French Scope?

[James Steven Beverly]

I was watching the 12 part , 6 hour 1962 Francois Truffaut's interview with Alfred Hitchcock on Youtube which was GREAT and you ALL should watch it. Hitchcock was speaking about "Vertigo" and the "Hitchcock Effect" which Hitchcock said took 15 years to make happen, Truffaut mentioned another effect he had used on a film after they talked about the crane shot in "Notorious" that involved a zoom while moving the camera to alleviate lens distortion at the beginning and end of the camera move. During this Hitchcock asked if Truffaut was shooting 'scope and Truffaut replied he was shooting "French 'scope" at the time which is a term I'm not familiar with . I'm wondering if by "French 'scope, he was talking about European Widescreen (1:66) or a different aspect ratio. Anyone ever hear of "French 'scope" ?

Edited May 18, 2013 by James Steven Beverly

[Brian Drysdale]

There has been a number of anamorphic systems going under various names and used in different counties. Dyaliscope could be the suspect, since this seems to have been used used on some of Truffaut's films.

[John Holland]

There was a Anamorphic system called "Franscope" . It was used a lot in the 70's in France and a few times in UK and other European countries.

[Brian Drysdale]

Could be "Franscope" since "Jules et Jim" seems to have been shot on it and that's around the time of the Hitchcock interview. Some of his earlier films had been shot on Dyaliscope.

[James Steven Beverly]

It is possible but actually, after a little research It has to be the Franscope made in France (and Czechoslovakia until 1959) which was the name given to the Cin'epanoramic lenses Ernst Abbe developed in 1953 then supplied to the French studios The lenses were 2:35 aspect ratio and used an anamorphic lens plus a corrective lens to avoid the anamorphic "mumps". I must have miss-heard what Truffaut said. His accent was pretty thick. Hitchcock seemed to know exactly what Truffaut was talking about as though he was familiar with the term or brand which leads me to suspect that it was a relatively common used term at least in Europe.

 

http://franscope.blogspot.com/

[James Steven Beverly]

Could be "Franscope" since "Jules et Jim" seems to have been shot on it and that's around the time of the Hitchcock interview. Some of his earlier films had been shot on Dyaliscope.

Yeah, Truffaut mentioned Jules et Jim, I'd call this mystery solved!

[alan doyle]

i have an old studio lens that ended up at one of the uk studios in the 70s.

it had been used on shoot the pianist i think could have been jules et jim

known to be sharp at the time..pretty soft wide open a heavy stop is needed..

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/34211301@N00/8336906516/

Edited May 18, 2013 by alan doyle

[alan doyle]

franscope

 

 

 

dyaliscope

[Chris Burke]

Le caress?? Love it.

[Alan Siqueira]

^{In this video Raoul Coutard explain the differences between Cinescope and Frenchscope.}

 

[James Steven Beverly]

OH, One correction. I said the Truffaut / Hitchcock interview was 12 episodes long at about 6 hours, WRONG! I'm currently at 17 episodes, know there is an 18th episode and are probably MORE!! Again, I urge EVERYONE on this forum to watch it. It is fascinating with a lot of inside dope on what happened during the making of his films from the silent era when he was an Art Director of the title cards on silent movies to everything else he did up to 1962 when the interview was shot. Also included is his childhood and what he did BEFORE he got into film. (BTW, it's audio only but he describes everything so there is no real reason to include video on this one and one can do other things while listening, I've been story boarding and finding images for my mock up poster of "Dollie" to use as reference)

[dan kessler]

I have an anamorphic attachment like this, too.

It's called "totalvision" I think, but it was definitely made in France

When I bought it several years ago, I took it to Paul Duclos, who

cleaned it up and seemed impressed with its performance.

That made me feel pretty good about it.

[Maximilian Hillmer]

There are exactly 25 episodes of the interview from Alfred Hitchcock and Francois Truffaut in 1962.

The episodes from 20 to 25 are very rare but full of funny and worth knowing content.

 

They are called : 20 L'économie du Point de Vu (Rear Window)

21 Le Suspense ou la Surpris (Vertigo)

22 Autour des 400 coups (North By Northwest and The 400 Blows)

23 La Position de la Caméra (Psycho)

24 Le Son (The Birds)

25 La Figure du Péché L'oe (Psycho and characters in films)

[James Steven Beverly]

25 COOL!!! I am SOO looking forward to watch the rest of these, *I'm on 17 right now!

[Maximilian Hillmer]

If you want i can send you the rest from 18 to 25... Just give me your mail ad

[Maximilian Hillmer]

I like especially the work of Raoul Coutard in the early 60's. Beautiful shots...