A Study of Black and White Filmmaking
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- Опубліковано 25 чер 2020
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For many critics, Black and White films are the gold standard. But do they have any limitations? Let's take a look at how black and white films (and symbolism) tend to leave out the most interesting part of the story.
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#BlackAndWhite #Watchmen #BlackLivesMatter
CLARIFICATION: Josh doesn’t die first in Midsommar, he is actually the first on-screen death. Thanks to those who pointed that out!
Ad at the end of your BLM video.
This essay has far deeper issues than that, buddy.
He isn’t even the first onscreen death. That would be her family. Then the people at the cliff. Bad example.
You should do a video about representation about cars in films
What's wrong with the Harry Potter scene at 1:04? It stutters hard
Ironically, black and white symbolism isn't black and white. For instance, a superstition among sailors is that black cats bring good luck; and in Japan, owning a black cat brings the owner good luck with suitors. Also in Japan, white represents death, so a white wedding dress signifies the death of the bride's old family and the birth of her new family. Hence black doesn't always equal bad, and white doesn't necessarily always equal good.
And then there's the yin-yang symbol, wherein black and white always contain a sliver of their opposite within one another (represented by the "eyes" of the yin-yang symbol). So not only can the shades' values switch with context, they can also become entangled with one another, creating a more nuanced worldview than black and white thinking. Also, your Star Wars clip shows Darth Vader decked head to toe in black, but in the very same scene, the storm troopers were wearing white. Then there's Han Solo's moral ambiguity: white shirt under a black jacket.
indian people also wear white on funerals
Was it in Egypt that black meant order, life or fertility?
Here in Ireland black cats are also seen as a symbol of good luck
Where i live black Cats are a Bad Omen and White Symbols cleanliness and purity
I guess thats Just normal with some exemptions Here and there around the world
@@bendover2684 I wouldn't want to hazard a guess as to the statistics of the black and white dichotomy's meaning for 7.5 billion people. The first problem would be the question of from when the statistics would begin, because meanings change over time. Next is the second problem that what is considered to be held under the meaning of black and/or white also changes from culture to culture and era to era. For example, the idea of white people is a relatively recent invention; and while the Irish are currently considered white, there was a time when they weren't held under that category.
Finally, the third problem is the demarcation of people into groups. Would we divide people into groups based on their nationality, religion or cultural inheritances, etc? Taoism and Christianity use the dichotomy in very different ways, and Asian countries have a lot of Christians and Taoists. Then there are the more esoteric groups that don't appear on censuses. To simply assume that your understanding of the dichotomy is the norm around the world is cultural arrogance.
That's a problem I have with this video. There's nothing wrong with only studying the symbolism of America and England in cinema, if that is what you want to do; the problem occurs when you don't clarify this, and extend the symbolism to be culturally universal.
Shows brief clip from Star Wars to make the point that villian Darth Vader dressed in black. Point is negated by several Stormtroopers in the same clip, also villains, dressed in white.
indeed, tho the design of darth(dark) vader seems intended to be mainly black and dark, because he's a dark person inside i.e. youngling serial murderer dark. I don't think it's a race connection given his troops are all white clad, officers sitting around are all white, and the galactic empire was literally patterned after nazi Germany.
Proposition: color symbolism of "black" and "white" are connected to the good and bad because of light and lack of it. Darkness is associated with danger (because there might be predator in it), light is associated with security (because it's connected to day and fireplace).
You might argue if that's internal to human nature or just trained behaviour, but you probably wouldn't argue that with color red, connected to the color of blood - which is the most stimulating and distinctive color.
I love movies that are colored in red. I want to own a whole room filled with red. Red lights. Red walls. Red floor. Red everything. Itd be nutz.
@@MicheallikeMJ it would, just like you, after spending extended amounts of time within it.
@@Hoichael My bedroom used to have red walls and it didn't drive me crazy
Exactly. Humans have been sitting in front of a campfire for thousands of years and the light from the fire provides comfort, warmth and safety; walk 30 feet away from the campfire and you'll see how dark the forest really is. This has been ingrained into the DNA.
You could of course argue that fire is a symbol of Hell, it's evil because it destroys everything etc.
@@Hoichael Could you explain the science behind your argument?
This video was kinda a reach. There are ways to talk about the negative ways in which black people were portrayed in films without being so reductive about the entirety B&W movies. Plus, you showed examples of B&W being used in opposite ways that don't oversimplify the black (bad) vs white (good) dynamic. I'd also like to add Night of the Living Dead as an example of this dynamic being flipped. The smart, resourceful main character is a black man that overcomes the zombies, only to be killed by a group of white people (and the film was shot in b&w), so to say that B&W as a format is oversimplifying dynamics and inherently harmful to racial dynamics seems way too reductive to me.
Absolutely agree the idea also that black and white tropes of good and evil come from race a real reach also. I'd argue it came from religions and myths. Long before most white people meet a black person we had this idea. Light is considered safe the day time is not full of predators unlike the darkness. Alot of kids have a fear of the dark not because they're racist. Old paintings portray this trope alot. I think a better title for this is how the B&W format was used for racism.
@@wanwan3994 I get where you come from, but you shouldn't assume that your black and white meanings are universal; In my country black is associated with maturity and fertility, because that's how the earth looks after it rains. In Asia white is associated with death, not black, and is the preferred color at funerals. I think the point is to try and question our view of the western symbolism of colors, that was used to misrepresent race issues. It'd be much more interesting to see that canon be defied rather than followed, don't you think?
@@wanwan3994 I would argue that black and white thinking/symbolism gave birth to western racialism, and not the other way round. While black and white, separately and together, signify many different values, there is a tradition in the west of "white good" and "black bad" symbolism that stretches farther back in time than the recent invention of whiteness as a racial identifier.
@@EEEEeee2748 I'm not saying it's universal but he was clearly talking about American made movies. The tones they used of black and white would be for a American audience/from a view point of what the person grew up culturally knowing that made the film. So I have no reason to bring up any other culture because it doesn't matter to the point.
the problem is that, whether you recognize it or not it is creating subconscious bias. most Americans fail racial bias tests, even Black ones. Tony might be hanging the style out to dry, but it is a conversation that needs to be said.
Did you mean The Case Against Black and White Symbolism? Black and white film is essentially a medium, and you can be bigoted or enlightened (as it were) in any medium.
I found myself asking this too, all the shade(as it were) is being thrown to 'black and white racial symbolism' which is not actually intrinsic to the medium, yet the title questions literally the entire medium. i feel click-baited by this premise.
Yes! This.
Usually your videos are film undergrad essay tier but this feels more like a highschool essay at best
Not only that, according to comments, example of black guy dying first is wrong and half of what he says feels like biased bullshit. I like his videos usually, but this seems strange and I disagree with many claims he made.
@@kaksspl I think the woke race talk had you squirming.
The perspective of this video essay seems to hone in on the topic of racism so much that it really misses out on some interesting points that could be made. This is especially evident in how america-centric it is (given that the specific characteristics of black/white racism are very much an american cultural phenomenon). I would've loved to see comparisons to the use of colour in, say, Bollywood, or in black/white Soyuzmultfilm, or in Chinese movies.
Then make your own video 🤷♀️
@@charatrice6272 Why would he make a video adding onto this when theirs already a perfectly good place to in the comments section?
@@charatrice6272 I do believe a comment section is one of the places you can ask a creator what you'd like to see.
You could do that, but I think this video is pretty much just about American Films, fairly mid-high budget ones. To creators like "Inside a mind" (in which they're American) usually forget the world exists and everything and everyone lives in the glorious land of the GOD BLESSED US OF A 🇺🇸.
antiblack racism is not just an american phenomenon lol
Feel like this isn’t really well researched. Like the black and white images are all from movies about white people, except for one. As a guy who has worked with black and white, you get more latitude for exploring tones in skin than color film. In fact, for a long history color film couldn’t really capture black skin. Most of the films he seems to reference about black filmmakers using color also seem to be shot in digital, ignoring Spike Lee’s beautiful use of black and white in She’s Gotta Have It. www.openculture.com/2018/07/color-film-was-designed-to-take-pictures-of-white-people-not-people-of-color.html
This is exactly the film I was going to mention - such a powerful use of black and white.
Well this all seems to be pondering on the idiotic Riots.
@@bendover2684 And virtue-signaling to boot!
Ben Dover spoken like a Klansman
@@bendover2684 it's horrific you think that, people have died, for goodness sake.
Strange he didn't mention Batman wearing black costume while Joker runs around in colourful suit
also people love lighter scenery over dark because you can see the predators in a day time
how is it strange he didn't mention that? like.. there is so much media out there to discuss why on earth is it weird he didn't mention batman
@@EmileFeik His point is that he's cherrypicking to support a thesis, and a silly one at that.
M. Gustave H. He’s talking about film overall. The only one cherry picking is you
@@roua9882 He's applying a cherrypicked theory TO film overall. To say that this applies to all of film is absolutely ridiculous.
How could he add Batman references when he's referencing Se7en and David Fincher.... Again....
you made a few assumptions that are questionable.
For example, the tropes "white=good" and "dark=evil" probably don't come from racism, but our relationship to day and night.
Most predators hunt at night, the night is dangerous, and humans can not see very well at night. Day is safe, warm, cozy.
I also don't agree with the assumption, that black and white films somehow tend to be more morally simplistic.
The twilight zone comes to mind
Jonathan Böcker I didn’t watch the video because I always felt this guy conflates everything to racism. So I’m gonna guess that he’s done it again.
Yes it's more of a mislabeling of black people as 'black', because they're not black at all, brown is closer to the truth.
@@petef15 and white people usually are pink, not white
@@Chris-rg6nm yeah, but the concept is "light" vs "dark", of which black and white are the extremes.
Where exactly did he state those tropes were born from rascism?
Is it worth me struggling on with this video past "black and white films literally leave no grey area" being played over a clip that is both predominantly grey in tone featuring two characters who are absolutely not indicative of moral extremes?
Edit: OK, I got two minutes further... This is just pure tripe. Sorry.
Christ, I've watched some dumb UA-cam videos in my time, but this one must surely deserve a medal for achievement in the field of wrongheadedness.
@@neonatalpenguin I don't see why people are hating on this video so much... it makes fine sense to me.
@@kayj312 I mean, I've already given an example of what's wrong with it.
I can breakdown the full video if you like, but that would involve me watching it through again and you reading the subsequent text wall, and I don't think either of us are keen on that prospect.
In summary, though, it's a fallacious (often self-contradictory) argument, from a completely Americo-centric POV, that is laid out poorly by way of huge leaps of logic, convenient ignoring of examples that don't fit the thesis statement, disingenuous linking of completely disparate ideas and blatant untruths.
The shame of it is that many younger viewers, like yourself I'm guessing, will watch this completely uncritically, be persuaded of the argument based almost completely on the fact that it's one of those videos where a calming voice talks with seeming authority over well edited clips, and thereafter will use it as a wholly incorrect basis to dismiss a huge chunk of film history, which is an outcome I actively resent.
Easily the worst video I've seen from this channel. Bad enough and, as neonatalpenguin put it, wrongheaded enough to prompt an unsubscribe.
@@derfanddarf1 Then unsubscribe, we won't miss you......
This starts like a high school essay.
Black and white films do not literally present a visual contrast of black and white. The visuals of a black and white film are predominantly shades of gray. It is for that reason that film noir works best in black and white. The literal and the figurative become in sync. In contrast, films which have a simplistic, binary conception of good guys and bad guys work best in vibrant color.
Well said.
The black guy doesn't die first, he literally dies to a dude wearing his mate as a mask
In Midsommar
Exactly! A beautiful example of how political views can affect your sense of reality: since 'now you see it' tried to analyze the movie from a racial-sensitive point of view, he saw exactly what he wanted to see.
@@alexmir1763 Or it was offscreen, so he forgot
@@TheRiptideRaptor He happened to forget what happens in the very scene he is analyzing?? come on. You are basically saying that while he accused the scene of racism, he forgot what actually happened in the scene - which just happens to prove him wrong. I like most of his videos, but there's no saving this one. He decided to make a pro-BLM video and he did just that - and the rate at which he lost touch with the facts once he decided on the intended political message of his video is alarming.
Edit: and the guy doing the killing literally wears the black guy's friend's FACE. You cannot miss this detail while watching the scene.
And how is supporting brown people (because we are not even the color black) Politcal? we are freaking humans nothing is is ever good enough for yall. I know half of yall dont care for BLM but dont be mad cause he does. And I must be slow because I also would not count the off screen death in Midsommar . The director did that to show the evil of the cult. He literally did that on purpose! But yall will convince yourselfs that anything that clearly shows racism isn't racism . . . Can we at least as fans of this channel just enjoy it 🤦🏾♂️
This is the kind of intellectually lazy pandering is perfectly encapsulated by the ad at the end of the video.
It simultaneously argues for the merits of intent (the choice of use of color or what tends to be centered around in actuality contrast) and then somehow argues against its self to imply (without stating) intrinsic values of b/w.
This is the kind of thing that is actually harmful to valid discourse being had... as it not only bankrupt of any real point, but it paints those with legitimately interesting valid points to make in the same shallow light... plus it just adds to the cacophony, drowning out legitimate points.
This video is emblematic of a lot of what is wrong with the current climate.
this video is what we in the industry refer to as a bruh moment
How did you get through this without mentioning Schindler's List?
Or any Kurosawa movie
I know plenty of black & white movies that are fantastic like Dracula(1931), Frankenstein(1931), The Mummy(1932), The Invisible Man(1933), Bride Of Frankenstein(1935), The Wolfman(1941), Psycho(1960), Fort Apache(1948), Casablanca(1942), Night Of The Living Dead(1968), & Stagecoach(1939). Every movie I've just are great black & white films. They don't need an once of color.
Seek only evidence to support the conclusion. Ignore all discomfirming evidence.
iirc he did mention it in a separate video more specific to the meaning of each color, maybe he wanted to bring to light lesser-known examples? but I think it still fits his opinion on binary symbolism because the use of color in that movie was more geared towards the hope of breaking free from the regime and looking to the future?
@@adalester9 I don't really think he meant that all B&W films are bad per se, just that color can add another dimension of symbolism for progressive messages. I wouldn't be surprised if he meant this video as a tribute to the BLM movement
This sounds... oversimplified
its a 14 minute video what do u expect
@@ThaMango421124 yeah, but it's not really that informative. Just some opinions. Cool, but this channel has better videos
he is compressing over a century of film history into 12 minutes. It is going to be reductive.
@@LuxiBelle see my comment above
@@BowarePL I'm not sure anybody would click a year long video - which it'd have to be to fully cover everything. He covered the views old film makers had on how colour worked, which I found informative.
Didn't really like this one. Something is missing here... it just doesn't really feel like your analysis digs deep enough. My biggest issue is that this video is incredibly Western-centric, Americo-Centric specifically, and misses out on the way in which colour is used and represented throughout the world, as many have already pointed out. B&W films were not also always an artistic choice - for a long time it really was all most films could afford to do, but even so there are things about black and white that you can't do in colour (ie an emphasis on texture as opposed to colours). I also found the racial focus of this video a bit .... weird, and quite clunky, especially because of how centred on American films it was, and how it tended to neglect examples that didn't necessarily fit your argument.
I think this one is a hard miss for me.
Wait, I don't think that the black guy dies first in Midsommar. It's the Mark character played by Will Poulter who's killed first, I believe (who's white).
He was the most logical one of them all, this is why they kill off the black guys in movies, he see the danger his white friend don't see.
He was not even the second or third to die. The first to die was Simon who the cult said left in the middle of the night because he didn't want to stick around. The girlfriend, Connie, was confused by this and went after him and she disappeared. Later on, you find out that they were both murdered by the cult. Then came Mark. And then, finally, Josh. Josh was in the building when someone wearing Mark's skin as a suit attacked him. Out of the group, Josh was second to last to die. Christian died after him.
@@mekkio77 The first death shown was his, though... so it kind of runs in the middle between following and averting the trope.
don't forget the family in the opening scene. or the two elders jumping off the cliff
joppippoj They are clearly not main characters though
0:58 sooo... the Storm Troopers are actually the good guys ?
The dead Rebels wear dark colors sooo
It's like you didn't even watch the video...
@@MaiaPalazzo I did watch it, did you. He says that good guys typically wear white while bad guys wear black. He shows Star Wars as an example, which it doesn't really fit because of the stormtroop wearing white.
@@LuxiBelle it does, cuz they're the empire trying to be seen as the good guys.
@@LuxiBelle he was referring to darth Vader.
@@LuxiBelle I think the contrast is supposed to be white clothed Luke vs dark clothed Vader? (and even later, Rey and whatshisname)
Maybe should have titled this "Cases for Different Uses of Color in Movies" and gone positive instead of a negative slant.
I feel like what this discussion is missing out on is the context of who is making these films. Your not mentioning that most of not all films you referenced are US, and European films. I would be interested to hear if you can see the same trends/tropes in African and Asian films.
Also very biased films as majority revolve around race or racism to critique b&w films as a whole lol.
10:40 “plays on our discomfort with color” and “represents an alien change that makes us uneasy”. I really don’t understand this one. How can color inherently create discomfort? Color is almost always used to portray comfort or extravagance, especially with saturated palettes. I don’t understand why this color=discomfort statement is presented so matter-of-factly, as though everyone knows color means discomfort? I’m confused about this point and why it’s there.
Exactly. This is unfortunately sloppy argumentation. The power of the video essay allows for enhancing arguments, not resting on non annotated shots to communicate abstract concepts on behalf of the author. That's the point of video essay, to explore what's going on in the shot we all saw and argue what's going on here.
While not I don't think it's accurate, I think that what he intended here was that the mixing of colors, both in a unnatural (meaning we never see something like that in nature) textured collage fashion and literally mixing all the colors together greats a discomfort. Like the child who mixes all their paints together to then be sad & unsettled that the all the beautiful colors have turned into a muddled, muted mess.
However I think the discomfort also has equal weight on the textures, morphic and reflective qualities of the materials and not just the colors. This is why some people call Annihilation beautifully horrific. There's lots of aesthetically pleasing qualities to the imagery and even the qualities of the "corruption" that happens to the DNA of organic matter in the area. But you also know it's a source of danger, it's mysterious, it's invisible & intimate in it's threat, sneaking in and mixing up the building blocks of what make you, you. There's a grace & subtlety to it, but explicit from the beginning of the film that it's dangerous. Perhaps like Anglerfish, the beauty is to entrance & lure prey into it's jaws.
That shot though did everything but rest on the visuals of "mixing colors" for the discomfort. But the entire film reinforcing and building up the threat, the ideas, the allure, the mystery. It perhaps also leverages our unease with alien shapeshifters. Things that have so much power & control. That are so intrusive and intimate. It plays on being fooled. It plays on privacy. It plays on luring. It plays on the reflective light shining in her eyes like she's under a spell. It plays on the emotion on her face as she shares into the beautiful abyss.
It plays on lots of things, and the visual depiction of mixing metallic fluids & refracted color was picked to play into all of that, at to be alluring & beautiful - clearly something the film wants to play with. Also pretty sure a motive for that visual was the metaphor of reflections, refraction, prisms, organic physics/biology (something the film plays with elsewhere) and infinite possibility & immense imperceivable power/awe. (also something 2001 lightspeed sequence plays with).
There are specific shades and hues of colours in colour theory which can make people uncomfortable and there's a psychology sphere which studies common affects different colours has on people, it's not that everyone *knows* colour means discomfort it's that almost everyone *feels* that, not with all colours but specific ones in a specific delivery of such colours and they mostly common among people of one group or culture and it ties deeply with our survival past and culture coding
@@alinaschumacher3 Indeed, and I really wish he would cite these studies!
i think it's more that in juxtaposition with the normalcy of a primarily desaturated setting, color seems out-of-place, foreign, or threatening
The color red is associated with blood and that can make us feel uncomfortable. Or a color that is foreign to the environment can make us uncomfortable (e.g. someone wearing a bright green jumpsuit in an environment where everyone is dressed in darker colors).
But yeah he fails to elaborate on a lot of his points.
that's a stretch and a half
there are a lot of black and white movies, which are amongst the most thoughtful and morally complex pieces of cinema.
The twilight zone (although a tv show, not a movie) comes to mind
Schindler’s List , Citizen Kane and the original psycho film are my favorite black and white movies
Bergmann's Persona comes to mind
@William Magee I understand that, but I don't think he made a good case for it.
I would even make the opposite claim.
Not having color simplifies the picture.
If you want to make a movie entertaining, it is easy to rely on action, beautiful scenery etc.
If you shoot in black and white, that is not possible.
Rather, because of the lack of visual beauty, and because you can not distract people as easily with action, you have to put much more focus on the story and character arcs.
And that is why 1) movies are much more action focused and less philosophical today and
2) most modern black and white movies are pretentious pseudo philosophy and not action movies
@William Magee i accept that, thank you for the comment :)
Not much substance to this video unfortuntely. Still love you, man. Just feels like this was oversimplified and not very accurate in some parts. But it is personal opinion of course.
Stormtroopers use white armour. So... they are the good guys.
i mean the empire thinks their the good guys
"Literally no grey area" Show frames full of grey hues and midtones.
"The only pop of color in the apartment is the pictures of his dad" Shows a BRIGHT RED PHONE next to the picture.
"Black faces are lit better with color" Shows a color film shot where the actor is more underexposed than the black and white shot before it. Ridiculous.
As someone who has worked in black and white, lit faces of all shades, and made both incredibly vibrant and also incredibly unsaturated films, this whole video is self righteous, pretentious, trying-to-be-topical, misinformed, under researched, oversimplified garbage.
i agree with you, but the part where he mentions that historically lightning in film was optimized for white faces is the only brief moment where he brings up a actual argument with substance. Black actors didn't play lead roles or any other parts at all in Hollywood movies, they did not have the economic or social power to be considered a marketable audience so they also did not get included into any form of conception. And those classic Hollywood BW-films shaped and defined the medium up to this day. That's something we can argue about.
But that's not a problem of tolerance but a systemic, social and economic one, and it sure as hell is not "culture says: white good, black bad" because he's unable to grasp the concept of composition and contrast.
@@francojosemuertes4273 I understand what you're saying.The argument for or against monochromatic movies has nothing to do with racial representation in motion pictures. You can't defend or deny one with the other. This video is such a stretch because it is trying to equate artistic limits and creative choice with class and racial social ideologies - when in the end the creator of the video can't seem to comprehend that film isn't supposed to be real life, so obvious we are going to control color and composition in a way that best tells our story.
The point I was making with the lighting is no matter if our lighting principles are racially biased, exposing a face has nothing to do with color and everything to do with the amount of lumens coming from the light source, and obviously darker skin would require a higher lux to be properly exposed. But that has nothing to do with color in film and everything to do with exposure in film.
You should put some spoiler warnings in there jeez
Seriously The watchmen spoiler took me way by surprise
@@DirtBlockDigger it finished airing more than six months ago
stephwashere doesn’t matter
@@stephwashere not all of us are mindless consoomers that watch everything when they release, 6 months isn't a long time
I like your work, but I think you're wrong here. You make a great point against using the black and white duality as a symbol for good and evil, that's fine, but that doesn't have anything to do with actually using black and white to tell a story. Not even discussing old films, which were donde before color photography, there are beautiful contemporary films that are shot in black and white, like Ida, that would be totally different if done in color. Black and white can do a lot of stuff besides "seeming familiar".
Well, yes. But that's just color theory, isn't it? Picking the right palette to tell your story in and whatnot.
Batman wears black and Joker's skin is head-to-toe white
In Midsommar the black character (Josh) does not die first. Josh is actually killed by someone wearing the skin of Mark, who was killed earlier that day. Also, Connie, the British girl was also killed earlier. If anything his death is right in the middle.
you're right about josh, but still, the first to die is connie's boyfriend. who's black)
Dr. Uncanny I’ve read that people think he may have been dead and it was Christian hallucinating that his lungs were still moving. I personally don’t buy that explanation, but it’s possible.
This ain't going to end well
@edallencompassingly Agreed. I really like his channel for the most part and usually, his ideas and commentary is original and insightful but this video as it is being put out at this point in time just feels so forced and the racial politics points are real reaches and actually sort of diminish the issue rather than making a constructive observation. I hope this was just a well-intentioned swing and miss on his part.
If you want to make a video about the shit state of race relations and issues of civil injustice they great do it but dont just shoehorn in a few weak comment, use the BLM hashtag and then stick a sponsor on the video. It doesn't really right.
Still like his content on a whole, however.
Well said, I learned a lot from this guy and idk any UA-camrs who haven’t made an error or lapse in judgment. What determines if they stick around is how they continue themselves afterwards, so we’ll see if he takes any comments/criticism into effect
Seriously... there’s a *lot* of racial issues surrounding Hollywood’s history and present that could, and should, be addressed. Heck, I’d argue that even the issue of light/dark symbolism and it’s potential to promote racism is worth analyzing.
But to tie it to black and white films? That’s really, really reaching.
This screams "QUICK I HAVE TO MAKE SOMETHING TOPICAL" and it ends up just not making a lot of sense
this video made tons of sense, I guess it's not something you'd pick up if you didn't take film classes
@@kayj312 To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand this video
that's gonna be a no from me dawg
Title should be:
The Art is Overanalyzing Movies Part II
This was kinda strange video. I have few arguments but whatever I'll keep em to myself
Wdym?
I mean, don't, I feel like this video could bring some interesting discussions though I do have some issues with it myself
*slowclap* 👏 wow. I think i have some arguments to keep to my self.
though in egyptian mythology its the opposite black is good since its fertile ground white is the death of the desert. hence why the pyramids are in the desert aka the land of the dead.
probably should remove that Egyptian art at the beginning of this vid as a representation of black=bad white=good
They were probably built in a time when that area was green.
@@TheWatchernator???? They literally called themselves 'the black land' it's kmtr or something in hieroglyphs.
This one felt poorly written. I got the feeling you were reaching to make some kind of point.
What the hell did I just watch ?
A muddled mess of inanities designed to cash in on #BLM
Trash
Did anyone elses screen go weird at 1:04 when HP starts playing?
Probably had to edit the footage so that WB wouldn't nail him for copyright.
@@jonahkirkhartericson5387 i think the clips are suitably short to evade copyright it just looks like an encoding error maybe in the render or he put the glitched one in as a placeholder and forgot
There’s a really good video about film noir and it’s use of shadows called Film Noir: The Case for Black and White. It’s by...
Oh. Huh.
This comment section is offering quite the interesting discourse on the topic. I’d like to add B&W photography (and visual arts in general) shouldn’t be ignored in an analysis like this.
Not only because it overlooks the diverse artists themselves, but the fact that their work as influenced filmmakers and culture at large that it can't be ignored in an analysis like this.
The video even starts out by looking at paintings from prior centuries but stops at the century that film & photography came into the picture. Visual arts (especially photography) were hugely influential on cinema.
If the video was strictly about the coincidence of BW films came into prominence when there was racial segregation, and the limited pallet was even leveraged & exploited to emphasis racist perspectives that's really interesting. Then continue to explore part that color film played when it (due to technological innovation & demand) became more accessible post civil rights. In representation, expression, accessibility, etc.
But the video insists that there are deeper racial biases, associations, and values intrinsically in BW pallets in general. A large claim in & of itself and it's a shame it appears to come from an extremely western lens, limited to 1 medium & not acknowledging the evolutionary explanation of human relationship with darkness & dark, obscured or mysterious figures (lack of light, details, hiding predator, possible danger, etc), vice versa with light/brightness. Then we have cultural & ancient stories around the colors & their associations. All interesting & could be interrogated, but largely once we get into contemporary times, what's present & nefarious is far more the motives of specific people wielding them & taking advantage of the technology and them influencing their contemporaries than any implicit racism that's inherit in the color pallet.
There's a lot of avenues the video could have gone, but it glosses over a lot in order to form what feels like is predetermined a narrative. Shame because it seem that it could have been an interesting walk through American racial history & how technology of color film mingled with it.
0:59 - Aaah, but notice how the stormtroopers are _white?_ 😋
But... in Star Wars, the side of evil is Black-and-White, and the side of good has many colors.
You should watch your own video titled “the art of over analyzing movies”.
The black cat crossing your path is good luck in some cultures.
Honestly, I don't think too much of this video. Seems a knee jerk reaction to try to shoe horn the idea into something it rarely was/is.
I think there's a great point to be made about black and white symbolism in American cinema.
But I don't think it makes much sense to talk about black and white films as a whole this way. There are black and white films that don't specifically use dark/light imagery to symbolize anything (Schindler's List, Roma, most movies pre-1970), and there are plenty of color films that still do (The Lion King, for instance).
also: there's a great 50's Indian trilogy called the Apu trilogy. It's in black and white and exclusively stars dark-skinned people. They're lit beautifully (as was the main character of 'Roma'). It was the lighting techniques Americans often used, not something inherent to the medium of black and white.
Bruh did you really put an add at the end of your BLM video?
Yes.
When you realize Schindler’s List is a black and white film
I was gonna say something like that
This video isn't against black and white films as a concept wtf are you on about?
The essence of modern art. well the title and the thumbnail makes it seem like it is a video critiquing the concept of black and white movies because they’re racist and/or bigoted, so I thought this would be a fun comment
@@abg5381 What's it against?
_"Life is in color, but black and white is more realistic."_
*~ Samuel Fuller*
They both work, but there is definitely a time for color. I think The Holy Mountain is the best example.
Saw it in feburary in a cinema. One part where the alchemist stands in front of a projector explaining the holy mountain. It was like Jodo was at the back of the room blocking the projection, it was *the* most magical moment I've experienced in a cinema.
"With this binary there is literally no grey area." (0:45)
There literally is grey area.
2:20
“KKK dresses in white to show they are supposedly the heroes”
*Shows a completely blue scene*
they're dressed in white though
06:51 Hold on, in Midsommar, isn't the first to die in the group Mark? Josh, the black guy, doesn't die first aka it's not perpetuating that horror trope...
Exactly.
Is he a first on-screen death?
is this a satirical take on B&W Movies?
I wish this were satire
I don't really understand parts of this at all, namely why you say colour is inherently unnatural while black and white seems natural. That just makes absolutely no sense to me. Black and White would be the more unnatural medium as we see with colour, the natural world we live in has colour.
I like this channel lots but please stop the seamless switching into the sponsorship bit. It just makes you feel a bit tricked every time you realise. Most other channels will do a link but will put in a clear demarcation point.
2020: the year when black and white films like Schindler's List became problematic
I love black and white, watch Metropolis! Its so beautiful yet its black and white.
black and white in film making isn't really related to skin colour. the only actual similarity is the names, because "black" people have brownish skin and "white" people have peachish skin. i really hate when people try to jam in race just to make a blunt overdone and horribly on the nose political point despite having no real relation. its the equivalent of saying "im so smart and so morally great that i am not racist, you viewer obviously have no such ideals or opinions as not being racist is truly rare and i am one of the few to be so intelligent" like we get it racism is bad we don't need a movie to tell me racism is bad and we definitely don't need a pretentious filmmaker thinking they are being totally genius by doing something so basic as pointing out a correlation and saying that racism is bad. this goes for any other overly obvious moral thing that apperantly every film maker thinks is somehow special or nuanced. its just such an insult to the viewer.
could you have not spoiled midsommar? It literally came out last year.
Oh my god that was just last year...? This is the longest year ever...
Don't worry he didn't, he got it wrong like almost everything else in this video.
don't waste your time
Oh dear Jack, your videos are so great.
You could search something about audio loudness standard, how to measure, how to process, so they're consistent.
It's simple to do it in your video editing software!
Love you!
In continuance with me habit of accessing like/ dislike percentages:
This video is currently at 78.65% approval.
Looks like somebody trying to jump on a trend. There's plenty of legitimate racism in cinema to call out: trying to pretend the associations of light/white with good and dark/black with evil is somehow racially motivated is just dumb. Even the in the earliest human forebears, nobody was scared of the light my dude.
Now thats what I call a hot take volume 24. It's wrong many ways because most of those points on contrast with color can be made for black and white. As well racism isn't a reason to dismiss and entire medium of film, that is ridiculous to say "because some black and white movies in the past where racist, black and white movies as a whole are worse than full color movies". It doesn't sully the medium. But yeah, hot take, it will be disregarded.
You forgot to mention The Giver
The Giver would be a great example if he ever returns to this subject/analyzes with a different focus.
"Color is life, for a world without colors appears to us as dead." - Johannes Itten
I thought this would have been an informative piece looking at how B&W film created binary visual archetypes that were then challenged by the invention of colour film in the 1930s and looking at how technology and art feed into institutionalized thinking as it relates to the arts.
Even colour film itself suffers from racially motivated discrimination because of how a majority of th colour grading for colour film back in the day was because there was a focus on white actors over black.
The only reason colour film advanced to include more shades of brown is because of the furniture industry demanding the film industry expand their colour pallets to include more shades of brown so they could better market the woodgrains of their furniture.
I was extremely dissatisfied to say the least by this video.
The fact (one that has already been pointed out) you misremember the events of Midsommar to fit your political narrative is astounding.
We watch your videos for the "analyses" and you have just proven that you couldn't even bother to address the causality of events in the plot of a movie you are analyzing.
It's gonna be a "yikes" from me, dawg.
the reason why the "black and white" or desaturated color movies feels more familiar or realistic is because in real life the colors of the objects have a tendency to be closer to grey than to any other color.
This video needed more time in the oven but you produce tons of great content so it was bound to happen eventually. They can't all be winners. I'd be interested in seeing you explore this thesis in greater detail while also doing a separate video on B/W films that focuses more on the purely technical/avant-garde side of things.
Overall, keep up the good work!
Black is a naturally menacing color. Base it off of evolution or whatever you want, but if you are Darth Vader, you're trying to look scary. You are not going to be walking around in neon yellow
Thank God directors such as Vittorio De Sica, Akira Kurosawa and Ingmar Bergman went on to do colour films. Otherwise they would have continued to make morally simplistic films that plays in to racial stereotypes, such as the one dimensional Bicycle thieves, the problematic depictions of relations between afro americans and white americans in Seven Samurai and the dumbed down character study in Persona.
Interesting when you talk about specific films like “American psycho“ “Midsummer” and “sorry to bother you.” But you splice in a lot of generalizations that feel like ungrounded, making statements without references.
Would be fascinating to see the neuroscience behind how black and white versus color is interpreted by the brain.
there should be like a giant disclaimer in the beginning of the video, that's this essay is only relevant to American/Hollywood cinema. But even after this, I think the author's point is kind of weak.
I would be very interested to see what your take on the use of color in Tarkovsky's Stalker is. When it cuts to 'The Zone' in color, that was such a powerful, but subtle moment, that makes their journey feel much more intense and other-worldly.
As with all things, color and BW are tools of the filmmaker. No one is better than another. It's all about how and when it is used.
Great video
Nope, I don't buy it.
in the future, it'd be cool if you mention what shows/movie you're gonna dive into spoilers on 😐
Uh... yikes
This is really a low quality video compared to your other videos. Poorly researched, weak arguments.
I always find your videos interesting and entertaining to watch, and as a young black person living in our contemporary world, I am very thankful that you are drawing attention to the ever prevalent conversation of race. Indeed, as most comments point out, there's much more to talk about ( B&W film outside of the US, varying superstitions on B&W imagery across culture and epochs amongst others). Though there is more to talk about, you have drawn attention to one aspect of filmmaking and the relationship between black and white imagery and tropes, and, as a fan, I'm very impressed that you have integrated this into your video, alongside other filmmaking aspects.
The title should have been "The case of color vs black and white movies".
And while I have not watched most of the movies here, saying black and white feels natural and color unnatural is weird.
I'd freak out if one day I woke up and lost my color vision.
I was waiting for a scene from Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless mind and the wild change of hair colors 😆
the transition into the sponsor was so smooth omg
I would also add the classic A Matter of Life and Death [1946] to the colour/b+w conversion section, where heaven is depicted in black and white, while Earth is in colour. B+W is used for both the concept of breaking tradition and creating an uncomfortable situation.
Valuable suggestion: please add a list to the video description of the films you mention.
This video kind of felt like a run-on sentence honestly. A lot of examples but not much of a point.
This is ironically a very black and white view of black and white filmmaking
Imagine thinking the black guy died first in Midsommar nevermind the killer wearing his mate’s face as a fucking mask while he did it.
Hey Photographers
If you want a quick easy trick to improve an image, make it black and white and edit the values to make the contrast pop as much as possible. Then change the layer to "multiply" and dial down the opacity until your happy. It keeps the contrast and but adds the color from the original image. Boom, you've just done wonders to your shot.
GLHF
Great to see a new NYSI post
The rest of the video was great... but DAMN was that a great sponsor segue
I'm sorry if I'm wrong here, but it seems like you started with a conclusion and then found arguments to support it, rather than the other way around.
6:53 no the black guy doesn't die first, its the white guy walking away that does in midsommar
For the life of me I can't imagine clerks in colour
There's something in that movie that screams being meant to black and white