So much for myself & Den’s hopes for some Ralph Bakshi Criterions. This is still pretty cool.
The best documentary i’ve ever seen about an artist, and i’m not even a fan of Crumb. It has serious reply value.
isn’t the criterion presented in full screen too? 1:33?
Ah, crap, you are so very right, Joks, the Criterion release is still presented in 1:33 full screen. What…the…heck…is…going…on? I guess in my hopeful excitement I overlooked that detail. This of course null and voids the praise of my previous post. I’m at a loss here. Again, apparently you can get CRUMB in a 1:66 aspect ratio, so then why would Criterion, sticklers as they are for presentation, still present the film in 1:33 if there is a 1:66 available?
I don’t know. Maybe there never was a 1:66 to begin with? Maybe it was a studio error on the packaging? All I know is that coincidently I bought the special edition a few weeks ago and now I’m going to return it. Perhaps I should buy the standard edition/widescreen just to have and check if there’s a difference.
Well, for what it’s worth, LOUIE BLUIE is also presented in 1:33.
Maybe it’s simply Zwigoff’s decision to have it like that. Crumb is the rare movie that wouldn’t necessarily benefit from a wide ratio. I don’t think it would add anything.
L West, I think that’s good reasoning. Zwigoff did approve the transfer after all. I should have put that under consideration. I wonder if he gave his input on the Sony Entertainment Special Edition, too, explaining why CRUMB shifted from 1:66 to 1:33. Anyway, I’ll accept that as the answer.
… or it could be because the film was shot it a 1.37:1 aspect ratio (at least, according to the IMDB) …
I always thought most old documentaries were shot in 1:33 and widescreen is a more recent trend. or am i wrong?
By old i mean pre-2000, so not old old.
Joks, if you had asked me that question out of the context of this CRUMB discussion I would have have said Yes, most pre-2000 docs were shot in 1:33. The mystery here is that CRUMB has three different aspect ratios attributed to it: 1:33, 1:37, and 1:66. So the question is which is the true one?
Prior to Criterion’s announcement a consumer could have chosen between a widescreen 1:66 aspect ratio disc or a full screen 1:33 (which often indicates that it may not be in its original format) with a commentary track, both released by Sony Entertainment. In other words, one version has one thing but not the other. What is a consumer who cares about these things to do? That’s why I held off for many years until recently to buy any of these discs.
As a movie afficionado I want to buy the movie in which its original format has been preserved, but with three different aspect ratios going around it makes it difficult to determine which is the true one. In this case Criterion shold have the last word because of their credibility, and the fact that Zwigoff himself supervised the transer. At the end, it just gets me that someone somewhere may have made an error or didn’t get their information straight causing perhaps a meaningless discussion on some movie forum ; )
Jay, well, the thing is, a lot of times, people take films that have been shot in an “open matte”, like Van Sant’s Elephant, and then they cut it down to 1:66:1 to please those who like widescreen. Personally, I don’t love this practice, as I think it often distorts the original intent (that being said, I can understand why, during a theatrical run, if needs to be in a wider frame). Basically, I guess I’m just saying that, yeah, I’m pretty sure that Zwigoff’s Cumb was shot in full frame.
Savvy
I’m definitely getting this. Crumb may be my favorite documentary.
Jay Olie Espy
CRUMB has finally been inaugurated into the Criterion Collection. If there is a contemporary film out there readily available on home video to which an injustice has been, it’ll be this film. Fans of Terry Zwigoff’s documentary know that there are currently two available versions of this picture. One is a “standard” release preserved in its original aspect ratio; the other is a “special edition” with an audio commentary featuring Zwigoff and Roger Ebert, except that this “special” edition is presented in full screen. This was an idiotic decision if there ever was one. Thankfully, we now can listen to not only the original Zwigoff-Ebert commentary, but a new commentary by Zwigoff, in its intended aspect ratio—and in Blu-Ray nonetheless!