|
Post by Shaun on Aug 4, 2005 9:09:17 GMT -5
Last night I had a dream that I was watching 'Holiday' only it was in color. This got me to thinking "how would I feel if someone were to colorize a classic Katharine Hepburn movie?" How would everyone here feel?
|
|
|
Post by Richard on Aug 4, 2005 11:43:27 GMT -5
I wouldn't mind seeing them in color. At last, I get to see what everything looked like at that time. The color of the clothing the actors were wearing, the color of the furniture, etc... You can chalk it up to curiosity I guess.
I'm by no means saying colorized movies are far more superior than it's original format. Can you imagine Casablanca in color? No, neither can I.
It would be a great experience on my part, especially if I love the movie - like 'Bringing Up Baby'. I remember someone on ebay mentioning that they had the colorized version of it.
|
|
|
Post by guesttoo on Aug 5, 2005 0:34:24 GMT -5
This is what Roger Ebert wrote in 1988 about colorization of old films.
"Black and white movies present the deliberate absence of color. This makes them less realistic than color films (for the real world is in color). They are more dreamlike, more pure, composed of shapes and forms and movements and light and shadow. Color films can simply be illuminated. Black and white films have to be lighted. With color, you can throw light in everywhere, and the colors will help the viewer determine one shape from another, and the foreground from the background. With black and white, everything would tend toward a shapeless blur if it were not for meticulous attention to light and shadow, which can actually create a world in which the lighting creates a heirarchy of moral values.
In Hitchcock's "Notorious," there is a moment when Bergman walks slowly through a doorway toward Cary Grant. He is listening to a record of secret testimony, which proves she is not a Nazi spy. At the beginning of the shot, Grant thinks she is guilty. In the middle, he does not know. At the end, he thinks she is innocent. Hitchcock begins with Bergman seen in backlit silhouette. As she steps forward, she is half light, half shadow. As the testimony clears her, she is fully lighted. The lighting makes the moral judgments. To add color to the scene would clarify nothing, would add additional emotional information that might be confusing, and would destroy the purity of the classical lighting.
Most of us do not consciously look at movies in the way that I've looked at the scene from "Notorious." But in our subconscious, that's how we see them. In almost all serious black and white movies, bands of light and shadow are thrown across the faces and bodies of the characters from time to time, to involve them in a visually complex web. In "Night and the City," Richard Widmark, as a cornered rat, seems trapped by the bars of darkness that fall on him. If you colorize the underlying image of his face and clothing, you lose the contrast of the lighting. Since the shadows are pure and the colorization is not, you get an oil and water effect, visually disturbing.
In "Casablanca," the Bogart character is developed through the use of lighting. At the beginning of the film, he seems to be a cynical man who cares only about the profits of his nightclub. When he sees Bergman again after a long time, he is short and cruel with her, because he thinks she betrayed him. Then he learns more about her marriage to the Paul Henreid character, the Resistance hero, and by the end of the film Bogart has turned from a cynic into an idealist.
This change in his character is mirrored by the development in his lighting. In early scenes he is often harshly lit, or lit from beneath by the light of a lamp or a match, so his facial structure looks sinister. His face is rarely completely lighted. Henreid, by contrast, is usually well-lighted. Bergman's face seems shadowed when we doubt her motives, and becomes more clearly seen as we understand her. If you slap the pinks and tans of the colorizer's paintbrush onto their faces, you add a distracting dimension and you reduce the contrasts between lighter and darker areas. You make the movie look bland, less dramatic. You wash out the drama of the lighting.
Last night I was looking once again at another great black and white movie, "It's a Wonderful Life." This is the movie that Frank Capra thinks is the greatest he has ever directed, and Jimmy Stewart thinks is the best he has acted in. Stewart went to Washington to testify against the colorizing of the movie, and Capra, from his sickbed, made a plea that the film not be colorized. But because the copyrights had expired, the film was fair game - and a sickening colorized version has appeared on television and in the video stores.
The movie, once again, is about a moral transformation. In the early scenes the Stewart character is a bright young man who can't seem to stop helping people, until he becomes the moral backbone of the little town of Bedford Falls. In later scenes, after a series of setbacks, he has a long night of despair. He loses hope. He turns bitter. He stands on a bridge and considers suicide.
Stewart's face is one of the most open and trustworthy faces in the history of the movies. In early scenes, it is fully lighted - and the light of his moral character almost seems to shine through his skin. In the shocking later scenes, as he despairs, Capra shoots him in shadow, and seems to have even used makeup to darken him, make him look more ravaged by the night after he has walked out into it. Do we need to know, as he stands on the bridge, that his face is pink and his coat is brown and heaven knows what color his shirt is?
There are two arguments here, one positive, one negative:
1. Black and white is a legitimate and beautiful artistic choice in motion pictures, creating feelings and effects that cannot be obtained any other way.
2. "Colorization" does not produce color movies, but only sad and sickening travesties of black and white movies, their lighting destroyed, their atmospheres polluted, their moods altered almost at random by the addition of an artificial layer of coloring that is little more than legalized vandalism.
Some small steps of progress have been made in the struggle against colorization. Recently the National Film Preservation Act was passed by Congress, in the face of expensive lobbying by Turner and the Hollywood studios. It would authorize a panel of experts to designate 35 films a year as "national treasures," and anyone colorizing or otherwise materially altering them would have to add a warning on the film and on any cassette boxes that their work had been done without the consent of the original filmmakers. This warning is likely to be about as effective as the health warnings on cigarette packages - but it is a step in the right direction.
Does Turner care that Congress has stated that what he does to movies is a form of artistic desecration? I am sure he does, because additional legislation may someday prevent colorization altogether. In the meantime, the Film Preservation Act is a moral victory. And there is a way that you, dear reader, can share in that victory. Do not support the colorized version of "Casablanca."
|
|
|
Post by Richard on Aug 5, 2005 16:10:35 GMT -5
Roger Ebert has always been a hero of mine. Thanks for the article guesttoo.
|
|
|
Post by Judy on Aug 5, 2005 19:52:32 GMT -5
I agree wholeheartedly with every word Roger Ebert wrote about this issue.
You know those TCM short segments on "pan and scan"? Well, I feel that colorizing is the same desecration. It redirects the movies - as Scorsese said about the pan and scan process. It makes choices that the creators of the films did not make. It puts the directors' and lighting designers' artistic choices inside a burlap bag. Cheapens the films. And for what? Commerce. So what else is new?
And that's a huge insult to movie lovers everywhere. It suggests that they haven't the sophistication to suspend their disbelief and accept black and white images as real.
So they say with colorization, we will see things as they really were.
May I borrow a Kate word here? Bunk.
Colorization most certainly does not show us what things looked like then. Has anyone ever seen one? All the colors look the same. A sort of brownish, reddish, greenish muck. Everyone's got the same skin tone. There's no subtlety.
Imagine the pool scene in The Philadelphia Story colorized. I shudder to think.
JS
|
|
|
Post by CrazyForKate on Feb 4, 2010 1:14:08 GMT -5
The first time I saw Philadelphia Story, it was colorized. Hideously. The characters were all a terrifying shade of orange. I ended up with a very negative opinion of the movie. It was enough to put me off rewatching for two years, when I saw in in B&W. And wow, what a difference. As we all know, Kate is absolutely gloriously lit- Jimmy was never better-looking. All of these subtleties were completely lost in colorization.
They also got the day/night wrong- Tracy and Mike's "affair" took place in daylight!
So, in conclusion, colorization= rotten. Some movies need to be in colour- but films in B&W were meant to be that way, and should stay so.
This is just one of the many reasons why Ebert is awesome.
|
|
|
Post by gottamatch on Feb 4, 2010 15:54:26 GMT -5
I think the only movie that looks better in colour than B&W is The Wizard of Oz. i.e. starting in Sepia and moving through to colour.
My grandmother remembers seeing this at the movies in B&W so I assume it was first screened in complete B&W unless that was a cheaper cinema she saw it in or wasn't released in colour in Aussie cinemas. But I think the colour came out later I'm pretty sure.
Another film that was meant to have colour is Fred & Ginger's Carefree in the 'I Used To Be Colourblind' scene. That would have been awesome and it's a real shame they chose not to do that because of financial RKO reasons.
Mind you, I think this thread is mostly about those TCM re-coloured films which I agree with the general consensus, they mostly look strange and just weren't made to be colour. However, I do like the idea of bringing films to colour if it means introducing them to young people. In all fairness, when I was really young if there was a B&W movie I'd be like 'turn it off!', so I always loved old movies, musicals, but as long as they were in glorious colour. So its a catch 22. We need younger generations to be passionate about these films but don't want them looking trashy..
I can't imagine Philly Story in colour but I can imagine that it would be somewhat distracting.
Jess
|
|
|
Post by Tracy Lord on Feb 4, 2010 22:08:30 GMT -5
I don't care for colorizations of films either. And I have read in many bios that the stars themselves didn't like it as well. Didn't Orson Welles says he wanted 'ted turner to stay away my films with his crayons' lol.
|
|
|
Post by gottamatch on Feb 5, 2010 6:15:26 GMT -5
Haaaaaaaa that's a fantastic quote. I've never heard it. good ol Orson, that's hilarious. But so true, they do look like crayons!
Jess
|
|
|
Post by martha on Feb 5, 2010 17:17:37 GMT -5
i thought i'd weighed in on this issue on this board. i certainly have on others. i LOVE the reference to colorization and crayons, jess. i may have been unwittingly quoting welles myself in the past when i've described colorization as someone taking crayons and drawing all over someone else's creation. yep.
when something is lit for black and white its a whole different animal. leave it alone. and if inspired, you who are doing colorizations, make your own darn movie.
|
|
|
Post by carol on Feb 5, 2010 17:24:50 GMT -5
I couldn't agree more with Roger Ebert. Everything he says is true. Hero.
|
|
|
Post by martha on Feb 5, 2010 19:54:54 GMT -5
I think the only movie that looks better in colour than B&W is The Wizard of Oz. i.e. starting in Sepia and moving through to colour. My grandmother remembers seeing this at the movies in B&W so I assume it was first screened in complete B&W unless that was a cheaper cinema she saw it in or wasn't released in colour in Aussie cinemas. But I think the colour came out later I'm pretty sure. Jess jess .. .read up on this film while technicolor (the MGM process) was not widely used at the time of 'the wizard of oz' .. the color sequences beginning when dorothy opens the door into OZ are indeed original sequences. a 70th anniversary bluray edition released just this past year brings out nuances never before seen. yada yada. there are many amazing books you could reference to tell you all about it. several by a pal of mine .. john fricke. just saying. back to the discussion of colorization in general ..
|
|
|
Post by Shaun on Feb 5, 2010 20:29:13 GMT -5
Martha, I just bought John Fricke's book JUDY GARLAND: WORLD'S GREATEST ENTERTAINER on ebay. I cannot wait to read it. I've heard good things.
|
|
|
Post by gottamatch on Feb 6, 2010 8:54:22 GMT -5
Thanks Martha! Perhaps only certain theatres purchased colour films and some got them in b&w because of the cost of colour film, could that be the case? I know that when it aired on TV in the 1960s it aired in b&w, I think that bit o' trivia came from the original Oz DVD. Wish I had a blu-ray player, sounds worth it for film buffs because of all of the extra little features not given to standard DVD editions.
Jess
|
|
|
Post by martha on Feb 6, 2010 9:44:21 GMT -5
jess ... i really haven't heard of this phenomenon of the picture be shown in theatres in black and white. your logic about the cost of the film stock being somehow involved in whether a theatre would obtain it as technicolor film (including sepia in the non-oz sequences ... that was a 'color' of course too) doesn't really make sense to me. but there may have been a challenge in some theatres in having the correct equipment to show color film, but this exceeds my knowledge of this technical detail. now .. the television broadcast question is another one. the movie would have been *aired* in its original colors .. the only question would have been whether the television set at the receiving end could *show* the colors, is my guess. my family didn't have a color television set until the 1970s .... so my personal memories of the annual WIZARD OF OZ television broadcasts (that started in the 1950s before i was born ) were tinged with knowing about the change to color when dorothy and toto landed in oz but not SEEING it for years and years. i had to imagine oz in color for the longest time ..
|
|