Wednesday, September 4, 8:30 p.m. | David Bordwell was a student of aspect ratios: not just their technical particulars, but the ways in which they could be deployed for narrative or aesthetic purposes. The release of Wes Anderson's THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL moved him to contribute an essay on the film's use of aspect ratios to the Budapest-focused volume of my series of pictorial criticism books, The Wes Anderson Collection (WAC). Pushing the director's boxes-within-boxes tendencies as far as they'd been up to that point in time, Anderson's epic comedy switched between three ratios: the boxy 1:37 to 1 "Academy" format for the main storyline set in the 1930s; 2:39 to 1 (narrow and wide, typically used for spectacles) for the narrator's recollections of the '30s in 1968; and 1:85 to 1 for two more storytelling enclosures (set in 1985 and 2014). Bordwell would go on to write two more essays for the WAC series, for volumes covering THE FRENCH DISPATCH and ASTEROID CITY. (Matt Zoller Seitz, Editor at Large, RogerEbert.com)

Awards & Nominations

Nominee - Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Original Screenplay, Academy Awards
Winner - Best Costume Design, Best Makeup and Hairstyling, Best Original Score, Best Production Design, Academy Awards

Remembering David Bordwell: David Bordwell (1947–2024), a beloved film scholar, passed away earlier this year at the age of 76. Bordwell’s impact and legacy is widespread: film curators and critics, cinephiles and casual viewers have been shaped, educated, and invigorated by Bordwell’s perspectives. With this series, we invited friends and colleagues of Bordwell’s to select a film that was special to him, in the hopes that, through these titles, we can pay tribute to his enthusiasm for cinema through our own. Read more

The Film Center is ADA accessible. This presentation will be projected without open captions. The theater is hearing-loop equipped. For accessibility requests, please email filmcenter@saic.edu