Set against a permanent backdrop of ancient location sites, all re-imagined by the penetrating and sometimes mystical gaze of director Norman Jewison and captured by the widescreen lens of adventurous cinematographer Douglas Slocombe, this rendition of Andrew Lloyd Webber's popular Rock Opera is guaranteed to stay within reach, as is, forever.
Here guests sit transfixed by the widescreen river views each evening, only tearing themselves away to grab another beer from the fridge or chat with the friendly owners.
After the credits have rolled, three vehicles – two battered saloons and a military-style Jeep – snake their way across a bare, rolling landscape at night, their smallness and vulnerability emphasised by the widescreen.
Whedon and company felt they had to "serve two masters" by filming widescreen for eventual DVD release, but keeping objects in frame so it could still work when aired in pan and scan full frame.
Partially because the sets tuned to CNN were dwarfed by giant widescreen TVs broadcasting highlights from the Giants game, and partially because the sound of clinking glasses and boisterous laughing made it nearly impossible to hear what the President was saying.
Written and directed by Frank and executive produced by Soderbergh and Casey Silver, the widescreen epic is set in the 1880s in La Belle, N.M., a dusty frontier town run by women — not out of some utopian ideal but because a catastrophic mining accident has wiped out nearly the entire male population.
Stark, shadowy small-town America has been replaced by a windswept tourist-destination, aptly described by Stevie as "the top of the world" (and photographed in stunning widescreen by cinematographer Dean Cundey).
The projector has three internal LCDs and projects 2,000 lumens at a widescreen 1,280-by-800-pixel resolution.
But the bleak flatness of the Midwestern landscape, captured in black-and-white widescreen by cinematographer Phedon Papamichael, has a spare beauty of its own.
The film is shot in widescreen by Dumont's regular cinematographer, Yves Cape, and alternates between extreme long shot and close-up.
