All language subtitles for 21 - Choosing Black and White

I'm finding that when I see some new films

modern films

um that yes

I miss black and white to a certain extent

and this is a person who's

who's saying that

I was fascinated by the three strip Technicolor

yet black and white existed alongside it

and had its own sense of color

light and shadow

it had its own style um

it had its own meaning in a way

but I found that just transliterating

in a sense of reality that in front of you

with some light illuminating it and

trans transliterating it to

to a celluloid

and that time isn't very creative to say

I just didn't think it was

however I think in the past

I don't know 10

15 years or so

I'm seeing a kind of um

in some of the new films

and in many cases

independent films um

but I'm seeing something happen with the color that um

color has become for certain subjects

and certain very

very intentionally done by the filmmakers

in most cases

I would think

have become kind of come kind of neutral at times

and that neutrality

that neutrality

is kind of taking the place of black and white

it's a it's in color

but it's not making a statement

the statement that you don't notice

it's in color is the statement

and it doesn't have the complexity

and design and style and meaning of black and white

but that's gone

that's gone

that's of another time and place

there are some films made in black and white today um

I find that the digital though

there's a difference between digital black and white

and actually shooting on celluloid black and white

so um this is something that it's to be encouraged

there's no doubt

but some films that in black and white are

in a way not not all

but some are self consciously in black and white

it's kind of a

on a spectrum of positives

negative and negative

it's more pretentious and positive

it feels right you know

but black and white has been hijacked

also by advertising and by everything really

you know people punch up an image

put in black and white kids shoot

you could shoot anything

you know I'm talking

I'm illiterate in terms of computer

but I noticed that you can do anything on it yeah

every possible trick

and every possible color and color combination and

every possible special effect

that you could do immediately

without working through the special effect

so in a funny way

at first I was concerned about that sort of thing

for young people

and then I realized

let them get it out of their system

let them realize it doesn't mean anything

because it getting

has to go back to the core of who you are

and what you're trying to say

while we were doing research on Raging Bull

there was 8 millimeter sound footage in color

of Bob De Niro sparring with the sparring partner

trying to work out choreography with Jake Lamata

for certain scenes in the film

remember projecting my apartment

projecting them and my apartment

and in New York

projecting them on a white wall

and forget it was with me

I think Jay Jay Cox

my Michael Powell

and the gloves were

modern gloves

I mind you I just really begin to realize

the extent to which so much of this was being lost in

in cinema history

so many films we take a look at

for the second or third time

you can get a print was completely faded and gone

and so I was very very

um very alerted to this

at the same time

a number of other boxing films are being made around

this is 79 so I'm looking at this footage and I

as Bob choreographing

or someone choreographing for Bob and Michael Paul

is looking this is something wrong

I said what is it

the gloves are too red

I said yeah

you're right they are

the color is throwing me

the color is throwing me

that LED to realization to

that the fight scenes

would be rather bloody and I said

all that blood flying around the screen and color

I remember becoming

unconvinced by the use of

by the by the

by the intensity of the color red

in the shootout and Taxi driver

and that's one of the reasons I was able to um

desaturate the color

I felt it look fake

and I said that

that would limit what we're doing in the ring

and then I began to

I've been thinking about it a lot

I was realizing

why design this picture in color

especially a period piece when um

it's gonna fade in a couple of years

yeah and at that time

video is maybe just beginning

but there's no guarantee

you're gonna see these things in their original form

and so ultimately

we decided to shoot him black and white um and

uh the studio was against it

and I remember them coming up to talk to us about it

and I said but look

you have I think

five films this year opening

or when this film is finished

should be five films about boxing gonna be opening

have the main event

Barbra Streisand

you have the Prize Fighter with Don Knots

and Tim Conway

you have Rocky 2 and Matilda

the boxing kangaroo in color

I said now there were four

okay but still

we'd be the fifth in color

I mean it just it doesn't

what if we're black and white

it's different

so it's now normal

people want to see black and white

so when we close

don't forget Lenny

Bob Fosse's Lenny

Black and White Paper Moon

Peter Bug Donowicz

black and white

people like it

and I said well all right

and so that's how we got it

that's how we got it

we did put a color sequence into the whole movies

which when Thelma went to check out the projection on

on Broadway

and films being screened in Broadway

I used to say

very often the last

or tour of a film

is the projectionist

because he figures out you know

how much headroom you're gonna have

the aspect ratio whatever

if it screws up

it screws up so uh

she walked into the booth to check the sound

and see if everything was working out

this is the first two days

first two days of the film

be the film playing in New York

and he said

I'm glad you're here

you're the editor of this

I'm glad you're here

so because it was a real problem

there's a whole color sequence in the film

we cut to cut it out

it's so

see it never ends