Anybody else agreee that the b&w version was by far superior? The colour version has degenerated so badly - despite, I'm sure, the most laudable efforts of contemporary technicians - that it actively inhibits ones appreciation of Tati's genius.
shareThe color version was filmed in a special color procédé, which initially could not be recaptured. After several years of technical experiments they finally succeeded in capturing the color from the 'color' negative Tati made.
I agree with you that it's not in perfect colors, but that's what the film would have looked like if Tati had succeeded with the Thomson color process. Then that 1949 color print would have been THE version we'd all know and love.
So it was not a colorization process as you talk about, which is coloring in the b/w images. The b/w film is based on Tati's alternative takes with a second camera, in case the color process wouldn't work. (So, Tati made two versions.)
Edit: I just read that most of the color print could be restored, and a small part could not. That part was taken from the b/w print and colorized in the way to match with the rest of the color print.
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In the British Film Institute version, that material remains in black and white. The rest of the film was taken from the color negative, which was finally able to be processed in 1995.
Also the painter has been removed, as his character was shot in the sixties for a rerelease and Tati didn't like the character.
I agree. And even if the colour process were ok, I still prefer the black and white version. Black and white gives stronger images.
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I never make mistakes. Once I thought I did, but I was wrong.
The color version is much better, because that is the version that Jacques Tati prepared for and wished for. Hell, he shot the film in color, and the black and white camera was only there in case the color didn't work. The entire film was designed for color, and the color is gorgeous, not technicolor of course, but still far superior to the B & W version.
Jour De Fete is not a colorized film at all, but a film that can finally be seen as it was intended, simply because technology can now bring Tati's original vision to life.
I do like the B & W version of the film, but it seems so different now. Of course the painter character that was inserted into the 1960s prints of Jour De Fete has been removed...