From The Wizard of Oz to This Majesty !, 5 films that combine colors and black and white

The Wizard of Oz Victor Fleming (1939)

As far back as 1939, director Victor Fleming used color and black and white now in the cult film The Wizard of Oz, adapted by Frank L. From Baum’s novel.

In the feature film, Dorothy (Judy Garland), a young orphan, lives with her uncle and aunt. Everything would be fine if the teacher did not hate his dog. It is then that he sees Dorothy in a dream, where he finds himself transported to the magical kingdom of the Munchkins in search of his dog.

Munchkins are gnomes who are protected by the good fairy of the North but are threatened by the evil fairy of the West. To find her dog, Dorothy must pick up the bad fairy red shoes and go see the Oz witch at her emerald palace.

The filmmaker here uses the difference of colors to distinguish the magical and beautiful world of the Oz witch and the real and sad world in which young Dorothy lives.

Keep in mind that when the film came out, the use of color in cinema was very rare. Therefore, special attention should be paid to the scenery, the choice of costumes and makeup. That is why Dorothy’s famous shoes in the film are red, while in the novel they are silver.

Schindler’s List Steven Spielberg (1994)

In 1994, Steven Spielberg filmed the historical drama Schindler’s List, directed by Liam Neeson. Memories of Oscar Schindler’s war years, the son of an Austrian industrialist who returned to Krakow in 1939 with German troops. He protected the Jews from working in his factory throughout the war and in 1944 rescued eight hundred men and three hundred women from the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp.

Steven Spielberg chose to shoot the film in black and white for historical reasons. Returning to the film used during the war made it possible for the director to give a documentary aspect to the film. In addition, 40% of the film is shot with a handheld camera, to enhance the black-and-white effect and further emphasize the film’s quasi-documentary reality.

Still, the little girl (who has since become a symbol of the movie) appears in a red robe. The latter (played by Olivia Dabrovskaya) is an element that evokes Schindler’s consciousness. The red coat gives it an identity that allows Schindler to realize the individuality of the Jews. He first sees him during the liquidation of the Krakow ghetto and still sees his corpse when his body was cremated.

This character is inspired by a real little girl, Roma Ligotska. The latter was known in the Warsaw Ghetto for her red robe, but unlike her counterpart in the film, she survived the Holocaust and in 2002 published a memoir entitled: A Little Girl in a Red Robe.

Now 32-year-old Olivia Dabrovska, who plays a little girl in a Spielberg film, helps Ukrainian refugees cross the Polish border.

Pleasantville Gary Ross (1998)

Chromatic change is the theme of Gary Ross’s 1998 film Pleasantville.

In the feature film David (Toby Maguire), a teenager from the 1990s escapes his daily life by watching the black-and-white TV series “Pleasantville” dating back to the 1950s. One evening he argues with his twin sister Jennifer (Reese Witherspoon) about television. The next day, the siblings are parachuted into the TV series and parasitized to such an extent that they change the well-ordered lives of the protagonists.

The color will slowly appear when the characters realize their dreams and desires.

In Pleasantville, color is synonymous with knowledge, freedom, life, and art (books and pictures are color), while black and white mean control, fear, and rejection of development.

In the colorful life of the 90s, David found some consolation while watching his black and white series, but after entering the show he realizes that black and white can not stand by itself and that color contributes to the development of the characters.

Technically, the film was shot entirely in color and reworked into post-production for black-and-white scenes.

Sin City by Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller (2005)

Adapted from the Frank Miller comics that co-direct the film with Robert Rodriguez, Sin City tells the violent daily life of Sin City residents, a city full of criminals, dirty cops and fatal women. Some seek revenge, some seek salvation.

The feature film is shot in black and white, and the color appears with little touch on objects or certain people.

Sin City black and white marks Robert Rodriguez’s loyalty to Frank Miller’s comics. The two men also prepared each frame of the film using the comics as a real story, and none of the screenwriters are named in the final subtitles because the directors look more like a cinematic translation of the film than an adaptation of the comics.

Black and white here correspond to an ink-painted drawing, which is sometimes enhanced by a touch of color on some of the selected objects.

Todd Haynes Museum of Wonderland (2017)

American director Todd Haynes is accustomed to switching from black and white to color in his feature films. He did shoot a few movies (Dottie Gets Spanked, Poison or even I’m Not There) using this color change.

At the Marvel Museum, adapted from Brian Selznick’s children’s novel The Wonders, the director uses black and white and color to distinguish between the two eras in which the film unfolds. The 70s are colorful and the 20s are in black and white.

The film, presented in the official selection of the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, tells the story of the journey of Ben (Oaks Fegley) and Rose (Millicent Simmonds), two children who secretly want their lives to be different. In the 1970s, Benny dreams of a father he never knew, while Rose, who develops in the 1920s, is obsessed with the career of a mysterious actor. The two children begin a search for fascinating symmetry that will take them to New York.

This difference in colors allows Todd Haynes to remain faithful to the main language of the novel. When we move from black and white to color, we immediately find out what era we are in.