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I'll have to eventually convert all the Bond films to monochrome, just to see how they feel in black and white. I feel like this is the kind of discussion that could go beyond just the 60s and early 70s films.
This morning, looking through those DN frames again, I noticed that none of them included a full image of Dr. No himself in that white nehru jacket, which make a good contrast to the brown one Bond is wearing. Would be interesting to see.
In an opposite example, Bond is wearing a white suit in the first meeting between himself and Kamal Khan. That, along with the clown suited 009 (as mentioned above), could make some interesting movie stills from a film which is a bit humour heavy.
For fun, I took a screenshot from the scene with 009 at the embassy (the close up with him dropping the Fabergé egg on the floor), and did a B/W adjustment similar to the one's you posted - and it looked very dramatic indeed. Be sure to look out for that scene in particular if you do the same treatment with frames from OP!
Got likewise curious myself earlier, except I watched the scene. Brought it into VLC, desaturated, boosted the contrast. (I also set the frame for a 4:3 crop just to get an extra bit of academy ratio fun going on). Good call on that scene, @RichardTheBruce and @ToTheRight! Very atmospheric and the absence of color certainly works in its favor.
It's got me thinking -- if we aren't limiting ourselves to just the early films which might have found themselves in black and white, I wonder which of all the films would most benefit from black and white. FRWL is certainly, I think, the best early candidate. But if we're expanding ourselves, OP is right up there.
Brady's suggestion of doing a B&W community watch is definitely a good one! The films are sure to get reassessed in the process.
Care to share the VLC desaturation process? Would be fun to try it out with a couple of films. :-)
And if you want the 4:3 crop for fun, that's under the Video -> Crop on the main menu.
Ah, wonderful! Will have to check that out. There are plenty of scenes that could be entertaining and interesting to see in B/W. Perhaps it even can make the Beach Boys/snowboarding sequence in AVTAK look more dramatic than fun? :-D
@Torgeirtrap, your wish is my command:
http://i.imgur.com/GwLsoB5.jpg
@Strog, I actually am now planning on translating all the rest of the movies to black and white here as a fun exercise to see which look the best in that presentation. I think we'll spend a bit more time discussing the 60s films and the overall effect of the method on the movies, but then I'll probably move era by era to see what black and white does to the images. I really look forward to doing it with the 70s Moore films and the Craig movies, as they are all full of some wicked shots.
I also think using @Creasy47's black and white Bondathon as another community wide event would be great. A few of us watched the movies in order a short time ago and are now reading all the Fleming novels through, but after that such a project would be a fun and inventive way to experience the films like we've never done it before.
Sweet! Joseph Wiseman looks like an interesting noir-villain in this one. The set design looks stunning to, even though in this case I would say something is lost without the colour.
The 70's will be just as interesting as the 60's if you ask me. Just think of it: The eerie mood of LALD one could think would be even more present in a B/W presentation. Moore's scenes with Christopher Lee in Scaramanga's Funhouse in TMWTGG likewise. TSWLM has so many great locations, and a terrifying henchman in Jaws - who can also look just as scary in the back alley scenes during the Rio Carnival in MR. B/W Bond in space? Looking forward to that too!
The 80's and the 90's can be the odd ones, perhaps? I would think FYEO would look at least as serious as it is at times. OP has some dark, tense moments too. What about AVTAK? Beach Boys/snowboarding sequence aside, I would love to see the San Francisco scenes in B/W. The Golden Gate Bridge scene? I think that could look great!
I guess the seriousness of Dalton would suit a B/W treatment wonderfully, but perhaps in a bit strange way too, with the late 80's style and all. And how would the 90's look like? Brosnan i B/W? I think we may be up for some surprises there!
I think ferris Wheel scenes in black and white may be pretty striking- looking similar to The Third Man.
You're right. He's usually in very dark colors, as is the case for LTK as well. The minor times he wears lighter fabrics would be a nice contrast, but wouldn't be overdone.
To bump the discussion I've looked through Diamonds Are Forever and assembled some black & white frames from the film that I feel best realized the mood it could have if it were translated to a monochromatic presentation:
http://imgur.com/a/hPNYu
I view the movie as a noir with James Bond in it, so I naturally tried to select shots that really spoke to that identity I see in the movie and the noir aesthetic of heavy shadows and the imagery of fedoras, gunmen, femme fatales, sex and murder that were so much a part of that era in filmmaking that instantly makes us think of the 40s.
I'd love to hear peoples' thoughts on how they feel the black & white changes the movie in comparison to the full color, and how it would've been experienced or assessed in that style of presentation.
The tone of the stills really changes the impression of the film. Very dramatic and noir/thriller-like. Will be interesting to see how the light-hearted moments will look like watching the film in B/W, as this is a very light-hearted film. DAF is one of those Bond films that make good use of colours too (especially in those Las Vegas streets!), so the movie experience will probably be quite different in B/W.
It's one I'd love to experience in blu-ray, to let all the noir elements hammer home all the more. The mix of that presentation and the lighter elements would be interesting, but the film is also quite dark in places and doesn't hold back, so that would really add a lot. I think it's the last Bond film we have that really had a noir influence, and that's a shame, but the movie marks the end of a lot of things, including the era of Connery, so much of it feels like a farewell in the way On Her Majesty's does for other elements.
I am really excited to get to work on Live & Let Die in the coming weeks, to bring out the macabre elements of that film through desaturation. Watch this space...
Considering Ken Adam usually gets praise for GF, YOLT and TSWLM, his DAF sets seem a bit underrated. They do look impressive in black and white.
Really looking forward to see LALD in B/W. Wouldn't be surprised if some of the best stills are to be found in that film!
In fact its suitability has got me thinking that the 1.66 aspect ratio should be (and should have been) used more often for Bond films. @GoldenGun brought up the how black and white really suited DN, FRWL, and GF on the basis of their ratios, and how the landscape-focus of TB, YOLT, and OHMSS somewhat diminished their appeal in black and white.
Now here we have DAF as the first Bond shot in scope not to feature much landscape glamor, and I think that if DAF had been shot in 1.66 it would've been an improvement. I'm not sure there was a need to shoot it in scope. (In fact, I think there may be a case to be made that every film post-OHMSS—except for TSWLM and MR, maybe QOS and SF—might've benefitted from 1.66. Certainly all of Glen's work.)
For this reason I'm really looking forward to seeing stills from LALD and TMWTGG. (TMWTGG, like many of the Bond films that followed, featured some exotic locations but never really used them in the way that the latter 60s films did.
I would think some of Glen's work would be appropriate for 1.66 but not TLD with its use of the Afghan desert. AVTAK on the other hand seems perfect for such a ratio.
Might be hard to balance at times with the film group now, but from what I understand sometime after the Fleming Bondathon the Black & White Bondathon would start. It would just depend on how people want to do it and when.