Colour versus Black & White

[cornershop15]

I have watched hundreds of films and thousands of television episodes and broadcasts over the last 40 years. The overwhelming majority of the small-screen productions have been in colour, wheras my interest in films mainly peaks in the Sixties, the decade when black-and-white was gradually being phased out but still had the power to haunt, with films such as Seconds and Night Of The Living Dead. As a matter of fact, I could easily think of a Top 10 favourite B&W films - City Lights, The 39 Steps,My Man Godfrey, Citizen Kane, The Lost Weekend, Sunset Boulevard, Twelve Angry Men, The Apartment, The L-Shaped Room and Love With The Proper Stranger. Not enough Hitchcock and Chaplin movies? No room for Patterns or Some Like It Hot? Better make it a Top 20 then!



This should convince you that I LOVE many Black & White films but I've been going through some kind of crisis in the last year. For one thing, I feel a bit guilty for enjoying digitally-restored TV shows from the Sixties in the colour they were meant to be seen in but at a time when they could only be broadcast in grainy Black & White (a lot of you here will know what that was like). These include Man In A Suitcase, The Champions, and of course The Prisoner. I can remember the latter's 1970 repeat with Patrick McGoohan's famous cry "I am not a number, I'm a free man!" and even the moment when Peter Wyngarde is seen on a boat's TV screen in the Checkmate episode. Maybe that's where both memories come from? As I was only about six when my parents introduced me to colour TV, I recall very few B&W moments from my early years.



The other thing that's affected my viewing of Black and White is the frustration of NOT KNOWING what the colours are. It really shouldn't make any difference if one's engrossed in the action but while watching Life At The Top last night I had that nagging curiosity resurfacing occasionally. This has only started to bother me since I chanced upon this photograph, taken on the set of the great B&W horror film Repulsion. It shows Catherine Deneuve filming the bath scene, where she dumps boyfriend John Fraser's body, and wearing an ORANGE negligee. Not white, as I thought for 25 years - orange.







This is obviously one of many examples but that's the one that shocked me most - I took it for granted Catherine was a 'Woman In White'. Like Psycho, the film noirs of the 1940s and 50s and doubtless many others, there are Black & White films which seem to take you into their own world and create a unique atmosphere that colour can't (too real perhaps, and 'bland' in comparison'?). I really am at a loss. Part of me wants to celebrate the interesting use of light and shadows in Farewell, My Lovely or Ace In The Hole, but the other part wants to see how it would look in colour. Some films have both - like If ...!



The Wizard Of Oz and A Matter Of Life And Death are two examples of films where there's a change from black-and-white to colour and vice-versa.. There have been colourised versions of B&W classics, such as Alistair Sim in Scrooge and various Laurel and Hardy films but, thank goodness, I've been put off by their falseness. I would like to know from others whether they've had the same frustrations or at least wondered what colours were used in their favourite B&W films.



In closing, I've just reminded myself that the famous film Jezebel has Bette Davis wearing a red dress at some point. I've seen this film, years ago on Channel 4, but can't recall what happened - how was the scene handled if it was in Black & White? I hope someone can tell me. Please share your thoughts. I also have a 'companion' in mind for this thread, something like 'Film v Video', which is to do with the unusual 60s & 70s habit of combining film for locations and video tape for studio work. Maybe others can describe it better but it's just an idea at the moment.

[ram4553]

Intriguing questions--what the eye sees, what the mind filters.



I've seen color photos taken on the sets of movies released in B&W. They don't register with me as "the reel world" of the movie as I know it. They seem so separate. I think I focus on actors' faces/expressions/bodies in those photos, more than anything, ignoring color.



Seeing red. Jezebel. Someone please correct me; it's been awhile since I've viewed that grand entertainment. I recall tradition dictated that ladies wear white gowns to the social-event-of-the-season ball. Several mentions are made of Davis's red gown leading up to her arrival. When she removes her cape, she sure stands out in the crowd of (what I remember as being) very frilly, lacey, proper gowns.



The weight, style, texture of her gown reinforce the stark contrast. I've heard many discussions about Davis' films, and someone citing a fave moment invariably says: Oh and when she shows up in that red dress... When of course the film is B&W. The emotional intensity of that scene--and I guess expert costuming--is a knockout. Such a defining moment for the character. You really feel the consequences of her wearing that red dress...in B&W.

[Steve Crook]

name='cornershop15']This has only started to bother me since I chanced upon this photograph, taken on the set of the great B&W horror film Repulsion. It shows Catherine Deneuve filming the bath scene, where she dumps boyfriend John Fraser's body, and wearing an ORANGE negligee. Not white, as I thought for 25 years - orange.

Does the colour of her negligible make any difference to the story?



Steve

[batman]

My favourite US film is On The Waterfront. When I first saw it I was rather taken by the red and black checked jacket Brando wears at the start. So I tracked down one just like it and wore it with pride for many years ..... until I came across a rare colour still from the film and found out that it was, in fact, a blue and black jacket!



It's still my favourite US film.

[CaptainWaggett]

name='ram4553']

Seeing red. Jezebel. Someone please correct me; it's been awhile since I've viewed that grand entertainment. I recall tradition dictated that ladies wear white gowns to the social-event-of-the-season ball. Several mentions are made of Davis's red gown leading up to her arrival. When she removes her cape, she sure stands out in the crowd of (what I remember as being) very frilly, lacey, proper gowns.

The red dress was brown in Real Life...

[dpgmel]

name='CaptainWaggett']The red dress was brown in Real Life...

..and wasn't the " blood " in Psycho actually some sort of chocolate concoction ?

[faginsgirl]

I like b&W best, it is more atmospheric, in horror and mystery it is wonderful. Colour these days often emphasises gore and blood instead of storyline, just because they can.



xx

[dremble wedge]

I had a similar thought about the uniforms in The Hill







But it turns out they were uniform-coloured

[batman]

name='dpgmel']..and wasn't the " blood " in Psycho actually some sort of chocolate concoction ?

'Twas chocolate sauce apparently.

[Steve Crook]

name='faginsgirl']I like b&W best, it is more atmospheric, in horror and mystery it is wonderful. Colour these days often emphasises gore and blood instead of storyline, just because they can.



xx

Blood as seen in modern films is rarely the colour of the blood that anyone's actually spilled.



Steve

[jaycad]

name='faginsgirl']I like b&W best, it is more atmospheric, in horror and mystery it is wonderful. Colour these days often emphasises gore and blood instead of storyline, just because they can.



xx

i agree-a prime example of this is 'whistle and i'll come to you' from 1968

[ram4553]

name='CaptainWaggett']The red dress was brown in Real Life...

Right you are! I have high regard for the design and technical finesse that combined to suggest the gown's color was something other than black in that B&W movie.

[Dandelion]

Maybe older members' will remember the screen which when placed in front of the black and white TV gave the impression of colour.



Pretty grim it was, too!

[marker]

name='faginsgirl']I like b&W best, it is more atmospheric, in horror and mystery it is wonderful. Colour these days often emphasises gore and blood instead of storyline, just because they can.



xx

When I was a kid there was only b/w TV and when colour came along we could still only afford a b/w set,so I grew up watching everything in b/w.

I find it quite strange to see programs and films I watched in b/w now in colour

and it kind of confuses me as I always thought of them as b/w.

I suppose due to watching everything in b/w as a kid I find I don't like colour very much !! but as I watch few modern programs/films this is not a problem at all.

And these days I only watch television on restored 405 b/w line tvs so everything comes out b/w just like when I was a kid I have over a Hundred sets so they will see me out

[Moor Larkin]

Dreaming in black and white?



Black and white TV generation have monochrome dreams - Telegraph

[jaycad]

name='Dandelion']Maybe older members' will remember the screen which when placed in front of the black and white TV gave the impression of colour.



Pretty grim it was, too!

how bizarre!! having been brought up in the colour tv age,as a kid i used to imagine the past to have been in monochrome when my parents reminisced or my grandparents told me tales!!!

[marker]

name='Moor Larkin']Dreaming in black and white?



Black and white TV generation have monochrome dreams - Telegraph

I do dream in b/w its more simple

[Steve Crook]

name='jaycad;261958]

Maybe older members' will remember the screen which when placed in front of the black and white TV gave the impression of colour.



Pretty grim it was, too!

how bizarre!! having been brought up in the colour tv age,as a kid i used to imagine the past to have been in monochrome when my parents reminisced or my grandparents told me tales!!!

The ones I saw had a blue filter towards the top and a green filter towards the bottom. It worked surprisingly well on most landscape exteriors. It worked less well on things like Beau Geste or The Cruel Sea and was quite hopeless for anything set indoors



Steve

[Bernardo]

name='Moor Larkin']Dreaming in black and white?



Black and white TV generation have monochrome dreams - Telegraph

Add to TV photography as a hobby (and over 55).

On TV the old monochrome offerings lose the quality and become black and white as the contrast from the original prints has been corrupted. One of the most beautiful monochrome films is The Canterbury Tales. You need to look at it on the big screen to appreciate cinematography at its very best. (I quickly pass over the screenplay.) Again the expert cameramen can produce mood in mc by manipulating the exposure, choice of film stock and processing, contrasty grainy prints. Imagine wet pavement, streetlamp downlight with shadows and do not forget the lighting, it works so much better in monochrome, think of the uplighting in thrillers.

Someone mentioned the Wizard of Oz as two medium film. The best example surely is Pleasantville which is partly telling of the loss of innocence of US TV which coincided with transition of BW to colour TV. If you have not seen it do so, even if it is for its novelty in use of colour.

We live in a world of colour so it has to have the top position, the camera here still uses some of the old tricks with colour filters, early example South Pacific but now, with digital video technology, the use is getting quite sophisticated and increasingly used to set the mood, warm or cool, pastel or vivid. I am pleased to see this use of art and skill of the cinematography process and makes a change from chroma screen and CGIs.

[cornershop15]

Many thanks for all your replies. This certainly is an interesting subject. Marker's first post is what I was after regarding the issue of seeing colour shows in black-white. The way he described it, the advent of colour had a traumatic effect from which he's never recovered! I'm sorry! That's what I meant by the 'guilt' when watching the ITC shows. I should have considered the colour films as well. Is that why the James Bond films took so long to come to TV? From Russia With Love, my favourite Bond, is a particularly colourful movie, and I know for a fact this was first shown on (I)TV in 1976 - 13 years after it's original cinema release.



I am also aware that one of the reasons for that sickening practice of wiping TV shows was because they thought the next generation (including me) wouldn't be interested in Black & White TV. How wrong they were. That fourth series of Public Eye, the first surviving one in it's entirety would you believe, must haunt fellow-fan Marker as much as me. Incredible stuff. My father also prefers Black & White and only ever rates Coronation Street in it's early years, complaining that it's been "tarted up" with the colour.



I kind of had that feeling watching the first colour episode of Public Eye again recently, A Fixed Adress. Ironically, a later one, which was made in B&W because of an ITV strike, has a production still that's in colour. It's upset me a bit for the same reason as the Repulsion photo I included earlier - cult favourite Susan Broderick is wearing pink. "Ironic" in the sense that I was distracted by the colour in A Fixed Address, and found it easier to watch the B&W episodes, but mortified to discover the REALITY of Susan's pink clothing. It's an interesting subject but also an infuriating one! When I return I will have something that will interest Batman, a Special Branch fan like me, while Marker, a Black & White TV fan, may like one photo more than the other.



And finally ... Moor Larkin's link to dreaming in B&W brings back something. Possibly the first dreams I recall happened when I was about 6 or 7. The first was in black-and-white and had me rolling a tennis ball down a sloping path at (what I recognised as) Parkside by Gladstone Park, NW London. 'Uncle' George Archbold was at the bottom of the hill catching it. I then had a COLOUR sequence in the dream where I was surrounded by some African men with spears as I cowered in the long grass! When I woke up Doctor Who was just starting and I was even more frightened by John Pertwee's distorted face in the opening titles. If anyone has a DVD where they can capture that bit for this thread I'd be most grateful.