File under "Too Little Too Late"? —
— or "Live to Watch Some Other Day"?
(1) Comparisons of frame-compositions between 1.85 and 1.33 versions of the film (including some extremely compelling evidence for a wider-than-1.85 matting by way of Universal title logos) here. (Link via Nicolas Saada.)
(2) Over at Dave Kehr's, discussion of the matter-at-hand (scroll down a bit) here, and then, more specifically, here.
(3) Rick Schmidlin has provided a new response to the matter, in the form of gnomic non-sequitur, over at the Criterion Forum messageboard. The koan in its entirety:
"Would Welles have complained about boom shots?" ( — Here.)
Dear Rick Schmidlin,
The solution here, to make everyone happy, would be to include two presentation versions on the same release, as is not-uncommon practice in DVD production (see DVDs of the extraordinary Elephant, Last Days, and Paranoid Park by Gus Van Sant, as three recent examples): one version in 1.85, which would appease any functionaries who seek any excuse to release the thing in 'widescreen', and one version in open-matte 1.33 (not the current 1.85:1 image cropped further down to 1.33), which would make the compositions consistent with the core aesthetics of Welles's oeuvre (yes, I am aware of his in-certain-instances deliberate framing of particular films at 1.66), and consistent with the director's reflections on the aesthetics of framing as discussed in his (Welles's own) essay "Ribbon of Dreams", reproduced here.
Whether or not every intense cinephilic critic/scholar and cinephile can see the truth with his or her own eyes, and has been metaphorically screaming about the framing of the film both in print essays and on the Internet in the years following the release of the 'reinstitution' version of Touch of Evil in '98, to try to get those who are in control of the telecine and the transfer-process and the disc-authoring, to listen — well, those guiding the project now seem intent on imposing upon the work of Welles a lamentably small-minded and 'anti-aesthetic' course of action — consistent with decades of ill service of the art of this dead giant who represented everything Hollywood couldn't swallow then, and cannot abide now; and I'm reading crazy, retrospective justifications for dragging Touch of Evil, that ribbon of dreams, into the realm of the presentation the corporation have always dreamed about: the one that fills up the screens of 16x9 televisions in order to ease the minds of Best Buy customers, lest they doubt for one second they're getting their money's worth with their expensive modern sets. (1: Which, if there were any further proof needed that said sets are built in order to impose their form on the cinema, rather than allow the cinema to impose its form onto them, are ratio'd at 1.78:1, a framing/matting that does not exist in the projected cinema as myself and billions of others have ever known it.) — (2: "March... OF THE NEW!"...?)
Thus effected, Universal would lock everyone who is truly sensitive to Welles's work in to a single option, a single worldview: that imposed by Corporate Will — still un-cognizant of the fact that an art comes first, and a commodity second — still not realizing that the denial of a 1.33 Touch of Evil negates Universal's desired commodity-effect for a large segment of potential purchasers (we are all consumers, no?), who will inevitably smear the reputation of an exclusively-1.85 disc's end-result across the message-boards and grand blogosphere of the democratic Net — yes, like 'going negative' on campaign ads (why not make the comparison?), except with more truth in the facts in such an instance, and more heart-swell in the sensibility.
It pains me to call the decision-makers wrong in their reasoning, and for myself and thousands of others, if Universal release Touch of Evil in 1.85 exclusively, their release will be as good as non-existent. Such a release, such a film — Touch of Evil, one supreme masterpiece among many post-'55 by Orson Welles — would never be handled in this manner on DVD/Blu-ray by either The Criterion Collection, or The Masters of Cinema Series. To invoke examples of two companies that have proven themselves consistently on the side of the sights of the filmmaker, and garnered acclaim for their respective releases.
It would seem the solution is very easy: release the film in both presentations on the disc. Taking this democratic course will make everyone happy, and lead the film-aficionado to approach Universal's effort with sincere gratitude in place of disbelief at best, or, at worst, that melancholy sort of indignation that seems to have trailed forever in the wake of Welles's tragic/lyrical career.
sincerely,
craig keller.
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