Gone With the Wind/ The 75th Anniversary Celebration in theaters!

It's going to be shown at selected theaters. Very cool!

http://www.fathomevents.com/event/gone-with-the-wind-75th-anniversary/more-info/theater-locations

 

Great! Any chance to introduce this classic to a new generation is a-okayi by me!

 

Frankly my dear...

 

Let's hope they don't widescreen it. Well worth seeing on the big screen, however. I saw it that way I think 15 years ago, and even after 4 hours I wanted more.

 

Some are showing on imax screens.

 

Fathom's website claims that "(t)he film will be shown in the same aspect ratio as it was originally shown 75 years ago."

 

Because it's a Turner Classic Movies Presents and that's how they show movies on TCM.

 

I went to the 4K restoration at the BFI last year - wonderful on the big screen.

 

I saw GWTW in its 1998 theatrical rerelease. On the plus side, the prints were all IB Tech. On the minus side, only a few prints were in true Academy ratio. Fearing that most theaters no longer had aperture plates or screen masking that could handle Academy ratio, the majority of the prints that were struck were a weird hybrid with a windowboxed Academy-ratio image printed in the middle of a 2.35:1 frame. Combine that with some registration problems during the print run, and the result was pretty underwhelming.

To add insult to injury, at the screening I attended, they built up the print on a platter, and given the length of the movie, it was really pushing the limit of what the platter could handle. Around 10 minutes before the end of the film, the projector suffered what I suspect was a brain wrap, and after initially urging the crowd to sit tight while they worked on the problem, the house manager came back out with a defeated look a few minutes later and announced that refunds would be issued as they weren't going to be able to complete the show.

I'm tempted to check the new rerelease out, as it's gotta be better than the previous one!

 

My wife loves this, wonder if it's anywhere near us? Edit, there is a showing 30 miles away. Cool. I hope they have a few intermissions though, I'm not so young anymore.

Oh, and least we forget:

 

Oldest surviving ‘Gone with the Wind’ cast member dies, age 98
Alicia Rhett, 98, was the oldest surviving cast member of the 1939 film starring Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Saturday, January 4, 2014, 1:55 PM

Only surviving cast members left include Olivia de Havilland, and Mickey Kuhn.

 

I'm sure many think of this when asked about Carol. Timeless comedy. I hope to see GWTW in the theaters again. *fingers crossed*

 

It seems they never did restore the original Technicolor look to GWTW. 1989's resissue was deliberately muted. And subsequent restorations seem to have followed that lead.

 

What GWTW is "supposed" to look like depends on who you talk to. The 1954 prints are generally regarded as closest to original intent as they were the last ones approved by Selznick (I don't believe that there are any surviving 1939 original release prints). And by most accounts the 1954 prints were fairly subdued, largely without the eye-popping primary colors commonly associated with three-strip IB Tech.

There are various discussions regarding this out there - this is just the first one I ran across via a quick search:

http://articles.latimes.com/1998/jun/07/entertainment/ca-57316

 

Thought I had read that there were only 7 or 8 colors projectors in the world and they had them all.

 

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE MESSAGES?????????

 

The above article is talking about the 1998 dye-transfer prints made from a single-strip negative. The digital restorations were color timed to match Selznick's answer print, which turned up in 2004. I don't see how it gets much more accurate than that!

Derek

 

The LA Times piece from 1998 was indeed referring to the 1998 prints, and was vague on quite a few details. There's a much better piece by Dick May from 1989 that covers the technical history of the various rereleases up to that year:

http://site.douban.com/106789/widget/notes/127384/note/102161587/

Have the more recent digital restorations been output to film, or do they exist strictly in the DCP realm? Judging from this thread at the HTF, it seems like the topic of what GWTW really should look like is still unsettled for some people, even after the discovery of the answer print:

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/topic/259145-gwtw-current-print-quality/

 

I saw the 're-release' of GWTW with my Mom in '65. GWTW has had more re-releases than some bands have 'farewell' tours

 

I've not seen anything definitive as to whether the digital restoration has been output back to film. I suspect it has, given Warners commitment to preservation, but that's just me. As to color timing, people often mis-remember things about movies. There's been this legend that the 1939 prints were of muted color. It turns out they weren't!!! Not only did Selznick's 1939 answer print survive, but it appears a 1940 nitrate release print has survived as well. The website listed below has lots of Technicolor frame scans. GWTW is about 1/4 down the page, and has multiple pics from the 1940 print as well as an Eastmancolor print of undisclosed age. Go have a look for yourself!

http://zauberklang.ch/filmcolors/timeline-entry/1301/

Derek