Top Ten Movies in Black and White Made After the Invention of Color Film

1. Wizard of Oz (1939)

Oz is meant to be in dazzling techno-color, right? What is Glinda in black and white but a dried out witch?  As a kid I loved the surprise transition from black and white to color, dazzled by the transition from black and white of Kansas to the sparkling color of the Munchkin village. But, the black and white scenes give us the film's original avatars of the scarecrow, the tin woodsman, the cowardly lion and the wicked witch of the west as shadows of Dorothy's unconscious. Wait! Does that mean the black and white world is the dream and Oz is the reality? Ah hah. I think I've stumbled upon something here. And, don't forget, Dorothy's rendition of "Somewhere, Over the Rainbow" is sung in glorious black and white, not color.

2. Schindler's List (1993) 

A film about the holocaust filmed in black and white seems to suggest that black and white only represents the darkest, most insidious side of human nature, but Steven Spielberg is blithe to contend that even a bit of color can intrude in the darkest moments of human history. Interspersed within the panoply of dark and shadow granulation, a colored spectacle of a fated Jewish girl appears on film. The colored vision Schindler sees is supposed to represent his epiphany - the error of the Aryan solution. Schindler sees her carted off by the Nazis; her colored body adrift among a sea of gray. The absence of color represents everything stark. Everything Gestapo soldiers are not but the color of the little girl is: life, innocence, hope.

3. Saving Private Ryan (1998)

Although technically not a black and white film, this World War II flick reaches the limit of color while still retaining color status. I think it is the only color film that I still remember in black and white. The director and his color expert drained most of the color out of the scenes to give the film a grainy, realistic look, as if the viewer is right there with the soldiers on Omaha beach. It is a gritty film. I cannot say there is a better film in color that mimics the mise-en-scene of black and white any better than this one. A must-see.

4. Psycho (1960)

OK. Now when you thought I'd pepper this blog with only seemingly black and white films, I have finally added a true black and white film. Albeit, the shower scene was filmed with chocolate syrup, I still think the horror of this film is aptly felt. When I show the shower clip in the classroom as an example of the horror genre, the students laugh at the low-tech - but they fail to realize the beauty of the of the edit, the visual deletion of the knife hitting skin. I recently watched Gus Van Sant's loving reproduction of Psycho in full color and still remain partial to the original black and white piece. I think it has to do with the fact that Hitchcock is plain brilliant and Van Sant, although brilliant (recently watched his original genius, Mala Noche, and loved it) does not pull off even in reproduction what Hitchcock was able to do with sheer invention.

5. Raging Bull (1980)

Again going on the metaphor of blood - there is something about seeing blood stream from a boxer's body in the rink that fares better in black and white than it does in color. Scorcese's film is a mixture of color and black and white. I think the reason Scorcese chose this montage was to exacerbate the underlying theme of the film: the vacillation of the alcoholic rage, going from prickly tenderness, as the familial scenes in the kitchen, to the parallel between domestic violence and the grueling games of the rink. I would say this film is almost too perfect to be filmed totally in color. In the discombobulated form of color and gray  


6. Wings of Desire (1987)

If Woody Allen's films form a poetic paen to New York, then Wim Wender's orgiastic love song to war-blown Berlin is equally beauteous. I may be biased because I love the library scene in this film - and library books shine better in sepia tones anyway - a book does not need Technicolor. This film about angels entertaining us unaware is half a dirge and half a love song to humanity. I loved it. One thing about black and white - and sounds cliché but I will say it anyway - black and white cinematography, if done well, brings out the humanity of the human face (as an allusion to Emmanuel Levinas, somewhere).

7. The Seventh Seal (1957)

The black and white image of the Virgin with Child apparition coupled with the dance of death is beauteously rendered in black and white in this entirely diaphanous film. For a film about death, the beauty of a stark, rocky beach - a crusader and the personage of death - is painted in miraculous poetic tones. Of all the films I have ever seen, this film stands out as a gem of cinematic technique.
 


8.  Manhattan (1979)

So, Woody Allen is a neurotic who cannot keep stuffing sunshine up his you-know-what, I still love this beautiful take on romance and cityscape. And yes, the plot is basically the same as all of Woody's films: an older neurotic cannot keep the young girls from falling all over him - but I have to say, of all the directors in this list, Allen has the unequivocal ability to make cinematic love to his city. What I like about Manhattan more than the dysfunctional romance is the paint brush swathed over a canvas. New York is a commonly filmed town, but Woody Allen's films make New York a character.

9. Europa (1991)

Lars Von Trier's eerie look at post-war France is both a Hitchcockian mystery, Cagney-esqe train thriller and existential romp that will leave you scratching your head. There must be something about existential movies (see the Seventh Seal) that seem to fare so much better in black and white than they do in color. Color is too happy (see Pleasantville) or is reality too much like Kansas (see Wizard of Oz). The distinction between color as freedom and black and white as fascism (and the race against time) seem to be the predominant themes in this little treat of a film from everyone's favorite Dogme hero. I think the prize goes to Europa for the last scene. I cannot image the death any other way than in water and in black and white. Water, trains, floating bodies - black and white for sure!


10. Pleasantville (1998)

Just as the Wizard of Oz begins with a dream and enters dream reality, Pleasantville begins with an illusion and enters a satirical nightmare. Playing on the conventions of boring 1950s black and white television that needs some color, the film playfully looks at the land of Oz from a completely sardonic point of view. I thought the movie deserved a place in this list because it is perhaps the only film I am aware of that is so meta-aware of itself as a black and white film poking fun at black and white films.

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Eavesdropping on the Saint Charles Streetcar at Common

    Waiting in the cold morning after a New Year's Eve out! The pavement is moist with the evening's fodder. A brazen, foolish girl prances towards downtown barefoot as a foolish boy admonishes her. Twelve of us wait for the 4:15. Multiple taxis vrooom by. One stops. A couple gets in, frustrated with waiting. A group of handsome guys on my left banter in a language I can't detect.

Poem: Four Loves

The shrink’s nose told me to read The Four Loves

so i did

i read the whole book in two sittings,
even the bibliography,

well,
sorta −

and pondered the book’s message,
you know,

how there are four loves,
according to the greeks,

those sexy helens

and

like how i used to love diecast cars and bowling
and now i mainly instant message.

how i used to love you in some other symbol,

how i used to gaze on you and blush.

how you ran away and closed the book.

how i came to sit and read

wonderin’ where it all went,

me,

stitching together a story

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Goings-On on the Streetcar at the Riverbend in New Orleans, Louisiana

I did not have to pay a fare for the streetcar this evening; apparently, the ticket kiosk was broken. What an odd, egalitarian way to herald in the new year. The car is characteristically loud and obnoxious; slightly drunk 20 and 30 somethings.
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Short Story: Car Keys

… the nonsense of men is called business; the nonsense of boys, though exactly alike, is punished by those same men: and no one pities either boys or men.

– Augustine of Hippo

Measuring my life by how many times I locked keys in the car would be appropriate because I have done it since I was a kid. One vivid memory was at my brother’s soccer game, eleven years old. I had gone back to get something out of the family car, a book or somesuch, and no sooner had I slammed the door shut that it hit me like a panic — I had locked the damn keys in the car. Now, remember I was a kid. I stood still for a few seconds, my mind racing inside, the thud of the slammed door still thudding in my chest.

It had happened -- locked keys in the car -- but I wanted to make sure it really had happened. I jostled the door. Realization. Reluctance … a quiver … it had happened. I could see the keys positioned comfortably on my dad’s vinyl seat. Oh no. I started to pace, indecisively; I surmised if I paced long enough I would either

1.) disappear or

2.) the car door would miraculously unlock itself and all would be put right. Nothing like that happened. I wiped my hands on my shorts. Checked my pockets. I tried all the doors a second time to see if one of them would open. A large lump in the gut of me; the feeling of swinging on a tire, a tingling that tintinnabulates in your groin.
If only I could move mountains, I thought to myself. Like Jesus. Only weeks ago I had convinced my buddy Jeremy Accuri that I could uproot our family White Oak. The familial quercus alba that my mom had planted to measure out the life of the Roselli family, I wanted to aggressively uproot. When Mom had planted the tree, it was a youngster; by now it is either mowed down or handsome. But I can remember Jeremy Accuri and me invoking God’s aid for about an hour to no avail. If only I had faith the size of a mustard seed, I thought to myself. I was really disappointed, not that I thought that I could really do it, but I expected something would happen. A manifestation. An epiphany. But no epiphanies, so Jeremy and I went to his house to eat ham sandwiches his mom had made. I can remember how amazed his mother was that I ate everything on my plate. twice. If only she knew how defeated I felt.

And empty.

Poem: Another Kind Of Cave?

when it seems you have been cut out from
construction paper,
block speckled primary color green,
a carved-out human form,
when it seems as if identity has been placed on the shelving,
— fleshed-out and unread —
what, instead,
walks around in its place is the abstract me
with abstract legs and triangular feet,
a circle standing in for a noggin,
made by a bunch of kindergarten scholars,
a veritable platonic form,
that forgot about its meat on the shelf,
cautiously rotting
So I go and pick up my half-smelly carcass,
filed between a copy of
jane eyre and buddingbrooks,
and slap my self around a bit like a butcher with
a premium slice,
salve a healthy dose of vinegar to spicen up
my languishing corpuscles,
jimmy into my corpse once again as if it were a
union suit
nostalgically lined to my handsome rectangle;

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Poem: "to beget"

the world does not provoke    the world is provoked

so
    does              “the
                     world is too much with us”
mean
don’t be materialistic
            ?
or does it mean something like
                    there is nothing out there to catch the eye
because “we lay waste our powers …”
    (to say something inside is a better argument, wordsworth?)
        which is why giving up on nature walks is probably a good thing
the ants have nothing to say
    “Little we see in Nature that is ours”
                        are not perturbed    really by being stared at,
    or the moth
even the stumbled upon lizard,
    pitifully its glistening eyeball falling out of its manacled socket
is not sorry    does not get its feelings hurt if moved off the pavement
the same if accidentally stepped on
        or Wordsworth is writing about arrogance    ,    here
the panache of human beings to believe us so provocative!
    something like prometheus stealing fire; his goddamn hubris —
                        for does he really think the tritons managed
such         a         gaze        can         he be that trite?

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