Kane on Blu-ray

[Jarpie]

It's extremely rare that movies are cropped to 1.78:1 from the wider aspectratios, such as 2.35:1 in the blu-rays, or from 1.33:1 to 1.78:1. I know only one blu-ray, Equilibrium's UK Blu-ray which was cropped to fit 16:9 screen.

It depends a lot on the DVDs which look good, and which doesn't in high definition TVs, some of the new movies can look very soft and poor in my 42" plasma fullhd (1080p) TV, but some older ones look actually very good, such as The Criterion Collection's Pickup on South Street and Ace in the Hole.

In my opinion, the only correct and right way of watching 1.33:1 movies/tv from widescreen TVs is to watch them with black bars on the sides, otherwise you crop the picture, or strech it, which both destroys intention of the director/cinematographer. And same for movies with wider AR (2.35:1 etc.).

[Roger Ryan]

Cropping the sides of 2.35:1 films to fill a 1.78:1 screen is, unfortunately, fairly standard for cable/view-on-demand right now. It's the same thinking that marred decades of watching widescreen films on standard televisions: "don't allow anyone to see black bars on the screen, for gosh sakes!" The same is not true of Blu-Ray/DVD releases which normally honor the original aspect ratio.

Jarpie is correct that in viewing standard academy ratio films (4:3 or 1.33:1) on a widescreen TV, you should be watching them with black (or gray) bars at the sides to preserve the correct ratio. However, as we discussed on the TOUCH OF EVIL DVD thread, some DVDs/broadcast programming feature images composed for widescreen, but delivered in unmatted full-frame (most common examples are several early Kubrick DVDs like THE SHINING and EYES WIDE SHUT which were composed for both widescreen and full-frame, but issued only in full-frame DVDs). For these, you can "zoom in" to the picture to fill the 16:9 television screen and replicate the widescreen aspect ratio seen in the theatre.

Whatever you do, don't stretch the picture to fill the 16:9 screen - that's simply ridiculous. The only possible excuse to do this would be to prevent uneven wear/burn-in on your screen, but I don't think that's worth looking at a distorted image for entertainment.

[Sir Bygber Brown]

I've recently upgraded to an entry-level 40" full-HD TV, and a blu-ray player. For those considering the ps3 as a blu ray player, bear in mind it is region locked; so US can only play their own and asian blus, and Aussies like me can now shop for blus on amazon.co.uk.

Anyway, having just got my first slew of blu rays, I have been dazzled by some of the early blus, like Casablanca and the region-B-only The Red Shoes. The uneven quality of film stock is going to mean the restoration is going to be more obvious; and I've found older films don't look as crisp as modern films like No Country For Old Men and The Dark Knight, which look crisper than their theatrical presentations.

Anyone thinking of upgrading to HD, don't hesitate, but make sure you invest in a big TV. The facts are your TV should be 40" at least to get the full benefit of the upgrade.

My main reason for coming here today was to express my profound desire to see at least Citizen Kane and Touch of Evil in blu ray. As there is no definitive cut of Touch, i guess it'll take them a while longer to invest in it; I hope we're a lot closer to seeing Citizen Kane; because there's just so much beautiful detail in that movie, its a shame to be missing out on it with our SD-DVDs.

Brown

PS, i always thought Todd Baeson and Glenn Anders were the same person... Like one a secret identity, just this one dude always posting then posting the opposing opinion with another account, like a Chess genius playing against himself...

[atcolomb]

My guess is that they might release it in blu-ray in 2011 to celebrate it's 70th anniversary?....

[Sir Bygber Brown]

Lawrence of Arabia had a massive anniversary this year, and me and my internet Lawrnecne fan friends all thought it would come out, and we're salivating over that one, butits yet to be announced... So anniversaries can sometimes be disappointing. And blu ray will be old tech by 2011, so that's no excuse.

[atcolomb]

That's strange about Lawrence of Arabia anniversary since the film is 47 years old...Lawrence and Bridge on the River Kwai should be movies that Columbia Studios should release on blu-ray and not some of the junk they do now...

[Sir Bygber Brown]

Shit, you're right, I bet they're waiting for the 50th; which sucks big time for fans who got blu ray in hopes of seeing movies like Lawrence and kane. I haven't tried Kane SD on my new TV yet, but Kwai SD was the first thing I put on; without HDMI cable it was an absolute travesty. But that transfer is so faded and fuzzy anyway.

[atcolomb]

The standard 2 disc dvd release of Kane looks fantastic!!...But Bridge on the River Kwai looks terrible and kinda wash out. I did read somewhere that the original negatives were in bad shape and very little restoration was done on it. I would also check out the blu-ray release of Lean's A Passage to India...excellent looking blu-ray!

[Glenn Anders]

To me, great films, the ones I admire, are in my head. Aside from seeing them in a first class theater, my old VHS copies were quite satisfactory-- rather like looking at the sketch of a great painting. Laserdiscs were certainly an improvement, but DVD's not so much. Blue Ray might be satisfying, if they would stay with with the process for perhaps a decade, but commerce of the last thirty years will not allow that, requires an increasingly mad gush of profits for a few benefits to trickle down to the viewers. The next gimmick will be to connect all computers to TV's, then, later, bit torrent everything. After that . . . WiFi. It's all really, adding a couple of bells and whistles, so that consumers throw out a small fortune in equipment and picture delivery devices in order to trigger that profit surge.

I can no longer afford the expense.

I am reminded of an item in the news this morning that GM has suddenly discovered that they can produce a hybrid car which gives over 200 miles to the gallon. Too bad that it took the threat of bankruptcy to stop them from further robbing millions of Americans. Once, in the 1940's, a fellow took me for a ride in a 1908 Locomobile, modified and stripped down for mass productin, powered by a small steam engine supported by a an equally small white gas burner. Completely silent, marvelously responsive, and cheap to run. I later learned that a consideration for not developing the concept further in the first quarter of the 20th Century was that the Daimler-Benz engines of the previous century, using more gasoline and oil, were therefore more profitable. And so the well-named Locomobile remains a silent, effortless dream of freedom insanely locked in my memory.

[But now I am beginning to sound like George Minafer!]

As I say, a great movie is in the head and the heart. When it becomes a museum display, it's dead.

You are very canny, Sir Bygber. I was hoping Todd Baesen would be able to attend a luncheon that Alfred Willmore gave Mr. French and me on Saturday, but, according to Mr. French, Toddy sent his regrets. He can be very shy. My thought is that, as the fellow in the JFK investigation said, you may have the right "A-ha" but the wrong "Ho-ho!"

Glenn

[Sir Bygber Brown]

Yes and no. Mainly, I think I disagree.

I agree that our experience of movies is subjective, but that doesn't mean there isn't really a movie there. For me, I will sometimes revisit a movie and find it wasn't what I thought it was; A Knight's Tale, for example, which I once thought was entertaining, now I found cringe-worthy.

Your point regarding films being only their true selves in a theatre or on a projector may be the case; but not all of us can afford 16mm prints of Lawrence of Arabia, so I think a nice big TV is much more likely to replicate the emotional experience of a thatre than a tiny little one. And following on from that, big TVs need high definition discs. Of course I'm arguing for something I've just upgraded to, so I'm biased.

The idea of content-deliery you're talking about has two prongs, the way I see it: one, in improving quality, which is the HD road, the other traffics in convenience: the PC-theatre, the downloadable movie. I think fans of Orson Welles should lie on the HD road and let a 40" TV pummel them with the magnificence of the ambersons, the grotesquerie of Hank Quinlan, the intricacies of Kane, because let's face it, why squint?

Brown

[Glenn Anders]

All right, Sir, I don't think we are too far apart. I have a 55" TV, many laserdiscs, a fair number of DVD's, as well as six or seven hundred hours of VHS (which, frankly, to partially agree with you, I don't watch much because it's a bother to make the VCR work with the quite new TV).

My point is that I don't want to start all over again with some new process.

As Charles Foster Kane learned to his rue, collecting is a vice.

Glenn

[Sir Bygber Brown]

I'm only 26 (ONLY the age Orson directed Kane. :p) and this is the first TV I've ever bought; so I can see how I might feel differently when the fourth or fifth "new technology" tries to make me feel left behind; but I think Blu Ray is an easier sell because the picture is so much more detailed, and you don't lose all your old dvds; they still work in the new player!!!

I thoroughly recommend it, you get much more detail for your buck, if you like any of the titles on offer, such as The Searchers, Rio Bravo, Gone with the Wind (soon), The Wizard of Oz (soon), The Red Shoes (from uk, http://www.hmv.com, with an all-region player), Antonioni's The Red Desert (UK region).

Brown

[Glenn Anders]

Fair enough, young Sir Bygber Brown: You seem to know your Blue Rays.

Perhaps, Todd Baesen will buy me a machine for my birthday, next month.

Thanks for the tip.

Glenn

[Sir Bygber Brown]

I know a lot about all things I've just recently looked up on wikipedia. :p

Just between us, though, do you really have two accounts and disagree with yourself; because I wasn't kidding, I really have suspected that for years since I first started coming here.

[Alan Brody]

Actually, I've suspected for awhile that Glenn has a total of SIX accounts: "Glenn Anders", "Todd Beason", "Sir Bygber Brown", "Alan Brody", and two others I'm not completely sure of yet. Furthermore, I agree with a previous poster that in reality he is none other then David Thompson, author of Rosebud.

Seriously, I've had HD cable for awhile now, and I've been quite impressed by some of the old movies I've seen in High-Def on American Movie Classics (here's hoping TCM makes the HD plunge soon as well). HD really brings out the visual artistry and craftsmanship of the old classics in a way that often makes them seem new again. The wealth of detail and crispness of image rivals the best arthouse theatres and even surpasses many cineplexes. A Blue-Ray player I think is also worth getting not only for taking advantage of Blue Ray discs, but for enhancing all of your old standard DVDs as well.

But here's the rub: I have the feeling that, with widescreen TVs rapidly becoming the norm, it might actually deal a serious blow to the stature of old movies on TV and video. Many of the films we now accept as all-time classics were not initially successful during their intial theatrical runs, and became classics mainly because of television (for example, The Wizard of Oz and It's a Wonderful Life). These films probably won't play as well on the new TVs, despite HD or Blu Ray, since they no longer fit the screen, and stretching them out to fit the widescreen makes them look, well, stretched out. Consequently, old films which gained a second life back in the days of the old 4X3 TVs may lose some of their appeal for future generations, in contrast to 2.35 widescreen movies, which don't quite fill the new TVs either, but certainly look much better then they did on the old TVs. I'm hoping this doesn't happen to the older Welles films, including even Kane.