Zürcher Nachrichten - How black-and-white became Hollywood's favorite new color

EUR -
AED 3.828993
AFN 73.113332
ALL 98.655938
AMD 413.010463
ANG 1.875795
AOA 950.742381
ARS 1066.811124
AUD 1.674318
AWG 1.876465
AZN 1.800783
BAM 1.9583
BBD 2.101483
BDT 124.378774
BGN 1.960916
BHD 0.392864
BIF 3077.728843
BMD 1.042481
BND 1.414305
BOB 7.192181
BRL 6.414366
BSD 1.040829
BTN 88.596096
BWP 14.455453
BYN 3.406148
BYR 20432.623057
BZD 2.094374
CAD 1.502246
CDF 2991.920009
CHF 0.936898
CLF 0.037352
CLP 1030.669552
CNY 7.608441
CNH 7.613091
COP 4582.224217
CRC 528.474619
CUC 1.042481
CUP 27.62574
CVE 110.405938
CZK 25.130562
DJF 185.269379
DKK 7.461254
DOP 63.400934
DZD 140.837878
EGP 52.938241
ERN 15.637212
ETB 132.52217
FJD 2.417148
FKP 0.825626
GBP 0.832134
GEL 2.929142
GGP 0.825626
GHS 15.29953
GIP 0.825626
GMD 75.058977
GNF 8995.483092
GTQ 8.017234
GYD 217.757977
HKD 8.09773
HNL 26.444758
HRK 7.477617
HTG 136.093729
HUF 411.170022
IDR 16895.22519
ILS 3.816757
IMP 0.825626
INR 88.908703
IQD 1363.440486
IRR 43875.410454
ISK 145.123569
JEP 0.825626
JMD 162.167013
JOD 0.739431
JPY 164.584258
KES 134.521877
KGS 90.695879
KHR 4183.3402
KMF 485.926381
KPW 938.232108
KRW 1531.393631
KWD 0.321272
KYD 0.867407
KZT 539.198308
LAK 22762.056672
LBP 93205.079995
LKR 306.751581
LRD 189.431817
LSL 19.353305
LTL 3.078175
LVL 0.630586
LYD 5.109523
MAD 10.496099
MDL 19.203514
MGA 4909.266875
MKD 61.629093
MMK 3385.93687
MNT 3542.349515
MOP 8.326429
MRU 41.549039
MUR 49.069655
MVR 16.052222
MWK 1804.803904
MXN 21.057788
MYR 4.65884
MZN 66.618409
NAD 19.353305
NGN 1607.588992
NIO 38.29889
NOK 11.858625
NPR 141.753955
NZD 1.851076
OMR 0.401007
PAB 1.040829
PEN 3.875748
PGK 4.224393
PHP 60.482123
PKR 289.763194
PLN 4.261698
PYG 8117.362136
QAR 3.785432
RON 4.979097
RSD 117.194944
RUB 104.00052
RWF 1451.953476
SAR 3.913893
SBD 8.739695
SCR 14.862673
SDG 627.05188
SEK 11.515024
SGD 1.416283
SHP 0.825626
SLE 23.772441
SLL 21860.303626
SOS 594.859362
SRD 36.547247
STD 21577.247141
SVC 9.107626
SYP 2619.264458
SZL 19.361716
THB 35.559579
TJS 11.386535
TMT 3.659107
TND 3.318736
TOP 2.441599
TRY 36.639795
TTD 7.073029
TWD 34.166783
TZS 2524.022067
UAH 43.64151
UGX 3809.863442
USD 1.042481
UYU 46.329141
UZS 13437.153061
VES 53.761672
VND 26515.498339
VUV 123.765405
WST 2.880153
XAF 656.795426
XAG 0.035074
XAU 0.000396
XCD 2.817356
XDR 0.798019
XOF 656.795426
XPF 119.331742
YER 261.011084
ZAR 19.683704
ZMK 9383.54474
ZMW 28.80477
ZWL 335.678382
  • RYCEF

    0.0000

    7.25

    0%

  • CMSC

    -0.1100

    23.66

    -0.46%

  • SCS

    0.1650

    11.895

    +1.39%

  • VOD

    -0.0150

    8.415

    -0.18%

  • RBGPF

    -0.7000

    59.8

    -1.17%

  • NGG

    -0.1090

    58.751

    -0.19%

  • CMSD

    -0.1700

    23.48

    -0.72%

  • GSK

    -0.0050

    34.025

    -0.01%

  • RELX

    -0.0200

    45.87

    -0.04%

  • RIO

    -0.0700

    59.13

    -0.12%

  • BCC

    0.0800

    123.27

    +0.06%

  • BTI

    0.1400

    36.4

    +0.38%

  • AZN

    0.1200

    66.42

    +0.18%

  • JRI

    0.0200

    12.17

    +0.16%

  • BCE

    -0.0550

    22.845

    -0.24%

  • BP

    0.0300

    28.82

    +0.1%

How black-and-white became Hollywood's favorite new color
How black-and-white became Hollywood's favorite new color

How black-and-white became Hollywood's favorite new color

Black-and-white is the hot new trend in Hollywood, where directors of Oscars-contending films such as "Belfast" and "The Tragedy of Macbeth" are embracing monochrome for its storytelling power.

Text size:

Kenneth Branagh's childhood drama and Joel Coen's Shakespeare adaptation are among a batch of recent acclaimed movies shot either entirely or mainly without color, as filmmakers seek to tap into the medium's inherent sense of historical authenticity and humanizing intimacy.

"Color allows you brilliantly to describe people, but black-and-white allows you to feel people," Branagh said of his deeply personal drama about violence in 1960s Northern Ireland, which is up for seven Oscars on Sunday including best picture.

While a "sweeping landscape of a desert or a mountain range" can be made epic by color, "an epic dimension of black-and-white photography, on a massive screen, is the human face."

The choice "makes for a poetic dimension to things that can otherwise seem a little banal," he told AFP.

Meanwhile, "Tragedy of Macbeth" cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel told The New York Times the effect was "meant to bring theatricality" and give the film a timeless quality. Its star Denzel Washington is in the running for best actor.

Monochrome movies have of course continued to exist since they fell out of mainstream favor during the 1950s, when cheaper color technology enabled more directors to emulate the bright tones that had dazzled audiences years earlier in "The Wizard of Oz" and "Gone with the Wind."

In 2012, "The Artist" -- a film that was not just black-and-white but also silent -- won best picture at the Oscars, while the likes of "Roma" and "Mank" have won Oscars for best cinematography more recently.

But this year's colorless contingent has grown.

"We all got together... it was a DGA [Directors Guild of America] meeting," joked Mike Mills, whose family drama "C'mon C'mon" starring Joaquin Phoenix also comes in grayscale, and was nominated at this month's BAFTAs.

"I love black-and-white. I'm super pretentious. I watch a lot of black-and-white films -- they're my heroes' films, right? I just adore them," Mills told AFP.

In "Passing" -- whose star Ruth Negga has been nominated for a batch of awards, winning at the Film Independent Spirit Awards earlier this month -- the format is used to tackle the issue of racism.

Rebecca Hall's directorial debut explores "racial passing," as two childhood friends of mixed racial heritage have a chance encounter in 1920s New York while both are pretending to be white.

"It wasn't just a stylistic choice. I felt that it was a conceptual choice -- to make a film about colorism... that drains the color out of it," Hall said at its Sundance film festival premiere.

"We look at faces, and then we immediately put them into these categorizations... the categorizations become important, but they are also in some senses absurd.

"Nobody is actually black-and-white. Film isn't black-and-white. It's gray."

- 'Crazy abstraction' -

So, why are directors getting on the black-and-white bandwagon now? Is it simply a coincidence?

Experts have pointed to broader trends such as the rise of Instagram and social media, that may explain why audiences -- which in recent times may have seen black-and-white films as "old-fashioned" or "boring" -- are now more willing to give it a go.

"Most Americans have become their own filmmakers and photographers with the ability to slap a filter onto an image and render it in grayscale or sepia or heightened color," wrote Alissa Wilkinson, who covers film and culture for Vox.

"Getting used to seeing color-adjusted images, including black-and-white videos and photos, could make us associate them with the past less. Instead of being bound by history and time, we start to see them as simply aesthetic choices."

The idea that black-and-white is a choice to deliberately look less real than the color-filled world we actually live in has been embraced by several of this year's efforts.

"Black-and-white is such a crazy abstraction, so does a great sort of magic trick on the viewer," said Mills. "'I'm not in the real world anymore. I'm a little kicked off into a story, into art.'"

And there was a more specific reason for his choice in "C'mon C'mon," a movie about an absent uncle -- played by Phoenix -- bonding with his precocious nephew.

"I have this really cute kid -- black-and-white helped just take the cute sting off of it."

W.Vogt--NZN