There was a certain amount of tongue-in-cheek there. But it's by no means uncommon to hear people going on about the rich tones in the print, etc., etc., and ignoring the actual subject.
With B&W movies, though, there are often other factors at work. Movies shot in B&W used equipment without the focal length ranges of modern cinecameras, the audio quality was often not of the best, and the ravages of time have introduced their own problems. At the time they were made, people were still marvelling at the ability to capture anything. But by now cinephotography has well and truly crossed the threshold, and instead of being admired for what it is in isolation it gets measured against reality. Sadly, many B&W movies don't stand up under that scrutiny. On Sun, Mar 20, 2005 at 05:37:50PM -0800, Shel Belinkoff wrote: > Gotta laugh at that (not at you, John) for so often the comment made about > B&W photography is that it allows the viewer to concentrate on the subject > without the distraction of color. > > When watching some movies on DVD, I turn off the color. > > Shel > > > > [Original Message] > > From: John Francis > > > > My wife, for example, won't watch a B&W movie; the absence of > > colour really interferes with her ability to concentrate on the > > subject. I don't go quite that far, but find that too often > > B&W photography gets to be too much about the process, and not > > enough about the subject. >
