A VERY COLORED VIEW OF BLACK & WHITE FILMS

It is remarkable the degree to which the issues surrounding the coloring of black-and-white film have been misrepresented and persist in being misunderstood.

In Hollywood, perhaps the chief misunderstanding is the idea that the coloring of black-and-white film is an issue of primary concern to directors. I have sat listening in stupefaction on more than one occasion to conclaves of writers (for example), whose hatred of directors is so keen and whose thirst for revenge at their hands so unslaked that the issue is misplaced in the internecine scramble for satisfaction.

It seems as well to point out that (a) most films today are not made in black-and-white and therefore the current generation of directors has no vested interest in the issue, and (b) most directors in years gone by did not get to choose whether or not films were made in black-and-white or color.

As to those who wonder why so many directors never objected to the other vandalizations of films on TV--namely, commercial interruption, censorship and elisions--they speak in ignorance of facts.

The unhappy truth is that the depredation of TV vis-a-vis movies has been fought (and lost) at every step, the key case being George Stevens’ attempt to protect “A Place in the Sun,” which went all the way to the Supreme Court.

It is it is not the directors, nor even the cinematographers, who have the biggest stake in preserving black-and-white films: It is all of us. The issues here are truth, history and aesthetics, not power, sentiment or money. “It’s a Wonderful Life” belongs no more to Frank Capra than it does to Ted Turner. “The Maltese Falcon” may have been written and directed by John Huston, but it no more belongs to him to do with as he pleases than it does to Color Systems Technology. It belongs to America. It is part of our culture.

On a case-by-case basis, film may be business, but cumulatively it metamorphoses into something else: It becomes our cultural heritage, which we have an inescapable responsibility as a civilized society to preserve.

And since cultural history is itself a form of history, we have an additional responsibility not to allow our history to be rewritten. That is the surest way to separate us from our own past.

There are no other axes to grind. Art--even bad art, as most film undoubtedly is--isn’t up to the public to shape, it is only up to the public to patronize--or not to patronize. “My job,” said Robert Bresson, “is not to find out what the public wants and give it to them; my job is to make the public want what I want.” The idea of giving the public a “choice” about what kind of film it wants to watch, colored or black-and-white, is ludicrous. It is not up to the public; it is up to the people who made the film.

Art is not a democracy. It is not an extension of democracy, and those who advocate “choice” with regard to what form art takes are confusing art with Americanism, a sadly naive mistake. Art is tyranny, and the only recourse the “people” have is not to buy it if they don’t like it. Artist and audience are at each other’s mercy.

To argue that films were shot in black-and-white because color did not exist or because the studio refused to pay for it, is again to miss the point. For whatever reasons, a film shot in black-and-white took deliberate advantage of the requirements and values of black-and-white photography. Motives aren’t the issue; black-and-white photography is the issue, and it cannot simply be “colored” without losing its own intrinsic virtues.

Another peculiar misunderstanding is the argument that since the colorists never touch the original film, they do the actual footage no harm. This is completely irrelevant, since the inescapable fact is that we will only see these films on TV. It is only a minuscule proportion of aficionados who will go to museums to view films. While it may be technically correct to say that the footage is unharmed, it is our perception of the footage that counts, and that perception will be exclusively on TV, where that footage will have been irreparably damaged.

A side argument holds that this isn’t true, that purists can always dial out the color on their TV sets. On late-model sets, unfortunately, that knob has been eliminated!

One of our least appetizing traits as a society is our willingness to cannibalize ourselves, to level with a wrecking ball those monuments to art or science or indeed the landscape itself when the profit motive assures us of a sizable return.

Hollywood is merely the high-profile echo of the rest of the country in its eagerness to remake and remar its own enterprises. Perhaps that is why there is a Landmarks Commission set up to protect great buildings from demolition or defacement.

What is first and finally at issue here is nothing more or less than our self-respect. It isn’t about directors any more than it is about plumbers. It’s about the pride we take in our accomplishments as a people and to what degree, if any, we are interested in preserving and protecting those accomplishments.

Do we believe, or don’t we, that the past has any value or meaning? Is it or is it not important to preserve the noteworthy achievements of our culture so that we and our children have ready access to them and not consign and confine them, like museum artifacts, beneath dusty glass display cases where only an elite care to seek them out? Such a fate would be especially cruel for movies, which have always been a mass entertainment medium, a Populist art.

Our civilization IS worth protecting, although there will always be a Philistine component to the population that is willing to put up condominiums in Central Park or the Presidio if they think they can turn a buck. They will rush in where angels fear to tread, willing to trash anything that talented or dedicated men and women have created, believing that capitalism is sufficient justification for the most tasteless and destructive of their schemes.

There will always be an element that opposes the Yahoos and I suppose this element will always be branded as reactionary or purist or elitist. I don’t think any of those terms are accurate, but I suffer them gladly so long as this latter bunch remain strong and determined to fight to preserve our accomplishments, achievements and history.