As I plow my way through Doctor Who I know I am growing ever closer to the pre-hiatus days of The Doctor in black and white. As silly as it may sound, I find myself feeling a touch nervous!
I have little to no experience with watching films or TV in black and white. The only one that immediately comes to mind is Clerks, which is modern so doesn't really count, and I watched the first third of Citizen Kane, which felt so old it wasn't that successful at keeping my attention.
The characters look equally bored, so I'm not sure why I found a difference...
*ahem*
But Doctor Who is different! I'll be jumping into a universe that I'm already familiar with, in a way, and I know I'll find it interesting. And yet I am concerned that the black and white aesthetic and the 60s production value will throw me off. I've touched on this a bit, and obviously it's heavy on my mind!
I'm thinking I can ease myself in by starting with more current black and white films and then work backwards to some older ones. Eventually I'll have acclimated myself to older production values and the shock of pre-hiatus Who won't be quite so strong.
It looks so much different from current Who. How am I supposed to cope?
Does this idea seem sound to everyone else?
My best bet should be starting with The Artist. After all, it did just win five Academy Awards and it broke some records regarding black and white films. It seems that there must be something good in there!
Do you know what would be great? Some recommendations for black and white films! Do you happen to have any? :)
-MJ
3 comments:
I felt like that with old Who but if you have any kind of imagination it doesn't really matter. And the occasional time when there's a really awful model or costume is funny. Also look out for some lines which are clearly said wrong!
Psycho is a great film which is in black and white.
Do you have any recommendations that aren't scary/horror films? They're not my preference xD
Oh! So. I was putzing about elsewhere, and I realized that the old old Doctor Whos have move in common with filmed stage productions than possibly anything else. So, modern filmed stage productions might get you close to what you might expect as well.
So I went hunting and founnnnnd:
http://worldsbestfilms.blogspot.com/2011/06/top-ranked-black-and-white-films.html
http://blogs.sfweekly.com/exhibitionist/2011/04/the_10_greatest_black_and_whit.php
From those lists, I'd definitely recommend 'Young Frankenstein', 'Doctor Strangelove', 'Metropolis' and 'Arsenic and Old Lace' (one of my favorites!).
You could also try Casablanca. The smoke and lighting effects are the best bits of it, imho.
Alllso, if you're on a Sherlock Holmes kick, youtube apparently has a whole bunch of the old ones, which you might enjoy. They star one of the most famous actors of the stories. :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vIO0vrwhJ8s
As for stage plays:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_stage_plays_or_musicals
I recommend 8 Women, House of Yes, 12 Angry Men, Streetcar Named Desire, and the Wizard of Oz. :3
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