"Days of Heaven" in 70mm

[Joe Taylor]

Has anybody seen or in the know how "Days of Heaven" would have been blown up to 70mm back in the 70's? If I am not mistaken, this film was shot with spherical lens in 1.85. Would they have cropped the film down, to then blow up to 70mm?

[David Mullen ASC]

Has anybody seen or in the know how "Days of Heaven" would have been blown up to 70mm back in the 70's? If I am not mistaken, this film was shot with spherical lens in 1.85. Would they have cropped the film down, to then blow up to 70mm?

 

I saw the 70mm print several years ago but I don't recall the aspect ratio, but I seem to think it wasn't different than the 35mm version, i.e. it was a hard-matted 1.85 image on a 2.20 : 1 70mm print. However, looking online, there seems to be a controversy about this because some people swear it was shown 2.20 : 1 in 70mm. I would like to think that would have struck me when I saw it in 70mm that it had been altered from the 1.85 35mm version. But who knows.

 

I definitely recall the 70mm print of "E.T." being matted on the sides to 1.85.

[Leo Anthony Vale]

I don't have a copy of Almendros' 'A Man with a Camera' with me, but I recall that in the filmography, which includes some tech specs including aspect ratios, That the AR of 'Days of Heaven' was inbetween 2/1 and 2.1/1.

 

Was it shot this way with a 70mm blow up in mind or was it the simply the AR of the 70mm prints?

I don't know.

[Jean Dodge]

I, too saw DAYS OF HEAVEN in 70mm once.... on the day it came out! So forgive me if I can't recall the aspect ratio. In the years since I've only seen it in 35mm 1:1.85. I do know it had a life-altering, profound impact on me at the time, and part of that had to be due to the HUGE screen it was shown on. But mostly it was just the excellent work by Terry and Nestor that made it so... I'm leaning towards saying it was hard matted - it would be criminal to crop the compositions of such a carefully composed film.