Old black and white movies

simon ess

simon ess

Just call me Roxanne.
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Watching "In which we serve" on TV right now.

As a big fan of B+W photography, I'm struck by how much of a masterpiece of tone this is.

Are there any old films I should look out for lessons in tonal values.
 
His better known work is mostly in colour, but I suggest studying Jack Cardiff's lighting (particularly the Powell/Pressburger productions such as Black Narcissus and A Matter of Life and Death).

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002153/

He was a pretty handy stills portrait photographer, too. And a lovely chap - I had the good fortune to meet him after some friends of mine worked with him on a short in the 90s.
 
Thanks guys. Appreciate the response.

I'm slightly obsessed with Ridley Scott's lighting, but watching this film tonight has made me realise some of the old films are well worth studying.
 
A lot of these older movies look much, much better nowadays because of HDTV. The blacks are richer for it for a start. It's like they got a good lightroom treatment :D
 
For a modern film, I love the look of Elephant man.
 
Newer stuff, Sky captain was really nicely lit (and digitised beyond recognition!)
My current favourite is on at the moment, utopia, lit and shot perfectly.

If you like the work of Bill Brandt then watch citizen Kane, he left the cinema and changed the way he shot...
 
Cagey75 said:
A lot of these older movies look much, much better nowadays because of HDTV. The blacks are richer for it for a start. It's like they got a good lightroom treatment :D
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More like they've been restored to better match the original nitrate prints.
 
Thanks very much for all the great suggestions. They're all going on my list.

Those Hollywood lighting books look mighty interesting too.

Cheers. :thumbs:

Any more?
 
"Black Sunday" Director, Mario Bava, very atmospheric Italian horror. Brilliant B/W film . Well I like it !

C
 
The Grapes of Wrath and Citizen Kane, both photographed by the great Gregg Toland.

Another more modern one is Young Frankenstein. Apart from being very funny it's also beautifully photographed.
 
You might want to check out the documentary Visions of Light. Though it deals in colour as well as black & white, I'd still recommend it.
 
Above us the waves is a good one.
 
I don't know about tonal qualities, but for sheer entertainment, try Goodbye Mt Chips (has to be the Robert Donat version), and John Mills's Hobsons choice...that one's comic genius.
 
Another recommendation for Citizen Kane: its lighting and camera work are excellent, such a pity that the pioneering Greg Tolland was snubbed for the Best B&W Cinematography Oscar simply because of the controversy surrounding the film.

A lot of these older movies look much, much better nowadays because of HDTV. The blacks are richer for it for a start. It's like they got a good lightroom treatment
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Actually its more likely because the telecine, grading etc are simply being done to a much higher standard than before to look more like when the film is projected rather than just doing a quick and dirty transfer like sadly is so common, plus because of the vast savings and improvements that digital restoration techniques have (not re-mastering, thats just simply doing a 'lightroom treatment' on previously telecined digital copies of a film print usually to just make it look 'better'; a proper restoration goes back to the best element available, usually the original camera negative and if thats not available [like with Citizen Kane, the OCN was lost in a vault fire in 1970], then the fine grain interpositive/negative or if not an actual film print and makes a master that in theory should be very close in quality to the original) given its a lot more common for a film to receive a proper restoration back to how it should be and because of that they look that much better on a TV (but still not as a good film print of it projected)

Although the films are quite a bit more recent, I am a particular fan of Roger Deakin's cinematography who is famous for numerous films such as The Shawshank Redemption, the new True Grit, The Man Who Was Not There, the list goes on... (he just managed to miss out on the Best Cinematography Oscar for the 10TH time) and much of it is simply beautiful
 
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Cagey75 said:
A lot of these older movies look much, much better nowadays because of HDTV.
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No. They look much better projected onto a large cinema screen.


Lawrence of Arabia is worth a look. Panavision supplied a specially made 482mm lens (and that's very long in cinema format) to film Omar Sharif's entrance through a mirage.


Steve.
 
Steve Smith said:
Lawrence of Arabia is worth a look. Panavision supplied a specially made 482mm lens (and that's very long in cinema format) to film Omar Sharif's entrance through a mirage.


Steve.
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And especially considering that the whole film was shot in 65mm with practically still image medium format quality per shot (if you think 35mm looks good then you should see traditional 5 perf 70mm [which 65mm is printed on to also include room for the soundtrack for those who don't know] or proper [not digitally projected, it looks no where near as good] 15 perf horizontally running IMAX as both of those really are something else in terms of the incredible quality)
 
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