MovieChat Forums > The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (1963) Discussion > I never thought I would be saying this.....

I never thought I would be saying this...

posted 9 years ago by Forlorn_Rage
7 replies | jump to latest

If ever a movie needed a "pan and scan," it's this movie! The actors are always so ridiculously far away from the camera, I could hardly see their faces. I never thought what would've been a decent movie would be ruined because I would have to squint to look at the actors!

It was especially ridiculous that in most of the scenes, a whopping 2/3rds of mise-en-scene was simply static, useless scenery! I wanted to take some scissor and lop off the all that extra dead space!

It didn't help that the camera never moved AT ALL and simply cut from extra wide screen to just plain widescreen. It's a shame, an extremely imaginative director, cinematographer, and production designer could've made great use of cinerama and made it worthwhile. But, considering the (extremely sad) of creative direction for what should've been a creative production for a creative story, they should've nixed the panerama and spent the budget on a decent crew!

[–] PatriotsSpyGate1 9 years ago

LOL. I'm also watching this on TCM and thought exactly the same thing. I wish I were alive when this, how West Was Won, Mad Mad World was released in Cinerama. Must have been a magical time.

[–] Forlorn_Rage 9 years ago

Cool! I'm watching this right now as well. Thankfully, it's gotten much better with the actors being a bit closer to the camera now.

while Cinerama does *sound* great, I'm not sure I could take having to veer back and froth from left, right, center, etc. I guess that's why there is so much "side scenery," but then there is no point to Cinerama this way. Whereas in How the West Was Won, at least the mise-en-scene added to the feel of the environment and story.

Director, George Pal, did fine on Tom Thumb. I don't know if it was the unnecessary Cinerama or co-direction with Henry Levin that kind of messed this up.

[–] PatriotsSpyGate1 9 years ago

Agree. haha, an INTERMISSION! Guess old fashioned film making was in, before JFK and Camelot died in 1963.

[–] Forlorn_Rage 9 years ago

Haha! "The whole world should be made of such [Grimm's] foolishness." Love that quote!

This is fun. I've never conversed on IMDB while watching a movie on TCM before. Something to cross off my bucketlist, I guess.

[–] mdonln 9 years ago

Forlorn_Rage says > If ever a movie needed a "pan and scan," it's this movie! The actors are always so ridiculously far away from the camera, I could hardly see their faces. I never thought what would've been a decent movie would be ruined because I would have to squint to look at the actors!

I totally agree. I know who Laurence Harvey is but I would never have known he was in the movie had I not seen his name in the opening credits. I kept saying, is that him for probably the first have of the movie.

It didn't help that the camera never moved AT ALL and simply cut from extra wide screen to just plain widescreen.

I don't know how true that statement is. I definitely sensed some movement. In fact, the process used to film the movie made me feel dizzy at times. Sometimes it was like I was watching through a fish bowl; at times I was in the fish bowl; other times the movie was inside it and I was on the outside. It was a very strange and distracting experience.

Woman, man! That's the way it should be Tarzan. [Tarzan and his mate]

[–] Forlorn_Rage 9 years ago

I totally agree. I know who Laurence Harvey is but I would never have known he was in the movie had I not seen his name in the opening credits. I kept saying, is that him for probably the first have of the movie.

Lol yeah. It's the only movie I can think of that oddly didn't seem to care about showing off such a colourful cast. It got better as the movie progressed, but it still could've been a lot better.

I don't know how true that statement is. I definitely sensed some movement. In fact, the process used to film the movie made me feel dizzy at times. Sometimes it was like I was watching through a fish bowl; at times I was in the fish bowl; other times the movie was inside it and I was on the outside. It was a very strange and distracting experience.

There weren't any pans, tracking shots, zooming in or zooming out, etc. The film did have that odd look of looking at a magnifying that made certain aspects of the scene "pop," but the camera itself never moved. I don't normally notice these things offhand, but the film definitely had a low-budget, "static" feel to its direction that was very obvious.

Even with How the West Was Won, there managed to be plenty of camera movement and different variety of shots and edits in its Cinerama format.

[–] CoriSCapnSkip (2249) 7 years ago

I also had trouble seeing the actors, and found the Cinerama effect distracting, especially as in the TCM airing, the middle panel was lighter than the panels on either side so it made the whole middle of the picture look crummy!