Films/DVD Asylum

You had me up until The Maltese Falcon bit.

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john dem

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In Reply to: Re: You raise some... points. posted by Bruce from DC on April 28, 2001 at 11:56:20:

Why pick that B&W film, of all there are to choose from ?
The Maltese Falcon is glorious on the big screen, Huston held nothing back in this wonderful noir masterpiece. It glows on the silvered screen with all the magic it did the first time I saw it. If there is one thing HT cannot do, it is to capture the depth on screen that a well shot B&W film has.
People treat the cinema like their own lounge rooms these days. They talk, munch, giggle, belch, make sucking noises from 4 gallon Coke buckets- one day there will be a tragic case of "Cinema Rage" during a screening of The Maltese Falcon.

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Re: You had me up until The Maltese Falcon bit. Bruce from DC 11:46:51 04/30/01 (0)
Umm, well, I guess you and I are looking at different things. To be honest, I'm not much of a connoiseur of B&W image quality in movies; although as a still photographer for 35 years, I much prefer to work in B&W. Certainly, I agree with you that film will render a much better gray scale than a transfer to video. It's just that I never paid much attention to that.
The reason I selected "Falcon" as an example, is that the movie has an intimate, close -- almost claustrophobic -- quality. A reduction in screen and image size does not violence to that, IMHO. By contrast, any number of B&W westerns, for example, would suffer from image size reduction. Part of the motif that needs to be allowed to work is the "big sky" feeling. You need a big picture to convey that.
Much more recently, I saw "Crouching Tiger" in the theater and was completely entranced. I'm pretty sure it would suffer when it's reduced to video-sized screen.
My Views Exactly! clarkjohnsen 10:49:09 04/30/01 (3)
The home environment is as easily disturbed as the theatre, often moreso. And its defenders utterly ignore the indisputable fact that film's creators *intended* and *imagined* it to be seen on a large screen.
clark
- Yeah, but... Victor Khomenko 11:09:06 04/30/01 (2)
  ...last time I went to see the Falcon, the audio was out of phase. So I left.
  At least at home I can change the phase.
  - Victor, stop pulling our legs! <nt> Bruce from DC 11:39:37 04/30/01 (1)
    - OK, OK, so it was IN phase... (nt) Victor Khomenko 14:33:52 04/30/01 (0)
      .

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