Only in Black and White

Black and white is the original template for the movies; a perusal of any “Greatest Films of All Time” list will reveal a bulk of black and white entries. One of the (many) unfortunate aspects of contemporary media culture is that black and white visual expression has fallen by the wayside, leaving great swaths of Millennial viewers ignorant of it. Contemporary black and white cinematography is most likely to be seen, when it is, in independent or foreign cinema, almost never in major Hollywood releases or on television. Black and white has come to be seen as an obstacle for viewers to overcome instead of something to embrace; consider Ted Turner’s misguided “colorizing” of classic films to make them accessible. Such a strategy is tantamount to producing a Shakespeare play from one of those “No Fear” editions—easier comprehension doesn’t result so much as grotesque cheapening.  

Yay...

 

...or nay?

                                                

Roger Ebert wrote in the first published edition of The Great Movies that “you cannot know the history of the movies, or love them, unless you understand why b&w can give more, not less, than color.” While there are numerous color films that are absolutely glorious, and films shot in either black and white or color that could just as easily have been the other way, I thought it worthwhile to consider some examples of films that could only be the films they are, with the impact they have, because they are black and white. I soon realized that such films also typically fall into a couple particular categories: Another Time, Another Sense, and We Couldn’t Stomach it Otherwise. But just as typically, these designations overlap. 

Antonius Block(Max Von Sydow) and Death(Bengt Ekerot)

Films set in the distant past are often tailor-made for black and white. But historical setting isn’t the only prerequisite for the absence of color; when the story centers around spiritual or intellectual anguish, black and white seems apt.  Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal (1956) absolutely has its allegorical power anchored by black and white imagery. The stark, high contrast photography (courtesy of Gunnar Fischer) is visually striking; it is difficult to imagine the rich blackness of Death’s cloak, the eerie vacancy of the pale face, being replicated with color. But the significance extends beyond visual aesthetic into the story itself. The stark simplicity of the plague-ridden landscape Bergman presents raises existential questions that cannot be brushed aside. If Death is tangible and present, playing a game of chess or sawing down a tree with someone perched on top, but God isn’t, where can humanity’s spiritual certainty reside? Can it reside anywhere? 

"The grim lord Death bids them dance."

Andrei Rublev ( 1965), like the Bergman film, is set in a medieval landscape filled with death and violence, its hero also tortured by spiritual doubt. Whereas Bergman opts for allegorical starkness, director Andrei Tarkovsky and cinematographer Vadim Iusov depict a world nearly overwhelming in its brute reality. When the rain pours down and Andrei Rublev shivers in the hovel with other pilgrims, we feel the damp cold. Smoke from burning torches nearly stings our eyes. The blood of animal and human spilled during the massacre in the city can almost be smelled. Black and white here serves almost as a signpost for the ethos of the cruel period Tarkovsky shows. Black and white. Life and death. Eat or starve. 

The brutal elements of a brutal world

 However, there is a brief color montage at the end of the film; crucially, it is the only point in the four hour running time when Andrei Rublev’s icon paintings are shown. Transitioning as this montage does from the famous sequence detailing the casting of a giant bell, it serves as an evocation of the necessity for art in deriving meaning from a painful world. Such a mission achieves cinematic articulation because of this brief contrast between black and white and color. 
 

Andrei Rublev(Anatoly Solonitsyn)before the icon paintings

An icon in color

 A paradigmatic case of the blended categories for black and white necessity is The Elephant Man (David Lynch, 1980). Lynch and producer Mel Brooks initially encountered opposition from Paramount Studios when they requested black and white stock for the film, but they insisted and the film is undeniably more powerful for it. Cinematographer Freddie Francis uses the rich tones of the stock to create a palate of shadows and smoke, damp cobblestone streets reflecting back the light of streetlamps. It is a nightmarish vision of Victorian London Charles Dickens would’ve approved of, wrought by industrialization and hypocritical lack of empathy. Francis was a veteran of Britain’s Hammer Studios, which was famous for its monster movies. Such a background served him well for The Elephant Man; one of the film’s most singular achievements is how it functions like an inverted horror film.

Unseen and feared

John Merrick(John Hurt), particularly during the first half hour before he is clearly shown, has an eldritch anticipation given to his presence. What is this creature that makes people run in terror,  that makes medical professionals gasp in shock? But when he is revealed, in an unpretentious reaction shot, the audience loses their fear of him; from then on fear for him takes its place. Just as black and white perfectly evokes the time period and mood, it is also essential to the presentation of Merrick. Black and white enables that which might have been repulsive or grotesque in color to become fascinating and, ultimately, relate-able. 

Seen and understood. Anthony Hopkins and John Hurt

A similar revelation is demonstrated by both screen manifestations of Psycho. The 1960 original, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, was intended from the outset to resemble a cheap exploitation flick. A key ingredient to this effect was shooting in black and white; it was all the more conspicuous a choice following the VistaVision lushness of Vertigo(1958) and North by Northwest(1959). But black and white was also chosen because Hitchcock felt that the picture would’ve been too gory and repulsive in color. Upon closer analysis, the terror of the shower scene comes more from Bernard Herrmann’s shrieking score and the montage constructed by George Tomasini than from bloody drenching (chocolate syrup was used for blood during shooting). John L. Russel’s black and white photography is essential to heightening the other filmmaking components, and the result is a now legendary scene. 

The fearful power of a silhouette

How interesting that what was shocking and diabolically artistic in the Hitchcock film becomes crude and faintly laughable in Gus Van Sant’s “shot-by-shot” remake. Color here proves a deficit, and not only because of the necessity of an overdone wig to conceal the face of “Mrs. Bates”. The color schema throughout the film is tacky and distracting; the parlor conversation between Marion Crane and Norman Bates (played here by Anne Heche and Vince Vaughan, both miscast) doesn’t convey the sinister undertones the original brought through. Norman’s stuffed birds don’t have the impression of poising to swoop that the black and white original gave them. 

Is it just me or is that a wig?

There isn't much of a contest, is there?

This brief survey only touches on a handful of films that highlight black and white necessity, of course. They are there for the uninitiated and the devotee alike, offering an irreplaceable experience.