Ernst walks into an aspect ratio store and says "Yes Please!"

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A video essay about the great 1921 German anarchic comedy "The Wild Cat" (Die Bergkatze), directed by no other than master craftsman Ernst Lubitsch and starring Pola Negri in her best role.
We'll analyze the film's inventive use of masks to manipulate its screen shape and - I dare say - aspect ratio into whatever Ernst feels is most appropriate for the moment, achieving humorous and aesthetic results.
Join me on Patreon: / moviewise
The aspect ratio is an inherent part of a movie. The image has gotta end some place, right? Until a new John Cage type says he made a documentary without a frame or a camera and it’s the real world and you roll your eyes and pseudo intellectuals hail it as a modern art masterpiece - but I digress.
Have you ever thought about how much we take our movie shapes for granted? Theoretically you can give your film whatever aspect ratio you soever desire but we keep limiting ourselves to a handful of rectangles. Over 100 years ago, this little unpretentious divertimento showed how infinite are the possibilities of the movie screen.
I'll gladly die on the hill that Lubitsch's silent films were even better than his talkies. And I imagine there aren't more people on this hill because they simply haven't watched his silent masterpieces ("Lady Windermere's Fan" from 1925 is likely his best).
By the way, the films shown in the beginning, in order are: O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), 12 Angry Men (1957), Anatomy of a Murder (1959), Written on the Wind (1956), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Les Girls (1957), The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), Ben-Hur (1959), Pulp Fiction (1994), Lawrence of Arabia again, Caché (2005), Asteroid City (2023), Life of Pi (2012), Lucifer (2014) which has a circular ratio, Mommy (2014), War and Peace (1967) and finally Die Bergkatze (1921). And later I show other Lubitsch films when talking about masks: The Oyster Princess (1919) and The Doll (1919).
#videoessay #filmmaking #silentfilm
Merry Go - Silent Film Light by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. creativecommon...
Source: incompetech.com...
Artist: incompetech.com/

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30 сен 2024

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Комментарии : 185

@alejoparedes2388 3 месяца назад

They really did invent everything in the 1920's, didn't they?

@rayortiz313 3 месяца назад

Yes , unfortunately noone has the guts to use any of these types of techniques because most indie film makers are timid rabbits who are terrified of making something that doesn't look like a "real movie". So they'll watch a video like this and file it under "nope"

@kingamoeboid3887 3 месяца назад

I did love Abel Gance for how he did La Roue and Napoleon.

@alejoparedes2388 3 месяца назад

@@kingamoeboid3887 "Napoleon" is indescribably good.

@wilhelmmeyer89 3 месяца назад

No, the wheel was invented earlier.

@kingamoeboid3887 3 месяца назад

@@wilhelmmeyer89 1923.

@ProuvaireJean 3 месяца назад

The theatrical release of Galaxy Quest manipulated its aspect ratio in a fun "dramatic function dictates form" way. It starts off in 1.33 for the introductory TV scenes, expands to 1.85 for the real world scenes, and - at the moment we go into space - expands again to 2.35 for a real "woah" reaction. Unfortunately the home media release cuts out the middle ratio as it would have necessitated distracting vertical bars for a large part of the runtime, so that first trip into space never evoked the same sense of wonder. Lubitsch of course takes it to entirely different level.

@asgads 3 месяца назад

i learned more in this 5 min that in other 2 hours movie analysises. best movie channel

@mercurialhypersprite9556 3 месяца назад

Literal fax.

@Selrisitai 3 месяца назад

@@mercurialhypersprite9556 Fantastic how this sentences uses only two words, and both of them are wrong.

@SolarScion 3 месяца назад

Good point. BTW, the word you were going for is _analyses_ -is is a singular ending -es is a common way to make that plural.

@asgads 3 месяца назад

@@SolarScion thanks, I keep that in mind

@mercurialhypersprite9556 2 месяца назад

@@Selrisitai Sorry, who are you?

@ronbock8291 3 месяца назад

I had no idea that Siouxie Sioux was not only alive in the 20s, but starring in Lubitsch movies.

@bartolomeus441 3 месяца назад

Such a simple, yet effective trick. He really had an eye for visuals. It's amazing how in the early days of cinema filmmakers achieved results that look so fresh after 100 years, without fancy modern Hollywood tools.

@abrahemsamander3967 3 месяца назад

They had less, so they used it as much as they could. In fact, for a while, the invention of sound made some impressive visuals by silent films difficult. Since recording sounds used to be more expensive, it left less money for cameras. Not that that era didn’t have beautiful cinematography.

@pjetrs 3 месяца назад

reminds me a bit of music, often the most elegant and pure sounds within a certain genre is during the formative years of that genre. And often people come back to those songs, because they encapsulate the essence of that genre so well. 90s hiphop was a very diverse landscape of different creative directions, limited by what hardware made possible at that time, same goes for 60s rock.

@ksrmk 3 месяца назад

Yeah, and they had to trial and error with expensive film that took time to develop and view - no instant viewing like we have now. I'm sure they had to really plan their shots to minimize their takes.

@venus_envy 3 месяца назад

Not only have a seen a film like this, I have seen THIS film. Just happened to borrow it from the Vancouver Public Library when I was in high school. Watched it with my dad, we both found it very funny. I never found another film like it since, but then, I didn't really try. Godo video, I hope more people see this and the film. Silent films are pretty great, I wish they were shown in theatres more (so far I've only seen three, maybe four, in theatres).

@Daniel-Rosa. 3 месяца назад

Whoa, you had the chance to watch silent pictures in theaters?! 🎉

@DarkSideofSynth 3 месяца назад

103 years ago: no sound, no huge budgets, coming out of WWI, chaos, bad economy, limited technology - Hey, let's do something crazy & have fun! 2024: hundreds & hundreds of millions, all the tech you like, instant world distribution - Hey, let's do the Nth sequel/reboot, super boring and all by committee, break no rules!

@oBdurate 3 месяца назад

Back then, it was a technological and artistic frontier. Now, it's a high-risk investment - unless you're making something mid or low-budget, then there's still room for innovation.

@DarkSideofSynth 3 месяца назад

@@oBdurate Risk is part of entrepreneurship. There are no safe bets in business. Studios got lazy and greedy, let's not spin this around. Coughing up the 5000th episode of Star Wars or whatever is quite sad & boring to say the least. There's more courage and innovation in a coffee-shop ;)

@oBdurate 3 месяца назад

@@DarkSideofSynth Remakes do still flop, just a lot less often. Maybe if I personally was given a ton of money to invest in productions I'd choose original screenplays over remakes but that's acknowledging I'm less likely to print money just because I want to see new ideas get tried out. I understand why others might not do that.

@OsirusHandle 3 месяца назад

that art is business is the issue, no? many classic directors complained that they would have rather filmed in the soviet union, the political censorship was worth avoiding the economic censorship... i dont know any that did this in the end though.

@TheHaddonfieldRegistry 3 месяца назад

If you only watch theater movies, then I can see why you'd think this. But if you stop eating shit and go find real food, ie the dozens of films released every year that aren't adaptations, sequels, reboots, or Disney films, you'll be a lot happier.

@filmnobelpreis 3 месяца назад

The shot of the womanizer wiping his tears away with women's underwear will always be iconic.

@OuterGalaxyLounge 3 месяца назад

Lubitsch was an incredible artist. I'm giddy you did this. Too many people seem to think that the vast cinema before 1970 didn't exist, when in fact it was innovative and great, especially, and including the silent era.

@wendybutler1681 3 месяца назад

I greatly prefer pre-1960 films.

@NachtmahrNebenan 3 месяца назад

Is available on RU-vid *The Wildcat, Lubitsch, 1921*

@psvs3960 3 месяца назад

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-VPd_8TdgRkM.html

@alexrollinsberg2036 3 месяца назад

I love Lubitsch, need to see this movie ASAP. Wonderful as always, Moviewise

@GhettoFabulousLorch 3 месяца назад

Is film in dire need of another "wild west" period of creativity? Imagine if we had an era half as creative as the Silent Era or New Hollywood today. Of course, there is world cinema and independent film, but do they produce a comparable number of movies that make them just as proportionately wild as said eras? I do not know this myself.

@allenrubinstein3696 3 месяца назад

I effing love this channel. Best film classroom on RU-vid, both in clear, incisive thinking and clear-as-day narration. Please never stop making these.

@thelostone6981 3 месяца назад

Why am I just learning about this film?!? I even took courses in college about film history. But this makes me feel like I am a century behind the times!! 😉😂 That is wild. Thanks Moviewise for showcasing a wacky film that I must now see!

@sheets75 3 месяца назад

I feel like the silent era is especially underrepresented in film history discussions. It's like everyone has the same small handful of movies they go to (Birth of a Nation, Sunrise, Metropolis, Chaplin and Buster Keaton, Nosferatu...eh, maybe a couple more) and then they move on even though we know there were tons of silent movies made across the whole spectrum of genres and many of them aren't even lost.

@Quirderph 2 месяца назад

It has been said that if "Nosferatu" and "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" are the epitome of German expressionist horror, then Ernst Lubitsch's "The Wild Cat" and "The Doll" are the epitome of German expressionist comedy.

@ingridsommer2232 3 месяца назад

This looks like the funniest movie ever!!! Great video as always

@tcliloveit309 3 месяца назад

Make a companion video to "behold the perfect Screenplay" for directing I think your choice will be "the rules of the game"

@64ccd 3 месяца назад

Mind blowing. Now that this video is out, the next Wes Anderson movie (after the one he's already shot) will prove whether he watches this channel or not. I think he does.

@goodial 3 месяца назад

This looks amazing! I need to check this movie out! There is a chinese movie called "I Am Not Madame Bovary" and most of its aspect ratio is a circle. It's great and most scenes feel like paintings also because of the circular framing.

@Moviewise 3 месяца назад

I’d heard of that title but didn’t know about the style. I absolutely must check it out, thank you!

@aravis72 3 месяца назад

This makes me want to watch one of my favorite films again - Ninotchka.

@exexalien 3 месяца назад

I watched this video after it popped up in my RU-vid recommendations, and I'm glad I did because right after that I watched the movie and enjoyed the hell out of it! Aspect ratios are really an overlooked (and underutilized) aspect of the film process. (I didn't even plan on making that awful joke, by the way - guess that thing just sort of happens as you get older) Anyway, I mainly came back to say thank you, and also to subscribe! Also, I appreciate you keeping your videos to a reasonable length - so much "original content" of this sort on RU-vid is unnecessarily long now.

@DookNookim 3 месяца назад

I can't remember much of Transformers: The Last Knight, but I do remember the aspect ratio changed every shot.

@kelownatechkid 3 месяца назад

3D movies use this commonly. As you mentioned, Ang lee (a master of stereoscopic film), but the wildest examples are probably the last Transformers films by Bay since he went absolutely hog-wild with different camera rigs. Recently, Guardians of the Galaxy 3 used boundary breaks (also present in the first two films' 3D versions).

@abrahemsamander3967 3 месяца назад

It’d be cool to try a style like this in modern day. Silent movies are a treasure trove of visual influence.

@Daniel-Rosa. 3 месяца назад

Heheh! Everytime you said "The Wild Cat", I thought you were referring to the filmmaker in question, like "This wild cat keepa doing this and that".

@eumesma-jj9yt 3 месяца назад

Great!!! I love you!!!

@mercurialhypersprite9556 3 месяца назад

Man, I'm only sad that the video was short.

@TheSwwiss 3 месяца назад

this movie has more freedom than someone who's in debt with education loan

@teofilopires8014 3 месяца назад

Very Good!!!!

@johnnzboy 3 месяца назад

This was a fun divertissement, that Lubitsch was a jolly fellow

@Zed-fq3lj 3 месяца назад

Great video dude🤩...you're the man, the most unique and compelling movie channel on tube! Greetings from Serbia!

@Moviewise 3 месяца назад

Thank you so much!

@angledcoathanger 3 месяца назад

Really grew on me after a few shots

@videovuer 3 месяца назад

FUN FUN FUN 🎉❤

@Pnuemonia-Nakey 3 месяца назад

The little gag at 0:55 actually made me laugh

@ulaznar 3 месяца назад

Having watched every film directed by him since the advent of sound, I really need to watch the few surviving silent films of his. “How would Lubitsch do it?” read the sign on the wall of Billy Wilder's writer's office 🥰

@ThisHandleIsDefinatelyTaken 3 месяца назад

huh, seems like an actual functional technique instead of a gimmick.

@rathodkaran6190 3 месяца назад

once again, thank you moviewise.

@bluehorizon9547 3 месяца назад

Plz make movie director tier list

@rpg7287 3 месяца назад

You just need to think outside the (letter)box.

@mroberts2002 3 месяца назад

Adorable! thanks so much for sharing this!

@koodariz5243 3 месяца назад

Interesting! Thanks!

@N_Loco_Parenthesis 3 месяца назад

Love this video, Wiseman.

@Rhubba Месяц назад

I'm trying to think of a more recent film that played around with different aspect ratios and one sprang to mind: More American Graffiti. Not only does each of the 4 segments has its own aspect ratio, it utilises 4 different film stocks as well.

@VideoAssaultSaturday 3 месяца назад

To be fair, even in american cinema before they nailed down "the hollywood method", movie makers would just basically do whatever, it was the wild west of cinema!! (look it up it's fascinating)

@TheHaddonfieldRegistry 3 месяца назад

It's interested, but looks a bit shit and would be pretty distracting in a modern film. It's like showing off something unique and interesting about cave paintings and being like "whoa you wont see that in modern art!". Like, yeah, you wont. Its for a reason lmao

@icecreamhero2375 3 месяца назад

There was one Spongebob episode called Drive Happy. When Spongebob was in the cramped elevator the aspect ratio switched to 4:3.

@ddegn 3 месяца назад

"Think outside the box" Then how come all the masks were smaller than the film frame? I wanted to see a mask larger than the frame. That would truly be outside the box film making. Thanks for sharing this fun video.

@JohnMoseley 3 месяца назад

Calls to mind Fritz Lang's comment in Le Mépris that Cinemascope was only good for snakes and trains.

@wrlord 3 месяца назад

Comic books have been doing this forever.

@KnjazNazrath 3 месяца назад

This did it before comic books.

@keremmazman3761 3 месяца назад

@@KnjazNazrath Newspaper comics like Little Nemo by Winsor McCay, Gasoline Alley by Frank King and Krazy Kat by George Herriman was doing this kind of experimentation before this movie.

@echodelta9 3 месяца назад

The joke here is we live in the age of slit-o-vision. Wave it left or right. It's hard to see videos in a horizontal mode anymore. Why don't we bring back 'Brownie" 120 film format square. Camera is square and lots of mega-pixels. Even held at any angle your phone will have an level image.

@turnondatuna 3 месяца назад

you would enjoy I Am Not Madame Bovary, a Chinese movie that does a lot with Drake masking. Not as crazy as your German guy but beautifully composed and impactful

@aravis72 3 месяца назад

This is awesome, but I can’t find the film anywhere. I imagine it’s on RU-vid but I wonder if the dialogue cards are in English!?! Anyone know?

@prabhatdreamz 3 месяца назад

This was brilliant. Gonna watch this one, if I can find it.

@nuoyaxin 3 месяца назад

Great video. I love it too, when aspect ratio is changed during the film for dramatic effect. On the topic the head I remember The Dark Knight and Grand Budapest Hotel (the latter featured here). What movie is the clip at around 0:40 seconds from, that blond actor with head phones around his neck pushing the frame open...?

@h.a.9880 3 месяца назад

Having closeups of faces in an oval or round shape would also fit the type of portrait photos of the time. It's another layer of having a familiar form (for portrait photos) for the framing in a new medium (film). I doubt that the times nowadays are much different, we have plenty of smart creative people, who would come up with unconventional and new ideas for movie screening, shot composition and so on today... but filmmaking has become so expensive, the creative people are held back by corporate suits, who want to play it safe.

@mnemot 3 месяца назад

it looks so... uncinematic? i can't really picture it looking better than full frame when projected; there is a certain mastery at the craft on making the spectator "frame" the image with the eye. i agree, though: it looks fantastic. it's so playful, i bet a movie made with this kind of framing in mind would work great on handheld screens.

@e1e2t3 2 месяца назад

Great video! Thanks! The first movie I recall seeing that played with aspect ratio was "More American Graffiti", which had a different shaped screen for each of its four storylines.

@JZ-mn8wv 2 месяца назад

It’s also worth mentioning that Lubitsch was poking fun at the stylistic extremes of German expressionism, which was happening in the same time and place. He just uses his techniques with a much lighter spirit.

@artbygarth 3 месяца назад

Wow I've gotta watch this whole movie! Thanks for the video

@InTheDarknessWhereIDwell 3 месяца назад

4:14 "Here's a horde of women going down..." OMG! I learned a new word! A group of women is called a "horde" 🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭

@SolarScion 3 месяца назад

Has he done _Kate_ or _Blonde_ yet? I don't think _Kate_ changed aspect ratio, but it did some crazy perspective and camera stuff both in fight choreography, but also the shots with the car were wild. _Blonde_ also has at least two scenes that use two different aspect ratios than the film's standard.

@2.Plus.2.Equals.5 3 месяца назад

I personally can't stand when a film switches aspect ratios 5-6+ times in a film. It throws me off like it's a completely different movie. Stick with a ratio and keep it.

@mikez5545 3 месяца назад

Please don’t give editors who are pandering to zoomers any more ideas. I could see a tik tok video already playing that has changing aspect ratios with annoying edits and MR. Beast font text that comes after each word.

@Blink_____ 3 месяца назад

Nothing makes me want to watch a movie more than constantly being distracted by changing screen borders

@film_nirvana 3 месяца назад

Wes Anderson should try this. But the problem is anything new in Cinema at this point of time looks gimmicky.

@joshmonroe986 3 месяца назад

I watched a family movie where they used every transition fade that the software had... fade to black, fade to white, star swipe, etc... and that is why no one 'goes nuts' it is distracting as hell.

@wilhelmmeyer89 3 месяца назад

Form follows function. 103 years old. Still interesting and good to know.

@spanishprisoner 3 месяца назад

Thanks for showing!

@veronicatorres87376 26 дней назад

Maybe the real thinking outside the box was the friends we made along the way

@bell1876 3 месяца назад

illumination! they should be teaching this in schools and not just hoping that an under-subscribed yachoob channel illuminates folk

@Flippo___ 3 месяца назад

reminds me of the new film called Hundreds of Beavers, also something you could consider an anarchic comedy

@hammerbeam 3 месяца назад

One of your funniest videos yet

@cube2fox 3 месяца назад

One problem with changing aspect ratios is that there is, as far as I'm aware, still no digital video format that supports dynamic aspect ratios. So you still have to commit to one aspect ratio overall (e.g. 16:9) and then fake the others by inserting black bars, which are basically masks like Lubitsch used a hundred years ago. If then the screen you are watching this doesn't happen to have the same aspect ratio you used in the beginning, you end up with _four_ black bars, a black frame around the screen.

@leohouses 3 месяца назад

what do you think of Harmony Korine's Aggro Drift?

@prestonnewcomb5991 3 месяца назад

Brainstorm is a good one, but I think some releases don't have the different aspect ratios.

@dcstudiosiphone3029 3 месяца назад

Next check out Abel Gance’s The Wheel (1923) !

@RiffZifnab 3 месяца назад

Has the original German text: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-w2ze2iNBpsY.html

@gubbothehuggo2771 3 месяца назад

Get the lens mask, we're filming this in TEETH ratio.

@dyscotopia 3 месяца назад

This seems like something Wes Anderson could pull off if he put his mind to it...

@wrlord 3 месяца назад

Importantly, the mask has to work in conjunction with the overall composition of the shot, of course.

@cube2fox 3 месяца назад

Of course!

@thetrison 3 месяца назад

This movie needs to be hidden from Wes Anderson and Wes Anderson needs to discover this movie.

@poepflater 3 месяца назад

Berg means mountain, so technically it s is mountain cat

@MonsterHobbiesModelCarGarage 3 месяца назад

That is cool. Even to use 1 or 2 of those masks for an entire film would be interesting, especially the old "Photograph" style edges like @0:55

@RebeccaTurner-ny1xx 3 месяца назад

Why is the voice on these videos panned left? They all sound odd.

@tamarabrugara 3 месяца назад

IT’S LIKE A MODERN COMIC BOOK! so cool

@Steambull1 3 месяца назад

Watched this maybe 2 years ago. Very funny and visually appealing film (though, mostly for other reasons than the different frames).

@christiansenator 3 месяца назад

Blonde went insane with aspect ratios, changing at a whim

@SporekArt 3 месяца назад

I don't know if it was done on purpose, but exactly 2 days ago when the Video was uploaded there was a little aniversary and celebration of Pola Negri in her hometown :)

@MrSpirit99 3 месяца назад

Literal translation of the title is "The Mountain Cat"

@erikstormtrooper 3 месяца назад

Waiting for Wes Anderson to do a movie in this style

@JohnMoseley 3 месяца назад

BTW I've just found this movie on RU-vid. EDIT: Seems to me it's sort of similar to Lubitsch's later classic, Ninotchka: charming man of the establishment seduces the top lady pariah.

@nickalonzo1174 3 месяца назад

Kinda like a comic book now that I think about it.

@keremmazman3761 3 месяца назад

Have you watched The Rosary, Lois Weber short from 1913? It is only 10 minutes and uses circular framing, frame is shaped by a rosary. Weber does earlier examples of things you talk about in this video. For example in another 1913 short, Suspense, she uses triangle shapes for split screen.

@duncanluciak5516 3 месяца назад

We will see a portrait aspect movie soon.

@dutchhistoricalactingcolle5883 12 дней назад

Great video, thanks!

@bobbybobby325 3 месяца назад

0:37 what are the two films called we see here? at least I think they're two different films (the colored circular and the guy pushing the sides)

@Moviewise 3 месяца назад

Lucifer (Gust Van den Berghe, 2014) is the film framed in a circle. The other one is Mommy (Xavier Dolan, 2014), which uses a square ratio that expends in a couple scenes.

@SilentAttackTV 3 месяца назад

I think it's fine and interesting to do for comedy or less serious movies. For serious/dramatic movies, if it's too noticeable, I feel like it would be break immersion too much.

@Stuff_And_Things 3 месяца назад

Sure, but Ernst is a bit of a creep.

@JohnMoseley 3 месяца назад

I can't prove it, but I have had the thought of varying the aspect ratio within a movie. I just can't claim to have thought of doing it with anything approaching Lubitsch's wild inventiveness and wit. On a related note, I really miss wipes, last seen, to my knowledge, in Fassbinder's Veronika Voss, where he went ape crazy with them and they were pretty much the best thing about the film. Apparently, he found some in whatever studio he was working in and just thought, 'Why not?'