Stanley Kubrick: Classic or Dud?

Marisa Berenson was hot in that movie, Time was right

she was supposed to show at above screenings, just Leon Vitali now, apparently.

I are jealous. that thing's gonna look sumptuous. wonder if they're projecting at 1.37 or 1.66...

from DVDbeaver:

Warner Home Video Director's Series: Stanley Kubrick Collection on 23rd October 2007. 2001: A Space Odyssey (2-Disc Special Edition), A Clockwork Orange (2-Disc Special Edition), Eyes Wide Shut (2-Disc Special Edition), The Shining (2-Disc Special Edition WIDESCREEN), Barry Lyndon and Lolita
A Deluxe Edition of Full Metal Jacket will also be released in Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD

The Shining (2-Disc Special Edition WIDESCREEN)

ooh...

yeah... bit of a misnomer. kubrick wasn't a big fan of wide formats, 'specially for home viewing.

ok between this and blade runner i'm going to be geeked out this year

any chance of a commentary on these from kubrick?

this is pretty fuckin' typical -- i finally got a stack o' kubrick dvds earlier this year. very cheaply though. i wonder what will be on them.

xpost

no, he died in 1999.

i know that

do i have to put a ";-)" after everything?

i know you knew, i sort of zinging. it's early.

there are definitely loads of deleted scenes from '2001'. 'strangelove' (which isn't warner i guess so not included here) has an alt ending.

"kubrick wasn't a big fan of wide formats, 'specially for home viewing."

but we have big flat wall-hung TV's now and we didnt then.

i wonder if the making of 2001 doc will be included in that disc.

i mean i actually have an ancient 13 inch portable.

i think he actually shot academy ratio on everything post-2001 -- even 'barry lyndon'.

'strangelove' (which isn't warner i guess so not included here) has an alt ending.

Do you mean the pie fight scene? If I remember correctly, there isn't any footage surviving from that.

ah.

more details on the new DVDs (and Eyes Wide Shut will be the uncensored Euro version):

http://www.cinematical.com/2007/08/22/warning-to-kubrick-fanatics-start-saving-your-pennies/

Uh, so they fucked with the aspect ratios of the films to suit new televisions, and there's no release in a hi def format, and this new box will lack Dr. Strangelove.

Looks like I'm sticking with my current box set, thanks.

TMC has Fail-Safe on and so far it's quite a bit more entertaining than Strangelove, although as pointed out by the presenter this would have been a rather improbable opinion to formulate, much less defend, in 1964.

http://us.movies1.yimg.com/movies.yahoo.com/images/hv/photo/movie_pix/oscars/77th_academy_awards_ceremony_photos/_group_photos/sidney_lumet15.jpg

this would have been a rather improbable opinion to formulate, much less defend, in 1964.

Still is! It's from an era when George C Scott was allowed to be funnier than Walter Matthau.

But where did George get with Yvonne De Carlo?

Oh wait.

?

Ken, we should really go to the movies sometime.

I got Walter mixed up with Tony Curtis for a second. Yeah, I might be able to get away in the near future. You and Ian going to see that Ian Curtis thing?

Stanley Kubrick: a Life in Pictures is finally releasing on Netflix this week. I've been waiting seven years to see this.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0278736/

3 minute short doc on Kubrick: http://www.aantranikian.com/kubrick.html

The 18 minute interview with Tony Kaye they made: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oa9DD_q0CM8

i like the font where they have written KUBRICK on the first link. do you have any idea what it is?

http://www.aantranikian.com/images/banner_kubrick.jpg

?

also, this:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/jul/03/channel4.kubrick

jesus, how much did that cost?!

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5739282975440441779

awesome

subtitle: i was a paralegal for stanley kubrick

argh almost worked on that :(

Anthony Harvey on editing Strangelove:

http://www.theauteurs.com/notebook/posts/787

Great link. Thanks.

Still no blu-rays of Lolita and Barry Lyndon :(

I've never been totally clear on the whole aspect ratio issue with Kubrick's films- correct me if I'm wrong, but it was my understanding that Kubrick's problem was with letterboxing on 4:3 screens more than widescreen itself, yes? I mean, I can't imagine watching 2001 cropped, and weren't his post-2001 films shot for widescreen theatrical showings? I'm sure Kubrick had enough clout that he could've had them shown in a narrower ratio if he thought it was necessary...

Yeah, I think his beef was about showing the films on TVs, but with TVs being widescreen mostly nowadays, it's not such an issue.

he would make two versions, shooting more vertical so that the tv version would not be cropped.

wait, they wd be different takes?

or just made 2 versions in post?

same take, but ya, cropped later.

it is cause for an ENDLESS debate among kubrick heads and aspect ratio trainspotters tho.

well I think they shd be seen the way they were in theaters, now that letterboxing is commonplace. Why debate?

some people make the argument that he preferred a squarer frame, just in general. he was definitely opposed to letterboxing on 4:3 TVs but now that most TVs are widescreen that seems moot. the main issue seems to be that he never clearly named his preference.

It seems to have been Kubrick's preference for his films to be shown in the 4:3 or "full frame" aspect ratio, because, according to his long-standing personal assistant Leon Vitali, that was the way he composed them through the camera viewfinder and if it were technically still possible to do so, he would have liked them to be shown full frame in cinemas as well. As Vitali said in a recent interview (2): "The thing about Stanley, he was a photographer that's how he started. He had a still photographer's eye. So when he composed a picture through the camera, he was setting up for what he saw through the camera - the full picture. That was very important to him. It really was. It was an instinct that never ever left him. [...] He did not like 1.85:1. You lose 27% of the picture, Stanley was a purist. This was one of the ways it was manifested."

vs

There has been a longstanding debate regarding the DVD releases of Kubrick's films; specifically, the aspect ratio of many of the films. The primary point of contention relates to his final five films: A Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, and Eyes Wide Shut.

Kubrick's initial involvement with home video mastering of his films was a result of television screenings of 2001: A Space Odyssey. [76] Because the film was shot in 65 mm, the composition of each shot was compromised by the pan-and-scan method of transferring a wide-screen image to fit a 1.33:1 television set.

Kubrick's final five films were shot "flat"—the full 1.37:1 area is exposed in the camera and cropped in a theater's projector to the 1.85:1 ratio.

The first mastering of these five films was in 2000 as part of the "Stanley Kubrick Collection", consisting of Lolita, Dr. Strangelove (in association with Sony Pictures), 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, and Eyes Wide Shut. Kubrick oversaw the video masters in 1989 for Warner Home Video, and approved of 1.33:1 transfers for all of the films except for 2001, which was letterboxed[citation needed].

Kubrick never approved a 1.85:1 video transfer of any of his films; when he died in 1999, DVDs and the 16×9 format were only beginning to become popular in the US, and most people were accustomed to seeing movies fill their television screen. [77] Warner Home Video chose to release these films with the transfers that Kubrick had explicitly approved. [78]

In 2007, Warner Home Video remastered 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, and Eyes Wide Shut in High-Definition, releasing the titles on DVD, HD DVD, and Blu-ray Disc. All were released in 16×9 anamorphic transfers, preserving the theatrical 1.85:1 aspect ratios for all of the flat films except A Clockwork Orange, which was transferred at an aspect ratio of 1.66:1. [79]

In regards to the Warner Bros. titles, there is little studio documentation that is public about them other than instructions given to projectionists on initial release; however, Kubrick's storyboards for The Shining do prove that he composed the film for wide-screen. In instructions given to photographer John Alcott in one panel, Kubrick writes:

THE FRAME IS EXACTLY 1.85-1. Obviously you compose for that but protect the full 1.33-1 area. [80]

I just don't get why they don't include both versions on the DVDs, that way people can watch it "the way Kubrick intended" or "the way it looked in theaters" or whatever the hell they want.

they would need to include an extra disc, is why. and also most people don't really know/care about this ish to make it worth the expense.