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Movies getting B&W version decades later - any other after this and Johnny Mnemonic?

Saturnome wrote: Wed Jan 15, 2025 11:53 pmMovies getting B&W version decades later - any other after this and Johnny Mnemonic?

Texasville!

Aspect wrote: Wed Jan 15, 2025 11:29 pm Hilarious because the trailer on Criterion’s site features a line in which Basquiat, when asked if he considers himself a Black painter, says, “I use a lot of colors. Not just black.”

We, uh, can’t see them in a black and white version.

ruthless. we have quite a lot of revisionism going on here it seems! a movie with a revisionist portrayal of the artist, using a revisionist color scheme. gotta be a word for that. it's cool they include the theatrical at all, unlike WKW's films, but anyone with a brain who likes the movie will just buy the Bluray version of this and skip the 4K

I saw the movie eons ago because I was interested in the cast of course and truly, they're the only ones who showed up for the assignment. I have read a lot of the reactions today and pointed out how this is the top Letterboxd review of it. all of which convinced me I didn't ever need to rewatch it again since I barely remember much about it. but then I realized the director is the one who did At Eternity's Gate, a movie that also turns in a good cast/great lead performance about a painter into an absolute joke of pompous, pretentious artistic choices that absolutely wreck what should be a very good movie, and suddenly everything makes sense. and of course, many on Reddit/Instagram are calling for Criterion to release his other films! come on

beamish14 wrote:

Saturnome wrote: Wed Jan 15, 2025 11:53 pmMovies getting B&W version decades later - any other after this and Johnny Mnemonic?

Texasville!

Bogdanovich's Nickelodeon too

The Mist was also released after the fact in a B&W version, but I didn't catch it. I also know there was talk at some point of doing the same with Romero's Martin (perhaps to respect his original wishes?), but I don't think that ever surfaced.

[-X

Calvin wrote: Thu Jan 16, 2025 11:57 am

beamish14 wrote:

Saturnome wrote: Wed Jan 15, 2025 11:53 pmMovies getting B&W version decades later - any other after this and Johnny Mnemonic?

Texasville!

Bogdanovich's Nickelodeon too

Which looks fantastic in monochrome, as László Kovács supervised it

I don’t like the black and white version of Nickelodeon either— that’s a brown-colored movie and it always should be!

There’s the inverse as well, films intended to be in black and white but required to shoot in color by the producers so they can sell it to TV. In Search of a Midnight Kiss only had its correct theatrical black and white version released on DVD in the UK. Boorman’s the General was another one with a producer required color version (I think the Coens’ Man Who Wasn’t There also had a color version but I don’t know if that ever got released anywhere?)

domino harvey wrote: Thu Jan 16, 2025 3:05 pm I don’t like the black and white version of Nickelodeon either— that’s a brown-colored movie and it always should be!

There’s the inverse as well, films intended to be in black and white but required to shoot in color by the producers so they can sell it to TV. In Search of a Midnight Kiss only had its correct theatrical black and white version released on DVD in the UK. Boorman’s the General was another one with a producer required color version (I think the Coens’ Man Who Wasn’t There also had a color version but I don’t know if that ever got released anywhere?)

The Man Who Wasn’t There was shown in color in some international markets and there was a dvd version with both color and b&w options. I believe there were also some domestic screenings where a color reel was accidentally edited into the otherwise b&w version.

One of the more unique examples is Park Chan-Wook’s Lady Vengeance, which was later released as a ‘fade to black and white’ version where the colour slowly drained from the film until it became pure black and white by the end.

Though even the regular version hints at that.

CSM126 wrote: Thu Jan 16, 2025 3:38 pm

domino harvey wrote: Thu Jan 16, 2025 3:05 pm I don’t like the black and white version of Nickelodeon either— that’s a brown-colored movie and it always should be!

There’s the inverse as well, films intended to be in black and white but required to shoot in color by the producers so they can sell it to TV. In Search of a Midnight Kiss only had its correct theatrical black and white version released on DVD in the UK. Boorman’s the General was another one with a producer required color version (I think the Coens’ Man Who Wasn’t There also had a color version but I don’t know if that ever got released anywhere?)

The Man Who Wasn’t There was shown in color in some international markets and there was a dvd version with both color and b&w options. I believe there were also some domestic screenings where a color reel was accidentally edited into the otherwise b&w version.

I thought that Universal forced them to shoot it in color, but they never sanctioned any non-monochrome version of it

John Badham’s Whose Life Is It Anyway? was intended to be released in monochrome, but he lost the fight with WB. He apparently kept a print of it in that version, and I wish it would get a commercial release

beamish14 wrote: Thu Jan 16, 2025 8:05 pm

CSM126 wrote: Thu Jan 16, 2025 3:38 pm

domino harvey wrote: Thu Jan 16, 2025 3:05 pm I don’t like the black and white version of Nickelodeon either— that’s a brown-colored movie and it always should be!

There’s the inverse as well, films intended to be in black and white but required to shoot in color by the producers so they can sell it to TV. In Search of a Midnight Kiss only had its correct theatrical black and white version released on DVD in the UK. Boorman’s the General was another one with a producer required color version (I think the Coens’ Man Who Wasn’t There also had a color version but I don’t know if that ever got released anywhere?)

The Man Who Wasn’t There was shown in color in some international markets and there was a dvd version with both color and b&w options. I believe there were also some domestic screenings where a color reel was accidentally edited into the otherwise b&w version.

I thought that Universal forced them to shoot it in color, but they never sanctioned any non-monochrome version of it

John Badham’s Whose Life Is It Anyway? was intended to be released in monochrome, but he lost the fight with WB. He apparently kept a print of it in that version, and I wish it would get a commercial release

He did something similar with his Dracula, right? The theatrical prints had bright colours, but Badham went back and desaturated everything until it was closer to black and white for subsequent home video releases.

I believe the Scream Factory release presents both versions for that one, at least

I recall The Man Who Wasn't There was filmed in a very desaturated color with the intention to process it into black and white in post production. The desaturated color "version" was only created to add it to dvds as a bonus.

Anyone know whether the b&w version for Parasite was done for the director to see which he preferred and then added as a bonus after t was rejected or was there actual distribution in b&w?

Paradsite B&W was distributed theatrically briefly before the pandemic shutdown.

But to the question, I believe it was created as a supplementary version to the original film (in response to the film’s film noir elements), not as the preferred version

I was lucky enough to see John Boorman's The General on its blinkworthy original theatrical release in black-and-white 2.35:1, a combo that I don't think ever made it to home video.

MichaelB wrote: Thu Jan 16, 2025 11:01 pm I was lucky enough to see John Boorman's The General on its blinkworthy original theatrical release in black-and-white 2.35:1, a combo that I don't think ever made it to home video.

That’s a good one that I forgot about. I’m afraid to even look at its 26-year old DVD

domino harvey wrote:But to the question, I believe it was created as a supplementary version to the original film (in response to the film’s film noir elements), not as the preferred version

On the Criterion disc, he mentions he did it because he wants to make a black and white film but can't get funding for one. But yeah, it's not his preferred version

Brooklyn '45 is another recent example of a film getting a black & white version on its physcial media release.

Mad Max Fury Road "Black & Chrome"

As a longtime viewer of Basquiat (I've probably seen it more times than Animal House, but Schnabel's film was/is basically a proto-meme machine for an extended group of my friends), I was intrigued by the option of a b&w version, only if a few key elements were colorized (as they are on the CC cover, or, recently, like the final season of Better Call Saul). But to restrict an otherwise dingy-by-Sundance-era standard visual field further than it already was in color seems like such a mistake, and, let's face it: Paul Bartel's wardrobe really snaps as Henry Geldzahler in full spectrum, anyway (same goes for Tatum O'Neal as Cynthia Kruger).

Now if someone told me that, for some reason, Schnabel had actually gone colorblind, it might make that revisionism easier to understand, but that's just not the case.

Kindly reminder that any movie can be turned into monochrome if you adjust your color levels on your device of choice (works best with older models, but YMMV), and absolutely every film can be a silent one, if you truly want it to be :-"

pianocrash wrote: Tue Jan 21, 2025 6:20 amKindly reminder that any movie can be turned into monochrome if you adjust your color levels on your device of choice (works best with older models, but YMMV)

This is true, but it's not the same thing as having it properly graded shot by shot under the director and DOP's supervision.

For instance, I imagine the colour version of Parasite with the colour turned down looks somewhat different from the official black-and-white version.

beamish14 wrote: Thu Jan 16, 2025 11:31 pm

MichaelB wrote: Thu Jan 16, 2025 11:01 pm I was lucky enough to see John Boorman's The General on its blinkworthy original theatrical release in black-and-white 2.35:1, a combo that I don't think ever made it to home video.

That’s a good one that I forgot about. I’m afraid to even look at its 26-year old DVD

If I remember rightly, that presented the film in colour 2.35:1 but black-and-white 16:9.

Mr Sausage wrote: Thu Jan 16, 2025 8:54 pm

Spoiler

beamish14 wrote: Thu Jan 16, 2025 8:05 pm

CSM126 wrote: Thu Jan 16, 2025 3:38 pm

The Man Who Wasn’t There was shown in color in some international markets and there was a dvd version with both color and b&w options. I believe there were also some domestic screenings where a color reel was accidentally edited into the otherwise b&w version.

I thought that Universal forced them to shoot it in color, but they never sanctioned any non-monochrome version of it

John Badham’s Whose Life Is It Anyway? was intended to be released in monochrome, but he lost the fight with WB. He apparently kept a print of it in that version, and I wish it would get a commercial release

He did something similar with his Dracula, right? The theatrical prints had bright colours, but Badham went back and desaturated everything until it was closer to black and white for subsequent home video releases.

It's not that I'm a huge fan of the film, but its sumptuous look is its greatest strength, the first big-budget take on Dracula since Lugosi. It was clearly conceived as a colour film, complete with lurid psychedelic interludes. This was another example of why it is a bad idea to tinker with colour grading after the fact. Badham's idea behind desaturating the film for its home video release was to bring it closer to the 70s stage production it was adapted from. That was famous for the sets, which were designed by Edward Gorey in his characteristic cross-hatched black and white style, with a different red object breaking up the monochrome in each act. Desaturating the film only made it look dull, rather than evoking the concept of the set design.