How do you feel about colorizations of classic black and white films?

I know a lot of purists don't like colorizations to classic black and white films, but in Gus Van Sant's words, "There's a lot of people who are adversed to watching black and white movies," And so the colorizations serve a purpose. To get people who wouldn't normally watch a black and white film, they could watch a colorized version of that particular black and white film.

I've never seen a colorized film that looked good. It's an insult to the cinematographer. While most of them who ever spoke on the issue said that they'd rather work with color, nevertheless, when they made the movie they knew that it was black and white, so that's what they shot, how they composed and how they processed film for the best look. I have never seen a colorized film that looked good, and all of them ruined whatever visual virtues the BW version had, substituting bad, filled colors with no depth that made the images look like a comic book. Were I the dictator of the movie world, I would crush the computers of anybody who does colorization. As for the folks who won't see a movie that's not in color, let them wallow in their ignorance.

There...I said it...went over the line into purism.

But how do you feel about movies that use both Black and White and Color? Films like The Wizard of Oz, Schindler's List, and the 2006 version of Casino Royale?

Actually I bumped an old thread on this subject a few weeks ago and the discussion there might be interesting for you:

http://www.movieforums.com/community...ad.php?t=23949

I think Gus Van Sant is right (I liked his Psycho) – I've experienced that sort of disdain for black and white and it was actually being a Doctor Who fan that turned that prejudice around, the series having a divide between black & white episodes and colour. As I mentioned in the above thread, Doctor Who is particularly interesting as regards colourization as the process was always a positive thing, recovering colour for episodes that had had their original tapes wiped. I've seen the odd William Hartnell or Patrick Troughton story with fan-colourized scenes and they're certainly diverting but I would always want the authentic, original story.

Incidentally an animated version of The Power of the Daleks has just been released and will have a companion, colour edition available at the end of the year. It would be interesting to find out how many people watch the colour one first .

Are you doing a school assignment on this subject?

I don't like your attitude. Anyway, no, and I was talking to somebody else, too.

Well then colorize my attitude!

I think its wrong. A movie loses its purity and essence when you do this.

You should show a bit more consideration for dogs and the color blind, with your radical lettering.

__________________
"I may be rancid butter, but I'm on your side of the bread."
E. K. Hornbeck

Is that a "Make America Great Again" hat?

https://www.cesarsway.com/dog-care/i...gh-a-dogs-eyes

Well that's pretty much always for dramatic effect as far as I'm aware. Look at Martin Scorsese ending scenes by using colour; red in Raging Bull and yellow in The Age of Innocence. Another example, which is much more involved, is Pleasantville.

No problem with that. It's consistent with the idea of sticking with what the cinematographer worked with rather than coming back later and bringing in a technician to change the composition. As a semi-pro still photographer, I even work with images are part color, part monochrome on the same frame, but that's a deliberate effect, not a revisionist trick.

I love they way they used the mono-color shift in the Wizard of Oz, like you know exactly why Dorothy knows she's not in Kansas. I guess what's important is to use color or the lack of it in a purposeful way. I mostly work in color, but, e.g., when I was shooting pictures of a beach during Hurricane Hermine recently, the sky was steel gray, the water reflected it, so little bits of color here and there seemed to be not right...hence a monochrome image. In the case of Oz, the movie was released during that industry shift from mono to color and the high saturation imagery of Oz must have been like a kick in the butt to audiences back then. Even now you almost gasp. When films are colorized, a lot of decisions are left up to a technician who operates the software and makes assumptions like, "I guess that MUST be a green jacket" or "skies are always one shade of blue, no gradations". IMO, the only good reason to use colorization is in the process of restoring degraded color images, where the technician is trying to restore something that's been lost.

I will definitely, personally, crush the computer of anyone who colorizes Casablanca, Frankenstein or Twilight Zone episodes.

Yeah, and I think it is by and large.

That's true. I know it influenced my favourite film, Münchhausen, which is also very colourful. I particularly like the Venice scenes as well as the ones on the moon.