Sholay!!!

When it comes to my list of favorite film openings, this one definitely takes the cake:

Labeled as India's 'curry western', a take on the 'spaghetti westerns' from Italy, Sholay was and is one of the biggest films ever to be released. Beyond being India's second 70mm released film (Around the World was the first), Sholay struck big at the box office. Thakur Singh, a retired police officer, now lives in a provincial town with his widowed daughter. The town lives under the regime of a forceful criminal, Gabbar Singh, who takes all assets of the town at his disposal and murders everyone who may threaten his ruling. Through, song, dance, comedy, action, and drama-- the perfect blend for a Bollywood film, Sholay delivers as a prime example of classic Indian Cinema. The film didn't 'explode' at the box office overnight though. According to magazines from the time, people walked out during the first 20 minutes because of the long action sequence that introduced the lead men. The audience figured it was going to be another B action film. The people who stuck around got to see that the film gets better as it progresses and word of mouth spread. Not long after, the film grew in audience numbers and soon was selling out for weeks to come.

The 70mm grandeur didn't hurt things either, although the film wasn't shot on 70mm. In 1975, widescreen was still a fairly new concept in India. While most foreign films that came into the country had adopted the process, most Hindi films were still 1.37:1. Theaters were not about to all switch over to a 2.20:1 format to exhibit a film either due to the financial obligation this would require. So, to compensate, Sholay had two aspect ratios. The film was shot on 35mm at 1.37:1 and printed to 35mm in this aspect ratio, and then it was cropped and blown up to 2.20:1 for the 70mm release. This started a new trend in Bollywood. Because of the rich colors of the image used in Bollywod cinema, blowing up the frame didn't create a jarring effect in regards to grain. If you watch the opening sequence above, you can picture where the mattes exist. Watching this film open matte, one can see that a lot of empty space exists, especially above the heads of the characters. The film is definitely framed for the widescreen format, with many medium shots featuring 3 characters at a time in the frame. I have seen the film in both aspect ratios and love it both ways.

In the early 1990s, evident from a trailer on an Eros VHS for Chamatkar (1993), Sholay was rereleased in theaters. While its legacy lived on from this rerelease, the legacy was not given the same treatment when it came to home video. Various copies of various aspect ratios have made their way to home video. The first VHS I remember seeing was from an open matte print with French subtitles. This copy that circulated around the bootleg home video market had some scenes cut and many video dropouts, but was still rich in color and featured the theatrical ending. Eros issued an official VHS and DVD of the film. Eros is notorious for taking 2.20:1 or 2.35:1 films and cropping them to 1.85:1 letterbox for release. With Sholay, one would have thought they could have taken a 1.33:1 source and matted it if they wanted to go that way. Instead, they took a 2.20 source and zoomed farther in to 1.85:1, making the film barely watchable. Later, MoserBaer took a 1975 2.20:1 print (the year of the element comes from the censor certificate at the beginning of the film) and released it in non-anamorphic form on DVD. This print, while pretty worn, does contain the film as it was meant to be seen in its theatrical cut.

Sometime in the 1990s, with the advent of cable tv, the film received a 'director's cut'. The film had its issues with censors back in 1975 for being too violent and featuring an ending that did not please the government (I'm not a spoiler, but if you really want to know what the differences are, I'm sure IMDB can accommodate). This original ending and some of the gore was reinstated to bring the film up to 204 minutes. Of course, this version was released as a 1.37:1 version. Because it has the highest image quality and is distributed by Eros, who rule the international video market, this is the most common seen version of the film. I'm not down with that. For years, I have been searching for the theatrical cut of the film in its widescreen aspect ratio-- the way people remember seeing it in 1975 if they went to a 70mm screening. Which is the proper way to see the film though? The film really only played in 70mm in a few cities. The big 'crowd' that made the film what it was actually saw the film in the 35mm square aspect ratio version. I can say this though, they did NOT see a 204 minute cut of the film. That's a little too much Sholay for my taste.

And now, of course, something else happens. Sholay has been released in....wait for it...3D! 3D?! Yeah, that's right. 3D. I am sure it looks as bad as it sounds, but this also means that a proper 2D release was done. And it looks BEAUTIFUL! I am not for tampering with old films in the form of gimmicks, but in this case it actually paid off. In order to do a 3D conversion, a 2D high quality restoration needed to be done. I am so happy and proud of the work that went into this. Sholay should be seen and shared with future generations. It is a huge part of Indian history. Not to mention, it is just a badass film. I anticipate the new DVD of this release with great anticipation and hope that when it comes out, you will do yourself a favor and pick it up:

Signed,
The Celluloid Avenger

Mixin' that Upmix!

A few months ago, a good chum lent me the Meet Me in St. Louis Bluray, which if anyone hasn't seen yet, is a definite must-- there are many debates about the quality of the transfer as compared to the quality of an original Technicolor print, but overall it is a great Hi Def video release in my opinion. I was a little sad to see that there weren't any new special features added to the release from the previous DVD a decade earlier. I was even more angry about the sound mixes however. When released on Standard Def DVD a decade earlier, the DVD offered two choices, either a restored mono track, or a 5.1 upmix. The new Bluray only offers the 5.1 upmix as an option.

Let's get technical for a minute for those who don't know what I am talking about. A film such as Meet Me in St. Louis came out in the 1940s when all films were mono, meaning that theaters only had the option of showing the film with one composite track. Even if a theater had two speakers, the same information would be passed out of the left and right speaker. With a 5.1 upmix for home viewing, the manufacturers have made it so that the sound will be passed out of 6 speakers (subwoofer included) and have the sound separated so different information is coming out of each speaker. While post production houses and studio restoration departments that work with old films claim to do this as discreetly as possible, it does still cause an issue. By altering the sound in such a fashion, the film is being tainted. Making such decisions are altering how the film was originally viewed. How is it possible for us as an industry that sets forth to release old films to new audiences to argue for this technique? I feel, personal opinion of course, that anyone who supports the upmixing of old films for home video release and then reprimands the acts of colorization or cropping a fullscreen film to widescreen is a hypocrite. The act of altering the sound in such a fashion is just as abominating in regards to what we stand for as film historians and preservationists and should be stopped.

Several years ago, I attended a screening at a conference. I can't name the city, year, studio, or film that I saw but remember these details well and will carry them to my grave. The head restorer of the project gave a lengthy but wonderful lecture about how the film had switched studios over the years and in order to restore this 1930s film to the way it was originally scene, a title card had been found and carefully added back into the film, while taking heed to how it fit with the score's timing of opening credits. The film started and I noticed that there were several 'layers' in the soundtrack. Uneasy, I was beginning to wonder if what I was hearing was the original mono track to the film. I shrugged it off, however, as I figured that no one would go so far as to present a film and take the time to explain how a 3 second title card had been restored and then go forward to alter the soundtrack of the film. Eventually, as a tree fell in the middle of a scene, I heard the track move from the front right speaker, around the back, and swoosh to the front left speaker. Turning my head around to follow the sound and recreating an image of Reagan spinning her head in The Exorcist I said to myself "WOAH! THAT'S NOT MONO!" I was livid, to say the least. The audience present was a group of film historians and archivists. If a sound mix was to be chosen for such a screening, it should have been a restored mono.

Going back to Meet Me In St. Louis, my anger lies in the fact that an audience should be given an option to hear an original mix or a 5.1 mix, as was the case with the original DVD release of Meet Me in St. Louis. Obviously the restored mono existed, was well received by consumers, and could have easily been included as an option on the new release. By taking away the option and forcing us to listen to the new upmix, we as consumers are being treated like children who must be taught to be grateful for what is presented to us. It is as if I went to an ice cream parlor, knew that chocolate and vanilla were available, was given chocolate instead of vanilla when I wanted the latter, and when I asked why had a finger shaken at me and was told, 'you get what you get, and you don't get upset'.

I am sure that the upmix for this film sounded beautiful, I am not arguing that-- although I will always question the integrity of it. More frustration lies in the fact that I couldn't hear it. Who buys old films on DVD and Bluray? Let's look at our demographic. Yes, there are film scholars who have a prestigious home theater setup with a sound system that can interpret the channel separation of such an upmix. But that is only a percentage of the demographic. Many home viewers are like myself. They have two speakers on their television or attached to a receiver that take this upmix and cast it out as a 2 channel Lt/Rt fold down. It is obvious that the people who headed this restoration did not keep us in mind and QC the Lt/Rt fold down of this upmix. If they had, there is no way they would have released it. Not only do the levels jump from incredibly quiet to booming loud, but the levels of M&E overtook the dialogue in several instances.

Before a side is taken on upmixing or not, one more argument should be presented. Altering sound has been a part of home video for a long time, and I know this. Before we were tinkering with upmixing, sound would be compressed before it was released on television and VHS so that the louder levels wouldn't contrast as much with the quieter ones as they would in a theater setting. So if tampering with sound has been a part of releasing these films to the home market as a staple, does this give restorers the right to upmix since the sound would have been tampered anyway? Food for thought.

Signed,
The Celluloid Avenger

American Graffiti

I had a sudden urge to watch More American Graffiti, as I realized I had never seen it. Before doing this, though, I presumed it would be a good idea to throw on the original film that preceded it, American Graffiti, as it had been a while since I had seen it and wanted to get in touch with the many characters of the film so that the transition to the sequel would be a little less confusing. It took me a while to warm up to American Graffiti. The first time I rented it, the copy I got from the local video store was an early 80s MCA/Universal VHS that had been pretty worn out, and because of its quality, I had a hard time engaging. It wasn't until I saw a 35mm print of the film at the New Beverly Cinema that I really fell in love with this film. American Graffiti follows a group of teenagers on a summer evening after they graduate from high school. The plot is simple, but there is a certain charm to it that still attracts new audiences.

For film nerds like me, this film has a few qualities worth mentioning. For starters, all of the sound, except for the title sequences and the Goodnight Sweetheart song which continues through a few scenes to the end, is diegetic, meaning all of the sound that we hear as the audience is also heard by the characters of the film. For two hours, music of the time period heard on the radio, at a sock hop, etc., plays as the characters' stories develop. The double record soundtrack to the film, which was a favorite of mine growing up, includes the majority of these songs and the coolest part is that the quality of the recordings on the soundtrack matches that of the film. Master recordings aren't used, and there is a canned quality with limited fidelity used to illustrate the quality of sound of the recordings as heard back in the time that the film is set. Five years after the film was released, it was reissued in Dolby Stereo sound (with a few more scenes added back in), which was fairly experimental for its time. Still, because the technological abilities to do a stereophonic remix in 1978 were limited, this remix is discreet enough to not distract from the film's original concept, compared to the 5.1 mixes of mono films that are chugged out by companies on a regular basis today. I am so happy that the Bluray and DCP of this film retains the 1978 stereo remix, and not a new 5.1 surround. That definitely would have killed the viewing experience for me.

Another notable quality of the film is that it was shot using a process called Techniscope. Instead of shooting a 2.35:1 aspect ratio with an anamorphic lens, Techniscope cameras took 4 perf 35mm film and shot it at a 2.35:1 aspect ratio by filming at 2 perfs at a time, reducing the frame in half. This would then be blown up onto 4 perf 35mm film so it could be projected at its widescreen aspect ratio...sort of a cheap man's widescreen. This gave the film a certain gritty aesthetic that adds to the memorable charm of the film a lot of people may remember in initial releases. I only wish I could have seen when the film was blown up to 70mm for the 1978 rerelease. My mind imagines that the grain for this blow up would have been quite distracting, but it's hard to tell without actually seeing it. When I saw the DCP and Bluray of the film recently, I noticed that any resemblance of this Techniscope process had now been removed with grain removal. The grit that showed the budget and time that the film was made was part of the charm that attracted audiences over the years. By removing this, the studios are almost shaming the filmmakers for the artistic choices they made. The movie is much brighter than I remember as well, probably because with the grain removed the colors needed a makeover. It's hard for me to stomach studios doing this. For years we as professionals discriminated against colorization with black and white films, and now we're colorizing color films. The restoration of this film is a perfect example of that.

The nice thing about films like American Graffiti is that they will always be released time and time again. Gone with the Wind has had numerous releases over the years, and each time, the people working on releasing the film try their hardest to have it resemble its original release. While American Graffiti is no Gone with the Wind by any means, it does hold a special place in many people's hearts and I do see it getting more restorations and releases in the future. Hopefully, the next time around, some of that 70s charm that went into the process of making it will come back. Until then, I will constantly be checking the movie listings for 35mm prints that may show up at local theaters in the LA area.

Signed,
The Celluloid Avenger