The colorization of black and white movies has been a hot-button topic for the film community since the 1980s. It’s a debate that should’ve died in that decade, but every so often the fad pops up again in circles outside the mainstream, endorsed by people who should probably know better. In recent years, I remember stop-motion animator Ray Harryhausen applauding and promoting a colorized version of 1935’s She— a black and white film he had no involvement in making. Over the years, many classic films that were originally photographed in black and white have been colorized. Media mogul Ted Turner led this effort in the ’80s, and since then other companies have gotten into the act, typically with public domain titles like My Man Godfrey (1936).
The topic remains quite the hornet’s nest, particularly in some film discussion groups, but one of the best overviews of the debate is this archived C-SPAN hearing from 1987. Any discussion of the issue should start with this:
The biggest commercial advantage is that by altering the film you can put your own copyright on it and make a little money. Of those films that have been colorized, two screwball comedies, My Man Godfrey (1936) and Topper (1941), probably fare the best, and this is primarily because of the lighting. There is lots of light in nearly every scene (with only a few night scenes). For some reason, adding color in the shadow areas makes the subject look “radioactive”– what film historian Kendall Miller refers to as “looking like a 1940s lobby card”! An example of that radioactive look can be found in Topper Returns (1941):
Kendall Miller pointed out to me that “by using a pastel pallet, the color interferes less with the tonal values of the underlying black and white spectrum (from a diamond sparkle to an inky black). The lighter the black and white image, the better the colorization seems to work.” Some of the worst colorized films include The Prisoner of Zenda (1937), a film that was intended to be shot in Technicolor, but that became impossible with the trick photography used in the film. The Maltese Falcon (1941) is another film that looks atrocious:
When Ted Turner finally got around to Casablanca (1942), the process was somewhat improved (but still bad)– what Miller describes as sort of “an old Metrocolor print suffering from color cast.” Of course, in 2018 the process of colorization has improved even further and its supporters believe this makes a difference. But the principle of doing it remains the same. The late Roger Ebert, a popular critic I’ve rarely quoted before, had some inciteful observations on the issue when he wrote about the colorization of Casablanca. Click Here!
The reality is that altering movies affects the cinematography, lighting, and art direction. The creative decisions that went into the making of the film– as well as its very integrity– become compromised by people who have nothing to do with the creation of the film. Black and white lighting from the Golden Age is little understood by most film buffs. There was a great deal of thought that went into studio lighting and black and white photography. For instance– and this is not mentioned in the C-SPAN discussion– to off-set a table, a chair, or a person in the foreground from a similarly hued background (i.e. a white wall and a pink dress both photograph white, as in Princess Flavia’s ball gown in The Prisoner of Zenda, which was pink but appears white in the movie), the cinematographer used cross-lighting and fill lighting.
As Kendall Miller explained to me, “It was extremely nuanced in the hands of someone like (cinematographer) Joseph Walker…from the lenses, the lens diffusion, Muslin Diffused Leko lights for fill lighting, gimmick lights, fingers and gobos…the list is voluminous. The VALUES along that black to white spectrum determine how lighting is applied. Therefore, a COLOR film would have a completely DIFFERENT lighting design. This is another reason that colorization is a fool’s errand. A COLOR film would never be shot the same way as a black and white film. You have to know how EVERY color will finally register on black and white stock and plan your lighting, diffusion, cross-lighting, fill-lighting, accordingly. So, this isn’t a question of what the Director intended as an artist…. it’s at a more basic elemental level of the stark differences between the nature of Black and White versus Color Photography.”
In today’s world, a conversation on the subject often reveals more about the people discussing it than it does about the process of colorization itself. Those who support the idea really don’t understand movies or what it means to make them. Times change but that doesn’t mean artistic integrity should go out the window. In the 21st century, some continue to voice the opinion that black and white films would somehow be “enhanced” in color. But it’s not actually real color in any true sense. Digitally coloring over the frame with artifice doesn’t equal “Technicolor.” The argument is that by doing this, colorized films will attract a wider audience, particularly younger viewers who are usually too occupied to sit and watch something not in color.
Over the years there has been a diminishing attention span of the public due to the distracting increase of external stimulation. (In 2000, the average attention span was 12 seconds. In 2015, with the preponderance of iphones and social media, the average attention is now a mere 8.25 seconds.) “Normative thinking vs. the reality of the world in which we live!” This is a generation that communicates with their thumbs (as they text at the red lights) and expresses themselves through memes, emojis, and gifs, and their grasp of film history– at the risk of making a generalization– normally doesn’t extend beyond the latest pop culture trends. You can try and cultivate their taste by exposure to the original source, or you can cater to them by reaching them in words and visuals (i.e., artificial color) they can “understand.” Film appreciation, however, is about discovery, and millennials who are genuinely interested in film in general and black and white films in particular will find them.
Some maintain that we are already altering a movie when we clean up the image, but “restoration” is not the same thing as colorization. You restore a film to get it in a state as close to the original version as possible. (Admittedly, this can become a gray area, particularly with the restoration of films like Hitchcock’s Vertigo, which included digital sounds on the audio track not in the original film. Another example might be the “modernized” musical score that accompanies a silent film like Wings.) Modern technology enhances dvd presentations, often presenting the films in such a pristine state that they appear clearer than what they were when first released. It’s almost too clear– not as how we normally see. Blu-ray, 4K discs, and Hi-Def screens present films in an ultra state of high resolution that can seem unreal to the human eye. This is because anything digital is a step away from life– digital 1’s and 0’s whereas film is a chemical process of light hitting celluloid. On a Hi-Def TV, older films take on the look and feel of live television productions. If we can accept that, some suggest, why not accept other enhancements? Is this not progress? “Oh, this must be better because the picture is better.” If you’re into home entertainment and never bother to see a film in a theatre, then by those standards it is progress. But to the preservationist, to the film buff, this hyper-reality of the image is a distortion of the original, but it is not nearly as radical as colorization, which essentially presents an altogether different image before our eyes.
Others argue that as long as both versions exist– the black and white original and the colorized version– what is the issue? The issue is that many people will then be experiencing a film not as how the filmmakers intended. After watching a film in color, would the viewer then go back and watch it again in its original black and white? Maybe, but unlikely. A viewer’s “first impression” is thus destroyed, and that first viewing can never be experienced again. It is better for it not to exist than to be an option on a menu. Film isn’t interactive. You don’t pick and choose how you want it presented (excluding things like subtitles, of course). That’s the beauty of the theatrical presentation; it overtakes you and you accept it as it is.
True color is a beautiful thing. For those who have made the effort to see a Technicolor film print in a theatre or have viewed a stunning Kodachrome photo (in REAL color) know that the effect cannot be digitally recreated no many how many pixels are used in the frame. On social media sites like Facebook, many users colorize black and white photos with various computer programs, but this is essentially erasing the history of that image. Some people have strangely cited color lobby cards from the 1920s and 1930s as some sort of justification, but this advertising was distributed by the studios at the time and is not reason to colorize black and white movie stills from that same era. Things should be accepted as they are released to the public in that time— not reinterpreted or rearranged generations later. Instead of using computers to alter some one else’s work, try using a paintbrush and easel or camera to create your own.
~MCH
This beautiful photo of Ronald Colman and Madeleine Carroll has not been “colorized” by modern standards. It was one of the few on-set photos taken (in real color), and that’s what makes it special. It later appeared in a Sunday Newspaper Supplement in November of 1937. The Prisoner of Zenda would’ve looked gorgeous in Technicolor, and this photo is a small glimpse into what that might’ve been like. A lost opportunity? Perhaps. But to “colorize” the existing print for television is an insult to the equally stunning black and white cinematography of James Wong Howe.
