(no subject)

[ldhenson]

I know it's become something of a standard practice for WWII footage, whether real or re-created, to be shown in black and white, sepia-tinted, or very desaturated tones. I never minded too much, because original footage should be left that way, and re-created footage...well, I knew it was just stylized. No big deal.

So I got a huge shock when I finally saw an actual shot of the bloody inside of an LST in the aftermath of D-Day. That one single shot--no bodies, no weapons, just the state of the walls and floor--disturbed me especially. The main reason? The photo's colors, for once, were very close to true. I hadn't seen so much of that bright red before. And it hit me in a visceral way that many other similar pictures of the war, despite the terrible events they showed, somehow had not.

Despite the fact that I knew, intellectually, that the real sights of the war could not have looked like those old/re-created shots, it took seeing something like that to jolt me out of the psychological padding afforded by half a century's separation.

Comments

[lasergirl.livejournal.com]

there's a site called "WWII In Colour" that I was looking at that struck me the same way. Not in the gory sense, but in the "Oh, right. Colour EXISTED."

[ldhenson.livejournal.com]

I'll have to look for that site, thanks. Now that you mention it, I remember seeing ads for a DVD set by the same name. Not sure I could bring myself to watch it, though...

[lasergirl.livejournal.com]

I found it when a friend sent me awesome colour portraits of women doing aviation work with their hair tied up in hankies, and being all hot and rosie riveter-like.

The Website

[ldhenson.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link. I took a look this morning before work, seems like a great site to visit.

[tallihensia.livejournal.com]

That would be definitely something that would grab the attention. You're totally right -- we've gotten completely used to the sepia/bw footage and imagry.

In some ways, though less, uh, tramatic, it's like when they cleaned the Sistine Chapel and realized that all that painting on the roof was in bright, vibrant color -- that the dullness had been only through the age of time. It really made a mental shift to get used to "color" as part of something we'd thought of as acient. Roman statues with paint on them instead of being stark white marble. Things like that. Takes a bit of a blink to readjust to trying to look at it through their eyes of the time, then our eyes of history.

[ldhenson.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm thinking our eyes have gotten trained by now to see that "old" = "faded." It's like some sort of visual shorthand, and I was susprised now deeply-ingrained it's become.

when they cleaned the Sistine Chapel and realized that all that painting on the roof was in bright, vibrant color

Ooh, shall have to go look for pictures.

[tallihensia.livejournal.com]

{admires the art marble}

I did a quick search and came up with this page for comparison photos:
http://daphne.palomar.edu/mhudelson/WorksofArt/13HighRen/3182.html

The BBC news has a lot of snaps of the finished restored works:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/560490.stm

I was there visiting smack in the middle of the project and so got to see both sides - the half that had been cleaned and the half yet to be. It was really incredible, seeing those colors emerge where no one had expected them to be.

There's also the debate over whether to 'colorize' old films. I have to admit, I've yet to see one that has been colorized, but I rather like the idea of having both -- I'd like to try and see it that way, as well as keep the historical value of the older look.

[ldhenson.livejournal.com]

Ooh, thanks so much for the links. The difference is amazing! Lucky you. I'd love to go see it someday.

As for colorization, I agree with you. I think it's gret that it can be done, from a technological standpoint. But I also think it's important to keep them as they are. Maybe the filmmakers would have filmed it in color had they had the choice, but they did do it in b&w and I would think that had to have informed some of their other choices, from lighting to set decoration to costuming, etc. So I don't think one aspect of a film can be so simply isolated and changed.