What is cinemascope?

This article, of some historic significance, was published in the March, 1953 issue of American Cinematographer. While it is certainly intended to present the best possible aspects of a yet unseen new widescreen process, it is unique in that it does mention certain problems that would have to be overcome to properly utilize the potential of the system. The Robe had not yet begun production when this article was written and you will see that the sound system was three track, with no mention of auditorium surround speakers. The aspect ratio was 2.66:1 since the full silent frame was to be used along with interlocked fullcoat magnetic sound film. No author is credited.

CinemaScope was an anamorphic lens series used for shooting wide screen movies from 1953 to 1967. Its creation in 1953, by the president of 20th Century-Fox, marked the beginning of the modern anamorphic format in both principal photography and movie projection.

The anamorphic lenses theoretically allowed the process to create an image of up to a 2.66:1 aspect ratio, almost twice as wide as the previously common Academy format's 1.37:1 ratio. Although the CinemaScope lens system was made obsolete by new technological developments, primarily advanced by Panavision, the CinemaScope anamorphic format has continued to this day. In film-industry jargon, the shortened form, 'Scope, is still widely used by both filmmakers and projectionists, although today it generally refers to any 2.35:1 or 2.39:1 or 2.40:1 presentation or, sometimes, the use of anamorphic lensing or projection in particular. Bausch & Lomb won a 1954 Oscar for its development of the CinemaScope lens.

Technical difficulties

A CinemaScope 35 mm film frame showing a circle. It has been squeezed by a ratio of 2:1 by an anamorphic camera lens. The anamorphic projection lens will stretch the image horizontally to show a normal round circle on the screen.

Although CinemaScope was capable of producing a 2.66:1 image, the addition of magnetic sound tracks for multi-channel sound reduced this to 2.55:1.

The fact that the image was expanded horizontally when projected meant that there could be visible graininess and brightness problems. To combat this, larger film formats were developed (initially a too-costly 55 mm for Carousel and The King and I) and then abandoned (both films were eventually reduction printed at 35 mm, although the aspect ratio was kept at 2.55:1). Later Fox re-released The King and I in the 65/70 mm format. The initial problems with grain and brightness were eventually reduced thanks to improvements in film stock and lenses.

The CinemaScope lenses were optically flawed, however, by the fixed anamorphic element, which caused the anamorphic effect to gradually drop off as objects approached closer to the lens. The effect was that close-ups would slightly overstretch an actor's face, a problem that soon became referred to as "the mumps". This problem was avoided at first by composing wider shots, but as anamorphic technology lost its novelty, directors and cinematographers sought compositional freedom from these limitations. Issues with the lenses also made it difficult to photograph animation using the CinemaScope process. Nevertheless, many animated short films and a few features were filmed in CinemaScope during the 1950s, including Walt Disney's Lady and the Tramp (1955).

Modern references

While the lens system has been retired for decades, Fox has used the trademark in recent years on at least three films: Down with Love, which was shot with Panavision optics but used the credit as a throwback to the films it references, and the Don Bluth films Anastasia and Titan A.E. at Bluth's insistence. Nonetheless, these films are not true CinemaScope as they use modern lenses. CinemaScope's association with anamorphic projection is still so embedded in mass consciousness that all anamorphic prints are now referred to generically as "'Scope" prints.

In the 1963 Jean-Luc Godard film Contempt (Le Mepris), filmmaker Fritz Lang makes a disparaging comment about CinemaScope: "Oh, it wasn't meant for human beings. Just for snakes – and funerals." Ironically, Contempt was shot in CinemaScope.

The 1988 John Waters film Hairspray uses the trademark as a crack on the weight of an overweight teenage girl who wants to star on a TV dance show: "please; this show isn't broadcasted in CinemaScope!". A 2002 Broadway musical version of Hairspray and a 2007 film adaptation of the Broadway show retain this joke as part of the lyrics of one of the show's songs, "(The Legend of) Miss Baltimore Crabs".

Musician Fiona Apple references a CinemaScope in "Hot Knife", a song off her 2012 album The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do. She sings "If I'm butter, then he's a hot knife, he makes my heart a cinemascope screen, showing the dancing bird of paradise."