A certain ratio…
Donald Clarke
Andrea Arnold’s Wuthering Heights has stirred up a fair degree of critical noise. Quite a few pundits adore the thing. Plenty others find its stripped-down aesthetic a little too austere. One (ahem, ahem) aspect of the picture that has, however, been largely ignored is the director’s decision to continue using the cramped 1.37:1 aspect ratio. The casual cinema-goer might shrug uninterestedly at the last sentence. Jeez. You may as well be talking to us about the brand of tripod. Who cares about such technicalities?
There is, however, no way that you can fail to notice Arnold’s decision. Contemporary film-makers use a series of ratios. The most commonly applied is the reasonably roomy 1.85:1. (These figures refer to the ratio between width and height). When you see a film in “widescreen” it is, most likely, being projected in 2.39:1. If you have an old telly you will note that, when almost any contemporary film is being shown, either big lumps of the image are missing or black bands appear above and below the screen. Your 1956 PartyTime 2000 is, you see, the wrong size to accommodate a theatrical image.
You probably already know this. But, if you’re not following, allow Martin Scorsese and Sydney Pollack, wiser men than me, to explain it to you.
Now, the key phrase in this clip is from Scorsese. Towards the beginning, he says: “All films made since 1953 … have been made in one wide-screen form or another.” To get some sense of how eccentric Arnold is being, ponder the unequivocal nature of that statement. Martin doesn’t say “most films”. He says “all films”. Well, not quite.
If you haven’t seen the movie (and you really should) then, just to clarify what we’re on about, it looks like this:
As you can see, the image is so narrow it is somewhat dwarfed by YouTube’s own aspect ratio. One could be forgiven for thinking there was some sort of error with the presentation. There isn’t. The film really is offered in that ancient shape. There’s something of an irony here. Arnold’s preferred ratio is the traditional one — often called Academy — that was used for almost all films up to the mid-1950s. For years TVs were of a similar ratio. Widescreen was brought in as a sort of gimmick: here’s something you can’t get at home. Now, however, most folk have a widescreen TV. As a result, Ms Arnold’s films will be the ones broadcast between large lumps of black space.
Hats off to Andrea and her fantastic cinematographer Robbie Ryan (wrongly called Ritchie in last week’s Ticket — apologies). Feeling that Academy is the best ratio for representing faces, they have stubbornly offered two fingers to convention and gone their own way. This is, these days, an even rarer move than shooting your film in black and white. Their integrity is impressive.
Explaining her relationship with her DoP, Arnold recently said:
“We have developed our own language, almost. Of course, every film is different and each time we start a new film we talk about how it will be. We do tests. That’s how we decided this time on the 4:3 ratio which I love so much. It’s the prefect frame for a person.”
Check out the film’s eccentric shape — and eccentric ambience — at a cinema near you.
I think Elem Klimov’s ‘Come and see’ is in said aspect ratio. Some filmmakers, I think including Kubrick, back before widescreen TVs, shot at full frame 4:3 to allow cropping to 1.85:1 for cinema projection and (thus avoiding the barbarism of ‘panning and scanning’) leaving the full frame 4:3 for TV broadcasts. Cinemascopers like ‘Jaws’ and the great epics always suffered dreadfully on pre-wide TVs.
So much shit these days, whether the work of students or Michael Bay, is thrown at audiences in 2.40:1 it can get a little trivial. Whereas so many classics, and indeed the first moving pictures ever captured, were/are in 4:3; I’ve long thought more cinema should be shot this way. And in monochrome too of course.
You are absolutely correct, Cameron.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-Ro0SZf438
One of the very best films ever made.
I’m really looking forward to seeing this – it sounds like she’s made the story very much her own. On the aspect ratio, Kelly Reichardt also used the “Academy” ratio for “Meek’s Cutoff”, and very effective it was too.
One of those aspect ratios is the number code for my alarm system………but I ain’t sayin’ …
You can’t beat the old Super 8 for capturing what will become gut-wrenching nostalgia on looking back……….
Could put that better but am off to complain about our kangaroo koalition’s wretched, feeble, sad, dismal, pitiable, weak, useless decision to close Ireland’s Embassy to…………too enraged to continue……
Wouldn’t call it “cramped”, Donald. Sounds negative, when some 4:3 compositions can be so open (the scene with young Charles Foster Kane is playing in the snow while his parents negotiate his future, for instance). TV’s “The Wire” was also made in the old academy ratio.
You make a very fair point, Noel. I shouldn’t have said cramped. “Intimate” would have been less negative. Interesting about The Wire. I guess not much TV is made in that form these days. Even game shows seem to be available in Widescreen.
Interestin’
It raises another question – how many of our recently developed or re-developed cinemas and screens can properly ‘mask’ for all aspect ratios. Motorised curtains/blacks are often constrained to a range of pre-set ratio options. and I think there is a possible issue with projector gate settings as well. Some folks going to see the film may be treated to a lot of white, un-masked screen around a fuzzy-edged image.
@1 – Presumably this is why if you are watching the opening of The Shining on TV or DVD, you can see the helicopter shadow against the mountains, but not when it’s projected in the cinema.
@7
And of course, Ted, there is the issue of cinemas being run by computers and not by projectionists. A senior figure in Irish film (how cryptic is that?) told me this morning that they went to see Wuthering Heights in a city centre cinema and the film was projected in the wrong ratio. It took ages to get anybody to rectify the situation and the authorities couldn’t quite believe the film was supposed to look as it did.
@9
Can’t say I’m surprised, Donald. I wonder how many aspect ratio options are built in to the new digital projector/server combos… and who will make the appropraite adjustments after they’ve played the ads and trailers?
@8 – Yeah that helicopter; always seemed rather un-Kubrick to have such a humdrum flaw. I mean, I spotted a few instances of camera shadow in ‘Paths of Glory’ recently (4:3 obviously), but he wasn’t quite at his megalomaniacally meticulous best at that stage.
Glad to hear of others working with the aspect ratio of late. Forgot ‘The Wire’ too, though it might have made some technical sense(?), as it’s a TV show, back when it started nearly ten years ago.
Btw, I only just realised as I typed something David Simon said about ‘The Wire’ which I’ve just duly located:
‘The film template in my head — the dramatic template were the Greek plays — is what I regard as the most important political film of the 20th century, which is “Paths of Glory.” If anyone wants to look at “Paths of Glory” and think it doesn’t speak to the essential triumph of institutions over individuals and doesn’t speak to the fundamental inhumanity of the 20th century and beyond, then they weren’t watching the same film as the rest of us. That film is essential, and as meaningful today as the day it was made. If you look at George Macready and Adolph Menjou, I believe you have Rawls and Valchek.
One of the great overstatements was always made about “The Wire” is “There’s no good guys or bad guys.” I was always amazed by that. Marlo’s not a bad guy? Do characters acquire a bit of nuance as you live with them longer? Of course. The more time you live with them on screen, the more chance you have to add nuance. And I know I said good and evil bored me, but the notion that all characters are treated equally is sort of a misunderstanding of point of view.
It doesn’t matter whether Adolph Menjou and George Macready show you their warm fuzzy side and assert that they have puppies at home. They serve their role in the story. That story, the point of view is with Kirk Douglas, and it is the point of view of middle management. Always in storytelling, choices are made about what is the center of a picture and what is the frame. Every season of “The Wire,” that choice is made. I’ve been amused by the notion that the editors are any more venal than anybody else who has been in command of an institution on The Wire.’