AMERICAN CINEMA

The Joys of Letterboxing

How often have you gone to your local neighborhood video store and seen that the movie is advertised as being in the "letterbox" format. You know, "The black bands at the top and the bottom of the screen are normal for this format." Have you wondered why they do it? Have you wondered why it is so important? If so, then this is where you will find the answers to all your letterbox questions. Follow along with me here. First of all, think of the movie screen and television screen in terms of dimensions. A movie screen's width to height ratio is higher than a television screen's. So, right away, we have a problem when putting a movie onto video tape. Let's say, for argument's sake, that a movie screen is two and a half times as wide as it is high (not an unreasonable estimate). It might look something like this: But when you transfer it to a television screen, which is only a little bit wider than it is high, it ends up looking like this:

Not a fan of science-fiction? Here's an example from Mel Brooks' western comedy, Blazing Saddles: As opposed to this:

So when they letterbox it, they're making sure that the whole image, from left to right, is on the television screen. Of course, when they do this, the image will not fill the television screen from top to bottom. Thus the black bands on the screen. As you can see, you aren't getting the whole picture unless you get the letterboxed edition. Would you want to watch a movie and only hear half the dialogue? Watching a widescreen movie that isn't letterboxed for video is virtually the same thing. That's why all educated film connoisseurs insist on the letterbox version. As Paul Harvey might say, "And that's the rest...of the picture."