BA thesis about Contemporary BW cinema

[Raffaele Jr Alicino]

Hi All,

my name is Raffaele, i'm a film student in Italy, i'm going to graduate and finish my BA. I focalised my interests about Cinematography, and i want to do my final project about Black And White cinema in the last 20 years.

I already watched a lot of film both in BW or Mixed and read some books, but i want to ask you if you have any ideas, film or book about this. Any help would be really appreciated.

My challenge is to find the time at which BW has become a choice of aesthetic rather than a productive need, like first Chris Nolan feature.

Thank you in advance.

[Satsuki Murashige]

I think you have to go back to the late 1960s to early 1970s to find the time when B&W became an aesthetic choice, if only because color photography had become the norm. Kind of like choosing to shoot film over digital capture today.

 

If you limit your search to 1996-2016, then I think some of films you'll find that were shot in B&W were made that way for purely economic reasons - 'Clerks', 'Pi', 'Following' and others were shot in B&W because it was the cheapest way to self-finance a feature shot on film at the time. Not because of aesthetics. Once 24p digital video became an accepted format for independent filmmakers, the popularity of 16mm B&W waned significantly.

[Mark Dunn]

1996 is a very late start date. The last big picture shot in b/w for aesthetic reasons was probably "The Elephant Man", and it was the first for a decade or so.

As early as 1962 b/w was an unusual choice for a Hollywood epic -q.v. "The Longest Day".

[Mark Dunn]

David Lynch said that the lab work was indifferent in quality because of the loss of expertise over the years.....in 1980.

Edited April 16, 2016 by Mark Dunn

[Kenny N Suleimanagich]

“The Artist” was shot on 5219 and converted to black and white. That was pretty recent. They wanted to do it all on Plus-X, but another feature beat them to the remainder of the world’s stock.

 

I think Satsuki is right, though. Up through the breakthrough of decent DV, a lot of these were small films that couldn’t afford to shoot color (but many, in their own right, remain beautiful examples of filmmaking craft).

 

Some of my favorites from roughly the era you mention are “La Haine”, “Pi”, and the documentaries “Dark Days” and “Lets Get Lost"

Edited April 16, 2016 by Kenny N Suleimanagich

[David Mullen ASC]

I would start with the 1960's because that was the last decade there was a separate Oscar award for b&w cinematography (the last being Haskell Wexler for "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe") and it was the decade that cinematographers and directors in American Cinematographer and other books and magazines started discussing the reasons why b&w was chosen over color -- "The Longest Day" is a good example.

 

By the end of the decade and the early 1970's, it was even more unusual to choose b&w, so it is worth reading the articles about Peter Bogdanovich using it for "The Last Picture Show" and "Paper Moon", and then Woody Allen using it for "Manhattan" and then Martin Scorsese using for "Raging Bull". There was also Nestor Almendros using b&w for a couple of Truffaut movies.

[David Mullen ASC]

Another recent b&w movie was "Blancanieves" (2012). Both it and "The Artist" were clearly using b&w to evoke early cinema though. And of course there is "Ida" (2013).

[Tyler Purcell]

Why has nobody mentioned 'Schindler's List' and 'The Man who Wasn't there', two exceptional "modern" B&W movies. I think Schindler was shot Plus X eh? I know 'The Man who wasn't there' was shot color and converted because the studio was scared of releasing a B&W movie and they wanted a backup plan.

 

I think the artist could have been a lot better if shot on real B&W stock, it looked very much like a color movie converted to B&W. It's a real shame some indy film got the last Plus-X stock. If 'The Artist' were my movie, I would have shot it 16mm reversal. :)

[David Mullen ASC]

I just didn't mention those because I was talking either about very recent b&w films or pre-1980 b&w films. Obviously we've had the occasional b&w movie through the 1980's until the present. For me, it wouldn't be interesting to start the paper with the 1990's and "Schindler's List" because that's not a turning point in b&w cinematography history, for me it would be the mid-1960's as the studios started making color the norm and b&w became an alternative choice.

 

Or one could start in the late 1970's when Scorsese and a number of other directors to emerge in the 1970's all made a choice to shoot in b&w, partly over concerns about color film longevity. But I don't see a reason to start in the 1990's with a paper on b&w cinematography, it's neither fish nor fowl, neither recent/contemporary or a turning point in b&w, other than perhaps being the turning point when most b&w movies started shooting on color stock.

[Raffaele Jr Alicino]

Thank you very much to all... you all'are right 20 years are few. I started my research reading Wheeler winston dixon "black & white cinema" which covers bw finema from 1890 to late '60, so i think i'll start 50 years ago but of coure i'll focus analyzing the las 25-20 years films. Do you know any issue of American Cinematrographers that covers this topic? Thank you again to all

[David Mullen ASC]

No specific American Cinematographer article about b&w in general, though there is an infamous editorial from around 1938(?) titled "What's all the Hullaballoo About Color?" that questions the need for color movies. But there are plenty of comments by cinematographers over the decades about b&w, particularly for movies shot in b&w after it stopped being the common choice.

[Raffaele Jr Alicino]

Thank you David Mullen, im trying to find "What's all the Hullaballoo About Color?" but with no result can you help me? what do you think about Wim Wenders late '70 movies there are some in black an white

[Mark Dunn]

There are some ACs on archive.org from the 30s.

[Kenny N Suleimanagich]

Wim Wenders is another great example and it'd be useful to look at some other European cinema, too.

 

David mentions the 1960s, this is also the ending of the B&W TV era, so many programs changed to color after that. Even documentaries.

Edited April 18, 2016 by Kenny N Suleimanagich

[John E Clark]

 

I think the artist could have been a lot better if shot on real B&W stock, it looked very much like a color movie converted to B&W. It's a real shame some indy film got the last Plus-X stock. If 'The Artist' were my movie, I would have shot it 16mm reversal. :)

 

I was glad that "The Artist"(2011) got awards for breaking to 'conventions', B&W and Silent... but yeah... I wish they had do a bit better on the 'simulation' of B&W...

[John E Clark]

Wim Wenders is another great example and it'd be useful to look at some other European cinema, too.

 

David mentions the 1960s, this is also the ending of the B&W TV era, so many programs changed to color after that. Even documentaries.

 

Never had a color TV in the era... so my recollection of "Star Trek" or other 50s/60s classics is in monochrome... when I see episodes in color... I'm think' 'wow so that's what color the set/prop/people's hair was'... etc.

[Mark Dunn]

 

Never had a color TV in the era... so my recollection of "Star Trek" or other 50s/60s classics is in monochrome... when I see episodes in color... I'm think' 'wow so that's what color the set/prop/people's hair was'... etc.

ST was the first colour TV I ever saw, at a rich friend's house- it was "The Cloud Minders", about 1973, the episode with the gorgeous matte painting of the castle on the planet with the orange sky. So it stands out in the memory.

Edited April 18, 2016 by Mark Dunn

[Doug Palmer]

 

I was glad that "The Artist"(2011) got awards for breaking to 'conventions', B&W and Silent... but yeah... I wish they had do a bit better on the 'simulation' of B&W...

Me too. Trouble is I only saw it projected digitally, 2K I presume, and it looked terribly flat. So I don't know how it was intended to look. The tones could have gone a bit wrong when converted from colour. But a great film nevertheless.

[Alexandros Angelopoulos Apostolos]

You could add a quote in the thesis from Vittorio Storaro how he has no interest in shooting in black-and-white:

 

http://www.filmanddigitaltimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/75FDTimes-Storaro-PassageToDigital.pdf

[David Mullen ASC]

Thank you David Mullen, im trying to find "What's all the Hullaballoo About Color?" but with no result can you help me? what do you think about Wim Wenders late '70 movies there are some in black an white

 

 

Turns out the title of the editorial is "Why All the Hubbub Regarding Color?", printed in the August 1936 issue of "American Cinematographer".

[Kenny N Suleimanagich]

Another great example from the 1980s the work of Jim Jarmusch, particularly his collaboration with Robby Muller on "Down by Law".

[Bill DiPietra]

Hi All,

my name is Raffaele, i'm a film student in Italy, i'm going to graduate and finish my BA. I focalised my interests about Cinematography, and i want to do my final project about Black And White cinema in the last 20 years.

I already watched a lot of film both in BW or Mixed and read some books, but i want to ask you if you have any ideas, film or book about this. Any help would be really appreciated.

My challenge is to find the time at which BW has become a choice of aesthetic rather than a productive need, like first Chris Nolan feature.

Thank you in advance.

 

Black & white cinematography became an aesthetic choice a very long time ago. I agree with everyone who said that you should be focusing on the films of the 60s (and on.) You could write multiple papers on Ingmar Bergman's films alone, but then you still have Fellini, Kurosawa, Truffaut, Godard and American films like The Hustler (1961,) Days of Wine and Roses (1962,) Paper Moon (1973) and many more.

 

Are you committed to "black & white films of the last twenty years" or can you still change the parameters? Because even if your films span 1995 - 2015, that still excludes a film like Schindler's List since it was released in 1993. And that's probably the best example of outstanding B&W cinematography in recent times. In the last twenty years, I just can't think of many B&W films that were made, never mind worthy of academic analysis. Right now, the only one I can think of is Ida (2013.)

 

I think your overall idea is great - the scope is just too narrow.

[Tyler Purcell]

If you go back too far, you're getting into a period of time where B&W was used for expense reasons.

 

I like the idea of starting the paper with 'Raging Bull', which is a nice round date; 1980.

 

I'd end the paper with 'The Artist'. Which was at the end of film acquisition/distribution.

 

I don't know of any commercially distributed B&W feature length movies shot digitally.

[David Mullen ASC]

What do you mean, there have been a number of digitally-shot b&w movies released theatrically. "Ida". The two "Sin City" movies are mostly b&w and were shot digitally. "Nebraska". "Frances Ha". "Much Ado About Nothing". "Frankenweenie." "A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night".

[John E Clark]

What do you mean, there have been a number of digitally-shot b&w movies released theatrically. "Ida". The two "Sin City" movies are mostly b&w and were shot digitally. "Nebraska". "Frances Ha". "Much Ado About Nothing". "Frankenweenie." "A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night".

 

The Wife is out of town so I'll be able to watch "Ida"(2013) finally...

 

The "Sin City" films were heavily stylized, B&W with 'color' punctuation... "Frankenweenie"(2012) was good quality, but I didn't get to see it in theaters... I've only seen stills from the others...

 

I've contemplated submitting B&W, monochrome to fests... but alas, this year is probably going to be devoted to getting the Wife's Burning Man projects to the event... so no short films for me until after August... I have done several short films at Burning Man, but due to the restrictions, have never submitted them to any fest outside of Burning Man or on the media pages of my 'personal' not for profit, etc. pages...

 

For me B&W would both be an aesthetic choice, but also a relief from worrying about 'color' of light... since I don't have bucks to buy/rent better lights...