What are your top ten Black and White movies?

[JayUtah]

I'm interested to hear what people think makes a good black-and-white film. I honestly don't know myself; which is to say, I don't have a single set of criteria for all films that I consider good examples of black-and-white filmmaking.

I cited The Asphalt Jungle because it is a very good example of film noir, into which category I would also put On the Waterfront. Film noir combines important elements of black-and-white photography with then-emerging understanding of visual, cinematic storytelling. Modern examples such as Sin City clearly fall into a similar category, despite the selective (and effective) use of color.

To understand what's so special about black-and-white cinematography you have to understand what's so special about black-and-white photography. Physiologically, black-and-white images appeal to the strongest element of the human visual perception system: the perception of value (a.k.a. brightness or tone). We discern edges and forms most readily by changes in brightness. Abrupt changes reveal edges. Smooth changes reveal contour. To compose properly in black and white requires attention to and manipulation of the image at the most fundamental level. This is what gives black-and-white photography (and cinematography) its visceral impact.

Artistically, black-and-white photography -- especially that which involves low-key lighting -- requires more interpretation from the viewer. This is something of a paradox with the foregoing paragraph. But the low-key, value-only rendition of an image leaves more open to the viewer's imagination. There is a great alley chase scene in On the Waterfront where the entire scene is backlit by the headlights of an oncoming truck. Strongly directional light, silhouette, and "painting" the frame with highly-contrasted zones of light and dark allow the photographer to engage the viewer visually with a greater imaginative investment without having to dictate every detail.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is a German Expressionist film that works not because it's in black and white, but because it was made in a time when cinematography borrowed heavily from scenic design on the stage and thus incorporated arts that do not generally survive in modern cinematography. Not surprisingly, the early films were largely photographed stage plays. Cabinet would work effectively in color. It just happens to be in black and white.

Then some films are black-and-white classics not because of the absence of chroma information, but because they were well-conceived, well-performed stories that just happened to have been made during the time when black-and-white film was the norm. Modern Times is one such film. It relies less on cinematography than it does on a well-directed cast and a carefully written script. It largely doesn't matter what sort of camera you point in Chaplin's direction. Young Frankenstein falls into this category too, although I think it would be less effective in color.

Earth vs. The Flying Saucers is on the list because it's a very good example of an entire genre, almost all of which was made in black and white. It's certainly a great example of the genius of Ray Harryhausen. There's a reason Tim Burton chose it as the loosely-copied inspiration for Mars Attacks!.

The Day the Earth Stood Still straddles many categories. It's a compelling story, compellingly told. It's wonderfully photographed. It evokes the genre.

[reynoldbot]

ginniegatrit said:

reynoldbot said:

Hud
Dr. Strangelove
The Day The Earth Stood Still
Manchurian Candidate
Raging Bull
Seven Samurai
To Kill a Mockingbird
Metropolis
The Hidden Fortress
Rashomon

Hud- what a S.O.B. Paul Newman is in that movie!
Manchurian Candidate - I saw it years ago, but I remember it being a lot better than the remake.
Raging Bull - aren't there some colour scenes in this movie?
The Hidden Fortress, Roshomon, Seven Samurai - I've got to see these, especially the Japanese classics. I've only seen the western based on the Seven Samurai.
Metropolis - good movie. What did you think of the new soundtrack?
Are you familiar with the 1936 movie 'Things to Come' ?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Things_to_Come
Just searched and you can watch it here:
www.archive.org/details/things_to_come_ipod_version

-The original Manchurian Candidate has one of the most amazing scenes ever filmed.
-As for Metropolis, I much prefer the original score over any new version.
-Raging Bull has a smattering of color but really it is still B&W
-I am not familiar with Things to Come, I may check it out.
-I'm surprised to not see more votes for To Kill a Mockingbird!

[gillianren]

What makes a great B&W movie, Jay? Okay, I'll give it a shot--I know more about film than just about anyone I know, but it's all self-taught, so let's see.

Of course, the first thing you need, whether it's B&W or colour, is a great story and a great cast. This ought to go without saying, but some people seem unaware of this fact. Would To Kill a Mockingbird have been a great movie (which it is) without Gregory Peck, Robert Duvall (no, really; he's Boo Radley), and the kids, and so forth? No; no, it wouldn't. You can replace some of them with other people to little detrimental effect, but I think we really need Gregory Peck as Atticus, because he's . . . trustworthy. Honest. Whether he was in real life, I cannot say. But don't you find yourself believing him?

As to specifically B&W issues . . . it's all about the play of light and shadow. This is why I can't stand colorization, why I think it's . . . well, I don't want to say "evil," but then again, I rather do. At bare minimum, it's treacherous to the vision. Take Casablanca. Which direction the light comes from is important. The colorization process destroys that. It's painting, and it's bad painting. It destroys the texture. Yes, you still get the Venetian blind pattern on everyone's face, but it doesn't look right.

While it is broadly true that almost everything that is required for a great colour film is also required for a great B&W film--music, cinematography, and so forth--obviously, there are differences. The use of colour is an amazing tool, but I think that, in many ways, it fails compared to the delicacy of touch needed for B&W. In fact, certain of the things required for both are more important in B&W. Angles become more significant. The use of closeup and longshot and perspective and so forth take on greater importance to how the story is told. Just as silent film required more expression than talkies, a B&W film requires more subtlety.

As I've said, I've seen more films from about 1936 to 1956 than probably any other 20-year span, possibly excepting the last twenty years, but I don't think so. I'm drawn to them. The power of a look, a shadow, an angle? That moves me more than most of the use of colour in great colour movies. Compare Psycho and North by Northwest, for example. (There are exceptions--the use of colour in Hero is astonishing, though I think a lot of people miss the subtler distinctions of what colour changes mean.)

[JayUtah]

Of course, the first thing you need, ...is a great story and a great cast.

That's important to any form of impersonational storytelling. And yes, it's amazing how often that's forgotten. Any genre or medium must build upon strong characters and significant events. That is the secret to the success of Pixar Animation Studios. They first create stories that would work no matter in what medium they are told. Then they tell them in a way in which they happen to be particularly adept.

Too often writers are caught up in setting or theme, and media mongers in the technicality of their medium, and omit what makes storytelling important. Good storytelling technique can enhance and support a good story, but it cannot rescue a poor story from inherent insipidness.

Atticus Finch is one of the great characters in literature, in part because he strongly exemplifies what makes humanity great; but also in part because he is seen in such sharp relief against the villain Bob Ewell. The key to making that story work on stage or on the screen is not to pull any punches when portraying the Ewells and their posse.

And a great measure of Atticus on the screen is Gregory Peck. But I have seen other actors portray Atticus differently, yet also effectively. I want to avoid the impression that only Gregory Peck could play Atticus; yet acknowledge that Peck gave a performance for the ages. I've seen the rest of the characters played better elsewhere.

I saw the best Dill played by a good friend of mine -- then a very talented 15-year-old actor (blessed with an uncommonly slight build that allowed him to play a ten-year-old character) -- under the direction of an uncommonly sensitive stage director with whom I've worked for years. Because To Kill a Mockingbird is told in print from the child's point of view, it becomes important to build a staged version around strongly-portrayed children characters.

The stage version is narrated by the character of Miss Maudie, whom I've also seen portrayed in versions better than what is seen in the film. You know you're in the presence of something special when, night after night for a number of months, a cast of seasoned actors all stops dead in their tracks to listen to Miss Maudie's epilogue over the green-room P.A.

No amount of glitz, color, or car chases can compensate for poorly-conceived or poorly-played characters.

This is why I can't stand colorization, why I think it's . . . well, I don't want to say "evil," but then again, I rather do.

Don't mince words. The colorization of black-and-white films is at best an extraneous meddle and at worst a violent rape of the original vision.

Colorization doesn't really hurt the Three Stooges. Those films were cheaply produced and had only enough artistic vision in their execution to avoid complete embarrassment. The point was simply to expose Messrs. Howard, Howard, and Fine to an audience that appreciated them. One doesn't improve their films by adding color, but then again one doesn't detract significantly.

Early colorization was simply horrible in that it only added suppositional chromatic information while retaining the luminance of the underlying image. Later colorization was better.

However in films such as Casablanca or The Asphalt Jungle, colorization is akin to going after the Mona Lisa with a box of Crayolas in a feeble attempt to "improve" a masterpiece.

I had a conversation many years ago at the height of colorization with someone who said that if these directors had had color film available, they would have worked in color. I disagreed, of course, especially in the context of film noir. But the strongest counterargument is that it doesn't matter. Even if Citizen Kane could have been made in color, the fact remains that it was not. And to introduce color to the black-and-white version does not result in what Welles would have done if he had worked in color.

The person on the other end of this conversation happened to be an architect, and so I was able to phrase my argument in terms I felt would appeal best to him. Frank Lloyd Wright, while an elitist in many ways, was nevertheless a proponent of low-cost housing using durable, inexpensive materials prefabricated into easily arranged components. Mass-produced aluminum siding would have impressed Wright. But to acknowledge that is not the same as saying we should go cover Fallingwater with aluminum siding in Wright's absence. It may be valid to say Wright would have designed with such siding if he'd had the chance, it is not valid to retrospectively fit his designs that did not incorporate it. Whether Fallingwater would have been designed using aluminum is simply moot under the realization that it was, in fact, not.

...a B&W film requires more subtlety.

I agree. One must pay more attention to the visual impression when working in black-and-white than in color.

The use of color in cinematography is sadly marred by two periods of experimentation: the 1930s (for film) and the 1960s (for television) that gave us such vomited-Skittles as Becky Sharp and Lost in Space. Color-for-the-sake-of-color nearly ruined color. This largely didn't occur with photography in general, or in black-and-white cinematography.

Edward Scissorhands makes effective use of color in evoking setting, in a way that can't be done as effectively in black-and-white.

I worked on a stage set design for The Music Man that was part of an overall art direction that brought an innovative sense of both black-and-white and color to the production. Blessed with an ample budget, we constructed versions of the set pieces that actually changed as they were set and reset for different scenes. Harold Hill shows up in a very dingy River City, inhabited by drably-dressed characters.

As Hill's influence pervades the populace over the course of the play, the buildings become brighter and more colorful, as do the costumes. The final scene in which Hill must demonstrate the Think System, he does so with a band in bright red and blue uniforms with white trim, surrounded by gaily dressed River Citizians, on an impeccably appointed Edwardian bandstand festooned with summer flowers and Christmas lights.

Polystyrene facing attached by cleverly-hidden fasteners made this technically possible. But the artistic trick was to make the original River City as convincing in grays as it would be in color. It required a lot of conceptual art in order to progress the design from convincing black-and-white to convincing color while maintaining a visual coherence -- the audience can't abruptly realize that some building has just become more colorful, or else they won't recognize it as the same building.

And this fits the story. The Music Man is a story of double-edged redemption. Marian redeems Harold from a life of crime and deception, while Harold redeems River City from its backwardness, mediocrity, and entrenchment. Few productions have had the budget to illustrate and support the story as effectively in the visuals.

[Al Johnston]

On a lighter note, has anyone mentioned Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid! ?

[Ginnie]

Well, I don't Analise movies that much, I just sit back and enjoy them (as with most visual art).

I grew up in the age of black and white television. Many movies I watched on TV I thought were black and white, but turned out to be in colour. I think I mentioned a few in another thread as B&W, but was corrected.
Sometimes I get confused, because I think a film might have been colourized but it turns out that it was made in colour but I saw it in black & white. Now usually you can easily tell that it has been colourized - the drab tones, seemingly taken from a 16 colour palette, if that.
Was the 1938 Robin Hood originally in colour? I always thought it was in black & white until I seen in again on tv recently.

I find that tone, and light and shadow are the two (three?) things that distinguish a black & white film. I guess that's obvious...

I remember reading once about when they were doing the makeup to Frankensteins monster (Boris Karloff) in the original movie in 1931. They used all green and grey tones of makeup on his face to get it to look just right for the camera. He wasn't really meant to look green.

I tried to imagine the Cabinet of Dr. Caliagari in colour, but couldn't.
I don't think I could imagine 2001:A Space Odyssey in black and white.
I was lucky to see that film originally in the theater when it came out.

One thing I recently thought of was how in 'the old days' movies would be released many time in the theaters. I remember seeing Lawrence of Arabia in 1967 in the theaters, but it came out in 1963 I believe.

Try an experiment: Pick out a colour movie from your DVD collection and watch it in black & white. ;D

[gillianren]

jayutah said:

That's important to any form of impersonational storytelling. And yes, it's amazing how often that's forgotten. Any genre or medium must build upon strong characters and significant events. That is the secret to the success of Pixar Animation Studios. They first create stories that would work no matter in what medium they are told. Then they tell them in a way in which they happen to be particularly adept.

Yeah, Pixar's great that way. There are some TV shows that do that, even. However, by and large, we are overwhelmed in a sea of mediocrity. That's not new; despite the fact that 1939 is still considered probably the greatest year in the history of film, there were some real turkeys that came out that year. Including something like six Andy Hardy movies.

And a great measure of Atticus on the screen is Gregory Peck. But I have seen other actors portray Atticus differently, yet also effectively. I want to avoid the impression that only Gregory Peck could play Atticus; yet acknowledge that Peck gave a performance for the ages. I've seen the rest of the characters played better elsewhere.

Okay, phrase it "no one else in Hollywood at the time" could have played Atticus. Can you imagine some of the casting that could've been done there? I shudder at the thought.

I saw the best Dill played by a good friend of mine -- then a very talented 15-year-old actor (blessed with an uncommonly slight build that allowed him to play a ten-year-old character) -- under the direction of an uncommonly sensitive stage director with whom I've worked for years. Because To Kill a Mockingbird is told in print from the child's point of view, it becomes important to build a staged version around strongly-portrayed children characters.

Dill's four and a half at the beginning. But yeah. Those kids were great, and it's difficult to find good child actors, but I'm certainly willing to acknowledge that better ones could be found. I just don't think the film would necessarily have been as great with even a slightly different combination of performers. Robert Duvall would've probably been the easiest to replace, but he's awfully good in the role.

No amount of glitz, color, or car chases can compensate for poorly-conceived or poorly-played characters.

Don't you wish more people know that?

Don't mince words. The colorization of black-and-white films is at best an extraneous meddle and at worst a violent rape of the original vision.

Hee. I had a teacher in high school who was a film buff--actually, he's the one who first showed me Roman Holiday, which we watched in lieu of a final. One of my classmates said he didn't see what was so wrong about colorization, and our teacher reached for his grade book. My friend freaked out; he ended up as our valedictorian, and grades were very important to him.

Early colorization was simply horrible in that it only added suppositional chromatic information while retaining the luminance of the underlying image. Later colorization was better.

Have you seen the colorized version of the old Disney Zorro TV show? Horrible. My sister says she once saw a colorized movie in which they'd given Frank Sinatra brown eyes.

However in films such as Casablanca or The Asphalt Jungle, colorization is akin to going after the Mona Lisa with a box of Crayolas in a feeble attempt to "improve" a masterpiece.

Gods, no kidding. Someone on IMDB said something about the great colour palette Cocteau must have used on La belle et la bete, not understanding that, you know, he didn't have to. No amount of colour could, in my opinion, improve that film, which is a masterpiece of shadows.

I had a conversation many years ago at the height of colorization with someone who said that if these directors had had color film available, they would have worked in color. I disagreed, of course, especially in the context of film noir. But the strongest counterargument is that it doesn't matter. Even if Citizen Kane could have been made in color, the fact remains that it was not. And to introduce color to the black-and-white version does not result in what Welles would have done if he had worked in color.

For heaven's sake, Hitchcock chose B&W for Psycho because he thought it would work better for the mood. (Yes, Ginnie, the 1938 Adventures of Robin Hood was originally shot in colour--Technicolor at that. It's not the first Technicolor film; that was Becky Sharp. But it's the first really vibrant Technicolor film.) It's true that there are plenty of directors who couldn't afford colour film. It is also, however, true that Billy Wilder and Alfred Hitchcock and so forth could and used B&W anyway.

B-movies would've been in colour as likely as not, and once the price came down, they were. (Apparently, Technicolor was very expensive, and the early non-Technicolor film was pretty bad.) However, genuine artists made the choice based on what they wanted for a finished product.

I agree. One must pay more attention to the visual impression when working in black-and-white than in color.

As I've said, I watch a lot of movies. There are a fair number of really bad B&W movies, of course, and a fair number that don't make good use of their medium. I think the makers of The Clock (Judy Garland, 1944) were just interested in churning out a lousy propaganda piece that would also make them money. However, the more skilled directors--and the more interested directors, really--made astonishing films.

The use of color in cinematography is sadly marred by two periods of experimentation: the 1930s (for film) and the 1960s (for television) that gave us such vomited-Skittles as Becky Sharp and Lost in Space. Color-for-the-sake-of-color nearly ruined color. This largely didn't occur with photography in general, or in black-and-white cinematography.

I haven't seen Becky Sharp, I must admit. The library doesn't seem to have a copy. However, I did, as I said, watch The Adventures of Robin Hood, and yeah, there's a lot of "Hey, we should put Olivia de Havilland into brightly coloured stripes!" to it. Even The Wizard of Oz (which I don't actually like) was a little, you know, eye bleed-y in its colour. On the other hand, in about the same era, you get the wonderful shot in Gone with the Wind with Scarlett against that amazing dawn. (Apparently, that one took a lot of takes, and they nearly missed the light.)

As for TV . . . have you heard "The World Is a Miracle of Color"? It was the theme of what used to be The Wonderful World of Disney and then became The Wonderful World of Color. ABC was a little crazy with the colourness. I don't watch a lot of TV from that era, because a lot of it is, you know, really bad. But I'm familiar with the problem, at least.

Edward Scissorhands makes effective use of color in evoking setting, in a way that can't be done as effectively in black-and-white.

Yes. I can think of a fair number of other examples. The Close/Malkovich Dangerous Liaisons wouldn't've been as effective in B&W, I think. Heck, Gone with the Wind! Elizabeth and the more recent Elizabeth: The Golden Age did good things with colour, even if there were a lot of other ways that that last wasn't actually terribly good. Tim Burton's one of the best directors with the use of colour that I can name, actually. Did you see Sweeney Todd?

Ginnie, when you spend as much time watching movies as I do, you find it becomes nearly impossible to avoid looking at things like this. It's one of the three artforms I know the best. I really do think of my current film project as an independent, self-run film school. I don't just watch movies, you understand; I read a fair amount about them, too. This is what I do, now I'm not doing anything for a living.

What few people know is how strange the sets and costumes of most B&W movies actually were. After all, what was important was how they looked on B&W film, and certain colours produce the right shade of grey for the look the director wants. It's one of the reasons that, for many years, Art Direction, Cinematography, and Costume Design had two separate Oscar categories each--one for colour and one for B&W. (Edith Head won at least one almost every year.) A lot of those costumes were weird shades of brown, because they knew how that would photograph.

At any rate, I find all this fascinating. It's why I study it so much. I can tell you all sorts of weird, funny stories from the sets of all sorts of big-name films. I can tell you odd things about various directors and actors. And above all, I can tell you the names of a lot of good films that a lot of people have never heard of.

[Ginnie]

I don't just watch movies, you understand; I read a fair amount about them, too.
Same here.
For some reason, I'm fascinated with silent movies. Have you ever read "The Parades Gone By" by Kevin Brownlow?
The thing is though, I haven't seen a lot of silent movies. So while I might be aware of things like how they were made, the studios and the stars, I have not seen The Big Parade or The Wedding March.

Some like Birth of A Nation - if it weren't for its technical brilliance - I think are among the worst ever made. I don't think D.W. Griffith was as innovative as he was made out to be. He also had a knack for using the best techniques of other filmakers and improving upon them. But that script! Can you think of any other movies that is worse? As far as I know, in the early 20th century, men were fairly enlightened, but Griffith couldn't have been.

I haven't even seen the Battleship Potemkin, I'm almost ashamed to say. I'm gonna check out the achives.org site and download some of this stuff. ...

[gillianren]

D. W. Griffith . . . the thing is, you have to give him credit for technical brilliance. Remember, he created a lot of those techniques of which we're so fond nowadays. Many of them first appeared in Birth of a Nation. He didn't borrow them; he invented them. In that, yes, he was incredibly innovative.

Also, he did try to atone for Birth. The film of his I saw most recently was called Broken Blossoms, and it was an attempt to show a Chinese character who was one of the most sympathetic in the movie, as indeed he is. However, there are several problems, first and foremost that Griffith did not, in so many words, seem to bother reading all that much about Chinese culture before he made the film. He has a missionary Buddhist converted the heathen English (funny, if not accurate). He has said missionary quote Buddha, only Confucius actually said the thing he quoted. And so forth. Also, the guy's played by a white man in bad makeup, and they couldn't end it the way the story it's based on ended due to, you know, miscegenation rules.

Check your local library, incidentally. That's where I got Battleship Potemkin and Broken Blossoms and City Lights and on and on and on. There are literally thousands of movies in my local library system's collection. And I have just added that book to my hold list. (I'd rather watch a movie on my TV than a computer screen any day.)

[Ginnie]

Gillianren...I just watched that famous scene on the steps at Odessa.
All I can say is that is was very, very powerful - fully deserving of its reputation. I was quite surprised actually of how good the editing was. No wonder this film has always been rated so highly. Now I have to find a DVD so I can watch the whole film properly. I have it on my computer in MP4 format, but I don't think watching it that way would do it justice. But I don't know if I can wait...
Oh, and that's a good suggestion about going to the library, but I don't think my local library has a very large selection - certainly not thousands of titles. Most of them seem to be educational films or National Geographic types.

[gillianren]

You never know until you look. Now, of course, my library has a lot of educational films and National Geographic types, too, but I got Children of Men not long ago. (Admittedly after having been on the waiting list for over six months.) Still, if they don't, they don't.

[JayUtah]

In Potemkin there is also the classic cuts between the lion statues in different poses -- a pretty innovative move for early filmmaking.

[Ginnie]

I'm downloading a 2 GB mpeg now of it. Should be good enough quality to burn on DVD and watch on my TV.
***Downloaded LEGALLY BTW at http://www.archive.org***

Also downloaded a lower quality Broken Blossoms.
Cracks me up, in the opening credits: The Yellow Man...

[Ginnie]

Some of the listing of the top 100 Movies of all Time in a book I have - in chronological order

Birth of A Nation
1915 Dir: D.W. Griffith
Seen this one - you just have to put it all in historical context to appreciate ANY of this movie. Innovative for 1915 but I would have to say that ultimately lets you down. I would rather watch his next movie
'history written in lightning' - Woodrow Wilson
The Klansman has been called the worst American novel ever written.
And to think that the film's racism was toned down from the novel!

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
1919 Dir:Robert Weine
I have this one at home. It's almost like the Grimm brothers writing for an animated cubist painting isn't it? A visual feast, with a major twist.

Noseratu
1921 Dir: F.W. Murnau
I have this one too. But I bought the wrong version. It has an opening commentary by David Carridine and a soundtrack by a rock band called Type O Negative! I can't listen to it, so I watched it with the sound turned down and put a CD on of Beethovens 9th. Wish that I'd had Wagner instead. Now why don't I have any Wagner? Oh, I used to on vinyl...thats right. This is a pretty good movie. I like 1931's Dracula better though.

Nanook of the North
1922 Dir: Robert Flaherty
Haven't seen this yet, but am familiar with its reputation. The father of the documentary film - Robert Flaherty.

The Battleship Potemkin
1925 Dir: Sergei Eisenstein
I'll be seeing this very soon!


Metropolis
1926 Dir: Fritz Lang
I have it with the original soundtrack. Any SF film lover should have to see this movie.

Napoleon
1927 Dir:Abel Gance
I want so much to see this film! I was aware of it for many years but still haven't seen it. Was very innovative for its time: hand held cameras, wideangled lenses, superimposed images, and rapid cutting. Used 'Polyvision' where you had multiple frames on the screen at the same time - up to three. So a real nice widescreen for its day! Also, some of it was colourized. I would have loved to have seen it in the 80's when Coppola's dad (I think) wrote a new soundtrack to it and it was shown at some theatres with a live orchestra.
It appears that this movie is not currently available on DVD.
Kevin Brownlow discusses Napoleon:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJ2kRzJajyo&feature=related

[gillianren]

ginniegatrit said:

Also downloaded a lower quality Broken Blossoms.
Cracks me up, in the opening credits: The Yellow Man...

Oh, yes. The truly sad thing is that he was trying to make amends for Birth of a Nation by making a positive story about an interracial couple--without, of course, actually being allowed to show an interracial couple. (I watched it and wrote a review, but it was the second movie I'd watched that day, so the review is in my backlog, for days when I don't watch anything. It is, however, currently first in my backlog.)