# B&W that should be in color (and vice versa) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 9, 2017, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/b-w-that-should-be-in-color-and-vice-versa/798393 "2017-10-09T16:35:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2017, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/b-w-that-should-be-in-color-and-vice-versa/798393/41 "2017-10-11T17:17:39Z")
Look at houses. Or clothes. People in general like beige, gray, cream, and black. Or at best, dull earth tones and washed out pastels. I feel like an extreme outlier as someone who actually prefers real, bold color. Embrace the rainbow! ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2017, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/b-w-that-should-be-in-color-and-vice-versa/798393/42 "2017-10-11T17:18:09Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > And yet today, directors are [draining their films of color](https://qph.ec.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-c42ff6fa11eeda9f38696d6d6e664e9e), or [reducing](https://priceonomics.com/why-every-movie-looks-sort-of-orange-and-blue/) them to [orange](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/presentation2part2-filmlightinglightandcolour-101122144919-phpapp01/95/film-lighting-light-and-colour-part-2-19-638.jpg) and [blue](https://digitalsynopsis.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/cinema-palettes-famous-movie-colors-the-revenant.jpg). Compared to [earlier](http://cdn.barstoolsports.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/07/nintchdbpict000299439837.jpg) [color films](https://qph.ec.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-6ebf6e75c4be0af95f596ad4ede3e419), this is basically proving you wrong. We had color. People have subsequently chosen to make films essentially colorless, or minimize coloring by working with a restricted palette. And there’s definitely nothing “realistic” about modern cinematography. One thing that annoyed me about It was the filtering of the color. It looked like shit and was distracting. ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2017, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/b-w-that-should-be-in-color-and-vice-versa/798393/43 "2017-10-11T17:36:57Z")
> [@Jennshark](#): > > We recently bought a giant 40-quidillion digi-pixel whatever TV (my wife takes care of the techy stuff, I don’t really know what the TV is); I have to say that many of the black and white films on TCM look AMAZING – almost 3D in depth and definition. > > I don’t know why this would be, since they obviously weren’t filmed in digital, but it’s quite luscious. It’s probably some kind of travesty of distortion of the originals, but I remain . . . transfixed. [This illustration](https://tharaiticketu.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/film-to-digital.jpg) shows that 16mm film has far better resolution than regular HD (not shown, but it’s smaller than the smallest box in the picture), and 35mm film (which the vast majority of motion pictures used in the 20th Century) has far better resolution than 4K Ultra HD. So there’s no travesty of distortion, you’re just seeing the quality diminished _less than you’re used to_ with regular TV. That classic movie was far more “High Definition” in theaters in the 1940s than it ever has been on TV. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2017, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/b-w-that-should-be-in-color-and-vice-versa/798393/44 "2017-10-11T17:40:13Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > [This illustration](https://tharaiticketu.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/film-to-digital.jpg) shows that 16mm film has far better resolution than regular HD. How so? It only shows format size, so far as I can tell. ---
**Author:** ![cormac262](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f14d63/32.png) [@cormac262](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cormac262)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2017, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/b-w-that-should-be-in-color-and-vice-versa/798393/45 "2017-10-11T17:41:39Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > And yet today, directors are [draining their films of color](https://qph.ec.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-c42ff6fa11eeda9f38696d6d6e664e9e), or [reducing](https://priceonomics.com/why-every-movie-looks-sort-of-orange-and-blue/) them to [orange](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/presentation2part2-filmlightinglightandcolour-101122144919-phpapp01/95/film-lighting-light-and-colour-part-2-19-638.jpg) and [blue](https://digitalsynopsis.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/cinema-palettes-famous-movie-colors-the-revenant.jpg). Compared to [earlier](http://cdn.barstoolsports.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/07/nintchdbpict000299439837.jpg) [color films](https://qph.ec.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-6ebf6e75c4be0af95f596ad4ede3e419), this is basically proving you wrong. We had color. People have subsequently chosen to make films essentially colorless, or minimize coloring by working with a restricted palette. And there’s definitely nothing “realistic” about modern cinematography. It’s actually gone to both extremes: draining color as well as over-saturating color (Bruckheimer movies). Both seem to be attempts at making something “different” than “realistic” color with arguable success. As I think of the OP, I can think of more color movies that I think would have been great as B&W…provided the lighting was done knowing it was B&W: - I think “Chinatown” would have been great in B&W - Just as “Mad Max Fury Road” worked in B&W, I think movies depicting a wasteland would work well in B&W. Like “The Book of Eli” - I also think period pieces work well in B&W. In particular, WWII movies. Just as “Schindler’s List” worked, I think “Saving Private Ryan” would have worked (maybe just the whole “flashback” scene - the bulk of the movie). Some period movies tend to work around the B&W by just making things hazy and like “old film” looking color. “Fat Man and Little Boy” comes to mind. Might as well just have done it in B&W IMO. Not only to match the spliced in footage, Steve Martin’s “Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid” worked well in B&W because it fit that noir type of movie. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2017, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/b-w-that-should-be-in-color-and-vice-versa/798393/46 "2017-10-11T17:47:16Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > Look at houses. Or clothes. People in general like beige, gray, cream, and black. Or at best, dull earth tones and washed out pastels. I feel like an extreme outlier as someone who actually prefers real, bold color. Embrace the rainbow! I’ve been saying this for years. In the 1940s and 1950s you see “Technicolor Color Consultant” as a regular movie credit. They often went out of their way to produce brilliant contrasting color images. It continued on into the 1960s and 1970s – Disney animation, **2001** , and all the [B\Star Wars\*\* movies were riots of bright, brilliant colors. At the same time, the use of Color Consultants waned, and starting in the 1960s they let colors get muddier and colors toned down. Sometimes it was the filkmmmakers simply not caring, or not setting up the shots to take advantage of the color (or poor color stock), but lately it’s been a deliberate choice. I know they went to a lot of trouble to deliberately drain the color out of _O Brother, Where Art Thou?_, using extensive computer color manipulation, but I hate the result ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2017, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/b-w-that-should-be-in-color-and-vice-versa/798393/47 "2017-10-11T17:47:49Z")
_O Brother, Where Art Thou?_ probably would have worked in B&W. The whole thing is practically sepia-toned as it is. ETA: heh. Simulpost. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/b-w-that-should-be-in-color-and-vice-versa/798393.md?page=2)