GR film sprocket holes and vistaVision

[Clément Lévy]

Dear all, this is a second posting for the same message, as it was only sent
(sunday the 22nd at 00:58 CEST) to the archives' file, and not the list's
members (strange isn't it?).
I've been looking for informations on the seven sprocket holes used as
separators between chapters in Gravity's Rainbow, and couldn't find any
better and more authorized comment on the question than Gerald Howard's in
his short memoir about Cork Smith published in BookForum. He also quotes one
of the closest editors of the text, Edwin Kennebeck:
http://www.bookforum.com/archive/sum_05/pynchon.html
I should close the file with him, saying: "Sometimes a rectangle is just a
rectangle." [this reference has already been quoted a few times on the List]

And yet, I found some funny information about large film formats. One of
them, still currently used, is called VistaVision, and was copyrighted by
Paramount in the early 1950's.
Here's my source: the Widescreen Museum:
http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/widescreen/wingvv1.htm

The funny thing about it is the big letter V in the middle of its name.

And something interesting: this film travels horizontally in the camera as
well as in the projector. It has 8 sprocket-holes per picture. If 6 was 9
(Hendrix 1967), 8 could be 7! Usual 35 mm films travel vertically between
the light and the lens, but many films made for very wide screens travel
horizontally (IMAX too). Calling these seven square film sprocket-holes was
not a wrong idea.

Some of the movies made using this format are quite famous, so you'll have a
very long list on the IMDB:
http://www.imdb.com/SearchTechnical?PCS:VistaVision
And a shorter list here:
http://www.dvdaust.com/film_formats.htm#VistaVision%20Film%20List

Among them a few Hitchcock, films I never watched like Strategic Air
Command(1955), An
Alligator Named Daisy (1955), some western-movies: Gunfight at the OK
Corrall (and Pardners, starring Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis), AND De Mille's
Ten Commandments . I cannot guess what every title means, there are also
more recent Japanese films, but also musicals like High Society and Italian
horror-films. It could mean anything, but for sure it sounds like some of
the best scoring movies on the box-office, at least between 1954 and 1961,
showed a big central V during their opening credits, V for VistaVision, and
if we want the so-called "sprocket-holes" to mean something to Thomas
Pynchon, we should look carefully at these VV movies.

I'd be glad to hear what you think about all this (it could be only
coincidences, but to quote Borges: two times is a coincidence, but three
times is a proof!)
Clement Levy (hoping to join you soon on ATD/TDA)
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