August 7-13, 2003

screen picks

by Sam Adams

CinemaScope Festival (through Aug. 24, Prince Music Theater, 1412 Chestnut St., 215-569-9700, www.princemusictheater.org) The idea that bigger isn't necessarily better has been a tough one for Hollywood to grasp -- I've yet to hear anyone suggest that Pirates of the Caribbean actually needs to be two and a half hours long -- but there's something indubitably impressive about a film image that stretches from eyeball to eyeball, filling out your peripheral vision and commanding every inch of your attention. The widescreen process known as CinemaScope, invented in 1953 to pry eyes away from television sets, wasn't moviegoers' first experience with widescreen -- that goes back at least as far as Abel Gance's 1934 Napoléon, which required three projectors lined up side by side, a setup duplicated by the sensational This is Cinerama in 1952. But it was the invention of the anamorphic process, by which images are horizontally compressed during filming and expanded during projection, that made mass distribution of widescreen movies possible. The impact was immediate: The WideScreen Museum (www.widescreenmuseum.com) lists all of five movies made using the process in 1953, its debut season. Two years later, the number of movies made in 'Scope rose to 76, with rival processes VistaVision, Superscope and Todd-AO swelling the ranks.

Not surprisingly, CinemaScope movies, as displayed in the Prince's 50th anniversary program, tilted toward the spectacular, sometimes at the expense of all else. (As Fritz Lang memorably remarked in Contempt, the process was "only good for serpents and funerals.") We've skipped the dopey The Robe, which introduced widescreen to the public in 1953, but there's silliness of a more transcendent variety on the way, in the form of Richard Fleischer's 20000 Leagues Under the Sea (Sun., 7 p.m.). Filmed for Walt Disney by the son of longtime rival Max Fleischer (the younger Fleischer secured his father's permission before going ahead), the loose adaptation of Jules Verne's novel has its share of howlers, not least that oh-so-fake squid. But a surprisingly high-powered cast -- Kirk Douglas, James Mason and Peter Lorre -- bring an obvious enjoyment to a tale that makes way for both epic battles and clear-the-decks musical numbers.

It's easy to associate widescreen with the sweep of a Western (The Magnificent Seven or The Wild Bunch) or the screen-swelling celebration of musicals (Guys and Dolls or Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, the latter of which screens Aug. 17 at 7 p.m.). It's easier to forget the use a director like Nicholas Ray put the process to as early as 1955, with Rebel Without a Cause (Aug. 12, 7:30 p.m.). James Dean's mystique now seems more like a collection of mannerisms -- Sal Mineo's shy, haunted performance seems a hundred times more honest -- and Ray's machismo (i.e. putting James Backus in an apron to suggest that his character is an ineffectual father) seems to ill-suit a story whose male leads are more interested in each other than any putative love interest. Ray opens up the frame to suggest the uncertain future awaiting his characters, a moral vacuum in which they wander about aimlessly.

Nowadays, movies are either anamorphic or flat, and viewers likely take no notice of the multiplicity of aspect ratios awaiting them at the multiplex, though it's still a dead cert that the movies Hollywood most wants to make a splash, from Seabiscuit to The Matrix Reloaded, will be a lot wider than they are tall. Ever mindful of the inevitable reduction to home video, though, few directors use widescreen with the boldness they once did, aware that their precious compositions will be seen by most either chopped in half or reduced to a narrow strip down the middle of a television set. Even in a theater, most movie screens don't do justice to images meant to seduce and enfold, not merely divert. The Prince's, however, is sure to bring out the best in CinemaScope, enlarging its virtues as well as its faults.

Northwest (Thu., Aug. 7, 9 p.m., free, Tattooed Mom, 530 South St., 215-238-9880) Coan Nichols and Rick Charnoski's short (45 min.) documentary, also recently released on DVD, focuses on the custom-built skateboard parks of the Northwestern U.S. So little explanation is provided, though, that the film, shot on Super-8 and evidently without sync sound, is mostly an excuse to bliss out to grainy footage of skaters exercising their craft in a variety of geometrically intricate locales. Allusions surface to builders who've made nice with local police forces and mayors, but none of the stories are elaborated on -- and these stories need telling, since as Philadelphia skaters know, municipal mayors aren't always so cooperative. (The focus on skate porn might be explained by the shoe companies' names attached as financiers -- you don't wear sneakers to City Hall.) Still, if you can get over wishing it was something it isn't, Northwest offers just enough visual thrills to fill out its brief length.

Keeping Time: Pickin’ My Religion (premieres Thu., Aug. 7, 7:30 p.m., Sundance Channel) It’s a little hard to fathom this new series’ definition of "music from America’s roots" -- gospel, sure, country, sure, but klezmer? United around the theme of religious music, this first of four weekly episodes ranges from the instrumental jubilation of Andy Statman’s clarinet and Robert Randolph’s steel guitar to the neo-hymns of Gillian Welch. (Interestingly, though the former play largely wordless music, they’re far more explicit about their faith; though Welch writes lyrics that could come straight out of the Psalms, the closest she’ll come to a proclamation of faith is to say of one of her songs, "I believe it.") Keeping Time’s mini-profiles don’t add up so much as line up; there’s no thesis being advanced except that different people communicate their faith in different ways. True, but hardly a revelation.

Spider ($24.95 DVD) David Cronenberg's commentary doesn't add much to this chilling, precise psychological horror story; the movie's pace is so slow and deliberate that Cronenberg merely ends up repeating himself, explaining the same point several times over while he waits for the scene to change. But the disc does offer a fascinating, surprisingly candid account of the movie's financing (no doubt because the film's American distributor wasn't involved). After the initial financing fell through, Cronenberg recalls how the movie's British crew worked for weeks on end without being paid while his producer refinanced, staying behind as human collateral while the production moved on to Canada. (Cronenberg deferred his salary as well, and unlike the crew, he won't be paid until the movie turns a profit.) It's a rare look into the perilous world of financing even a production as modest and as seemingly assured as this one (with a cast including Ralph Fiennes, Miranda Richardson, Gabriel Byrne, Lynn Redgrave and John Neville), reminding you what a miracle it is that any movie ever gets made.