Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Correct aspect ratio and Dolby format for 35mm "Eraserhead"?

This is topic Correct aspect ratio and Dolby format for 35mm "Eraserhead"? in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 10-06-2015, 08:30 PM:

IMDB says 1.37, but I can't find anything else online that agrees with them: everything else says 1.85, including the Criterion BD. I'm therefore tending towards 1.85 for Thursday's show, on the basis that Criterion would surely have got the definitive answer from Lynch during the mastering of their version.

The print I have is from Janus, on 2302 stock and made by FotoKem in 2012. The track is SVA, but the FotoKem labels just say "stereo" - they don't state whether A-type or SR. As the original release appears to have been mono, I'm guessing that this is a 2012 remix and therefore SR (though why didn't they do a digital track?). In the absence of any definitive answer, I guess it's a case of a listening test and going with what sounds better.

Does anyone have any info or thoughts on either of these? Many thanks in advance.

Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 10-06-2015, 08:43 PM:

I guess you could try asking him though there's no guaranty he'll see it in time or at all.

https://twitter.com/david_lynch

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 10-06-2015, 08:55 PM:

I played the movie in the early 80's in 1.85:1, where it was full frame and it did have the mono track.

Posted by Jerry Axelsson (Member # 3175) on 10-07-2015, 12:40 AM:

Hello Leo, a soundtrack marked "Stereo" on a print without further info, is as far I can remember always equal to DOLBY A.
Early 1990:s Universal titles had "DTS STEREO" on some occasions, which also behaved like Dolby A.
I also have seen Ultra Stereo labeled as "STEREO" which is compatible with Dolby A.

All SR prints I have come across have been labeled: DOLBY SR, STEREO SR or just SR/SRD/DTS etc.

Do a test run on the print at hand. You should be able to confirm what sounds correct.

Regards,

Jerry

Posted by Jesse Skeen (Member # 586) on 10-07-2015, 02:13 AM:

My rule has always been to play in Dolby A unless it SPECIFICALLY says it's Dolby SR- playing SR when it's not supposed to be sounds awful!

Posted by Fredrik Sandstrom (Member # 8171) on 10-07-2015, 06:16 AM:

I ran an Eraserhead print a couple of years ago that was from the 1990s and marked SR. It surprised me but sounded good played that way.

Posted by Mitchell Dvoskin (Member # 751) on 10-07-2015, 09:43 AM:

Regardless of whether or not the film was printed 1.37, the film would have been shown 1.85 here in the US.of.A.

I know this is meaningless, but the Criterion Bluray is 1.85 and frames perfectly.

As too sound, what Jesse said above.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 10-07-2015, 12:17 PM:

I also have a vague memory of playing a re-release in the late '90s that was specifically marked SR.

We know that the SVA track isn't original (that release was mono), and so if it the audio was remastered in the late '90s or later, I can't think of any reason why it would be A-Type. France continued to release new movies with A-Type audio into the late '90s: I remember this because I was working in an arthouse in England at the time, which showed a lot of French movies. If memory serves me correctly, the last A-type new release I showed was Secret défense. But the rest of the world had moved to SR (or very occasionally one of the knockoff SVA systems, e.g. DTS Stereo) by the middle of that decade. So if a full-scale remastering of the Eraserhead audio took place in the late '90s, resulting in an SVA final mix, I'd have expected it to be SR.

Maybe FotoKem labelled the 2012 print I'm showing tomorrow as simply "stereo", because they struck it from a 1990s final mix track dupe neg that wasn't properly labelled itself, and so they simply didn't know either?

Whatever the answer, I'm going to have to fit a listening test into tomorrow afternoon's show prep. Thanks again everyone.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 10-08-2015, 07:22 PM:

Well, that was an anticlimax.

Almost the entire movie has a pink noise/rumble/general audio crap background playing. It's actually meant to sound like the B-chain is completely screwed up, and so whether it's supposed to be played in A-type or SR is basically irrelevant. I sat through three reels of it, and in all of them there was only one short dialog scene that was completely free of this background noise, just before the end of R1. It doesn't last long enough to play some in A, go back to the booth, change the CP200 to SR and come back out into the house again. A-type sounds as OK as this film is ever going to, to my ears, and so A-type it's going to be.

1.85 definitely looks right.

Posted by Jesse Skeen (Member # 586) on 10-14-2015, 02:37 AM:

:lol: I hadn't even considered anybody being unfamiliar with the movie itself- yes, it is WEIRD! They even put out a soundtrack album for it, basically the movie edited to the length of a record.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 10-14-2015, 10:55 AM:

With all that out-of-phase low frequency rumble, I imagine that you'd have needed to replace the cartridge, stylus and bass speaker cones when you flipped the record over.

I have a dim memory of the movie from showing it in the late '90s and that it was weird and experimental, but yeah, I did look somewhat silly worrying about the details of the audio reproduction in that show. It would have been a bit like fussing over getting the color temperature of the light in a gallery exactly right for an exhibition of Hitler's paintings: that is not going to be why the audience is there.

I never did really go for David Lynch, though I must make the effort to see Inland Empire sometime, given it's named after the area in which I live, and apparently some of it was shot on the street where I work. But the fact that it's three hours long and reportedly has no coherent plot is somewhat of a disincentive...

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 10-14-2015, 01:55 PM:

The end credits for Inland Empire has a really great dance/musical troupe performance. Just fast forward. [evil]

Posted by Rick Raskin (Member # 1561) on 10-14-2015, 07:03 PM:

quote: Leo Enticknap
It would have been a bit like fussing over getting the color temperature of the light in a gallery exactly right for an exhibition of Hitler's paintings...

That's a great analogy Leo. [thumbsup]