VES 72: Sound Cinema
L23: Widescreen & the Epic Epoch
Mechanics
Friday: Screening of bits and pieces
Tuesday: 400 Blows
Make appointments for presentations…
“[CinemaScope] wasn't meant for human beings. Just
for snakes…and funerals. ”
Fritz Lang in Jean-Luc Godard’s Contempt, Embassy,
1963
The rise of widescreen in the 50’s
Why widescreen?
Widescreen before Cinerama?
Cinerama
Todd-AO and Oklahoma!
Fox, Monroe, and Cinemascope
VistaVision
70mm Anamorphic processes
Why widescreen?
Audience changes?
Production changes?
A general solution: The hard-ticketed roadshow
Generalized audience
Unique draw (everything “not available on TV”)
Inflatable ticket price
Manageable technological rollout
Boatloads of stars; casts of thousands
Simple mimesis: management of masses on
screen and management of masses in audience
(and nation)
Widescreen processes before Cinerama?
Widescreen processes I
Processes II: Cinerama
Blend Line Compositions
Staging: dead spaces, gaps
Staging: depth, linearity
Ford’s Solution: Triptychs
Processes III
Todd-AO: What television can’t do
Oklahoma! extras
Fox & CinemaScope
Anamorphic lenses, rejiggered sprockets
Conversion in 1953; Fox to film exclusively in
’Scope
Others license technology: UA, Columbia, Disney
Marilyn Monroe
1926-1962
After bits in Asphalt Jungle (Huston, MGM 1950)
and All About Eve (Mankiewicz, MGM, 1950),
given 7 year contract with Fox.
Married to Joe DiMaggio (1954) and Arthur
Miller (1956-61)
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
Hawks, Fox, 1952 (1.33:1)
Ch. 24
A Hawksian Musical
Roaming, obsessive camera; against
audience perspective
Reconfiguration of Lola-Lola as insurance
motivated
Cluttered frame only enhances pink (against
Black and White)
How to Marry a Millionaire
Jean Negulesco, Fox, 1953 (2.55:1)
Ch. 4
Widescreen build-out comparisons
Cinerama: 1952: 4; 1959: 22; mid-60’s: 95
CinemaScope: 1952: 0; 1956: >41,000
Processes IV: VistaVision Demo
Scope vs. Vista (Fox’s version)
Scope vs. Vista (Paramount’s version)
Formal results
Width vs. Depth
Unlike Cinerama, Scope has big depth problems
Laterality and Flatness enforce classicism
“While characters in CinemaScope films tended to
recline on sofas or easy chairs (How to Marry a
Millionaire) or sprawl on the ground (Rebel
without a Cause), those in VistaVision films
tended to sing and dance (White Christmas) or
stand at attention (Strategic Air Command).”
John Belton, Widescreen Cinema 126-7.
Warners 1.66:1 Giant (George Stevens, 1956)
Ben-Hur (Wyler, MGM, 1959, “Camera 65”=Ultra
Panavision 70)
General Formal results
Most edit slowly
(flatness + sequence shots = primitivity)
Riefenstahlian orchestrations
Stereo requirements: eye focusing
Dead patches: appearance of non-direction
Can there be a personal widescreen?
How did Hollywood think about widescreen?
Silk Stockings, Mamoulian, MGM, 1957 Ch. 11