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A query for our movie historians here:
Black and white was the norm for films during a great deal of the 20th century. By the mid-late 1930s color film was now technically advanced enough to be used quite a lot, but it wasn't until the late 1960s that color finally took over completely (or at least 99% completely.) (Note that by 1967 the Oscars ceased having separate categories for black & white and color cinematography.)
Since then, whenever a movie is filmed (or processed) in black and white (e.g. The Last Picture Show, Lenny, Raging Bull, Schindler's List, The Artist, Nebraska, etc.) we know it's not for economy reasons (I'm not referring to low budgeted indy films here, but major productions), but because it's the artistic choice of the filmmakers.
So my question is - during that 30 year period of the late 1930s - late 1960s do we know of any specific Hollywood movies in which the producer and/or director deliberately chose to use b & w as an artistic choice rather than using it because of studio budgetary concerns and/or because it was the type of film that everyone expected to be in black and white? I.e. the filmmakers could have used color, but they preferred b & w?
Thank you! 
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Of course, I should have remembered Psycho. I've known for years about its use of b&w to make the blood splatterings look less gruesome.
I did not know that about Some Like It Hot. Thanks.
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Thanks for the link, Joan. After reading Mulligan's reasons for b&w, I now wonder just how much documentation we have on decisions to choose between b&w and color during this period. (As well as choosing which aspect ratios to utilize from 1953 onwards, but that's a whole other topic!)
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Posted: |
May 12, 2014 - 10:02 AM
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By: |
CinemaScope
(Member)
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Lots of films. I remember that in the sixties a film in b/w wasn't a big deal, you didn't say, oh no it's in b/w. In Harm's Way '64 was a huge film with big stars (Wayne & Douglas), & they had no problem in shooting that in b/w, & I'm sure John Ford chose b/w for The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. They make a lot of films now that should be in b/w, but instead they shoot them in colour & then wind out about 75% of the colour, so it's not one thing or the other.
I remember in the seventies the silver price shot right up, & b/w stock became more expensive than colour because it contains more silver salt. And then one by one the film labs stopped processing b/w as there was so little of it (I'm talking about movie stock). My lab continued to process & print it, but we used to wait 'till we had enough to make it worth while, so maybe once a month.
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I've wondered if In Harm's Way was in b&w so WW2 stock footage could have been seamlessly added to some of the scenes.
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