Modern B&W movies (1 Viewer)

[Francois Caron]

I watched Pi the other night. Now the interesting thing about this was that it wasn't until about half-way through the movie that it occurred to me it was in black & white!

I'm surprised you didn't notice that considering the overall look of the movie. They used high contrast black & white film stock, a film which is normally used to photograph documents in order to properly separate black writing from the white or off-white paper. The result is a movie with plenty of black and white, an incredible amount of grain, but very few shades of grey! The director of photography somehow managed to keep the exposure at just the right level. Unlike more common film stock, a slight exposure error with this stuff could ruin the entire shot.

You are definitely a film buff if you managed to watch pi for quite a while without noticing the movie was in black & white.

 

[JohnRice]

Maybe I'm just a purist, but both Pleasantville and Schindler's List have a mix of B&W and Color, though it is a lot more subtle in SL.

I can't believe nobody has mentioned To Kill a Mockingbird.

 

[Steve Enemark]

I can't believe nobody has mentioned To Kill a Mockingbird.

I can. Read the title of the thread.

 

[JohnRice]

To Kill a Mockingbird came out in 1963, which I point out is only three years before the one in your signature and newer than most of the ones in Brent's list, when it was even more difficult to get a B&W movie made than it is today. Your reaction is quite common for this film, since it was done so well to depict a period in time, an awful lot of people think it is a lot older than it is.

 

[Rob Tomlin]

Let me also recommend Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man!

 

[Holadem]

Talk about B&W, I watched Pi and The Third Man today, both for the first time. I know The Third Man doesn't apply to the context of this thread but I have to give to the incredible photography.
Good movie day!
--
Holadem

 

[Seth Paxton]

I don't know about that John.

I mean some of the top films were The Longest Day, Birdman of Alcatraz, Lolita, The Mancurian Candidate, Cape Fear, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, Days of Wine and Roses, and Long Day's Journey into Night.

I really didn't think Brent's list matched what the thread was about either. I thought the point was for finding B&W films that were made past the point when audiences would "apparently" be willing to go to one. We know this is crap, but at some point it seemed to become truth.

It might be that 1962 was the LAST big year for B&W, and then in 63-66 only a few serious B&W efforts got done. But I'd say the "color only" era started just after that, maybe in 68 or so. In 1964 you weren't surprised to see a film in B&W, even if it was becoming more rare. It was just less popular to make, but still a viable choice for some top releases rather than solely an artistic choice (or the choice of an indy filmmaker).

Note that 1967 marked the first year that no Best Pix nom was in B&W and the only major film in B&W seems to have been In Cold Blood.

Previously to that in 66 there had been Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (with Fortune Cookie and Gregory Girl worth noting). And 65 had Ship of Fools, Darling, and A Thousand Clowns (Spy Who Came in from the Cold is notable). 64 had Zorba the Greek & Dr. Strangelove (Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte also).

And note the the last Academy Awards to feature seperate catagories for B&W and Color Cinematography was the 1967 ceremony (for 1966 films). I'd say that is our strongest indicator of when B&W films finally died off and color became the "norm".

 

[JohnRice]

You make a good point there, Seth. The truth is, the conversion from B&W to color actually was quite gradual over about a 25 year or even longer period. There were color movies back in the late '30s and even a few before that, but it wasn't really until about the mid '60s that the industry was completely taken over by color. So, at what point was color the "norm?"