Fade to Black and White

A worldwide phenomenon of retro-ism is having its effect in all spheres of the media. Bands have begun to shun the digital revolution, releasing and rereleasing albums on the more crackly vinyl. The VHS tape is making a comeback, if not minimal, notably through the apt release of the film ‘V/H/S’ on the clunky format. I mean, walk along the street and stare at people’s feet: Doc Martens and Converses galore adorn the feet of the backward-looking youth, as if we’ve all just jumped in a DeLorean and gunned it to 88 miles an hour. It seems a taste for the finer, simpler things in life has been rediscovered, a backlash to the over-digitalisation of our every day life: we can’t spend five minutes without staring at the brightly lit colours of our laptops or our smart phones. Even in the cinema, we can’t sit in peace for an hour or two without gleaming explosions and Tom Cruise’s fluorescent orange skin being thrust in our face. To no surpise, and certainly in keeping with the retro phenomenon, we have seen a considerable fade to black and white.

By this, I of course refer to the return of the basic, original format of cinema, absent in colour and packed to the brim with good old fashioned shadow and contrast. The reappearance of something simpler, something fresher, something cleaner. The popularity of the post-colour B&W stretches back to the seventies, at a time when colour was a new found concept, bringing much needed excitement and vigour to the dying cinema industry. People were, unsurprisingly, bored with staring at the same old grey screens every time they went to the pictures: colour injected a new life, as cinemagoers had a Dorothy-esque experience, opening the door and finding themselves in a world of magical colour only found previously in post-conversion or in Disney’s animations. Among all this excitement, David Lynch found himself with two terrifying projects, and an ambition to stick by the old format: what was produced was the bone-chilling Eraserhead and the magnificent The Elephant Man, both complemented considerably by Lynch’s use of shadows and contrast, hiding the unknown in the darkness and producing a whole new kind of fear.

Ever since, directors have tentatively tried their hand at the colourless, producing surprisingly fascinating (and fantastic) results: ranging from the completely colourless, such as Kevin Smith’s cult classic Clerks and Tim Burton’s bizarre debut Ed Wood, to the B&W tinged with the odd bit of colours, such as noir-homage Sin City and the gutpunching Schindler’s List, its momentary flash of colour producing one of the most heartwrenching moments of Spielberg’s holocaust tragedy. Over the past few years, the output has rocketed, following the success of the Oscar winning The Artist: director Michel Hazanavicius showed exactly what we were missing about cinema, leaving out cheap dialogue and flashy action scenes, bringing to us a (near) speechless comedy relying on fantastic acting, courageous cinematography, and a riveting score.

What is it about the Black and White that keeps drawing us back? Firstly, simplicity. Flashy 3D and brightly colour animation so often leaves the audience under-satisfied and nursing the mother of all headaches; the soothing aesthetics of a B&W is unusually satisfying, its simplicity speaking volumes for what some colour films will never do. The sad tale of George Valentin in The Artist is told all the more successfully by ditching other flashy elements and focusing purely on the acting prowess of Jean Dujardin (a role he also won an Oscar for). Secondly, beauty. Wading through the trashy, off-hand cinematography of current blockbusters, B&W auteurs use the format to paint a picture, focusing their effort on understanding what is coming out of the camera, and making sure every shot the make is interesting enough to hold the viewers attention. Alexander Payne’s recent Nebraska showed how the film is an art form, each frame a painting and telling its own story behind the central characters. The Black and White is loved for the reason that it brings back what we love about films: the story and the image in its rawest forms, untainted by colour and eye-aching imagery.

To predict that the Black and White was going to replace the colour would be absurd: I would be lying if I said colour is still a fantastic format when used correctly, in the same way that a CD can be as equally enjoyable as its vinyl counterpart. And how can we be sure how long this retro ‘phase’ will last: perhaps we’ll sober up one day and realize that actually 80s fashion does still belong in the 80s, and will send it back were it came from. In my heart, however, I will always have a place for the old format, a remnant of the golden age of cinematic storytelling: perhaps what we all need, after all, is a fade to black and white.

Quick Top 5: Best Recent B&W Films.

5. Frances Ha (2012)

Kookiness hits epic volumes in Noah Baumbach’s delightful Woody Allen homage, starring his wife Greta Gerwig as the out-of-luck titular heroine.

4. A Field in England (2013)

Up-and-coming Ben Wheatley produces one of the most visually stunning and confusing films in years: a surreal shrooms trip set in the middle of the English Civil War.

3. Nebraska (2013)

Black and White never gets better than in this Oscar-nominee, a touching relationship of father and son set against the bleak but beautiful setting of the Mid-Western state.

2. Much Ado About Nothing (2013)

Joss Whedon abandons colour and goes back to basics following his eye-popping efforts in Avengers Assemble: invites his friends round, throws some Shakespeare at them, films in black and white. Brilliant.

1. Clerks (1994)

The original slacker comedy, Clerks finds two bored store assistants wasting the day away with some side-splitting dialogue, the simplicity captured perfectly in Kevin Smith’s black and white, stationary cinematography.