Almost everyone involved in the film, including director Franklin Schaffner, was opposed to opening the film as Mr. Coppola had written it, with Patton addressing the audience while standing in front of a screen-filling American flag.
Look at Amy Adams in closeup, for instance, all the scarier for being so perky and correct, her features filling the screen as she quizzes the reprobate.
Seen properly, the best early movies were a revelation, particularly the sight of actors in closeup filling a screen fifty feet or more across the diagonal, they presented a new landscape of flesh that astonished viewers.