Thinking in b/w

I'm re-reading my worn copy of David Halberstam's popular history The Fifties (1993).  The author was a fine storyteller and his broad survey of major social, political, and cultural changes in the United States is a great way to get back in the groove of thinking about that decade (though I don't recall too much depth of information about motion pictures beyond the cultural influences of Brando and Dean).  However, I was surprised to find a connection with yesterday's post when I re-read the very first line of the preface:

The fifties were captured in black and white, most often by still photographers; by contrast the decade that followed was, more often than not, caught in living color on tape or film.  Not surprisingly, in retrospect the pace of the fifties seemed slower, almost languid.  Social ferment, however, was beginning just beneath this placid surface.

I don't know about social ferment but the notion that our memories and ideas about the 1950s are, for the lack of a better word, colored by the fact that the images of those years are mostly in black and white is fascinating.  Do monochromatic images really influence the way we imagine an entire era?  If so, wouldn't we think of, say, the 1920s in the same way?  Perhaps we do.  If the majority of images from the 1950s were shot in full color would that really change the way we think about those years?  Would they seem more exciting?  More accessible?  Do black and white pictures ever brim with immediacy or do they always wrench us through time and feel like records of the past?  What other ideas pop into our imagination when we see black and white images? 

Comments

[Jacqueline T Lynch]

To a certain extent, I think this is true. There is a sense of stillness in b/w photographic images that may have something to do with how our brains perceive b/w as opposed to how our emotions excite to color images.

But there is the perception of an era that also has to do with the cliches we assign to it. We like to label things, I suppose, in order to get an understanding of them. Your reference to the 1920s may be an interesting example. While it's true both the 1920s and the 1950s were eras of a growing economy, and perceived "good times" in the backwash of world wars, the 1920s seems a more frenetic era, a time of carelessness and over-indulgence.

How much of our perception of that era is due to the jerky movements of a hand-cranked Hollywood camera? A camera that took us out into the street for zany images of near-catastrophes with streetcars and athletic comedians who ran, literally, and sometimes for miles, from their troubles?

Do we perceive the 1950s as being more tame because, in the aftermath of war instead of escaping into frivolity, we had a cold war, an expanding American responsibility to a troubled world, and our own social issues at home that would no longer be ignored?

Or is it because of all of this, our films became more introspective? They were darker, and quieter, and maybe so were we?

[Thom]

Quiet? Have you listened to bebop, rockabilly, Johnny Burnett, Screaming Jay Hawkins, Wanda Jackson, or Little Richard? lol. Just kidding. Thanks Jacqueline, I know what you mean.

Great examples, especially the hand-cranked camera influencing our notions of the twenties. There's definitely more that colors our conception of the past than just the chromatic nature of the images left behind. But there might be some truth to Halberstam's suggestion too.

[Joe Thompson]

Good to have you back at it, Thom. I remember thinking about the way I think about wars. Just looking at United States history, I think of the Revolution, the pseudo-war with the French, the War of 1812, and the Mexican War as being in color, because most or all of the images we see are from paintings. There were early photographs of the Mexican War, but not many. I think of the Civil War, the Indian Wars after the Civil War, The Spanish-American War, the Boxer Rebellion, the Philippines Insurrection, mucking around in Central America and the Caribbean, World Wars I and II, and Korea in black and white, because most of the images we see are in black and white photographs. The rare color photographs from WWI are difficult for my mind to comprehend. The more common ones from WWII and Korea are not enough to offset the black and white images. I think of the Vietnam War, the incursions in Grenada and Nicaragua, the first Gulf War, and the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in color. It doesn't matter that it was all in color to the people who were in the middle of events.

Regards,
Joe Thompson ;0)

[Thom]

Thanks Joe. That's a really interesting observation. I especially like how you imagine the earlier events in color because of paintings (didn't consider those myself). Come to think of it, it's not easy to think of the red coats in b/w. A different sort of example is Korea which seems like a black and white newsreel in my mind. Little wonder, with the exception of The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1954) and M*A*S*H* (1970, which really isn't about Korea) I can't think of any movies about the war in Korea in color. This is all food for thought, Joe. Good to see you back 'round here.

[Maya]

What I note most consistently in the B&W films of the fifties is a sense of nostalgic comfort. Whether or not this was a time just before America's social ferment broke through the placid surface, it is undoubtedly a time interpreted nostalgically as such. We need a "before" time to understand what follows.

I also find the B&W films of this era to have a resuscitative value, again linked to the nostalgia, in that I often return to the films of my childhood (i.e., films of the fifties) to remind me of my initial attraction to movies when current fare wears me down.