> Spielberg, Kubrick and Woody Allen are some American filmmakers with the
> rare clout to insist only letter-box versions of their "art" be released.
> Spielberg did it with ALWAYS. Allen did it with MANHATTAN. And Kubrick....
> well, in actuality he made only one "widescreen" film and that was in 1968.
> He preferred having his films released on "full frame" video anyway, which
> is why the recent DVD release of The Stanley Kubrick Collection is almost
> all in that format. Meanwhile Spielberg and Allen know better than to touch
> an anamorphic lens again.
Joe Dante managed to get this with some releases of _Gremlins_, all
releases of _Gremlins 2_ and _Innerspace_, but Spielberg produced all of
them.  He was not allowed widescreen on his director's cut of _Explorers_,
which was not, contrary to what some people believe, a Spielberg
production.  Interestlingly, though he prefers widescreen (_Small
Soldiers_ was unusually wide, even for a scope film), he released
_Piranha_ in full-frame.  His reason was that it was soft-matted, and
since they expected it to receive most play on late night television, it
was composed with the television frame in mind, not the theatre screen.

Scott

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