Between Irony and Sincerity:
The Signification of Contemporary
Black-and-White Cinematography
Matthijs van der Veer Date of completion: 15 june 2014
Film Studies (beroepsgeoriënteerde specialisatie)
Department of Media Studies
The Netherlands University of Amsterdam
Thesis supervisor: Dr. E.L. Masson
matthijs.vanderveer@student.uva.nl Second reader: Dr. A.B. Schneider Student number: 10017496 Word count: 22.209
1 TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter Page
1 Introduction ……… 3
2 Cultural Significance of Black and White……...………... 8
2.1 The Nature of Color ………... 9
2.2 Ordering Color ………... 11
3 Black and White in Modern Society ……….. 14
3.1 A Fear of Color ……….. 14
3.1.1 Purity Versus Impurity ……….. 17
3.1.2 Mind Versus Body……….. 19
3.1.3 Static Versus Dynamic ………... 21
4 Black-and-White Cinematography ………. 24
4.1 Black-and-White Versus Color ………. 25
4.2 The Loss ……… 27 5 Claim to Truth ……… 29 5.1 Black-and-White Realism ………. 29 5.2 Rise of Truthfulness ……….. 32 5.3 Metamodernism ………. 33 6. Creation of Oscillation ………... 35 6.1 Low-budget Aesthetics ……….. 35 6.2 The Face ……… 41 6.3 Temporality ………... 46 6.4 Spatiality ……… 48 7. Conclusion ………. 51 Bibliography ………... 57
2 Abstract
This thesis will propose a new view of contemporary black-and-white cinematography. Instead of interpreting it as a reference to former media practices, genres, styles or auteurs, it will approach the subject from the angle of the colors black and white. By discussing the position and connotations of black and white in color models from linguistics and physics, as well as in daily life and artworks, this thesis will argue that black and white have attained a status outside of the standard color spectrum, in which they are often associated with purity, abstraction, intellectualism, stability and clarity. It will be claimed that the rich history of meanings and uses of the colors black and white provides far broader interpretative possibilities for black-and-white as a representational form than just its intertextual connections. Furthermore, this thesis will argue that the current use of black-and-white in cinema can be understood in the context of metamodernism. The proponents of metamodernism suggest that the current cultural logic is defined by a continuous oscillation between modernist sincerity and postmodernist irony. This thesis will claim that this tonal oscillation can be detected in contemporary black-and-white cinema and is determined by the way the colors black and white and their cultural connotations are employed to highlight the universal and truthful in the disarray of postmodern knowingness.
Keywords
3 1. Introduction
Color makes money. Most of the top grossing movies adjusted for inflation1 are characterized by a diverse range of expressive colors. From the diversely tinted hats and environments in
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), to the pastel hues in Gone with the Wind (1939), to
lush greens and deep blues of the planet Pandora in Avatar (2009), colors seem to reign supreme at the box-office. In the top 100, only The Bells of St. Mary’s (1945) and The Best
Years of Our Lives (1946) are shot in black-and-white (BoxOfficeMojo.com). This is
remarkable, since black-and-white was the dominant commercial representational form for half of cinema’s existence. However, the development of more accessible color film technologies in combination with color’s ability to draw large audiences has resulted in the marginalization of black-and-white.
Throughout the years, however, black-and-white films have continued to be made. Whether it’s Alfred Hitchcock choosing a monochrome2
palette for his horror film Psycho (1960) to keep the film under budget, or Martin Scorsese deciding to shoot his biopic Raging
Bull (1980) in black-and-white to address the problem of fading colors on archived film stock,
a relatively small amount of works have steadily been produced in monochrome (Thompson and Christie 80). This has been no different in the last decade, which even featured a modest revival. One of the most high-profile black-and-white releases was the French film The Artist (2011) which won the Oscar for the best picture at the 84th Academy Awards ceremony. The world of independent cinema has been the main supplier of black-and-white films recently, releasing films like Computer Chess (2013), Nebraska (2013), Escape from Tomorrow (2013) and Ida (2013) just in the last year. Even in the animation world, which adopted color early in its history, the monochrome Persepolis (2007), Paperman (2012) and Frankenweenie (2012) proved moderate to great critical and commercial successes in the last couple of years. So while black-and-white has been marginalized, it has far from disappeared.
The discourse surrounding contemporary black-and-white films often focusses on the intertextual connections of these films with prior ones. When Noah Baumbach released his feature Frances Ha (2013), critics saw its use of black-and-white as a love letter to different elements of cinematic traditions. The Chicago Sun-Times stated that it gave “a nod to the
1
The presented figures apply to the United States domestic market, since the fact that the great amount of different currencies makes it virtually impossible to reliably create an account of worldwide ticket sales adjusted for inflation.
2 As I will explain more in-depth at the end of this introduction, this thesis will use the term ‘monochrome’
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French New Wave”, while The Toronto Star called it “a worthy successor to Woody Allen’s Manhattan” (Houlihan, Howell). Thuis, black-and-white has become associated with past conventions through its gradual marginalization in film history. Almost every movie that is shot or converted to grayscale is linked to other genres, movements or authors. For example, in a list titled the “10 great modern black-and-white films” published on the site of the British Film Institute, the use of monochrome in Mutual Appreciation (2005) is claimed to be “harking back to the John Cassavetes of Shadows (1959) and Faces (1968) with its high-contrast, handheld 16mm filming”, while the first half of Tabu (2012) is stated to be mimicking “the wordless drama of silent cinema” (Wigley). The main point of reference for making sense of a black-and-white color scheme seems to be the photographic and cinematic past.
In scholarly texts, the same discursive tendency can be perceived. The amount of works dedicated to color in cinema is already remarkably low, much less in the case of the ones devoted to black-and-white. Moreover, like in popular criticism, when scholarly texts deal with black-and-white, it is often interpreted in terms of previous genres, styles or oeuvres. For example, in “Monochrome Now: Digital Black and White Cinema and the Photographic Past”, Lara Thompson argues that many of the contemporary black-and-white films stimulate an intertextual association between monochrome footage and both the realism of journalistic photography and of pre-1960s representation of current affairs on television to authenticate their stories. Her discussion of the use of black-and-white in digital cinema is entangled with the idea that cinema is a strictly post-photographic medium; its meanings are derived from the connection with this representational technology. Thompson does hint at the idea that digital cinema has loosened its ties with photography and is currently perhaps closer to painting, but she only relates this to the way Sin City (2005) “artistically manipulates monochrome as though it were expressive, painterly colour” in the emulation of the graphic novels it’s based on.
While Thompson does acknowledge that the ties with the cultural memory of photographic representation aren’t as influential in each and every case, Sin City is presented as an exception. However, the connection with painting is more relevant than it is presented here. As new media theorist Lev Manovich claims when answering the titular question of his essay “What is Digital Cinema?”, cinema has come closer to painting than ever before. Thanks to the increased manipulability of moving images, cinematic color has become an expressive tool that isn’t just governed by circumstances in front of the camera and lens usage. Through new technologies, every single pixel of every image can be theoretically
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altered in post-production. Rather than a series of photographs, digital cinema becomes a series of paintings. Following Manovich’s assertion, black-and-white cinematography is drawn closer to the manual application of black and white in animation and painting than to black-and-white as a photographic representational form.
This analogy with painting highlights the main element that gets too little attention in the interpretation of contemporary black-and-white cinematography: black-and-white consists of the colors black and white. Moreover, these two colors and their connotations play an important role in the creation of meaning through their play with light and shadow. As stated before, the intertextual connections with previous representational forms certainly play a role in the signification of contemporary black-and-white films. However, treating these connections as the main or only source of signification is reductive. In this thesis, I will try to paint a more complete picture of the ways black-and-white attains meaning in contemporary films by researching the current position and significations of the colors black and white. By inquiring into influential insights from physics, linguistics, socioeconomic conditions and works of art on the connotations of black and white, I will look at the ways these significations influence the contemporary meaning of monochrome in cinema.
In addition to this, I will suggest a new viewpoint for the functioning of black-and-white in contemporary cinema. This thesis will argue that the use of black-and-black-and-white plays an important role in the tonality of the concerned pictures. The films tonally oscillate between and beyond3 the cynicism spawned by the self-aware knowingness of postmodernism and the sincerity and hopefulness of modernism. Black-and-white then facilitates a space in which the universal and the sincere is highlighted within the self-aware pastiche of different temporalities, spaces and intertextual connections. By emphasizing the connotative qualities of the colors black and white (their purity, stability and ability to represent the abstract and conceptual) , these films find the hopeful in the cynical.
The first chapter will focus on the current position of the colors black and white in the realm of color. By discussing the position of black and white in a couple of the most important models and systems from physics and linguistics created for the understanding of and communication about color, it will be argued that these color have been placed in a special position in relation to the rest of the spectrum for a long time. They have sometimes
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The continuous oscillation between irony and sincerity constitutes the new structure of feeling. But while this structure of feeling consists of the tonal oscillation between two previous cultural dominants, it also moves beyond them by the establishment of a new structure of feeling that appropriates their characteristic elements.
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been conceptualized as containing all colors or no color, while at other times they’ve been conceptualized as an attribute of color in general.
In the second chapter, this special position will be explored further by looking at the significations that black and white have from a socioeconomic perspective, as well as in the arts and everyday life. David Batchelor’s argument that Western culture permeated by a tendency towards chromophobia (fear of color) will be used as a basis for the discussion of three different binary oppositions that describe the dominant views on black and white in relation to color: purity versus impurity, the mind versus the body and staticity versus dynamism.
In the following three chapters, the attention will shift from black and white as colors to black-and-white as a technologically determined representational form, but with the main significations discussed in chapter two in mind. The third chapter will focus on the way black-and-white has been put into opposition to color in photo- and cinematography. It will look at the difference between mono- and polychrome while avoiding the teleological idea that color cinematography is just a more advanced version of its black-and-white counterpart. The chapter will conclude by stating that black-and-white imagery has a specific and unique aura by discussing the sense of loss that is expressed in discourse surrounding the practice of colorization.
The fourth chapter will focus on defining the specific logic that is important for the signification of black-and-white cinematography in the digital age by first discussing the importance of the dichotomy between realism and the fantastical in relation to the opposition between black-and-white and color. It will be argued that, while black-and-white has for long signified photo- and cinematographic realism, this signification has gradually been supplanted by an emphasis on more ethereal notions of truth. In contemporary cinema, black-and-white rarely suggests realistic representation anymore. Instead, it often is used to suggest a more emotional or spiritual truthfulness. This will be explained further in the context of metamodernism. This conceptual framework proposes that the contemporary cultural logic is determined by a continuous oscillation between modern enthusiasm and postmodern cynicism. It will be argued that this logic is integral to the signification of black-and-white films and their use of the connotative values of the colors black and white.
In the last and final chapter, I shall discuss the way this oscillation operates in contemporary black-and-white films by looking at the way black and white interacts with four different elements of the films: low-budget stylistic traits (which are often copresent with a monochrome aesthetic); the representation of the human face; diegetic temporality; and
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diegetic spatiality. This will first show that the use of black-and-white creates meaning in many more ways than just as a reference to previous photo- and cinematographic works. Secondly, I shall claim that while black-and-white is used in widely different ways, the contemporary place of black-and-white is largely unified by the logic of metamodernism. When used, black-and-white imagery often provides a space in which the tone oscillates between modern sincerity and postmodern irony.
Concerning the claims that are going to be made about contemporary black-and-white cinematography, it is important to note that the argument is not that the newly developed sensibility is something that encompasses each and every single current black-and-white film. In fact, this thesis will make an argument for a more diverse interpretation of the function of black-and-white in contemporary cinema. Rather, explaining the tonality of these films through the concept of metamodernism will provide a baseline for getting a better understanding of the role color plays in their signification. The metamodernist sensibility is a way in which the films appeal to modernist sentiments in a profoundly postmodernist world. In this respect, they are a product of their time, a time in which the rise of the digital and its continuous increase of information currents continues to reinforce the cynical relativism of postmodernism. The search for sincerity employed by many of the contemporary films shot in black-and-white is thus a reactionary movement. The use of the characteristics of black and white in these films point to a grasping for affect, but the films never let go of their postmodern knowingness. They oscillate in-between.
There is one issue concerning terminology that is necessary to tackle before I start to explore the contemporary significations of contemporary black-and-white. For the sake of variety, I will use the term ‘monochrome’ to refer to black-and-white. Of course, these two terms don’t overlap entirely. For example, the process of toning and tinting4 also results in films that could be described as monochromatic. So while the term ‘monochrome’ filmmaking refers to a broader set of practices, this thesis will use is to refer specifically to black-and-white. On the same note, ‘color’ in relation to cinematography will be used to refer to both films produced with color stock, as well as tinted, toned or otherwise colored film. This thesis doesn’t
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In the practice of tinting, the black-and-white images are soaked in a substance which contains the dye of a specific color. This results in a uniformly colored image in which the color palette runs from black to the specific color. In the practice of toning, the results has a palette that runs from white to the specific color. When images are toned, the silver particles are replaced with a colored salt which is created in a chemical process. Both of these practices involved different technologies or techniques for conceiving the tinted or toned monochromatic images (Read 12-15).
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advocate the notion that black and white aren’t colors, so making this terminological distinction is necessary for preventing the text to become convoluted. Using the words ‘black’, ‘white’ and ‘black-and-white’ in opposition to ‘color’ and ‘color film’ allows the focus to be on what is actually of interest, rather than these semantic complications.
2. Cultural significance of black, white and gray.
The omnipresent nature of color in daily life requires research on the topic to employ a very broad field of view. Color is a constant factor in the perception of reality, whether the subject is conscious of it or not. This results in color being of interest to many academic fields, from psychology to linguistics and from physics to semiotics. Since all of these fields approach the subject from different angles, they are all significant when researching the contemporary conception of color. To fully grasp the connotations that accompany black and white nowadays, it is important to start at the elemental level: What is color? This answer physicist Isaac Newton gave to this question in the early eighteenth century provides the basis for our understanding of color. This subject will be discussed first, as well as two conceptual systems of color creation: the additive system and subtractive system. Subsequently, I will discuss two of the most influential models to categorize, quantify and communicate color from the fields of colorimetry. Since these systems and models largely determine how we abstractly think about the nature of color, as well as how the color spectrum is conceptually constructed, this is important for understanding the cultural position of black and white.
Due to the limited scope of this thesis, it is impossible to discuss every development that has led to the modern conception of color. While the chosen fields and subjects don’t cover everything surrounding the topic, they have been selected because they are the most influential in the shaping of discourse surrounding color in contemporary Western society. While some of Newton’s ideas have later been disputed, his discoveries lie at the basis of how the nature of color is nowadays perceived and created (Gunning “Early Cinema” 10). The additive and subtractive systems derive their importance from their application in the production of colors in television sets, computer monitors, as well as on photographic and filmic stock. A system for conceptualizing the color spectrum devised by physicist Albert Munsell, while not necessarily the most extensive model, forms the basis for most of the modern systems for color specification from the 20th century on (Landa and Fairchild 436; Misek 17). Lastly, the RGB-color model is important since it is used in almost all television
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systems, computer displays and digital imaging technologies (Kuehni 100). Together these systems and models thus encompass the most influential elements of the modern understanding of color, as well as the creation of and communication about it. Discussing these will provide a general picture of how black and white are nowadays positioned in the realm of color.
2.1 The Nature of Color
The first questions that are of interest are: What is color? And: How can color be created? How these question would generally be answered will indicate how color is viewed and conceptualized. The position of black and white in these answers is crucial for understanding the contemporary cultural status of black and white. The study of color in physics is complex and has featured many opposing views on the nature of color throughout its history. As stated before, selectiveness is in order due to the limited scope of this thesis. Therefore, only the most fundamental notions about the nature of color will be discussed, beginning with Newton’s discovery in the late seventeenth century that light was the source for the sensation of color perception.
In Newtons then much-debated work Opticks¸which he started working on decades before its eventual publication in 1704, Newton delves into the nature of color and its existential relation to light (Shapiro 425). By letting white light pass through a prism, he concluded that it could be split into all the other colors (Newton 134-142). He contended that color consists of particles, which, when all formed together, would produce white light. While the notion that light consisted of particles was opposed and later debunked by other physicists, his experiments with prisms are still essential for the current conception of what color is. According to Newton, the sensation of white was produced by the culmination of all the other colors, while black was the result of the absence of light, and thus color. In light of this thesis, this basic understanding of the nature of black and white is important, in as far as it puts both in a fundamentally unique position in the way color is conceptualized. While one won’t often consciously think about Newton’s discoveries when observing color, the basic notion of white light as consisting of light of all colors has influenced most of the models and systems for the conceptualization, creation and communication about color. Therefore, Newton’s insights are still fundamental for the contemporary conception of the nature of color (Shapiro 417).
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Newton’s understanding of the way multiple rays of colored light could be split up or combined to create color lies at the basis of the two main ways in which color can be created: the additive system and subtractive system. The first of these two – the additive system - is for example used for the creation of color in television screens, on early film stock5, in computer monitors, as well as with digital projectors. It was theorized by Thomas Young and Hermann von Helmholtz during the nineteenth century and first demonstrated by fellow physicist James Clerk Maxwell in 1861 (whose model of the color spectrum will be discussed later). The process of additive color involves the combination of different intensities of the light of the three primary colors – red, green and blue - to produce a specific perceivable color. This process is used in many computer monitors and television screens and relies on light that is directly cast on the retina, without reflecting off a surface. For example, blue and red light are combined to create purple, and green and red are combined to create yellow. In the additive system, white is created by combining red, green and blue light at their full intensities. Since the primaries can be used to create every color, white light is the culmination of all the other possible colors, just like Newton claimed to have proved with his experiments with prisms. The opposite of this, the total absence of any of the primary wavelengths, results in black (Misek 6-7). From this perspective, black would be conceptualized as being ‘no-color’, whereas white is ‘all-color’, thus separating them from all the colors that lie between those two extremes.
In the case of the subtractive color system, the roles of black and white are reversed. This principle for the creation of color applies when pigments are used rather than light. These particles absorb certain wavelengths present in a light beam which reflects of a surface onto the eye. The wavelengths that are not absorbed are therefore the ones perceived. This subtractive system eventually became the basis for color film production and the famous three-strip Technicolor look. The three colors that can be used to create color through the process of subtraction, are cyan, magenta and yellow (Misek 7-8). For example, when creating green, a colorant is added that absorbs magenta, but reflects cyan and yellow. The wavelengths of cyan and yellow then form the wavelength of the color green perceived by the observer through the reflection of light. In the case of the subtractive color system, black is the culmination of all the pigments, while white signifies the absence of color.
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A variety of color film technologies used either the additive or the subtractive system in early film. But while experiments with the additive system did continue into the 1940s, the subtractive system became the clear dominant from the late 1920s forward because of the superior quality it could provide (Everett 19-20).
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In sum, in the additive color system white is ‘all-color’, and in the subtractive system black is ‘all-color’, while the opposites are conceptualized as the absence of color. In both of these systems, black and white are at the far ends of the spectra. The physical models that form the foundation of our understanding of color and its creation thus put black and white already in a unique position to the range of color that lies in between.
2.2 Ordering Color
Now that the most important models in physics for understanding color and its creation have been discussed, it is important to look at the systems that have been created to allow communication about color in the form of colorimetrical color spaces. These spaces model the spectrum of perceivable colors and have varying uses: from researching soil samples, to detecting skin hues, to strengthening security systems, to editing photographs on a computer, to printing images (Albiol, Torres and Delp 122;Tkalčič and Tasič 305-307). They facilitate precise specification of colors, which allows for accuracy in communication. These color spaces derive their importance for this thesis from the fact that they indicate how the color spectrum is culturally conceptualized. Discussing the most important ones can therefore shed light on how black and white are perceived to relate to other colors. While a range of different models have been constructed throughout the centuries, this thesis will focus on two that have been the most influential.
The first conceptualization that is shall discuss is the color space proposed by Albert H. Munsell in the early 20th century. While this artist and lecturer initially only wanted to use his model to improve his own teachings about color, the Munsell system is nowadays still used for widely different purposes. Examples are the classification of skin and eye colors in forensic pathology, the assessment of the quality of food, the analysis of soil samples and standardization in the production of crayons. More importantly, the Munsell color system is used in digital cinema to make sure that images maintain their intended appearance on different displays (Landa and Fairchild 442-443).
Like the model Munsell’s model is based on – the Farben-Kugel of Philipp Otto Runge6 - it conceptualizes the possible range of colors as three-dimensional and spherical (Gage 169, 171). In practice, the complete spectrum in this sphere is generally reduced to
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Philipp Otto Runge’s conception of the color spectrum stems from 1810 and also involved a spherical model with black and white at the extreme poles. At the sides, he discerned six different hues which flowed into each other. Runge thus already based the form of his model on hue and value (3-5).
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around fifteen hundred colored chips which represent the breadth of possible colors (262). Each of these chips has an individual name attached to it, which is used to refer to them in communication. The three variables that determine the position of the color in the model are its value, its hue and its chroma. Where ‘hue’ indicates the type of color - like for example red, yellow or blue - and ‘chroma’ indicates the purity or saturation of each color, the ‘value’ is the parameter which involves black and white. In the three-dimensional space of the model, this parameter is represented as the vertical z-axis and indicates the light- or darkness of the color (Kuehni 272-274). Every color that is indicated by this model thus has a certain amount of ‘white’ or ‘black’ in it, which is indicated by its position. In contrast, not every variation of black and white has to have a certain value of red. The unique position of black and white in opposition to other color lies in the fact that they’re considered an attribute of every color in the spectrum, rather than just individual hues.
The second model that still has importance is the RGB (red, green, blue) model, which is the basis for many color spaces (like the sRGB color space devised by Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard for viewing images on the internet) that are of use nowadays. This model is based on the additive triangular model James Clerk Maxwell created in 1855. The triangle represented the complete color spectrum, with in each corner one of the primary colors red, green and blue (Maxwell 295). Maxwell wasn’t the first to use a triangular model for color, but his argument that mixing these three colors (additive system) could be used to produce every color was novel. The RGB model7 is largely based on this concept and has been important in the production of television screens and computer monitors during the twentieth century. Nowadays its relevance is mostly derived from its use for digital imaging in HTML (HyperText Markup Language), the universal language for sharing and avoiding loss of information created by Tim Berners-Lee towards the end of the 1980’s (Berners-Lee 1990). Version 4.0 of HTML is still the most prominent language that is used for the creation of web pages (Kahla 3-5).
In the application of the RGB model in HTML, a string of characters indicates the amount of red, green and blue that is present in a certain pixel or screen space. The fact that the color mix is indicated by a set number of possibilities, allows users to talk about color in a unified language8. While the word ‘purple’ can indicate a great number of different shades of the specific color, the RGB color can specify tints of purple as ‘#a020f0’ and ‘#9400d3’. The
7 The RGB model provides the foundation for a range of different color spaces. Since all of these spaces are
based on the same principles, this section focusses on the RGB model in general.
8 The RGB-model doesn’t provide cross-platform standardization in and of itself. This means that different
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first two characters after the #-symbol indicate the value of red, the next two the value of green and the next two the value of blue in the mix. In this representational model, white and black aren’t characterized as an attribute of the colors like in the Munsell system. Rather, they’re once again conceptualized as the complete absence or presence of color, just like in the additive and subtractive color systems9. Black is indicated by the numerical value of ‘#000000’ and white as ‘#FFFFFF’ (the ‘F’ indicates the highest possible value since the values are based on a hexadecimal system) (World Wide Web Consortium 1999). Black can thus be considered as the complete absence of color, while white is the culmination of all the primary colors in full intensity. However, unlike the additive and subtractive systems, the RGB model has no direct relation to a material reality which requires it to conceptualize the colors in this way. A digital language could also place black and white in different parts of the spectrum, but, just like many other models, the RGB model takes the discoveries of Newton as its guiding principles. This in turn causes the special positions of black and white in Newton’s conceptualization of color to be echoed in the practice of creating color in digital spaces, as well as in the communication about the colors between different computers. In the rapidly in importance increasing digital space of the internet, black and white are thus conceptualized as being different from the rest of the colors in the spectrum.
Discussing the Munsell color system and the RGB color model has made clear that in these two important languages that are used to communicate about color, black and white take up special positions in comparison to other colors like red and orange. Firstly, the Munsell color system conceptualizes white (or black, depending on one’s point of view) as an attribute of a color: its value of lightness. In the case of the RGB-model, black and white respectively represent total absence and presence of color, just like in the additive system of color creation. The basis for this lies in Newton’s insights on the nature of color. This is in opposition to the subtractive system of color creation, in which black is all the primaries combined, and white is created by them being absent. The notion of black and white embodying ‘non-color‘ and ‘all-color’ have now entered the realm of color simulation and the language surrounding color in the digital age. In all of the models discussed in this chapter (and many others10), black and white occupy a unique position in comparison to other colors.
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Note that the position of black and white in the RGB model closely resembles that of the position in the additive color system, while it is opposite of the position in the subtractive color system.
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Other examples of color spaces for modeling the color spectrum also feature black and white in special positions. The model proposed in 1874 by physicist Wilhelm von Bezold consist of a pyramid with ten side faces, in which black is located at the top and white at the middle of the [continues on next page]
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This is important for understanding that black and white have for long been conceptualized as dissimilar to the rest of the color spectrum before the intensification of the dichotomy between black-and-white and color in photography and cinema. The next chapter will focus on how the relation between black, white and color manifests on a more practical level, as well as on the significations that are at play in this relation. This will be crucial for the later examination of the meaning of black-and-white cinematography in opposition to color cinematography and the increasing importance of the colors black and white in its signification.
3. Black and White versus Color
It has now been established that the most influential models and system in physics and colorimetry indicate a special place for black and white in the spectrum dissimilar to other colors. But color is far from restricted to the realm of physics and abstract color spaces. Color is omnipresent, and also gains significance through its use and display in daily life and artistic expression. This chapter will therefore focus on the place black and white have attained in relation to color in modern society. This will indicate how the special position of black and white towards other colors manifests on a more practical and perceivable level. This is vital since it will lay the foundation for the later entanglement of the significations that play a role in the special position of black and white. These connotations will prove important for the way meaning and tone are created in contemporary black-and-white cinematography.
3.1 A Fear of Color
Artist and writer David Batchelor states in his book Chromophobia that color has become the victim of prejudice for a long time. This has led to its marginalization in Western culture and society, which the author traces back all the way to antiquity. In his book, Batchelor distinguishes two discursive tendencies: “In the first, colour is made out to be the property of some ‘foreign’ body – usually the feminine, the oriental, the primitive, the infantile, the
base (Kuehni 78-79). Ornithologist and botanist Robert Ridgway proposed a system of a total of fifty-three color plates in 1912, each with a specific hue in different light- and darkness values. White and black featured as an attribute of every single hue (86-88). Chemist Wilhelm Ostwald devised a space consisting of two cones connected at their bases in 1917, in which black and white are both located at the top of one of the cones (89-90). These are still just a few examples of many more that conceptualize black-and-white as an attribute of color, ‘all-color’ or ‘non-color’.
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vulgar, the queer or the pathological” (22-23). Here, color is linked to notions which are opposed to Western white heteronormativity. Colors are considered to be unstable, and unpredictable, while black and white are dependable. Here, color is in the position of the ‘other’.
In the second rhetorical strategy Batchelor distinguishes “colour is relegated to the realm of the superficial, the supplementary, the inessential or the cosmetic” (23). This is connected to idea that white and black embody sobriety and piousness. According to this strategy, color is sheer decoration, which doesn’t add anything to the substance of the image or object. Rather, it could even be dangerous to this essence, it could distract the spectator from what is important (Buscombe 24).
However, as Batchelor notes, color has not always been targeted as containing just negative values. Among others, he cites Roland Barthes’s characterization of color in his essay on the works of expressionist artist Cy Twombly. Barthes11 describes color as “a kind of bliss”, a state of pleasant loss of control. (qtd. in Batchelor 32). Interestingly enough, Batchelor states that this “chromophilia” almost always stresses the same characteristics of color, except that it puts them in a positive light. It moves the otherness of color to the forefront and enhances it (71). Whether having positive or negative connotations, color has been maneuvered into the position of an ‘other’ in Western culture.
The ‘fear of color’ Batchelor discerns was also present in the period that is often perceived to be formative for contemporary modern society: the time of the Second Industrial Revolution. I will discuss this era since it showcases the way the special position of black and white is echoed in practical and physical aspects of modern society. Moreover, this period marks the time both the photo- and cinematographic mono- and polychrome technologies gained significance. But before I can discuss the position of color in this era, I need to take a quick step backwards in time.
While according to Batchelor signs of chromophobia date all the way back to antiquity, the relation between black and white and color hasn’t always been the same. In fact, historian Michel Pastoureau notes that up to the end of the Middle-Ages, the status of black and white was wholly different from the subsequent centuries. Up to then, they were considered to be colors as much as red or blue were. It was the invention of mechanically reproducible writing in the 15th century and the advent of the art of engraving that started the
11 However, while discussing photography in Camera Lucida, Barthes’s writing shows signs of chromophobia
when he describes that he feels like “color is a coating applied later on to the original truth of the black-and-white photography.” He continues: “For me, color is an artifice, a cosmetic (like the kind used to paint corpses)” (81).
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change of this status. Newton’s discovery of the color spectrum (and the accompanying conceptualization of black as the complete absence of light) and white as the culmination of every color, completed this change (11). So in the 19th century, black and white were already excluded from the realm of colors for several centuries.
During the time of the Second Industrial Revolution, the color black gained importance. The sprouting of enormous factories and mines forced the working class into damp and dark environments, permeated with smoke and coal dust, in which the workers were clothed in grayish tones (170, 173). This was a crucial factor in the rise of the link between black and the masses. The connection between shades of black and the common man was further strengthened by the growth of Protestantism and its iconoclasm. One of the important ways in which this movement in Christianity opposed itself to Catholicism was in its resistance to the value the latter attributed to riches. Where the massive Catholic cathedrals were decorated with lavish murals and ceiling paintings, Protestant churches were characterized by allusions to the sacredness of simplicity. A cornerstone of Protestantism was the idea that Christian existence should be about setting one’s life aside to worship god, not to enjoy the riches of earthly life. The rejection of materialistic impulses would be the way to reach the afterlife. This focus on the possibility of external existence through sober devotion was important for the rejection of color and its lavishness. As Max Weber argued in his influential work The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism in 1905, this work ethic and asceticism was an important energy that contributed to the thriving development of capitalism by the way it made believers feel obliged to engage in hard work in the factories (6, 104-105). Both in the workplace and in the churches, black started to dominate. They were associated with sobriety, piousness and discipline and were considered to be in opposition to the colorful garb the cultural elite could afford.
The time of the Second Industrial Revolution resulted in a rise of the presence of black in the street scenes. It signified the harsh realities of the industrial working class and their sober religious practices. While white wasn’t important to the same degree as black in this period, it has also historically been seen as a color of sobriety an piousness, symbolizing a lack of the indulgences of color (Batchelor 21). Discussing this example has showcased how the special position of black and white in the color spectrum manifests on a more practical level than the abstract models of the previous chapter. In the following three sections, the most important significations that are at play in this relation will be discussed. The attributes – some of which have already been briefly mentioned - will be ordered in three broad categories which each highlight a specific quality of black and white in opposition to color. The three
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oppositions are as follows: purity versus impurity, mind versus body and static versus dynamic. While these categories are not absolute and do not encompass the complete complexity of the subject, they serve to highlight the main overarching dichotomies that are at play in the signification of black and white in relation to color. The examples will also attest to the fact that some of the discussed significations have a rich history which predates the reinforcement of the opposition between black-and-white and color during the Second Industrial Revolution.
3.1.1 Purity versus impurity
In the first binary opposition black and white are considered to embody a certain purity and absoluteness; color then presents nuance and ambiguity, which interferes with purity. These attributes even predate Batchelor’s chromophobia that has developed since antiquity. For example, in the Old Testament, pure white is related to a state free of the supposed sinful nature of color. This is exemplified by Psalms 51:5-7, in which the protagonist asks God to forgive him for his wrongdoings:
See! In guilt was I brought to the birth, and in sin did my mother conceive me. It’s the innermost truth you desire, give me therefore true wisdom of heart. Purge me clean with hyssop,
wash me whiter than snow. (Open English Bible)
In this verse, the color white is linked to a state of innocence and piousness. This symbolism is carried over in other elements of Christianity, like the white papal garb. The attitude towards white expressed in this section of the bible is also reflected in philosophical metaphors for innocence: having a blank slate, or the blackness of an untouched chalkboard; an idea that has been touched upon by many philosophers throughout history, but is most commonly associated with the writing of John Locke in “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding” from 1690. Here, black and white are linked to the moral innocence of a child that has just entered the world.
But religion and philosophy aren’t the only arenas in which this connection with purity echoes. For example, one of the most striking examples can be found in Renaissance art, in which sculptors chose to produce completely white sculptures. Strongly influenced by artists from antiquity, they mimicked Greek and Roman statues. During the Renaissance, the
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original paint of these ancient sculptures had already worn off, leaving a white surface. Unaware that these statues actually used to be richly colored, the Renaissance artists tried to recreate the supposedly pure representational form of monochrome statues (Gage 31).
Black and white as signifiers of purity (in appearance) are also still present in the clothing of many professional fields. For example, in the medical industries, white attire is the standard for personnel higher in the hierarchy. Here, white is linked to authority and power, parallels of which can be perceived in the white and black in the dress of priests and judges. In the case of medical attire, the whiteness is also used to impart friendliness; purity in the form of nonhostility and goodwill (Brase and Richmond 2475-2476). White clothing in the medical world also signifies other aspects of purity: cleanliness and sterility. The same holds true for the white garb of chefs and the black or sometimes gray clothing of diamond appraisers. In the case of this last example, the avoidance of colored clothing is intended to prevent it from influencing the way light reflected into the to be appraised gem. All of these examples attest to the fact that the link between black and white and purity is still present in the clothing (regulations) of certain archetypical professions.
The connection between black and white and purity is furthermore echoed in the way popular fiction portrays pure morality (both pure good and bad). These significations connect white and black with the dependability of absolutes, which is opposed to the uncertainty12 of color. Examples of this are Tolkien’s resurrection of Gandalf as a benevolent white wizard and Rowling’s black robed antagonist Voldemort in the Harry Potter franchise. In Star Wars (1977) and its sequels, the villains are clothed in black and belong to the so-called ‘dark side’. These examples attest to the fact that the connection between purity and black and white is echoed in and reinforced by some of the largest franchises in Western popular culture. This is opposed to color, which is considered superfluous and can distract the spectator from essential meaning.
All of these examples show that the connection between purity and black and white in opposition to the impurity of color remains present. These significations are pervasive throughout the history of contemporary culture and thus influence the signification process of the photo- and cinematographic black-and-white aesthetic, since it is considered to consist solely of shades of the colors black and white.
12 This will later be explored further in the opposition between the supposed staticity of black and white and
19 3.1.2 Mind versus body
The second important opposition involves a connection between black and white and the mind, while color is connected to the body. Here, color is conceived as something disrupting; an impure anomaly that would distract the mind from what is important and essential. Color is something corporeal which undermines the human capacity for rational consideration that can be complemented through the ability of black and white to present structure and concepts.
One striking and explicit example of this can be seen in the debate between two different schools of thought regarding the purpose and function of art during the Renaissance. One favored the art of drawing, the other the art of coloring: disegno versus colore (Jernyei-Kiss 75). Both of them came to fruition in the sixteenth century. The first school originated in Florence, and contended that art should be intellectually stimulating and spring from the minds of artists who were engaged with the world of concepts and ideas. They preferred the art of drawing with black on white, for the abstraction was a vehicle for arriving at the essence of the subject, rather than describing trivial details through the specificity of color. Color was later added to the conceptual sketch, but the lines of the composition remained paramount (76-77). The other school of thought - which favored the art of coloring - was dominant in the vicinity of Venice, partially due to the extensive import of exotic pigments through the city’s wide trade network. The artists who adhered to this approach appreciated the mimetic capabilities of art, and the way pigments could represent textural aspects of substances and objects (80). Filling out the structure of the original design with color was thus the most important part.
This debate on the nature of art showcases how color is often perceived to have an adorning function, while black and white are suited for intellectual exploration. The art of designing and sketching is associated with the act of conceptualization and rationality, opposed to color’s supposed ability of recreating surface qualities. While these significations of color and black and white don’t have their origin in this Renaissance debate – for example, Aristotle already stated in his Poetics that color in art was inferior to the black-and-white lines of design – the discussions between the Viennese and Florentine schools of thought serve as a clear historical illustration for the connection between black and white and rationality (Batchelor 28-29).
Color is still often considered to mainly be an expressive channel, something closer to the emotions and the body than the mind; while black and white are applicable for the intellectual tasks of designing structure and abstract conceptualization. In advertising, for
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example, color is considered more suitable for and is more often used to elicit an immediate reaction in potential customers before their cognitive processing of the information starts. Bright colors are not only used to draw attention to the images, but also to appeal to the emotional or visceral. Monochrome, on the other hand, is more suited for advertisements to which potential customers are expected to devote more time. Monochrome skips the distraction that color could cause and is more successful when the spectators are in a position to spend more resources on processing the information (Meyers-Levy and Peracchio 134-135). Color can overwhelm its recipient by the amount of stimuli it provides, while black and white gives the recipient more time to rationally consider.
This attitude towards color can also be detected in academic writing on film. For example, film historian Gerald Mast argues that the so-called ‘rule of five’ – which states that the eye can only perceive and process a limited amount of stimuli – is even more important in the case of cinema than other visual arts since film combines images and sound; includes elements like plot, character and dialogue; and features moving images instead of still ones. Since cinema already provides a large amount of informational tracks, Mast argues that the difference in visual stimulation between color and black-and-white is amplified in cinema (89-91). Color is considered to be even more overwhelming than in other media.
Returning to the subject of professional attire, black and white are also used in clothing to signal seriousness and intellectualism. A good example would be the already mentioned black and white dress of attorneys and judges. The monochrome palette reinforces the notion that they are capable of defending or judging a case better than their clients. This association between black and white and seriousness is also echoed in the fact that these colors are still the standard and recommended color for the gown American students wear during their graduation (“Academic Costume Code”). One could even see this connection between black and white and seriousness echo in the stigma that black-and-white films would only be suitable for a more intellectual crowd13.
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Early critics of color criticized it for simply facilitating popular spectacle, while diffusing the essence of filmic art (Everett 23-24). Nowadays, this rhetoric is hard to find, since color is the dominant representational form and used in extremely diverse ways. However, the biggest releases still often feature bright color palettes. Black-and-white, contrarily, is now forced to the margin of film production and is often considered to be less suitable for the broad public. This is echoed in the fact that even the biggest contemporary black and white productions feature a medium budget (Frankenweenie at $39 million and Sin City at $40 million), with the majority being produced with a relatively low-budget (The White Ribbon at $18 million; The Artist at $15 million; Nebraska at $12 million; Persepolis at $7.3 million; Control (2007) at $6.4 million; Memento (2000) at $5 million). Most of the films with the highest budgets (Avatar at $425 million; The Lone Ranger (2013) and
John Carter (2012) at $275 million; Tangled (2010) at $260 million) feature highly saturated or heavily
teal-orange graded color schemes (The-Numbers.com). These figures indicate that the studios and production companies generally expect monochrome films to be successful with a smaller [continues on next page]
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Another interesting way in which this dichotomy is repeated, is in the contemporary representation of the use of narcotics. A drug-induced state is often portrayed through the use of lavish colors, which signify a loss of control over reality and rationality through a change in perception (Batchelor 31-32) This form of a ‘fall into color’ is synonymous with an obscuration of the mind. This kind of surreal use of color in representations of drug use are found in films like Easy Rider (1969) and Enter the Void (2009). Again, color suggests a more bodily and irrational experience. Black and white, on the other hand, are considered to signify control, rationality and the conceptual.
3.1.3 Static versus dynamic
The third and last binary opposition that is important for the contemporary signification of black and white is related to the ‘mind versus body’ discussion. There, color was associated with viscerality and deemed to contain superficial information which would undermine what was essential. In some cases, color is even considered to serve no other practical goal than to adorn. The third binary opposition that will be discussed here, however, doesn’t deal with the (potential) function of color, but rather with an aspect that is considered to be an inherent aspect of it. The key notion here is that color is supposedly too abstruse to understand and fully grasp which in turn involves a danger. Black and white are then considered distinct from color through their static identity opposed to the dynamic nature of color.
One of the most obvious manifestations surfaces when someone wants to refer to a specific color. He/she will often revert back to the action of pointing rather than trying to explain it through spoken language (Batchelor 84). This notion reinforces the conception of color as something childlike, something that can only be fully enjoyed and understood before the ‘fall into language’ and entering what psychoanalytical theorist Jacques Lacan calls the symbolic order (79). When language comes into play, color becomes uncontrollable and hard to define. In contemporary cinema, films aimed at children often still appeal to a more visceral reaction that happens before cognition through the use of rich and bright colors.
audience, while films with an emphasis on lavish colors are expected to find a broader and more general public. In the public perception, these smaller independent and arthouse-oriented productions are expected to be consumed by an above-average educated audience (Hollinshead 403-404; Evans 333-334; Newman 22-23). Since black-and-white films often have a more limited release, the contemporary public perception of these films is that they are for an elite with a certain amount of cultural capital. This echoes the connection of black and white with the mind.
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Examples include major animated features like Monsters University (2013) and Epic (2013), as well as live action films like Oz: The Great and Powerful (2013).
The notion that color is hard to understand and communicate about through language points to the perception of color’s nature being more abstract than black and white. In 1969, linguist Paul Kay and anthropologist Brent Berlin researched color naming and concluded that there are universal color terms which are defined by their occurrence in different languages. They stated that black and white are the most basic color terms, since every single language has terms for them (2-3, 104-105). This reinforces the notion that black and white are considered as being the most stable and static of the colors from the perspective of language. Other colors are considered more dynamic and harder to grasp. A reaction to this supposed contingency can be seen in the multiple ways in which people have tried to devise systems for understanding, categorizing and referring to color, like the ones discussed in the first chapter (48). By conceptualizing the unlimited possibilities in a model, color is boxed in and can be manipulated. The existence of these models shows that color is considered to be contingent and unpredictable and in need of taming. Black and white, on the other hand, maintain a static and linear position.
This sentiment can also be detected in parts of film history. In the 1920s and 1930s, the color use of many filmmakers was regarded as unbridled and overindulgent by critics. When three-color Technicolor stock became increasingly prevalent in the 1930s, the Technicolor company tasked its Color Advisory Service with controlling these excesses14. This service provided help for the production crews with making sure the color balance would be ‘right’ (Higgins 39-40). One could easily go overboard with the grading process, which would result in a muddled and incoherent outcome. Here, color was conceived as an element of cinema that was harder to control than black and white. Although progressively competent color timing technologies made the gap between the two smaller, black-and-white stayed remained easier to work with for a long time. This supposed stability and controllability of black and white is an important reason for why many low-budget productions kept being shot in monochrome.
With the advent of the digital, control over colors has increased even more. Theoretically, every single pixel of every frame can be adjusted manually, something which is of course impossible due to budgetary concerns. Nonetheless, technological innovations do
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Head of the Technicolor Color Advisory Service Natalie Kalmus even went as far to say that “producers sometimes thought that because a process could produce color, they should flaunt vivid color continually before the eyes of the audience” (qtd. in Higgins 39).
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provide more manipulability. Through the use of a digital intermediate (DI; the post-production process that is applied to a digitalized version of the original negative, after which the film can be reconverted to film stock or kept in its digital state) the color scheme of a film is adjusted to suit the director’s wishes (Belton 58). Technologies like these allow for greater control over the a film’s color scheme. The contingency presented by unpredictable circumstances in front of the camera and in shooting environments are minimalized. Because color is difficult to control on film stock, a specific digital state is created in which it can be tamed, after which the film can be retransferred to the original material form. The contingency of color is still present, but caged in. This alters its status: through the digital, color is not just something ‘to be controlled’, rather, it’s something that ‘is controlled’ through technological means.
One could argue that ince every pixel can theoretically be individually adjusted in the space of the digital, color and black-and-white are now equally controllable. However, this is only the case in the environment of post-production. In the stage of shooting, monochrome is still considered to be more stable, since it is less prone to unwanted contradictions and juxtapositions that could be the result of using color. This notion, in combination with the persistent difficulty of expressing color through language, shows that color is still considered to be more dynamic and unstable. While digital technologies have made color values easier to influence, black and white are still often conceived as more stable, predictable and controllable.
In the first chapter, it was concluded that black and white have often been cast in the position of an ‘other’ in conceptual models of the color spectrum. In this chapter’s discussion of the way the troublesome relation between black and white and color manifested during the Second Industrial Revolution, color seemed to be cast in the position of the ‘other’. In the next chapter, It will be shown that in the context of photography and cinema, color will be the one in the position of the ‘other’ to the dominance of black-and-white. However, this relation has gradually shifted in the other direction, leaving black-and-white in a marginalized position. Both color and black and white have thus been regarded as an ‘other’ in different contexts and periods. What is of importance for this thesis is not the direction of this relation of otherness, but the fact that black and white have consistently been considered as being ‘different’ from the other colors. This chapter has sought to explore how this fundamental divide manifests on a more practical level and which significations are intertwined with it.
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The most important connotations of black and white were explored by discussing three dichotomies: purity versus impurity, mind versus body and static versus dynamic. By discussing a range of examples from the world of arts and the social world, the most important cultural attributes of black and white were found to pertain purity, innocence, abstraction, intellectualism, stability, clarity and controllability. In a later chapter, I will argue that these significations are used and emphasized to create meaning and influence tonality in contemporary black-and-white cinema. But first, it is necessary to look at the way the relation between black, white and color developed in photography and cinema. This will provide the foundation for the examination of its significations.
4. Black-and-White Cinematography
In this chapter, the focus isn’t on the colors black and white themselves anymore. Rather, the chapter will deal with the opposition (and problems thereof) between two different aesthetic forms: monochrome and polychrome cinematography. The main subject will now be black-and-white, rather than black and white.
Photography will play an important role in this chapter. The reason for this is that the photographic medium debuted the on monochrome stock developed, mechanically produced black-and-white aesthetic that is the subject of this thesis. Because color gradually became financially more desirable and easier to control through technological developments, it shifted to the position of the dominant commercial form of expression. This by no means indicates a conceptualization of cinema simply as a post-photographic medium. The emphasis on photography simply stems from the fact that is the only medium that bore a similar indexical relationship between the representation and the represented before the dawn of cinema. This makes its meanings important for the analysis of black-and-white cinematography. In a later chapter, the connections with the photographic will be reconciled with the meanings derived from color theory discussed in the previous chapters. Before it is possible to delve into these, it is important to first consider the way the relation between black, white and color developed in the photo- and cinematographic modes of representation. Thereafter, this chapter will shortly discuss the potential loss that can be experienced in the move from black-and-white to color, which will indicate that color isn’t just perceived as black-and-white with an added information track.
25 4.1 Black-and-white versus color
In the previous chapters, I stated that black and white have been in a unique position in the realm of color for a long time. This notion of dissimilarity was reinforced by reinforced by breakthroughs in physics and technological developments in printing technology. Throughout history, the relationship between color and black and white has assumed different forms, sometimes the opposition was absolute, while at other points color or black and white were cast in the position of the ‘other’. With the advent of photography and later cinema, with their unique ability to supposedly capture what the eye saw, the notion of an opposition between the two was once again strengthened. This paragraph will identify four reasons for this reinforcement.
The first reason concerns the perception of the ontology of photography. André Bazin stressed that the photographic medium set itself apart by the fact that the human agent didn’t interfere with the process of mechanical reproduction. This would make it a more objective representational technology than painting (7). Charles Sanders Peirce’s semiotic category of the index - which points to a physical relationship between the representation and the object it represents - is useful for understanding this claim to realism. A photographic image is produced by the reaction that occurs when light rays which are reflected off the object that is photographed, pass through the lens and reach the chemicals on the surface of the stock. There is thus a physical causal relationship between the image that is formed on the stock and the object in front of the lens. According to Bazin, the subjective input of a human is absent in this process. This automation of the production process, along with the indexical relationship between the representation and the represented object are the distinguishing factors that set photography apart from other visual representational technologies in the cultural perception.
Since the photographic apparatus initially predominantly produced pictures in black-and-white, this claim to realism became connected with this representational form. Colors belonged to the domain of the artist, which couldn’t represent reality accurately due to the presence of human fallibility. Black, white and gray were the basis of the science of photography, which could supposedly produce objective representations. In this way, the dawn of the mechanically reproducible image, just as the mechanically reproducible word in the form of the printing press, reinforced the opposition between the realm of color and black and white.
The second important reason is of a cultural nature and has its roots in the general perspective on film history rather than in ontological qualities. This reason has developed a
