GR film sprocket holes and vistaVision

[mikebailey]

wouldn't this imply that the received wisdom about his wanting
to use Porky Pig images for section dividers but being balked by
copyright restrictions or something is wrong?

 but the fact is, GR is replete with film references, and knowledgeable-
enough-sounding use of names of particular types of film, so you
certainly may be onto something here.  Something that I learned from
the fragmentary group read of 2005 was that it's quite possible to
find a frame-tale involving a bombed movie theater, and the entire
plot in-between sandwiched as the actual movie being shown...

On Wed, 25 Apr 2007, [UTF-8] Clément Lévy wrote:

> 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)
>