How about a colorized version?
I would love to see the film in color. Does it exist colorized?
shareI would love to see the film in color. Does it exist colorized?
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Yes, I know purists would not dare want to mess with colorizing this film. I am not one of them. I mean, the sets have to have been stunning for color visuals. Of course, I would probably take a preference for this film in it's original monochrome format. The shadows would loose some magic in color. I still want to see it in color. I love the costumes!
shareThe philistine pig ignorance of some people makes me wonder if devolution has not only begun, but been fully implemented.
Colorize Cocteau's masterpiece? Why not tie-dye the Sistine Chapel's ceiling, or even better, billboard the Grand Canyon's walls? This is one of the truly mesmerizing films of all time. To wish for it to be aborted like a full term child is akin to that same crime.
God help you. You don't deserve culture if you think all it's just yogurt!
- Fin
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I'm glad somebody else already addressed the fact that this film could have been made in color at the time; that one was just ludicrous.
However, it's also pretty silly to think that colorization would show you the actual color of the sets and costumes, as if it suddenly restores the original color.
No, filming in black and white (well, grayscale, actually) removes all vestiges of color, thereby preventing us from ever knowing what color those sets and costumes actually were (not that it matters, since they weren't chosen for their color anyway, but rather for their textures on black and white film). Any colorization you've ever seen, of any film, is merely "made up" color...little more than treating a film as if it were a paint-by-numbers project from a dime store. (I'll grant that in some cases we do know what some of the colors were, but everything above still applies.)
What's more, what people don't seem to realize or give credit for is the fact that, regardless of the reasons for filming on one filmstock or another, the resulting film was specifically designed for that stock, and wouldn't have been made exactly as it was otherwise. In other words, whether the black and white was a conscious choice (as I'm sure it was in this case) or because of financial considerations, the director, the cinematographer, the art decorators, everyone involved with whatever film knew beforehand that it was being filmed in black and white (same with color films, for that matter) and made every decision regarding it accordingly. It's not like they just set the cameras up and rolled, regardless. This film, any film, would have been made entirely differently...different setups, different choices of costume and set decoration, probably entirely different scenes...if the decision had been to film in color instead of black and white (or vice-versa).
There's nothing wrong with black and white film (despite what people seem to think nowadays), it's wonderful for adding depth. Color film, on the other hand, needs to be lit in a different way and that depth is lost, sacrificed for the sake of color. Most filmmakers today would love to be able to film in black and white when they felt it appropriate, but very few have the clout to be able to get away with it. (You'll notice that Scorsese and Spielberg, to mention two, have pulled it off...or would you have us colorize "Raging Bull" or "Schindler's List," as well?)
Even if there were some way to actually restore the original colors to something filmed in black and white, that still wouldn't result in what the film would have been like had the intent been to film it in color in the first place. That's why "purists," and usually any people still around that were involved in the productions in the first place, usually are appalled at any attempts to colorize it.
You can wish all you like that the film had been made in color, but it wasn't. It is what it is, and no degree of colorization is suddenly going to magically transform it into what it would have been otherwise. If you appreciate a film at all, then stop trying to bastardize what the creators have given you by second-guessing them and "improving" it!
This film, and a lot of black and white films, are masterpieces, and deserve to be treated as such instead of like some fill-in-the-blanks cartoon.
Well said, Jake-219!!
One needs to keep in mind, too, that just after War World II, film stock was in short supply in France, and (as I just found out), Cocteau had to use several different types, which is why the look varies from scene to scene.
Watching films that have been colorized can be fun, but the overall film suffers because it departs from the director's vision. Some films should never be colorized, 'Casablanca', the original 'Miracle on 34th Street', the 1951 'Christmas Carol', and Cocteau's 'La Belle et la Bete' among them.
Come on, she's just saying that she'd like to see the costumes in colour. It's not a great crime, the black and white version would still exist.
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Sort of not exactly - the "Faerie Tale Theatre" production of "Beauty and the Beast" is basically a one-hour. colur version of this film, copying the Beast's makeup and even his body language.
shareIf you want color, stick to the Disney version.
This is Mr. Cocteau's legacy and it should not be violated. It would be like plastering Michaelangelo Buonorotti's statue of David with colored wax from Madame Tussaud.
One of the most beautiful things about Black and White film and photos is the amazing play of light. It takes truly gifted cinematographers/photographers to do the lighting that captures the mood.
I think in this film the light and the textures are so essential to the mood that the palette becomes a character... or even the narrator's voice.
"Why can't we all just get along?"
Just watch Donkey Skin.....
shareI have no problem if it will made the colourzied, see as I loved the beautiful vintage colourzied movie like "Gone with the wind".
But I just think this film as Cocteau's version ,it provided with the charming, mystery (Especially in the Beast's castle,since it under the curse which it have to be dark), romance and magic of filming espcially the feel of the beautiful pearlize glossy in Black contrast white over on this film. I just loved it at this way as the culture film. Even over another 50 years more, it still stylish.
"Gone With the Wind" was not colorized. It was originally shot in color, "Technicolor", in fact.
"Why can't we all just get along?"
You cant really compare "Gone With the Wind" to "La Belle et la Bete" because, unlike "Gone With the Wind", "La Belle et la Bete" needs the black and white to give it its mystery in the castle. If you really pay attention to what the castle looks like on the inside, it would be really plain. The black and white makes it eerie and enchanting, anything more would just be boring.
shareIMHO to make a colorized version from a movie like this, should be considered a crime.
C'mon! one of the best things from the movie was the lightning, the shadows, the dark atmosphere. A colorized version would ruin it totally.
As somebody said it before: if you want to see a version of this movie in color, stick to Disney's version and let this B/W masterpiece intact.
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I think of the two of us, I'm not the retarded one. Colour was available at the time, even in the silent years there were colour scenes in films. Walt Disney started doing colour cartoons in three-strip technicolor in 1932.
This film was made in black and white. Full stop. It was made in b/w and used the grey palette to create a masterpiece of lights and shadows. When Wings of Desire was filmed in the 80s, the director recruited the elderly Henri Alekan to do the b/w scenes because he had done this film 40 years earlier. If you want to see colour films I have no problem with that, but don't desecrate masterpieces like this one. Stick to films in colour.
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It never ceases to amaze me how ignorant people are as to the history of film. "Colour wasn't possible"? You don't know much about old movies, do you? As pointed out, GWTW was filmed in colour, and it predates this movie. In some cases, using B&W was a financial choice--for a long time, colour was pretty expensive--but in many others, it was a choice based on style. Most noirs would be pretty awful in colour, for example.
The problem with colourization is twofold. For one, the colours are seldom applied well--an example that rather springs to mind is a Frank Sinatra movie my sister saw once in which the colourist had given him brown eyes. For another, it destroys the way the film actually was created while not, in general, improving it. A film shot in colour is filmed a certain way, and a film shot in B&W is filmed in another. And, of course, to the person who said that the colour palette must have been amazing, why would it? The colours were never intended to be shown. Indeed, in many cases, the colour palette was amazing because it was so awful; colours were chosen because of what shades of grey they make.
gillianmadeira said:
"And, of course, to the person who said that the colour palette must have been amazing, why would it? The colours were never intended to be shown. Indeed, in many cases, the colour palette was amazing because it was so awful; colours were chosen because of what shades of grey they make."
As a case in point, the 1957 TV version of 'The Pied Piper of Hamelin', with Van Heflin and Claude Rains, was filmed in color, but the production team kept in mind that it would be viewed on black-and-white television sets. It has been released on VHS (and DVD?) in color, but the colors are just plain garish because they were chosen with the intended viewing circumstances in mind.
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I sure would hate to see it. I've seen The Three Stooges colorized, and the colors looked horrible. That would be murder to a film like this.
shareWow. I try and I try, and still I'm the person that no one listens to.
I've nothing against color. (Though I find it APPALLING that everyone nowadays has so much against black and white!) But I'm at my wits' end trying to explain the arguments against colorization in such a way that people will finally understand!
It isn't just the matter of the colors looking horrible...it's that the entire film was set up, and intended to be, in black and white!
Has any of you even tried to take a picture? If you have, you'll realize that lighting is everything. Cinematographers aren't just the people that turn on the camera when the director says "Roll." They're the people that set up the shot, the lighting, the textures...everything to make the film look good.
They KNOW when they're filming in black and white. They KNOW when they're filming in color.
And they're making ENTIRELY different decisions based on those things when they're filming.
A colorized movie is absolutely NOT the exact same movie as it would have been had it been made in color. It's the black and white movie done as a paint-by-numbers.
Yes, there are probably many movies that I'll grant should have been made in color. But, unfortunately, they weren't, and no amount of colorization is going to change that.
Be grateful that these wonderful movies were made, and stop trying to improve upon them!
I dont know, but I like it in black and white, I think color would make it lose some of its magic.
And now Im being followed by rocks
Your arms off!No it isnt.
Would you like a... shave?