nope

I agree for some things, but not for others. Most movies would be better in 4:3, but epics like Avatar and Inglourious Basterds need to be in 2.35:1

It's 5:00 bro

watching movies in 4:3 is like wearing horse blinders

Here's an interesting David Mamet article about it:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2003/jun/06/artsfeatures.davidmamet

Eisenstein's theories, Hitchcock's and De Sica's practice came in the days of the film aspect ratio of 1:1:33. That is, the screen and the projected image were in the golden mean, slightly wider than they were high - the general classical dimensions of a picture frame. Why were the image and the picture frame found in that size?

Rudolph Arnheim, in Film as Art, writes that the human being naturally "imagines" in that format. It perfectly frames the face, the torso of one or two figures, and most objects. It is a good format, as per the Eisenstein theory, for cutting from shot A to shot B. But the aspect ratio changed. Starting in the 1950s, with Cinemascope and VistaVision, the screen got wider and wider.

Widescreen was originally used to show a lot of land - to exploit the potential for spectacle rather than storytelling. It was famously said that widescreen was only good for filming a train or a snake. Not that there is anything wrong with spectacle; and, indeed, each new film technology, and film itself, was originally employed for spectacular effect. So, for 50 years, the shots got wider, the screens got wider, but folks stopped making cowboy movies. What, then, to do with widescreen?

>>9930600
I agree

as much as i liked the elephant man; having dramas like these set in wide screen just look stupid.

Imagine how difficult it must be directing a film which will look like a long wooden plank

>>9930694
Well, contemporary cinematographers, I believe, are using the tools they have inherited to create a new montage. For the contemporary frame is, essentially, too wide to be static. It is good for overs (over the shoulder of one character talking to the next), but who wants to see a film in overs? It frames the full figure only at the distance of a mile or so; and most objects (with the above exceptions) don't fit the wide frame very well.

So, unless one is photographing Montana (or increasingly, due to the trade imbalance, Manitoba), one had better find something to do with the wide frame. The beautiful answer is: to frame and then to correct an essentially unbalanced composition. The aspect 2:35 is very good for bringing objects in from the background; for panning with, or ahead of, or behind, the actor. It is good, in effect, for revealing information; and it is good for creating information. What can this mean? It means that the wide aspect ratio can function similarly to the cut in the older format. Here is an example...

I like 16:9

>>9930730
Yeah John Ford called it a tennis court. Let me find that quote.

>>9930742
Ford's DP one said that was the worst ratio of all (his favourite was 2.35:1) because it had all the disadvantages of the two formats and none of the advantages.

>>9930633
>epics like Avatar and Inglourious Basterds

>>9930694
It's been years, every filmmaker out there now has learned to adapt to this format.

>>9930787

do you have a screen shot of a movie filmed in 16:9?

>>9930787
>(about the CinemaScope anamorphic aspect ratio) I hated it. You've never seen a painter use that kind of composition - even the great murals, it still wasn't this huge tennis court. Your eyes pop back and forth, and it's very difficult to get a close-up.

>>9930810
How? Most films these days have fucking shit compositions.

>>9930825

>>9930810

adapting is not the same as excelling

Why should one adapt to a format that lacks artistic relevance in many cases? would Harvard be just as good as school if they adapted to the intelligence of the average nigger?

>>9930865
Ratio has nothing to do with artistic relevance. A good artist will be able to make a film in any ratio.

>4:3
what is this? the 50's?
shit sucks that's why it's all widescreen now

One of the things I love about 2.35:1 is its ability to split the frame into two frames like in this OP image:

>>9930381

It's very De Palma.

Here's another good article about it.

http://zvbxrpl.blogspot.com/2008/07/why-all-scope-movies.html

>In the '70s and '80s there was a trend for moviemakers to switch the other way, from wide to non-wide, as a backlash against the overuse of 'Scope in the '50s and '60s. (Like at Fox where they mandated that every film they made had to be 'Scope, no matter what the subject.) The late Sydney Pollack, as I said in an earlier post, made every movie in 'Scope up to the mid-'80s and then switched. By the '90s, the general rule was that a movie would not be in 'Scope unless it was a big subject -- action movie, epic -- or unless the director preferred 'Scope for some specific reason. (I.e. a director like Blake Edwards who just preferred to compose shots that way.) Now it seems like unless a director specfically prefers 1.85:1, like Sofia Coppola, Judd Apatow, a few others -- the "default" format for a movie is 'Scope.

>>9931052
The 50s was when most movies were in widescreen, you silly goose.

>>9931071
movies have always been in widescreen
tought we was talking about tv

>>9931098
Most tv is now in 4:3 or 16:9 if it's broadcast in HD.

>>9930861

funny that he chose 16:9 for his possibly best and most famous movie

pic semi related; 4:3 being superior when it comes to faces

2:35:1 is superior because it is akin to the human sight. our peripheral vision is wider horizontally than vertically.

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)

Aspect ratio
1.85 : 1

>>9931232
The Searchers, too. I think Mister Roberts and Cheyenne Autumn were in 2:35:1. And don't forget How the West was Won, which was in like 3.5:1

>>9931183
Yeah, but it sucks for getting closeups and framing one human body.

>>9931178
Yeah, but it was in Vista Vision, which was like one variation of Imax of its day. It was an anamorphic film print that had stunning picture quality.

I think any film he did was incredibly well composed, but most modern filmmakers, I think, waste the widescreen space. I'm not talking about guys like the Coens or Tarantino, though.

>>9931178
Not for two figures.

I think Tarkovsky made good use of the wide lens

The best format for a movie is the one which fits the composition of the shots. If you watch TV (before everything went HD and widescreen,) everything was 4:3, and MADE to look that way. Shots were composed in such a way that the left and right edges of the screen COULD be cut off, and you wouldn't lose anything. However, on a movie screen, where everything is typically wider-screen, the shots are composed differently. It all comes down to "what makes a shot look best?" That's the job of the cinematographer.

Any format (4:3) that is excellent for framing one human face or bust is a liability, for the same reason we don't turn to Oprah or the evening news for daring compositions.

Also, most 'great art' from a Eurocentric perspetive was static commissioned portraits and/or religious idolatry (sometimes both!), so I'm not so sure we should be using that as the basis for the format of the modern narrative film. The Mona Lisa, for all it's captivating qualities, is a dead boring composition. Imagine actually trying to replicate that shit on screen; it would be the worst combination of uninspired soap opera coverage, multicamera sitcoms, and Demmesque eyelines.

Meanwhile, the Japanese, the original classical innovators of narrative art, have pictorial scrolls with aspect ratios in the realm of 1000:1.

TL;DR like that's just your opinion man

>>9931615
Sorry, but if the point of film is to let actors do their job and tell the story, fancy compositions that call attention to themselves aren't the be and and end all.

Grapes of Wrath's last scene is achieve with almost television coverage. Shot reverse shot. And it's incredible. Simple compositions allow the actors to do their jobs.

>>9931774

that depends on what kind of movie you wish to create. Murnau made great use of the moving camera, a "picture poem" he called it.

>>9931835
But his moving camera never got in the way of telling the story. Murnau was Ford's biggest influence, and Ford was a poet with images, too.

>>9931774
I find that stance absurdly reductionist. I don't mean to belittle the role of the actor, quite the opposite: I want the actor to be engaging within engaging context. If the goal of film was truly to focus on the actors and let them "do their job", there would be no other tools besides TV coverage. You sound like a man of the theater, why bother with film at all? Is the director an enabler for what you seek as the true art, or an inhibitor?

>>9931926
Scorsese, to me, is my biggest influence in terms of combining solid story telling with film techniques. Look at Raging Bull. He uses fancy camera movies and editing when the scene calls for it, and basic coverage when the scene calls for that. Does that mean the non-boxing and domestic scenes in Raging Bull are bad? No, they're just in a different style. They're still just as filmic, just more subtly so. For example, sometimes he cuts in to a close up on a line of dialogue, and Scorsese says he got that from "Dial M For Murder". The lines of dialogue and what's happening with the writing prescribe the camera positions .

TV coverage CAN be a good tool. I don't normally like shot reverse shot, though, I prefer long takes with painterly compositions.

>>9931774
Btw, there's way to make simple compositions look interesting. Look at the diagonal slant of this frame. The round light from the war room cuts across on the let, and the general to Scott's left is lower and farther away. It's not a boring composition, it has visual interest, but it's not more important than what's happening with the story or characters in this scene.