The Jeffrey Wells Thread

[Thomas Dukenfield]

I don't know why I read his rants about Criterion discs and aspect ratios, but it honestly amazes me that someone that professes to be an expert (he frequently pulls the "I was a projectionist card") is not only always wrong, but also wrong to an absurd degree. You'd think just by accident he would occasionally be right. Someone who has never seen a movie before yet is insane enough to think they're an expert on the subject of aspect ratios and decides to write about it could not be this consistently wrong.

Having said that, I'm "looking forward" to his rant that the "Nazis" over at Warner Brothers didn't release the Lawrence of Arabia Blu in a 3:1 aspect ratio, since "Lean filmed a desert triptych without consciously realizing it, and this should be the only way the movie should be seen".

P.S. thanks to the ghost that fixed my above post. One day I will get the hang of it.

[Brian C]

You guys didn't even quote the funniest thing he's said on the issue:

The 1.85 version delivers a feeling of confinement, obviously, but Otto Preminger wasn't an impressionist. He was a very matter-of-fact, point-focus-and-shoot type of guy.

[domino harvey]

That is legitimately the stupidest thing quoted in this thread, and it comes from such a deep place of wrongness that it's astounding

[Thomas Dukenfield]

You guys didn't even quote the funniest thing he's said on the issue:

The 1.85 version delivers a feeling of confinement, obviously, but Otto Preminger wasn't an impressionist. He was a very matter-of-fact, point-focus-and-shoot type of guy.

Thanks for the laugh. That would be like saying "Hitchcock was primarily known for shooting without a script and just having the actors improvise".

[Brian C]

The 1.85 version delivers a feeling of confinement, obviously, but Otto Preminger wasn't an impressionist. He was a very matter-of-fact, point-focus-and-shoot type of guy.

That is legitimately the stupidest thing quoted in this thread, and it comes from such a deep place of wrongness that it's astounding

Ha ha, domino, I knew you'd get a kick out of that. I'm happy to have made your night and/or sorry for ruining it.

[MichaelB]

That is legitimately the stupidest thing quoted in this thread, and it comes from such a deep place of wrongness that it's astounding

I still have very fond memories of the time that Nothing pooh-poohed the fact that a DVD was director and cinematographer approved by claiming that they were probably blind and/or senile.

Naturally, he hadn't actually seen the disc in question. Whereas they had.

[The Narrator Returns]

It wouldn't be a Criterion release without some good-old-fashioned Jeffrey Wells bitching. His issue this time is the accuracy of the aspect ratio for Rosemary's Baby.

[mfunk9786]

It wouldn't be a Criterion release without some good-old-fashioned Jeffrey Wells bitching. His issue this time is the accuracy of the aspect ratio.

"Director approved transfer" means nothing to Jeffrey Wells.

[The Narrator Returns]

Not to mention that the video he put in the article showed the film in the 1.85:1 aspect ratio.

Plus, his only argument is that he thinks it should be shown in 1.66:1. I may think that the sky isn't blue, but I'm not boycotting any film that shows it being blue.

[swo17]

I don't know what the right ratio is, but I love how his case for 1.66:1 is essentially speculation following a Google search and yet:

I don't even want to think about Polanski telling Criterion he wants Rosemary's Baby to be Blurayed at 1.85 rather than 1.66. But if he does say that, then I'm sorry but he'll be wrong. And it'll be up to people like me to vigorously point that out.

[The Narrator Returns]

Plus, there's the matter of Criterion removing the fart joke-telling purple alien who was always in the film, even if other people say otherwise. The idea of Roman Polanski telling Criterion that this alien never existed in any cut of the film sickens me. I'm sorry, Roman, but I'm right and you're wrong.

[knives]

Instead of paying attention to an idiot we all should at least be celebrating the inclusion, finally, of William Castle in the collection. How I wish they decided to do even a little something for the old man.

[matrixschmatrix]

Paying attention to idiots is what the internet is for though

[zedz]

1.66 is known as "European Widescreen" for a reason. Rosemary's Baby is an American film. Case closed, numbskull.

[Mr Sausage]

Is Wells the same guy who admitted he slags off all Criterion releases because they wouldn't give him a job?

[matrixschmatrix]

And the one who was soliciting nudes, iirc

[knives]

Of course coming up with that argument would take effort on his part.

[CSM126]

And would force him to read a conclusion he disagrees with, which he obviously cannot handle. Some people really aren't mocked enough by their parents as children. Sheesh.

[Dylan]

David, I actually recall Rosemary's Baby being shown on AMC

SpoilerShow

in 1.66:1

sometime in the late 90s. Being half my age ago, perhaps that's memory playing tricks, but I remember thinking for years it was a

SpoilerShow

1.66 film

before finally watching the film on DVD.

That said... I had the good fortune of meeting William Fraker before he died and we talked about the film and he spoke about the 1.85 ratio, and used this as an example of his own favorite of the films he shot in that format. And isn't the clip featured in Visions of Light also in 1.85 (I no longer have my copy of that doc to make sure)? I've seen this movie several times over the years and it certainly looks correct to me (and it's a beautiful-looking film).

[knives]

It sounds like it was shot with 1.85 in mind, but worked so that 1.66 could also be a playable ratio.

[MichaelB]

JW is beyond belief. I don't know whether I find his feigned "pedantry" funny or offensive.

Even if Polanski hadn't approved the transfer, the case for the OAR being 1.85:1 is overwhelming - what else would a non-anamorphic Hollywood film have been in 1968?

But since he did, case closed.

[swo17]

But then how do you dispute the fact that if you do a Google search for "Rosemary's Baby at 1.66:1," it produces some 77,800 hits???

[Dylan]

Well, it could've been shot open matte too, which would be (perhaps, for some) opening another can if that's true (shades of the Touch of Evil debate comes to mind).

For me, William Fraker waving this as a 1.85 film in his impossibly wise old age (the guy was as sharp as they come) cannot be ignored, nor the fact that the film has always looked great in 1.85 (with many shots still being taught as staples of cinematography, and in/for that aspect ratio).

[zedz]

Well, it could've been shot open matte too, which would be (perhaps, for some) opening another can if that's true (shades of the Touch of Evil debate comes to mind).

Bear in mind that "open matte" isn't an alternative aspect ratio. It's a production decision. Hundreds of thousands of films have been shot open matte that have never in the filmmakers' wildest dreams been intended to be seen in that ratio, or in anything other than the intended projection ratio.

When Europe had a different widescreen standard than the USA, it was inevitable that some 1.85 films would end up projected in that ratio, because some projectionists are lazy, or they might not have had the correct equipment. The opposite is also true, and probably even more prevalent, with European widescreen films being constantly misprojected at 1.85. Neither of these facts mean that the alternative aspect ratio was intended. Even 'tolerated' is probably too generous a term. If a director worried too much about that sort of thing (like Kubrick, say), he or she was likely to get branded a control freak or nutcase. And look what happened with Kubrick! Despite his obsessive concern for optimal projection, there's probably more confusion and contention over the aspect ratios of his films than for anybody else's - even when, as with Barry Lyndon, he spelled his position out with complete clarity.

[MichaelB]

The onus is very much on Jeffrey Wells to explain why he thinks a 1968 Hollywood film shot by an experienced American cinematographer would ever have been framed at 1.66:1. Because it makes no historical sense to me at all, and neither would it have made any practical sense at the time.