but we should ask ourselves if this is truly "Wellesian." The unfortunate corollary to that question is that we can't ask the man himself - in fact, I start hearing Elmyr de Hory snickering in the back of my mind. You know that Welles/Elmyr would chide an expert on matters of how to properly identify a master's work.

Still - while composing for both widescreen (theater) and Academy (TV broadcasts) is extremely difficult to do well, it can be done. Kubrick did it, and if Kubrick could do it, there's no doubt that Welles could, too.

By the way, I'm also "Jaime," and while I don't post very often, it might avoid confusion to differentiate between two Jaime's on the same thread.

[blunted by community]

the aspect ratio thing on TOE has become a bore. it's like bbq, or extra crispy. chose the one you like.