Since the subtitles for this film are printed on the black bars, anyone with a widescreen TV (i.e. me) has to watch the film in an uber-small format (with bars on all four sides of the screen). And it sucks. I wish they'd rerelease this with the option of the subtitles printed on the film.
shareI just watched the Criterion version on my 40' Sony Bravia TV (ie: widescreen) with my Sony blu ray player and did not have this problem at all. Only black bars on the bottom and top as intended. Not sure what the problem was when you watched it. Also, when I watched it, the subtitles were on the film itself, not the black bars. On the DVD, you can turn the subtitles off, so they actually aren't printed on the film, like in a VHS version.
http://morganonfilm.blogspot.com/
From what I've seen, subtitles are not actually a "printed" part of the image and are not in a set place.
I've watched widescreen foreign films on multiple TVs and in some cases, the subtitles will shift depending on the type and size of the screen. If there are black bars, they'll be over them; if not, they'll be inside the image.
Might be a problem with your TV. I watched it on both my old CRT TV as well as my widescreen LCD, and the subtitles adjusted themselves. Subtitles are usually encrypted on the disc and not part of the actual picture, so you may wanna recheck your TV settings.
shareI didn't have this problem with my widescreen tv.
shareMaybe you have a CinemaScope TV? What's your TV exactly?
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"We live in a box of space and time. Movies are windows in its walls."