CinemaScope Summer

July 11–Sept. 17

Introduced in 1953 by 20th Century–Fox, CinemaScope was Hollywood’s biggest bid to ensure theatrical entertainment held sway over broadcast television, which had grown rapidly since its commercial expansion in the late ‘40s. Utilizing anamorphic lenses developed by inventor Henri Chrétien that captured a wider image than previous formats, CinemaScope ensured that the motion-picture image would have a scale no tiny screen could compete with — and stories to match. As the pioneers of the format, 20th Century–Fox were the most invested in it, but in time all major American studios would make films in some version of the format (originally a 2.55:1 ratio, later standardized at 2.35:1 to include sound-on-film soundtracks). In Hollywood, the medium was utilized for spectacular genres like ancient-world epics, musicals and wide-horizon westerns, but innovative CinemaScope films also came from overseas in Italy, France, the USSR and Japan. (See our Tatsuya Nakadai restrospective for some examples.)

See more CinemaScope films in our Marilyn Monroe centennial series.

CinemaScope Summer is also part of Big Screen Summer, co-curated by AFI Silver, the National Gallery of Art, the National Museum of Asian Art and film scholar Lalitha Gopalan.