Black and White films

Cafe Society
1

This thread got me thinking about B&W films. Most people nowadays seem not to like them, thinking they’re “missing something” by not having colour. (No cite; just my impression – and remember the colourization thing back in the '80s.) It’s as if people have become unable to see past the superficiality of whether a film is colour, and enjoy the story. It reminds me of the debate between fullscreen and widescreen, where people don’t care what the director and cinematographer wanted them to see; they just want their TV to be filled up.

Personally, I enjoy B&W films. Casablanca, linked above, is a wonderful film. Great characters, and a good story. Wonderful dialog, too. But there have been other, more recent B&W films. Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man is great. After seeing it several times, I’ve concluded that it wouldn’t “work” in colour. Then there’s Clerks. I’ll bet it was shot in B&W because it’s cheaper than colour. I think it would work as a colour film. But being B&W did not detract in any way from the story.

And the story is the important thing. There were a lot of outstanding pictures made in B&W. Of course at the time, it was the only option; or colour was just too expensive. This was a time when studios “mass produced” films, so they had to be selective about their film stock.

But audiences didn’t seem to care. They went for the story.

It’s a Wonderful Life is one of many films that was colourized in the 1980s. For me, it seemed to “lose” something in the translation. I suppose that I felt (and still feel) that there was no need to do it; B&W is fine. They were just pandering to an audience that had no inkling of what a good film actually was, and that had so little taste that they could not get over the fact that it’s B&W. While I picked It’s a Wonderful Life because it was the first colourized B&W film I’d seen, the same could be said about any good film.

A lot of people don’t care, but I do; there are certain lighting techniques used in B&W that don’t translate well when a film is colourized. Do audiences care about lighting? The majority probably do not. But there’s a lot of thought that goes into lighting a film, whether it’s colour or B&W.

I wasn’t alive in the heyday of B&W movie making (i.e., the 1950s and earlier), but I do have a sense of what the world was like back then. In the 1950s we had the “Red Scare”. In the 1940s there was WWII. In the 1930s there was the Depression. I think people wanted to see films that reflected the times. In the '50s they wanted allegories of the conflict between the East and the West (which was depicted well in science fiction films) or they wanted to vicariously experience, either in colour or B&W, the glamour of the times. In the 1940s they wanted to see Good conquor Evil. In the 1930s they wanted to escape the realities of a rotten economy (Pennies from Heaven), or they wanted to feel for the downtrodden (The Grapes of Wrath).

Today, people – especially teens and “young adults” – like fast-paced films with lots of cuts. It seems not to matter whether the film has a good story, but only that it’s “exciting”. (Independence Day comes to mind. Lots of eye-candy, but the story really sucked! Why couldn’t they have made Childhood’s End?) They seem to have lost the ability to comprehend a good movie. Many of which were made in B&W.

Since I like a good story, good acting, and good dialog, and since many films with these attributes were shot on B&W, I enjoy B&W films. But there’s more to it than that. B&W has a certain “feel” to it. As I’ve posted before, I want to make a short film. It just wouldn’t “work” in colour. It has to be B&W in order to fulfil my “vision”. And I like the look of the film noir films that were very popular in the late-1940s and 1950s. The lighting and shadows are wonderful. Sure, shadows can work on colour film; but I think it works better in B&W.

And then there’s the dialog. In earlier films, the dialog seemed to be more “snappy”. It’s a reflection of what people expected then versus now. of course. (Incidentally; while I love Lord of the Rings, John Rhys-Davies’s dialog bugged me. He was all “pithy one-liners” with little substance.) Not to say that there hasn’t been excellent dialog in recent films; it just seems “snappier” in films past.

If you’re a teen or 20-something, I urge you to set aside any prejudices you may have. Forget about quick edits, and think about the story you’re seeing. Notice the rich shades that can really only be delivered on B&W film. Think about the Zeitgeist of the era in which the films were made. Compare and contrast the problems faced by the characters of 60 years ago with the problems that modern characters face. Notice that some stories are eternal.

But most of all, enjoy the film; even if it’s Black and White.

2

My two daughters are okay with black & white, since I’ve been showing them b&w movies since they were sprats, but they do have problems with silents. The form is just too foreign to them: The pantomine-style acting, the stationary camera, the lack of dialogue. it just doesn’t appeal to them.

However, the other day my thirteen-year-old sat down with us (under protest) to watch the Fairbanks Thief of Bagdad, and when it was bedtime, wanted to keep on watching, so maybe I’m getting through to them (optimistic), or she was willing to undergo any sort of torture to Stay Up Late (pessimistic).

3

This reminds me of In the Land of the War Canoes:

Back then, you had to have a stationary camera. Although Curtis did have at least one motor-driven camera available to him, I’m not sure if he used in on this film. In any case, it would probably have been too heavy and unwieldy to move around. As for hand-cranked cameras, it would have been hard to crank it while carrying it! There were other early films that mounted the camera on a vehicle (such as a street car or a train), but basically they were just set on tripods. I have noticed the static shots, but I know the limitations of the equipment and it doesn’t bother me.

I think the “pantomime” acting came about because actors were used to being on-stage. I’ve worked with actors who have done a lot of stage work, and their movements do seem exaggerated. What they don’t realize is that movements on film need to be more subtle. But “back in the day”, it seems they hadn’t figured that out yet.

Actually, there is dialog; but it’s written instead of spoken.

I can see how these factors would be “foreign” to a lot of people; but there were still some damned fine movies! Wings (1927), for example.

As for In the Land of the War Canoes, it does have some problems. Much of the footage – indeed, entire scenes – were lost to time due to deterioration of the film. This is a shining example of why we need to continue and expand efforts to rescue old footage. (In my opinion, the government should fund the project so that these films can be saved on a massive scale – a greater scale then the efforts currently undertaken by private societies.) Imagine the wonderful footage that has already been reduces to brow-red dust and is gone forever! But in spite of its problems, In the Land of the War Canoes is special to me not just as a film, but for the effort it took to make. Curtis filmed it in 1914 in a remote part of Vancouver Island. He used heavy, awkward equipment that had to be transported by boat. He recreated a Kwakiutl village by erecting “flats” to represent long-houses. In a time before movie-lights, he had to recreate “interiors” outside. And despite critical success, he lost all of his money on it. Heck a movie about “The Making Of In the Land of the War Canoes” would be a great drama!

Yeah, even the more accessable films by Buster Keaton, Laurel & Hardy, etc. “suffer” from lack of sound; but many of the images are classic and hold up well to this day.

[sub]PS: No, that’s not my site that I quoted.[/sub]

4

As I posted in the other thread, I kind of lack black and white movies, while Mrs. Kunilou doesn’t.

I think there are two problems.

First, pretty much anyone under the age of 40 grew up with color TV. Their only exposure to black and white were things like Three Stooges shorts and other filler material, which, let’s face it, are not cinematic masterpieces. Color is second nature to them, like hearing music in stereo.

For those of us who are old enough to remember black and white TV, the pictures were lousy. All the things that great black and white cinematography are noted for – the use of light and shadow, sharpness of detail, etc. --were lost on the low-contrast, fuzzy images on our TVs. And even by the TV era, most theatrical movies were being released in color.

5

Story, direction and acting are all important to a film being viable. If any of those things are missing, throw in some sex and things blowing up (A la ID4). However, when a movie does have a good story, direction and acting it doesn’t matter if it is colour or B&W. I can’t imagine Raging Bull or Pi or Dead Man in colour. There is a reason why some movies are still shot in B&W. Anybody who dismisses a movie if it is in black and white should probably go and see the latest Michael Bay movie because they would probably miss the point of a movie that didn’t have to rely on flashy colours.

6

I have a real affinity to B&W films and when I see them on cable, I nearly always stop to see what they are. It’s not the B&W that makes a difference, but the fact that they tried harder to be entertaining than many more modern films.

However, it’s stupid to condemn (or praise) a film simply because it’s B&W. There are thousands of great B&W films that are well worth watching.

7

Woody Allen shoots in B&W sometimes. I don’t think it added much to Celebrity, but it worked wonders for Broadway Danny Rose, which I’ve seen at least 15 times and couldn’t even imagine with color.

B&W is particularly useful when the main story is one of isolation and loneliness, because it tends to distance the characters from each other and also make them seem less real.

–Cliffy

8

True. There is a certain beauty to B&W film that is often missing from colour films. When a film is good, so much the better. And this is what I think many people are missing nowadays. Many people do dismiss a film simply because of the film stock.

9

I watch B&W movies all the time and they’re essential, IMHO, if you’re even remotely interested in being a sophisticated moviegoer. However, I must take issue with:

There are innumerable silent films that don’t have stationary cameras. Ever seen The Crowd, Sunrise, The Last Laugh, Napoleon, Variety or anything by Buster Keaton? The lack of sound liberated cameras in the silent era, not tied them down. Sure, if you’re looking at something c.1910, you’re more likely to see static shots. But the technology and artistry quickly learned that moving pictures are often more exciting when the camera moves, and there are plenty of examples to support this.

In fact, the stationary camera was more prevalent with the advent of sound, because the technical limitations of the audio recording prevented the camera from having the mobility it used to have in the silent era. Check out most anything from 1927 and compare it to anything from 1929, and you can see how dramatic the difference in visual language is because of the need to nail the camera down when recording synchronized sound.

There are many misconceptions about silent films (they’re all scratchy, all the acting is broad, the music accompaniment is merely filler), and this is just another one.

10

Geez, so many of my favourite films are monochrome.

“Colorized” films are offensive. CBC used to play a few of the Turnerized classics after midnight back in the eighties. People in my house would wonder why the colour saturation was turned all the way down the next day. I can’t stand it. Arsenic and Old Lace should not be in eye-raping colour. Sheesh.

The worst one I ever saw was Suddenly, in which the film-illiterate Turner techs gave Frank Sinatra shit-brown eyes. That may have been the same one in which a main character’s sportcoat randomly alternated between chartreuse and baboonass purple from scene to scene, I don’t know.

I can’t comprehend why someone would want to watch Gus Van Sandt’s “shot-for-shot” remake of Psycho instead of the original. You want to do another adaptation of Robert Bloch’s novel? Fine! Hell, if someone made another Psycho II, based on Robert Bloch’s sequel (totally ignored by the screenwriters of the POS movie sequel,) I’d dance naked in the streets.

But what the hell is the point of trying to shoot the exact same movie decades later, with a different cast? “Ooooooh! It’s in colour now!” I like Gus Van Sandt and all, but geez, what was he thinking? Why hasn’t anyone gotten around to painting another version of Whistler’s Mother with a more fashionable dress? Oh, right, because it’s a ridiculously stupid idea.

11

Whether or not the actor had blue eyes, who said the character had blue eyes?

12

I am NOT offended by the colouization of black and white movies. I think it adds nothing, but it isn’t the disaster all the movie snobs I know bitch about either.

Colour is a very small component of most movies (exceptions stuff like Dick Tracy, etc.). Whether it is B&W or colour is not of much consequence to me personally.

Many of my favourite films are B&W, many are subtitled too.

13

I mentioned silent films’ lack of camera movement, pantomine-style acting, and lack of (spoken) dialog earlier, but I think some of you may have gotten the wrong impression. I understand the reasons for all these, and I didn’t really mean it as criticism of silent movies; it’s just ways that they differ from what my young-uns are used to. Silents are different, that’s all; not worse, not better, just different.

Someone else mentioned that camera movements aren’t all that uncommon in silents, and certainly they’re not unknown; I recall that Svengali has a gorgeous shot which zooms out of the heroine’s bedroom, across the city, and into the villian’s room. But that shot wowed me because it was so unexpected, and Thief of Bagdad (and Son of Zorro) have no camera motion whatsoever; the scenes are staged as though each was a little play, with you as the theatre audience. And I don’t recall a lot of camera motion in the Keaton stuff I’ve seen, either, but checking for it will give me a good excuse to watch The General again :wink:

14

I find it bizarre to see “black and white” trotted out as though it were actually a film genre. (The same goes for “films with subtitles.”) It’s a broad description that tells you pretty much nothing about what kind of movie you’re about to see.

Saying “I don’t like black and white movies” makes about as much sense to me as saying “I don’t like paperback books, I only read hardcover” or “I don’t bother looking at paintings unless they’re oil; watercolors just seem so fake.”

It wouldn’t surprise me at all to hear that people actually have those preferences, but they seem like awfully shallow distinctions to me.

15

What the hell kind of lousy silent films were you showing them? Pantomime-style acting and stationary cameras were a thing of the past by 1910!

16

The six year old I babbysit for LOVES silents. The first one we watched together was “Nanook of the North,” when she was five, and she never took her eyes off it. She was fascinated to learn that, a long time ago, we hadn’t yet figured out a good way to make movies in color, or to make them with sound. This turned into a discussion on the concept of inventions and technological advancement, which she’d never considered. Now she has a sense that things change, and she likes to “invent” things too. She’s decided she’s going to be a zoologist (she’s obsessed with snakes), and she was utterly enthralled with the hunting and fishing sequences, not to mention the igloo building. She also loves practicing her reading on the intertitles. For the same reason, she loves foreign films too. Children of Heaven, and she’s become fascinated to learn about other children in other parts of the world live and speak.

I think if you approach it the right way–not thinking of black and white or silent films as if they were MISSING what modern films have, but as interesting documents in the technological context of their day–they’re every bit as fulfilling as any modern film. Moreso, it would seem: three or four of my personal lifetime topten are silents; I think the majority of the ten are black and white.

17

Can I get an amen? To condense everything into a nice sound bite that would make a nice, self-referential sig; Eve Rocks!

18

That scene really is a wowser, but Svengali (1931) is a talkie.

19

Well, heck.

20

A good black-and-white flick will have some of the most interesting set design and camera work. Citizen Kane, for instance. The use of shadow and other lighting effects is worth the whole movie.

I also like the sense of innocence that comes through in old b&w movies. The world was certainly different back then…if you overlook wars, injustice and all that other mean stuff.