MovieChat Forums > Claudine (1974) Discussion > Theatrical Aspect Ratio

Theatrical Aspect Ratio

posted 8 years ago by swanstep
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IMDb lists Claudine's aspect ratio as 1.85-1 but all the versions I can find are 4-3. Now, played in VLC on your computer it's easy to crop the image to 1.85-1. Does anyone know whether *that's* how the theatrical projection went, i.e., whether what we've got on dvd etc. is just the open matte version of the theatrical presentation, so that what people saw in 1974 was the cropped/matted to 1.85-1 of teh image we have? The alternative is that the theatrical image was genuinely wider so that what we've got on dvd is a pan-and-scan TV version.

I ask this question because, frankly, the cropped version on my computer looks bad - it often chops off heads and even when there's no head-chopping (and there is lots of headroom in many shots) the loss of information at the bottom of the frame is significant. More generally, to me at least the cropped frame just feels crowded and unnatural. So, is there a genuine wider version of this important film out there?

[–] bodil-644-474356 8 years ago

The original theatrical ratio has been cropped on the sides to fit a 4:3 TV screen. This was common practice for DVDs released in the 90's up to around 2005. The majority of consumers had 4:3 analogue TV's so the release companies made DVDs that were cropped in order to fill a 4:3 analogue screen. Unless Claudine is re-released with a new transfer from the original then I'm afraid you're stuck with the earlier cropped 4:3 release. Only other option might be to source a TVRip. It may have been recently broadcast in widescreen and if your lucky someone may have recorded the broadcast and uploaded it. This is of course illegal and I would never encourage such behaviour....