The Black and White Truth: Colorization Sucks - September 11, 2008

 

Ted Turner doesn't like black-and-white movies. Drunk on technology that allowed computers to "improve" old films by troweling layers of color over them, he threatened to colorize Orson Welles's Citizen Kane -- generally considered the greatest movie ever made, largely thanks to Gregg Toland's superb black-and-white cinematography. Welles's response? "Keep Ted Turner and his damned Crayolas off of my picture." Fortunately, Welles's 1941 contract prevented Turner from defacing Kane, but the search for color is as old as movies themselves. Pioneer filmmakers applied watercolors directly onto film to provide viewers with some realism, and most silent features used tinting and toning (for example, blue for night scenes, amber for outdoors) to provide atmosphere.  In 1908, George Smith's Kinemacolor system gave moviegoers a taste of the real world, and in 1917, Herbert T. Kalmus devised the Technicolor system, which photographed red and green light onto two strips of film running through a camera.  Unfortunately, the resulting images, while closer to real life, were orangey-pink or greenish-blue. The real breakthrough came in 1932, when Kalmus developed a three-strip process that gave a depth and richness to images that hadn't been seen before (or since, to be honest). That was the status quo for the next 50 years, as moviemakers alternated between color and black-and-white as subject matter (and budgets) dictated. In the '80s, though, technology enabled film owners to go through their libraries and spruce up movies that younger viewers -- not used to black and white -- found unwatchable. In most cases, the results were awful, as a limited color palate washed out details and replaced crisp images with a muddy mess. The public was unimpressed, and the fad was soon over. In recent years, though, technology has improved, and while the results may be brighter, they still leave a lot to be desired. As for ourselves, while we like our movies in color, the silvery images captured by such artists as Toland, Stanley Cortez, and William Daniels are priceless treasures that shouldn't be mucked with. Suggested Sites... Film Colorization - a history of film desecration. Glorious Technicolor - how dye-transfer movies worked, looked, and vanished. Turner Classic Movies - ironically enough, the place to see movies that are uncut and unaltered. Casablanca Gets Colorized, But Don't Play It Again, Ted - Roger Ebert takes on Ted Turner. Restoring Doctor X - UCLA shows that the first Technicolor horror film is stunning -- even in two-strip color.