BA thesis about Contemporary BW cinema

[Kenny N Suleimanagich]

"The White Ribbon" (2009) was photographed on color film and finished in black and white, from the same period as "The Artist". Like "Ida", "The White Ribbon" is among the recent black and white films to earn Academy nods for their cinematography (both won Best Foreign-language Film).

[Tyler Purcell]

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".

Ohh whoops! Well I guess my memory isn't that great! :(

[Ari Michael Leeds]

Even if you are a film purist, how can you forget "The Artist?" :-D (Although it's another color-desaturated sellout) Think it was either 5218 or 5219, Kodak 500T.

God, if I were making something like that, I'd dig up an old hand-crank camera and B&W stock. Why not? :-D

[Kenny N Suleimanagich]

They planned on shooting it on Plus-X. I wouldn't put it on them, when it was Kodak that discontinued their preferred stock. The alternatives of Tri-X and Double-X pale in comparison. When your choice is that limited, you have to make do with what you have. And it was under cranked, though not hand-cranked.

Edited April 19, 2016 by Kenny N Suleimanagich

[Ari Michael Leeds]

Wasn't Plus-X still being made in '09? LOL, was the movie reaching out to them the cause of its discontinuation? LOL, ordering more than the thousand feet they had left? B)

I'll say that I saw some behind-the scenes and they were shooting 500, pretty sure my memory is good there. So why'd they jump from shooting it on 500 tungsten from a slow B&W stock?

There were PLENTY of color films, a lot more than today, back then that are closer to plus-x speed and granularity.

[joshua gallegos]

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.

I would say B&W became an aesthetic choice since the 1960s, since color films were more pervasive around that era and became more of a standard. An example would be Robert Wise's 'The Haunting' which studio execs pressed to be filmed in color, yet Robert insisted the film needed to be filmed in b/w, as the entire film payed homage to Robert's mentor Val Lewton. Of course this is just one of many examples! Another great example would be something like 'Whatever Happened To Baby Jane' by Robert Aldrich, and the most famous of all- Alfred Hitchcock's 'Psycho'. I would look more into the 1960s as there were some filmmakers who fought to make their films in b/w. The trend has continued ever since, like Scorsese's 'Raging Bull', 'Paper Moon' by Peter Bogdanovich, etc.

[Tyler Purcell]

Even if you are a film purist, how can you forget "The Artist?"

I mentioned 'The Artist' earlier. I was talking about movies shot digitally and converted to B&W later for an aesthetic reason. I guess those movies were so unmemorable, I had simply forgot them. I also never saw 'Nebraska' the story didn't interest me.

[Raffaele Jr Alicino]

Thanks to all for the tips, for now im still watching all the B/W film's post 1960, i think that the start point will be at the end of '70. The introduction will be about the end of the BW golden era. I think that another good topic is also to distinguish BW shooted in digital or film. A good example Tetro.