There is one defining and inescapable detail common to the innumerable trailers and clips promoting The Simpsons Movie: they’re hard-matted for ‘Scope. True, this presentation confines the action to an area far less than half of the typical 4:3 television screen, this insistence on theatrical aspect ratio telegraphs the fact the movie is a MOVIE.

And people have noticed it.

From A.O. Scott’s New York Times review of The Simpsons Movie:

CinemaScope, the wide-screen format developed by Fox in the 1950s to combat the rise of television, turns out to be the ideal way to appreciate the small-screen, small-town paradise that is Springfield. In a variation on the show’s opening sequence, we swoop through the town, seeing it from new angles and appreciating its history and beauty anew.

From Brian Lowry’s Variety Review of The Simpsons Movie:

Technically, the movie capitalizes on its enhanced aspect ratio without altering the show’s fundamental look, though there are moments of computer-generated scale that clearly embrace the feature canvas, employing more than the typical TV toolkit.

In fact, the part of the 20th Century Fox theme Ralph Wiggum sings in the commercials– “Da dada daah, da dada daaah, da dada DAAAH!“– is the “CinemaScope Fanfare,” the extended bit of pomp which was originally only added to Fox ‘Scope releases.

This movie’s emphasis on aspect ratio engages two passions of mine: “The Simpsons” and widescreen cinema. You, as an average movie goer, probably haven’t noticed this, but in the last dozen years or so Panavision and ‘Scope have come to dominate Hollywood releases. True enough, all theatrical aspect ratios are wide compared to old 35mm and TV. There are two flavors of widescreen: Spherical, matted to 1.85:1 and Anamorphic, projected to 2.35:1. From the inception of Anamorphic widescreen in the 1950s right to the turn of the millennium most films were spherical. With the advent of advances in digital film technology and better film stocks ‘Scope projection is increasingly becoming the norm: 7 of the current top 10 American domestic releases are in 2.35:1.

The reasons for going wide in some ways haven’t changed: competition with television. However, I think the prevalence with ‘Scope is not just a reaction to TV but also HDTV. High-Def’s aspect ratio (16:9, or 1.77…:1) closely matches spherical widescreen, so much that there is generally no matting when spherical is telecined. Movies still have to strive to stand out.

I believe it’s also the true filmmaker’s aspect ratio of choice. I could really go on in fine detail about how various directors handle aspect ratios, but it’ll just suffice to say that ’scope movies are just… well, movier.

And my favorite piece of perhaps not-so-coincidental trivia about CinemaScope: It’s aspect ratio of 2:35:1 is the same as American paper currency. A handy way to tell if your local cinema has masked the screen correctly is holding a dollar bill up to the screen to see if the edges match up. Providing you still have some bills left when you sit down.

–Skot C.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 27th, 2007 at 6:46 pm and is filed under General, Motion Pictures. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.