Format question...

[st39.6]

I was at the mountains last week and since I cant stay one single day without watching some movie/TV show, I took whole season of Rome and tons of movies I have bought recently and didnt watch yet. One of them was O.Stone´s "JFK". I dont want to talk about the movie (it was amazing), but I had one problem with the DVD...

I played it on some portable DVD player (Sencor), which doesnt know how to work with non-anamorphic picture, means that it cant stretch 2.35:1 format into 16:9 if the video is in 4:3 - thats what happened to me with JFK.
The movie is presented in 4:3 video (WTF??!!), but its made in classical 2.35:1, so the picture on 16:9 was presented only in 4:3, yet the pic in 4:3 was 2.35:1 ....
Thats not really what I care for since I know that there are lots of OLD releases that have non-anamorphic picture in stupid 4:3.
What I thought was really strange was changing of format while playing ....

The movie begins with some shots of JFK, all the shots are in REAL 4:3, yet after few mins, the vid switches into 2.35:1.
My question is: how could this work in theatres? I mean if the 4:3 intro would be kept IN 2.35:1, then ok, but this was 4:3 and then it switched format.
Not to mention that its totally stupid to switch formats in movie /even tho if there are some TV shots/. Its just stupid edition with BAD video, but how the hell could this work in cinemas?....











(btw I know this could be in Technical problems, but somehow I think it more belongs to Non-movie related)

[Jean-Pierre Bazinet]

It's very easy. Unless I'm misunderstanding your question.
In theatres, the 4:3 part would be 'kept in' as you said the 2.35 part.
I assume they change it for dvd because they could.
They don't have that luxury in theatres because the screen height would need to be adjusted.