iTunes Waterfront Shocker
Last night I was feeling so distraught about Criterion’s upcoming 1.85 fascist Bluray of Elia Kazan‘s On The Waterfront that I went on iTunes to buy the special edition 1.33 to 1 DVD version (the one that came out in 2001). So I bought it for $9.99 and…good God! It’s the 1.85 Bob Furmanek version!
It appears that Sony restoration honcho Grover Crisp and Sony Home Video are pre-emptively circulating the newbie in advance of the Criterion, perhaps to familiarize the public with a whacked-down Waterfront as a way of managing an end run around traditionalists like myself.
TCM has allegedly been screening the 1.85 version for several years but you know what I mean…the powers that be are trying to eliminate all traces of the good old boxy version. They can’t send out memory police to physically seize all existing copies of the 1.33 version so they’re focusing for now on iTunes. Pretty soon Crisp and Criterion and friends of Furmanek will be able to say “1.33 Waterfront…what’s that?”
I repeat: Crisp invited me to see the 1.33 version at a Sony screening room (I went with my son Dylan) sometime in the early aughts, and he was very proud and satisfied with it. But then Furmanek and the 1.85 fascists showed Crisp (or people close to Crisp) data about Columbia chief Harry Cohn mandating a 1.85 aspect ratio in all non-Scope Columbia films from April 1953 on, and Crisp capitulated.
But here’s the thing and I don’t mind admitting this, given my extreme distaste for the fascist mandate: director Elia Kazan shot his 1.85 version of On The Waterfront with skill and finesse and a nice sense of balance, and so it’s not that painful to watch. Most (roughly 80%) of the shots look “right” without a sense of vital or interesting information having been chopped out.
And yet (and this is IMPORTANT) the famous taxicab scene with Marlon Brando and Rod Steiger looks quite cramped and claustrophic; ditto that Hoboken bar scene between Brando and Eva Marie Saint. The faces are there and you’re getting what you need to understand the story and appreciate the mood, but you’re not being shown what looks classic and true.
The 1.33 version of On The Waterfront will always look better. It breathes with smoky, smoggy air and all kinds of beautiful headroom, and it shows you more of the Hoboken world of 1953 and ’54 than the 1.85 version does. It looks like life as it was lived and felt and understood at that time, and the 1.85 version look like Furmanek and his pallies are doing a not-unpleasant science experiment.
In the highly unlikely event that Criterion decides to issue its On The Waterfront Bluray with both aspect ratios (1.85 and 1.33), I wouldn’t hesitate for a second in watching the 1.33 version every time.
apparently life in 1953 Hoboken was lived and felt and understood as clunkily and badly framed
also a 1.85:1 master has been circulating for years, TCM has been airing a 1.85:1 version for at least a decade
So my 1.33:1 laserdisc copy is still good for something.
Why would you buy the widescreen version? The DVD or VHS is more than adequate for your needs and the iTunes version is clearly marked “widescreen”.
Luckily, Sony/Columbia’s 35mm prints (I’ve rune 3 of them in the past 10 years) are all marked to show at 1.85, so audiences seeing the film theatrically today are seeing it just as Kazan intended it back in 1954.
No, not “as Kazan intended” but a Harry Cohn ordered. Kazan was an adult and no fool, so he went along with the mandate as best he could. “Luckily” Columbia’s Waterfront prints are marked to show at 1.85? God, you’re such an intransigent asshole! “Luckily!
And no, the 1.33 DVD or the VHS is not more than adequate for my needs because I am naturally also interested in the improved detail and resolution and whatever else that will be part of the Criterion Bluray. “The DVD or VHS is more than adequate for [my] needs”…sure thing, pally.
Wait, are you saying that the taxicab scene isn’t SUPPOSED to be claustrophobic?
It’s supposed to be boxy, like you’re in the back of a 1953 cab with two guys and not six or seven. Waterfront has been boxy for the last 55 fucking years, and now that’s over. The 1.85 fascists are brutal fucks. They need to be resisted 24/7.
“So Jeff, I hear you went to Prague and took a coupla ‘monkish’ days off, what’d ya get up to?”
“I felt despair and anguish over the aspect ratio of ‘On The Waterfront,’ and I communed with the spirit of Elia Kazan and learned his actual intentions, which I then conveyed, truculently, to a few bookworms in the States…” [begins foaming at the mouth]
[backing away] “Wow, man, that sounds…great…” [runs]
Wells – “God, you’re such an intransigent asshole!”
Love the insults and name-calling, keep ‘em coming. You’re wrong and have been proven wrong. Every time. By experts. You have no grasp of film history and certainly no understanding of composition. At least none that you’ve ever demonstrated here.
Wells – “And no, the 1.33 DVD or the VHS is not more than adequate for my needs because I am naturally also interested in the improved detail and resolution and whatever else that will be part of the Criterion Bluray. “The DVD or VHS is more than adequate for [my] needs”…eff you, Apruzze!”
If you don’t care about the director-intended framing, then you certainly don’t deserve to see the film in a high resolution format. You can’t calibrate your monitor correctly regarding sharpness, so what do you care for the added detail, either? You’re only “naturally interested” in seeing the movie that exists in your head, not the one the filmmaker made.
MOVIE BLOGGER EATS FACE OF BAGGAGE HANDLER AT PRAGUE RUZNE AIRPORT
“I don’t know what kind of drummers you think you’re playin’ with, but you’ll play with me or you’ll get out! And I mean NOW! I don’t need this shit. I have a home in Palm Springs and I can go sit on my ass the rest of my life and not worry about a fuckin’ thing…and don’t have to meet your fuckin’ payroll, and pay you for playin’ like a fuckin’ high school dropout! How dare you do that! ASSHOLES!! You can’t play a simple fuckin’ tune; you can’t hold a chord; you can’t play time when you play solos. What kind of solos am I hearing tonight? (as he turns to the Trombonist) You want to rehearse and practice, get a fuckin’ band in Sydney and play the kind of shit you want. Over here you play TIME!!”
–Buddy Rich
If those are the best screen captures you could find to “prove” your point than you have no point at all.
Second verse, same as the first.
Watched this with the wife on TCM last month. Frankly I didn’t care nor do I remember if it was 16:9 – many or their films are shown in the original ratio. It’s riveting no matter what.
…..zzzzzzzz….What’d I miss?….Oh…..zzzzzzzzzz……
All you A-holes making jokes in the comments are missing one important fact:
FURMANEK HAS GOTTEN TO APPLE. That’s the bigger news that no one’s picked up on — somehow he installed one of his Fascists in Quality Control at the iTunes store. This wouldn’t have happened if Steve Jobs was still around. Because after all… he loved “boxy.”
(Then again, Apple still got your money even though they labeled the movie as “Widescreen”… so I doubt they’re losing any sleep over this.)
In all seriousness: the first picture above, of Eva Marie and Brando, looks like crap at 1.33. Their heads should NOT be in the center of frame with massive headroom. The 1.85 image that you used as an example of desecration is, in fact, far better-composed than the 1.33 image. (Though it’s a wash in the taxicab shots.)
Mr. F, what makes you think “they” haven’t gotten to us too? Come over here. Lie down and take a nap. You’ll feel much better when “you” wake up…..
To borrow a line from a different movie: “One of us, one of us!”
BOXY IS GOOD. ALL HAIL THE BOX.
Wow that extra lapel really ads a lot. BOXY 4 EVA REALITY NEVER!
Why don’t you ask Scorsese? Literally. Ask him for a 5 minute interview. Ask him about On The Waterfront and the aspect ratio and framing.
What’s the point? Scorsese’s already been co-opted by “Big Aspect Ratio” — he isn’t making movies in 1.33.
He’s a noted champion of Kazan though. Although I am pretty sure Jeff has better insight into what Kazan was thinking in the 50s.
if we learned anything from the Preminger/Anatomy of a Murder “controversy,” it’s that Jeff has a better insight into what Kazan was thinking than Kazan did
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