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

[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?

[Le Chiffre]

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.

[Le Chiffre]

Jaime Christley,
Sorry, must have confused you and blunted in my insomnia last night. Thanks for the heads up- I've gone ahead and made the changes.

Welles certainly came up with alot of brilliant compositions in both standard ratio and widescreen format, but to be honest, the term "Wellesian" to me speaks more of continuity then of composition. Many filmmakers have been able to create Wellesian visual compositions - including filmmakers that came before Welles - but few if any have been able to come close to the kind of graceful, symphonic continuity that Welles was able to acheive routinely in his films. It's not the images themselves so much, but rather the way they move and flow that makes Welles such a distinctive artist.

The auto in the background as a reference to DQ? Hmmm, could be something there. Could be a reference to Ambersons too- Hal as a medieval Eugene Morgan and Hotspur as a medieval George, with the auto as the secret weapon that destroyed Merry Ol' England. . Or maybe it was a reference to Mark Twain's Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's court. Lots of possibilities: maybe this deserves it's own thread.

[Wilson]

To be honest, my own thought on the car in Chimes is this: Welles, working on a very tight budget, probably didn't have the time or money to reshoot once he saw it in there. Personally, I doubt he would have carried the whole modern/old world thing that far as to make it purposeful, but that's just my own opinion.

[Glenn Anders]

A reasonable conclusion, Jeff.

Unless it's egregious, these arguments about a ratio don't interest me much. The cutting, the slashing of Welles' films (and those of others) does. Those versions more strongly cause one to doubt his/her memory of a work.

Glenn

[Le Chiffre]

I guess I wasn't being facetious enough. I'm sure you're right, Jeff. In fact, he may not have ever even noticed the flaw. I doubt very much that Welles would ever be so surreal as to purposely put an auto in a Shakespeare movie, no matter how rich the metaphor.

[Jaime N. Christley]

Whether the aspect ratio question is important or not is up for debate, but changing the amount of information on the screen has greater similarities to cutting out or re-ordering the sequence of frames, shots, and scenes than you might think. It's not as easy to detect the impact of a projectionist, studio, or DVD company screwing around with the aspect ratio (but, arguably, it's easy to get outraged at meddling in the cutting room without quite understanding the consequences of that meddling), and maybe the impact isn't as significant. But if you aren't interested in how it affects the film, you might ask yourself if you really deserve to be carry around your "Orson Welles Fan Club" membership card.

Let me put it this way - what if Warner Home Video's 2-disc DVD release of Citizen Kane presented the film in 1.85:1? Would that be "not interesting"?

[maxrael]

links to two of the best TOE aspect ratio discussions:

Orson's Haircut

where Rick says:

1:33 was the ratio Kane was shot as was the practice at the time. But TOE was coposed by Welles in 1:85 but shot full frame at the order of the studio. Welles was very aware on the compostion that he shot the film in. Welles never complained about the ratio because he screened it a 1:85. I guess those who prefer the studio version feel more is better, but that is going aganst the way the picture was shot and was ment to be seen in theaters. This was supported by both Mety and Lathrop later on the it is by the records on the orig. studio screening and the release theatrical screening that further support how the film was presented. A little homework on this matter goes a long way.

F for fake DVD

where Sergio says:

When I was preparing a lecture that I gave on Touch of Evil last year at the National Film Theatre in London I had the chance to compare the prints of the standard and re-release versions of TOUCH OF EVIL both on a Steenbeck and projected on the big screen. I found that the ratio really should be 1.66 and was infact indicated as such on the re-release print. The easiest way to confirm this was the simple fact that in the third shor of the film, the backward dolly shot in which Heston and Leigh run towards the explosion, if shown at 1.33 then the bottom of the dolly would be clearly visible, but was removed at 1.66 - the DVD says that it is masked at 1.85 but in fact it is masked at around 1.77 I think, so as to accomodate widescreen TVs, and I believe that this is still a little too tight, to be honest.

There was a really good post which i can no longer find, alas i can't remember the finer details, but i seem to recall Jaime M mentioning a geographical marker that ties various scenes together that can only be seen in his windowboxed version...

Personally speaking i find the discussion fascinating... and in my little world Sergio's post quoted above, makes the most sense to me!! ;D

atb,
max!

[Roger Ryan]

The easiest way to confirm this was the simple fact that in the third shor of the film, the backward dolly shot in which Heston and Leigh run towards the explosion, if shown at 1.33 then the bottom of the dolly would be clearly visible, but was removed at 1.66

Ironically, you can see the dolly track in "Citizen Kane" as well, in the scene where Kane returns from vacation and clumsily accepts the trophy from the Inquirer staff. I agree with the earlier post that these kind of mistakes don't automatically determine what the correct aspect ratio should be, but I believe some directors/cinematographers will forgive certain objects/equipment sneaking into frame if they believe these things will be cropped out later. The most frequent "flaw" in Welles' films in regard to composition tends to be camera shadows; since he loved to get the camera right up in the face of the actors, a shadow created by the camera tends to sneak into the framing.

[Glenn Anders]

I am only saying that I am of an age when, as widescreen came in, seemingly every producer and exhibitor wanted to show films in Cinemascope. Hence, musicals were shown with the dancers feet cut off. [A practice which seems to have affected Baz Lurhmann, if his recent CHICAGO is any example.]

Of course, I would want to see CITIZEN KANE in the format I first saw in a small town theater, in 1941.

If you don't think that makes me a premier member of your club, I'll form one of my own.

It does bother me that sometimes arguments erupt over things that no one is likely to remedy.

Glenn

[Jaime N. Christley]

Of course, I would want to see CITIZEN KANE in the format I first saw in a small town theater, in 1941.

If you don't think that makes me a premier member of your club, I'll form one of my own.

I'm not sure what this means - you want to see CITIZEN KANE the way you saw it in 1941, so that doesn't qualify you for membership in a club.

Er, first of all, the "club" bit was just a figure of speech. Second, it's a question you have to ask yourself, not me. If you're happy with cropping this and that, then who am I to judge. I can only give you a little evidence, a little speculation, and let you decide for yourself.

[Jaime N. Christley]

I agree with the earlier post that these kind of mistakes don't automatically determine what the correct aspect ratio should be, but I believe some directors/cinematographers will forgive certain objects/equipment sneaking into frame if they believe these things will be cropped out later.

This is a common practice in student films, where the eventual TV broadcast and VHS release isn't an issue, but it's far less common in studio pictures, especially in recent years. The most you'll get is an accidental boom mic if a projectionist is asleep on the job.