I am a fan of setting my Blu Ray player (Panasonic) to zoom so the older films fill the screen. At times it cuts the heads off the actors but once you get used to it its great and turns the film to wide screen. It does not work for Blu Ray films but that’s ok because you are seeing the actual image the way it is supposed to be unlike std DVD’s that cut off the sides a bit. I notice that with my zoom feature you can see more image on either side some more than others. Its not a huge difference but its there and I wonder why? Has anyone else tried this and if so let me know so I know its not just my player. The full image is there its just not showing up. As a side note I am also a big John Wayne fan and wonder are there any others here? I would have loved to see them work together in a film. I wonder if there is a photo of the two of them together?
— twinarchers
Robert
May 15, 2014 at 1:09 am
Would you cut down the Mona Lisa so that it fit a frame you already had, or would the perfection of Leonardo’s vision take precedent? I’ve never understood the need in viewers to “fill their screen.” Is a bit of black bordering that difficult to live with? What the creator of the film envisioned when carefully composing his scenes for a particular proportion is what I believe one should cultivate wanting to see, not chopped heads in a format arbitrarily chosen for us by a TV tech designer decades later. This practice is very similar to the unwillingness of some viewers to appreciate the unique glories of well-filmed black and white and its infinite tonalities and see no problem with watching fake color with all its imprecise blandness. I suppose next we will “improve upon” Mozart and fatten up the empty places in his solo pieces by padding them with orchestrations. Sigh…
Btw, twin, John Wayne was offered the role of Custer in “Santa Fe Trail” but after reading the script (on June 24, 1940) turned it down the next day. The part, of course, went to Ronald Reagan.
twinarchers
May 15, 2014 at 11:18 am
Interesting about Wayne and Santa Fe, never heard that one before. I have a 60 inch screen and it is surprising how fast you get used to that size. For every foot you are from the screen that can be 10 inches so I should be able to get an 80 inches in my current living room and still be ok. It has more impact when I make the image larger and the sacrifice is worth it. I would still like to know why some of the artists intended composition is missing when I leave it alone? When wide screen films first came out some films were cropped so as to fake that wide screen look. It is nothing new really. I will do some research on the net for this problem with DVD’s.
Gentleman Tim
May 16, 2014 at 2:41 am
I don’t want to be over-sensitive, tw, but I’m part Jipponese – on my maternal grandfather’s side – and I must stand up to defend him. (Even though he always short-changed me when I did chores for him as a kid.)
In Barnes & Nobles recently, I read the Errol Flynn parts of the new biography of John Wayne. It claims that Ronald Reagan complained all his life that Santa Fe ruined his career. Something about playing second fiddle to Flynn made the public regard him as a second tier actor. … So, I guess, any way you look at it, Errol put Ronnie in The Oval Office.
P.S. Some of these actors deserved to have their heads cut off.
[img]http://s3.amazonaws.com/img.goldderby.com/images/1372883020_John-Wayne.jpg[/img]
errolsfan1130
May 16, 2014 at 4:55 am
It was not Errol’s fault but yours if you couldn’t outshine Errol.
Lollie
May 16, 2014 at 10:36 am
No one could outshine Errol. :)
twinarchers
May 20, 2014 at 3:49 am
Jipponese, OMG
Gentleman Tim
May 20, 2014 at 5:21 am
Indeed, tw. All we want is for everyone to be equal. That’ll fix everything.
btw, could you please change OMG to OMAC. Using ‘AC’ for Alleged Creator, rather than ‘G’ is much more culturally sensitive. We certainly don’t want to jip anybody of their rights.