smudge

Just re-reading Marky B's post on LIFE FOR RUTH in favourite British films. It's an excellenct film, with some good performances (but you have to be in the mood to watch it, I think.)

I feel that the dramatic impetus is added to by the film being shot in monochrome ; there is just so much more you can do with light & shade in that form.

Set me thinking - what are your fave B&Ws ? I know that stuff like HELL DRIVERS and THE LEAGUE OF GENTLEMEN just WORK in B&W, and I could never imagine them in colour. Much as the colourised version of SCROOGE detracts - an interesting experiment, but a distraction all the same.

A colour BRIEF ENCOUNTER would be unimaginable ; but I have a strange curiosity to see a colour THE DAY THE EARTH CAUGHT FIRE... eek!

How about it ladies and gents - what films just work for you in B&W ? Or what films would you have had made in the opposite spectrum to their original ? wink

SMUDGE

Welcome to my house. Enter freely, and of your own will...

Steve Crook

What would I have had made in the opposite spectrum to their original? I'm fairly certain my answer would be "None".

B&W photography and cinematography is a quite differen art to colour photography or cinematography. The things you try to capture are totally different. You can't change from one to another by just adding or removing colour,

Anyone involved in Colorized films should be ashamed of themselves. They are a travesty.

It's just about possible to watch a colour film in B&W but you never know how much you are missing. It can do no more than give you an idea of the original.

I would quote production designer Hein Heckroth talking about The Tales of Hoffmann (1951): "On screen it says the first act takes place in Paris. This is not true - it takes place in yellow with, of course, some other colours to play against."

Steve

Steve Crook

PaPAS

sanndevil

Smudge - the DVD version of THE DAY THE EARTH CAUGHT FIRE has the restored bright orange duotone beginning and end scenes. Very effective in contrast to the deliberately dreary b/w photography of the middle segments.

Cheers
Nigel

MrT

In general colorisation of black and white films is not a good thing for people who know and love the originals - fortunately not many British classics have been subjected to this and let's hope it remains that way. TCM sometimes show a colorised version of Robert Donat's The Citadel (1938) - technically quite well done and I was almost won over by it until a PURPLE London bus trundled into view - I thought the big RED London bus was known throughout the world! The excuse for colorising films that it makes them "acceptable" to younger audiences should be firmly rejected. The Laurel and Hardy films have been "Modernised" in this way, and again, although technically brilliant no doubt, just don't look right. The most acceptable colorised version is "The Music Box" , mainly becuase it is nearly all exterior shots - colorisation of exteriors seems to work much better than interiors that tend to be given very bland pastel shades that don't look genuine. But in principle black and white films should be left alone and enjoyed in the format that was intended.
Best wishes
Mike
(MrT)

DB7

The orange-tinted bookends do well to emphasize the temperature rise but had they been used throughout the fog scenes in particular would have looked ridiculous with London engulfed in orange fog.

The noirish films like The Third Man or The October Man and perhaps perfectly suited to b&w photography.

I'd like to have seen Billy Liar given the alternative AMOLAD treatment; the main film shot in b&w but the dream sequences shot in colour.

smudge

Mmmm -

Just as I suspected, a lot of feeling for B&W :)

The whole colourised debate will roll on and on, I am sure. One day - maybe - they will have the colour grading technology to to this PROPERLY, but I am sure that none of us will ever be convinced.

It is such a shame how B&W has come to be thought of and treated in the modern era. I had the kids of an old schoolfriend over one day and was demonstrating the Home Cinema set up to them. B&W was an alien planet !

I haven't watched my copy of DAY THE EARTH CAUGHT FIRE for ages, but the tinted bits were very striking when I first saw them.

DoP Freddie Francis used to have a set of filters which gave W/S images a coloured halo. These were treated as a grand innovation at the time, but I am afraid that I have to say (sorry Freddie !) that I have always found them to be an unsettling distraction. blush

I like DB7's idea for BILLY LIAR ; now that WOULD have been interesting.... wink

So - is it an adamant 'leave things alone' vote then folks ?

SMUDGE

Welcome to my house. Enter freely, and of your own will...

DB7

It's not just a film luddite viewpoint. Recent films like Twentyfourseven and Following were shot in b&w because they were low-budget indies but the results are very satisfying.

Steve Crook

But then wouldn't that, like the Wizard of Oz, be getting it the wrong way around?

In AMOLAD, we know that this world is in glorious Technicolor so that's how it's shown. We don't know about any other world, or dream sequence. That might be in B&W or it might involve some other sense that has as much meaning to us in this world as colour does to a blind man.

Steve

Steve Crook

PaPAS

Steve Crook

I'm glad there is still a lot of feeling for it.

How can there ever be "appropriate technology"?
It's like changing the whole soundtrack of a film (including the voices), or drawing a moustache on the Mona Lisa. Would anyone ever consider doing that?

It's certainly an adamant 'leave things as they were intended to be seen' from me.

Steve

Steve Crook

PaPAS

DB7

Not really. Everyday life in a grim Northern town portrayed in monochrome and your dreams depicted in colour conveys a sense of wanting away from your humdrum reality to a more colourful or cosmopolitan existence.

Then have a final dream sequence in b&w when Billy hops off the train (like you'd leave Julie Christie wink ) and heads home.

Gibbie

Well stated Steve!

Gibbie

DB7 that would make for an interesting film for someone who is trying to get out of a stark reality, like a Dickensian or Orwellian novel.

glyn horton

The view that 'colourised' films will be more acceptable to younger audiences is something I've always found bizarre. If so, why have so many pop bands made their videos in black and white - it dosen't seem to have affected their popularity. Colourisation is not art, it's paint by numbers mentality and the fact is, where does it end. Redub a new soundtrack? Add a few swear words? Leave it alone, because if you tolerate this...

Gibbie

Good point, Glyn!
The B&W asthetic is a pre-68 sentimental pop notion, which has a strong place for many born after 1959.
The colourization mindset is usually a business one. I think Ted Turner started this one, with the new product revised version - a marketing notion (add color or scenes and repackage).