Begging for colorization

"NO! NO! NO! Colorization simply ruins the look of a film. As has been noted, this film WAS colorized and it was putrid. I'll tell you what, why don't we paint the Michelangelo's statue of David? I mean his skin is a ghastly pale white; why not add some flesh tones--and maybe some clothes, too while we're at it. For what every reason, the makers of this film chose to make it in B&W so we should honor their intent--not to mention that the lighting schemes for color are entirely different so attempts to colorize it are going to run afoul of some serious problems"

That's kind of interesting as a comparison. . .I think the Sistine Chapel's frescos were recently (within the last 20 years) cleaned and refurbished and now the color in them is brighter and more intense. When they were done, they were surprised at how colorful they were. According to you, perhaps they should've left them alone to decay? I'm not saying I'm all for colorization but it is true that it draws in the segment of the audience that would opt to never see some fantastic movies just because they are B&W. If it does that much, it's worth it.

As God is my witness,. . .I thought turkeys could fly!

If that same 12year old said that he didn't read Shakespeare because he was unable to understand the language would you suggest that the works of Shakespeare be re-written using modern English. If people are to ignorant to watch a film in it's original format then that's their loss, it's more important to respect the integrity and artistry of the original production.

I APOLOGIZE FOR SOUNDING A LITTLE HARSH THERE IN MY LAST POST. I'M JUST SAYING THAT FILM IS ALSO ART AND SHOULD NOT BE TAMPERED WITH TO PLEASE CERTAIN GROUPS OF PEOPLE.....COLORIZING A B&W FILM IS THE EQUIVALENT OF RE-PAINTING THE SISTINE CHAPEL, PUTTING A MOUSTACHE ON MONA LISA, OR PAINTING THE EIFFEL TOWER IN PINK.....IT'S A FORM OF "CULTURAL VANDALISM"....

WHILE THERE ARE STILL COMPANIES LIKE LEGEND FILMS WHO SPECIALIZE IN COMPUTER COLORIZATION, THEY ONLY COLORIZE FILMS IN PUBLIC DOMAIN AND ALWAYS INCLUDE A RESTORED B&W PRINT ON EVERY DISC THEY PRODUCE.......LEGEND RESPECTS THE DIRECTOR'S WORK WHILE AT THE SAME TIME THEY GIVE THE FILMS THEY RESTORE A "COLOR" MARKETING GIMMICK IN HOPES OF ATTRACTING YOUNGER YUPPIE SHMUCKS WHO COMPLAIN THAT THEY CAN'T WATCH BLACK AND WHITE......GOD FORBID THEY DO...IT WOULD KNOCK THEIR EYES OUT!!! HENCE WHY I SAY THAT WE SHOLD METAPHORICALLY SHOVE CLASSIC B&W DOWN THESE PEOPLE'S THROATS AND INDOCTRINATE THEM IN THE WORLD OF INTELLIGENT, CLASSICAL HOLLYWOOD CINEMA INSTEAD OF THE *beep* COCK SUCKING *beep* *beep* THAT THE STUDIOS TURN OUT TODAY.....GARBAGE INDEED!!!

What do you mean, it wasn't "intentionally" shot in b&w? Of course it was "intentionally" shot that way...otherwise they'd have "intentionally" shot it in color. What you mean is, they wanted to shoot it in color. Okay: first, who says so? Every time a colorization fanatic wants some film colorized, he claims that that the makers of the film "wanted" it filmed in color. How do you know? Usually such claims are lies or wishful thinking or what somebody "heard".

Second, that's all beside the point. The fact is, YDD and all these other films were NOT shot in color. They ARE in black & white. You may regret that and have an inherent dislike or fear or loathing about the horror of a movie actually not being in color, but that's too bad. It's your loss if you can't appreciate a film the way it was in fact made, and if some people are so stupid or stubborn or ignorant that they refuse to watch anything in black & white, then the hell with them. Colorizing is NOT "allowing" them to see a great film (as if they needed permission to see it); it's showing them a phony version of someone else's idea of a film. A colorized film is not in any sense the same as its b&w original; to insist otherwise is illogical and deceitful. If it was the same, why colorize it in the first place?

But third and most importantly, there's one inescapable truth: colorization is NOT color. In virtually every frame of every film, colorizers do not, and can never, know what color an object or background or even a person really was; what you see in colorized movies is somebody's random guess as to what color he thinks something should be, or arbitrarily decides might look "good" in the picture. Only very rarely do they have any fairly reliable idea of what color something was, and even then, they can only make a rough approximation: they can never, ever create or duplicate the actual, real color of a person or thing photographed decades ago. The colorization crowd who yelp about wanting to see a film "in color" ignore the fact that what they'd be seeing is not only fake coloring, but false and inaccurate colors. And no matter how much "better" the process is now than 20 years ago, nothing can ever alter these facts. Add to that that this new colorization is "better" only in comparison to the old; aside from its other problems, you cannot simply wash colors onto black and white pixels and obtain anything like true color. It is not technically possible.

Those who think a colorized film looks good should compare it to a real film, shot in real color, of the same era. No colorizing can come close to duplicating the nuances, subtleties, depths, textures or tones of real color...quite apart from colorization's numerous other inherent faults and inaccuracies. Particularly in backgrounds and the like, colorization looks sloppy, with broad, vague colors dashed on where in reality many shades and differences, not to mention actual colors, would exist...assuming such backgrounds and objects would even be colorized at all (as they usually are not, so careless and dismissive are most colorizers).

And this leaves aside the moral issue of some boob 60 years later deciding to arbitrarily color someone else's work. To borrow the inaccurate Sistine Chapel metaphor from a few posts back, you can clean the Chapel ceiling, but you can't decide to change the colors or paint new things or eradicate what's there. Colorization is just like any other form of film vandalism -- someone substituting their own notions by stealing and marring someone else's work. It's one person's opinion eradicating the work of scores of others, totally apart from its fraudulent nature.

Colorization is a lie and a cheat. You do NOT see a film the way it would have looked if it had been actually filmed in honest color. You see a bunch of stuff colored by a computer technician using his own ideas. It is not an accurate representation of the real picture, let alone of real color. It degrades the nature of the film while destroying the way it was filmed and -- yes -- INTENDED to be seen. It's done by people whose ONLY interest is in making a buck from people who are so narrow-minded they can't abide black & white. If you can't stand the way a black & white film looks, then the answer is simple: don't watch it. Nobody's forcing you, and it's your loss. But don't screw around with somebody else's work and foist a false, dishonest and disrespectful version of it on the rest of us...particularly with the lying claim that this was how it "was meant" to be seen. Colorization was NEVER how anything was "meant" to be seen.

You meant black and white. BTW, Carol Reed filmed so many of his films in black and white for artistic reasons including the seminal and highly acclaimed film "The Third Man" from 1949. "The Last Picture Show" from 1971 was also black and white for artistic reasons as well.

Regarding Ted Turner's (and whoever else's) remark about how "young people don't want to watch movies in B&W" - I really suspect that the lack of colour itself is largely a non-factor. In other words, it's not the B&W itself so much as what it signifies: That a movie is OLD, starring a bunch of unfamiliar actors with weird old acting styles and old-timey sounding dialogue, plus a lack of modern-day production values and attitudes. I'd bet that the vast majority of these theoretical young people would still flock to the latest Christopher Nolan epic or X-Men extravaganza even if it were filmed in black and white. And that adding colour to "Yankee Doodle Dandy" or anything else would make little difference to most people who wouldn't be inclined to watch it in the first place. So I really think the whole process is even more pointless than it is offensive.

Should B&W films be colourized anyways, since the technology is so much more advanced than it used to be? So long as the originals are left alone and copies ALWAYS remain available, then I can't see much harm. But I reserve the right to scorn anybody who seeks these colourized versions out. And register my disdain on messageboards, of course.

I disagree about The Strawberry Blonde, which was much better in b&w.
I don't see how it was better. Cagney, Hayworth and DeHavilland photographed well in color. This wasn't a moody film or a noir with menacing shadows. Look at old, turn of the century photographs. While it's true that color film didn't really exist at the turn of the century, hand coloring was a huge industry. DeHavilland starred in color movies with Errol Flynn; why not this one?

Captains of the Clouds was a perfectly fine movie, but it was strange they shot it in color -- Cagney's first color movie, and his last for ten years (until What Price Glory? in 1952).
Captains of the Clouds recycle a common theme in many previous Cagney movies; a cocky troublemaker makes a mess of things but redeems himself before the movie ends. He'd been there done that much better in "Ceiling Zero" & "The Fighting 69th" for example. It was an OK movie, but not in the same class as "Strawberry Blonde" or "Yankee Doodle Dandy".







Absurdity: A Statement or belief inconsistent with my opinion.