The most famous line in film history about shooting and projection systems was uttered by Fritz Lang in the 1950s: “Cinemascope is only good for filming snakes and funerals.” In an era when people were beginning to stay home to watch television, cinema was plunged into crisis and the industry tried to respond with more spectacular systems to lure audiences back to theaters. The Austrian director — renowned creator of Metropolis and Fury, among many others — thought such a wide panorama (2.35:1, and even 2.55:1) did not fit the natural proportion of the human face nor the framing a director should control. Without specifying it, Lang was speaking of the artist’s gaze. Of its importance, of its essence. In practical terms: what remains inside the frame and what stays outside.
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