"altering the producer's original artistic intent"

Post Reply New Topic

i am so sick of people worshiping "original artistic intent" - to those who say one should not tamper with the film producer's "original artistic intent" i give the raspberry - when you watch a movie on a tv set, you are effectively altering its director's original intent. for those who say monochrome is the height of beauty, i give another raspberry - it is merely a distortion due to use of a reductive technology long superceded by color. there are folk with the genes to see beauty and high art in it, obviously i ain't one of 'em. the anti-colorization folk especially stick in my craw. what insufferable hautiness! if "artistes" protesting colorization don't like the faux color they don't have to watch! [or they can turn the color off]. monochrome and colorization are both distortions, so "pick your poison." artists are full of themselves if they think what they create should be forever appreciated only in the way THEY think it should be appreciated. there is no accounting for taste! call me a $#!+heel and i call you a snob. and r*g*r =b*rt is a BIG SNOB!! !!
i had to get this off my chest.

let the flaming begin!

+1

Watch the first five minutes of The Maltese Falcon, in both original B/W and then the Ted Turner colorized version and tell me the director's original intent wasn't more beautiful, artistic and aesthetically realized the way he created it. The colored version is a hackneyed tacky distortion - creative vandalism.

I'm sorry that you haven't the aesthetic maturity to recognize subtleties in artistic expression, but your raspberries aren't proving anything about the superiority of one medium over another (and television screens are now of the same dimensions as theater screens - except for films made before the mid 50s, when movie screens were square like old TVs), you're just expressing a personal small-minded lack of vision. Perhaps you should make an effort to understand WHY film aficionados tend to prefer to see art in the venue in which its creator envisioned it.

Elephant Man, Young Frankenstein, Paper Moon and Schindler's List could all have been made in color if the directors had chosen to do so, but they wouldn't have been nearly as good, or as dramatically or comedically effective for the stories they were telling.

You may think the Mona Lisa looks better with a mustache, but that doesn't say as much about DaVinci's artistic vision as it does about your ability to perceive artistic vision when you see it. You may be missing volumes of subtext that would make the movies you watch even more enjoyable. Yeah, I know - you got nuttin' but raspberries for subtext, too...

I have to say I really disagree.

First of all there are a number of false assumptions in your comments.

First you belittle monochrome photography as a “distortion due to use of a reductive technology long superseded by color.” But to anyone with experience in photography will attest, color photography is no more realistic than black and white. Try taking a color photograph and viewing it at the location it was taken at. You will see that the colors in the photograph rarely match up to the colors in the scene. If you get one color dead on, the rest will tend to shift further and further away from their originals as their hue deviates further from the one accurate color.

Second you complain that “artists are full of themselves if they think what they create should be forever appreciated only in the way THEY think it should be appreciated.” If you talk to a lot of artists, you will discover many recognize that it is the audience that ultimately has the final say as to the content of the art. Artists might like their work to be interpreted in the manner they would prefer, but they usually recognize that the audience has the final say. I'm sure you would like your post to be interpreted in the way you want it to be understood, but by your own logic, I should be able to interpret it however I choose and you should have no complaint.

Third you say “if "artistes" protesting colorization don't like the faux color they don't have to watch!” But here is the exact same argument seen from a different perspective. If you don't want to watch a film in black and white, watch some other film. Don't demand that the black and white film be colorized so you can stand to watch it.

I don't think people should “worship” an artistic vision. I believe that art should NEVER be put on a pedestal. Art must always attempt to communicate well and be accessible to an audience. Art should never be contemptuous of it's audience. But art should NEVER cower in the face of an uncomprehending audience. Artists should NEVER stop trying to make something better simply because the audience doesn't have the tasted or sensitivity to understand it.

A tremendous amount of work goes into making a film (or any other well crafted artwork) and there are a lot of decisions made by the artists to tell that story in an effective manner. The choice to shoot with dark, moody low key photography can effect your interpretation of the action. Would a film like “Blade Runner” play as well it it has been shot in bright sunlight? Would you advocate re-timing the film to look like a light comedy?

The choice to shoot in black and white or color can strongly effect how that story comes across. Black and white photography has an advantage in that you can simplify visual elements. There is also the lush beauty of good monochrome photography. A film like “Good Night and Good Luck” uses stark, high contrast black and white photography to evoke a period in time as well as to tell the story in a visually appealing manner. The same choices are made when a film maker chooses to shoot in color; specifically they generally want to show the story with beautiful visuals.

After all the work of making a film – a film often requires at least a year's effort on the producer's and director's parts – they generally get annoyed when someone who doesn't understand or care about the subtle creative choices that were made to best tell the story, comes in and starts modifying the work simply because they have a different aesthetic. A person who has not spent a year or more with the material who comes in and starts making changes based on their personal whims rather than an understanding of the material is likely to blunt and weaken the content rather than to make it more effective. (Yes, there are times when a third person can improve upon an existing work, but this is the exception, not the rule.)

I highly suspect that if some person unacquainted with the details of a story came in and started making changes to a film you particularly liked, you would find that the film had suffered from the process. Do you really believe that a person who neither understood or respected the details and subtleties of a story would substantially improve the story simply by tweaking aspects to suit their own tastes? You are implying that the years of work that an artist might put into a project has the same worth as that of a person who just wants to sell a film to a broader audience that isn't willing to watch a film in black and white.

You say that if a film is colorized and if the viewer doesn't want to see the colors, all they have to do is turn off the color. It's not that simple. The process of adding color to a black and white image inherently modifies the tonal relationships within the image. A black and white image that has been colorized and then reverted to black and white will appear quite different than the original image.

In some instances, colorization may be an appropriate choice. I have a copy of a Ray Harryhausen film “20 Million Miles to Earth” that has both the original black and white and a colorized version on the disc. It's a terrible film in either version. But had they had the money they would have shot it in color. So perhaps colorization isn't such a bad choice here. But it's not like the colorization looks natural. In fact, in some ways it is rather distracting and I don't know that in the end it was worth it.

You are making a mistake when you think that a person who cares about these issues is a snob. It is not snobbery to care about doing good work and protecting it against dilution by people who don't understand or appreciate it? I'm sure there are things that you do that you care about and are proud of. Do you feel that it would be appropriate for anyone to come in and modify your work even though it might grossly clash with your original intent?

Lars

??? to deny that monochrome is reductive is to deny what your eyes tell you. and to say that "color is no more realistic" falls into the same category- even if the color registrations fall down, it is still COLOR which is in the ballpark of reality compared with monochrome which is a big chunk o' reality stripped away.



if this were true, why then did orson welles castigate ted turner for wanting to use "...his goddamned crayons on my movie!"? he wanted audiences to see it HIS WAY only. and your last point [in the paragraph above] made no sense to me whatsoever, as my brainfarts are far from any kind of art to be interpreted.



red-state, blue-state. and i have the right to demand any god-damned thing i want to! having it granted is another thing altogether. i wanted "it's a wonderful life" to be colorized and it eventually [the first attempt doesn't count] was done in a quality way fully compatible with the original [b&w version included with colorized DVD] so nobody had the right to b!tch about it other than artistic purists who would arrogantly deny $#!+heels like me the choice of watching a colorized flick.



i am not an artist, i never claimed to have any artistic sensibilities. that said, there is no one right way to do anything under the sun. just because you are primo-well-educated doesn't mean your way of viewing things is the way i should view things. btw, i LIKED the theatrical/international version WITH the voiceover narration- i have perceptual difficulties so i need all the help i can get to comprehend what's going on in the pic. btw#2- i hate dark and murky, it hurts my eyes. but i wouldn't change that, so there. i get the impression that you would say any accomodations for addled folk like me [subtitles, voiceover narration] violate artistic integrity and should be banned, no matter what. that is the same as saying "if you can't understand my film as-is, then go to hell!" what arrogance.



you don't believe in end-user choice, do you? you are probably opposed to those companies that release bowdlerized versions of films for airlines and religious family viewers, against any changes that violate the "artistic integrity" of the film no matter any other considerations. this is very haughty, in my view.



jeez louise! the only major change i mentioned was colorization. stop adding the kitchen sink to this! if the good mr. turner owns the work then he has the right to do whatever he wants with it, short of deleting it from existence. movies are altered just by showing them on tv, they are reformated for those of us with 4:3 sets, they are chopped apart and swiss-cheesed to fit-in adverts, color balances and luma levels are tweaked to fit broadcast parameters- why not be bothered over this REAL artistic alteration instead of the side issue of making colorized renditions of monochrome movies?



sorry, but that's not quite how it works- chroma and luma signals are separately encoded for broadcast or registration onto video master/DVD- so one CAN turn-off the color without it affecting the monochrome portion. otherwise, it would never have passed muster with the FCC which mandates FULL color compatability sans alterations of the gray scale, or at least that which the broadcast medium is capable of. it is well-noted that tech wags say NTSC [analog tv transmission system that many of us still use] really stands for "never twice the same color."



i wasn't talking about anything being "natural" -there is nothing "natural" about any of this.



a snob is somebody who perceives his or her status, outlook or philosophy superior to that of another person as well as dismissive of that person's right to be differently abled or perceptive. if anything, this omega male is superior to nobody. not one. i wouldn't give a hoot in hell about anybody altering my crayon scrawings, by god it would certainly be an improvement over my feeble efforts! but it IS snobbery [just plain arrogance] to think that one's own stuff is the be-all and end-all. nothing under god is such, and it is a total lack of piety in which espousal of an alternate view of an artist's work would be viewed as akin to sacrilige. i am not knocking artists, this world needs 'em. i do resent folk who should know better than to be looking down their noses at me. everybody's $#!+ stinks on this earth. it is plain from your writing style that you are much smarter than i am, so in light of this i'm asking you please to just say potAHto and let me say poTAYto in my plebian way.

Last edited by auntblabby on 04 Mar 2010, 2:20 am, edited 1 time in total.

Updating movies or works of art to accommodate new technology, such as color, is not bad - I simply think it is important then that the original is still available.
I do think in some situations black and white really do fit the mood of a movie better, especially since the directors and cinematographers of yore shot using lighting techniques complementary to that medium. I think that accounts for some of the weirdness colorization adds.
A note: I'll be nitpicky on this one, I do not ever think old film noir films should be colorized. Not for any ethical regions, but because the darkness and contrast set the mood, so with colorizing much of the atmosphere and symbolism becomes utterly lost. I mean, it should be legal to do so, I just don't think it's wise to.

Last edited by Aurore on 04 Mar 2010, 2:18 am, edited 1 time in total.

i am a $#!+heel, i won't deny this to anybody. i don't claim to have artistic intelligence, never have claimed otherwise, and if you had bothered to READ just what i said instead of reading between the lines [i'm not a between the lines type]
you could have seen immediately that i'm a $#!+heel and nothing more. this said, i view the altered version as an alternate way of viewing said pic. there is no one right way of doing anything under the sun, and colorization fails to rise to the level of sacrilige that you seem to believe. it's just a friggin' movie for christ's sake! not world peace. maybe if you tried some acid you would see there is beauty in diverse ways of looking at things.



again, superiority does not become any of us. why must you fall into the sociopathic rut of trashtalking somebody who dares to disagree with you? i don't call you names, so why must you call me "small minded" and such in an attempt to hurt my feelings? ouch! as for understanding film afficionados, who died and appointed them the ultimate arbiters in matters of taste? i say again, there is absolutely no accounting for taste, under god. all our best earthly works are no more than sandbox swirls in the grand scheme of things. just ain't worth getting worked-up over this stuff.



i am not qualified to do movie reviews. however, opinions are like bones in that everybody has at least one. it is your opinion that said flicks were effective only in monochrome. sandbox swirls.



i never claimed to do "sublety" or "subtext" or "nuance" for that matter either. an insufferable snob on the sound and vision website liked to use that word, "nuance."
he insulted me good and plenty on the pages of that pretentious forum. i hope it made him feel nice and superior. i hope you feel the same way.
you may have forgotten that this forum is for folk with issues related to spectrum disorders including AS. my issues with perception "color" my view of things including movies and tv. your ad hominem attacks of my viewpoint shows that folk on the spectrum can behave in just as intolerant a manner as what many of us view NTs as being.

remember, i love you too.

Chill out, guys

This is such an utterly subjective issue. I will suggest a compromise: Keep the original versions of the movie available for those of us who enjoy the subtext etc. we feel is present, but also allow for the creation of updated versions for those who enjoy the benefits they see in colorization.

10-4! great idea

I'm sure we'll have both. Colorization is an ongoing process - and depending on the artist (Wells, didn't like it, Lucas- reshot or computerized half his original Star Wars movies once he had the tech; even James Cameron couldn't do Avatar with 70s-era tech)

The trick is to preserve the story...not how cool the 'postwork' is, but does it have believable characters, a plot you can follow, things like that.

I'm sure there will be a spated of 'recolorized' movies in the future, as things get better.

let's see, 2 uncivil to 7 civil replies. pretty good, so far. at least i know now to steer clear of the mean ones.

Current TVs are a lot closer, but still not the same aspect ratio as used for movies. Current widescreen TVs are 16:9 (or 1.78:1), while movies are normally either 1.85:1 or 2:39:1.


The technology for colorization has improved a tremendous amount over the years, and can currently be done in a way that it looks like it was made in color. The problem now is cost, as this process is extremely expensive.

Well film is a collaborative medium, it takes alot of cooks to make the final stew. When I watch one, I go in wanting to see what the director's interpretation of the writer's vision is, because to me they're the authors. Because I am so obsessive, yes I will watch the alternate versions of Superman II or Blade Runner, but ultimately what I want is David Lean's interpretation of Dicken's Oliver Twist.

I don't have a problem with black and white movies, they're just the materials they had at the time. And if someone chooses to shoot something in B&W now as a creative choice, I take in the same vein as choosing a wide angle lens or dual focus photography. Just because there's colour and 3d technology doesn't really mean we have to go back and alter them. Whilst a hologram version of the Mona Lisa would be a curiousity to me, my interest is more perked by what Da Vinci originally had in mind.

my problem is with snobs [self-appointed experts] who castigate folk who dare to not subscribe to their infallibly enlightened vision, who refuse to get off the high horse and just say, "happiness to you, and to me as well." who refuse to "live and let live." that was the real purpose of the OP, to vent about the widespread intolerance for divergent opinions and the worshipping of narrow consensus congruent with "expert" opinion.

i just like ted turner and his "g+d-d+nmed crayolas" [hypersnob orson welles' valentine to ted].