Welles and Color Photography

[mido505]

I would like to propose for the comments and opinions of the members of this fine board that the real reason for Welles's meager output after CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT was Welles' inability to work to his full creative potential in color. I say this not to criticize Welles, but to offer a speculatory explanation for one of the central questions of Welles biography. The commercial shift from B&W to color occurred during the CHIMES period; and that masterpiece may have already started to look "old fashioned" to the critics and public of 1965, at least in Welles's eyes, after the fact, when he tried to figure out why his greatest picture got nowhere in the land of his birth.

I get the feeling that Welles was frustrated by color, that he did not feel free with it creatively, and that for him it was an artistic dimunition, not an advance. He is on record as stating his dislike for the medium, especially where acting is concerned. Certainly he tried, with FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH, IMMORTAL STORY, THE DEEP, F FOR FAKE, MERCHANT OF VENICE, THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND, ORSON'S BAG, THE MAGIC SHOW, etc., to come to grips with color; there is, in these films, some released, most not, many lovely things, especially in IMMORTAL STORY; but I think I can safely say that none of these efforts reach the sheer expressive power of Welles's best work in B&W. They are Welles lite. B&W film was Welles's medium, and asking him to shoot in color was like asking Albrecht Durer to paint with watercolors. With the shift from B&W to color as a commercially viable medium, Welles may have felt that his paint box had been taken away. He tried to adapt, but knew in his heart that the results were not up to his standards. Thus the "fires", the "stolen soundtracks", the "lost negatives" that have become part of the Welles mythology, and which, are, I believe, a comsummate magician's distraction and sleight of hand.

There is significant evidence that Welles held back DON QUIXOTE, shot in B&W, because he was afraid the public would see it as "outdated". For all of his genius and aristocratic ways, Welles, who once did a tour in vaudeville, never saw himself as anything other than a popular artist - he did not identify with the avant guarde. As he stated in an interview, "you are looking at a man who has spent his life looking for a popular audience." He cared what people thought.

Color photography was also inimical to Welles' preferred shooting method in the latter part of his life: fast, cheap, and on the fly. You can get good effects in color, but it requires more money and equipment. As Greg Toland, and another master, John Alton have shown, you can go to town in B&W with one light. As I have mentioned in another post, it's a pity that Welles never hooked up with Mario Bava, one of the few DP/Directors to have fashioned a genuinely expressionist color style during this period, and who was a true cinematic wizard who could conjure up amazing effects for peanuts.

The creative resurgence that energized Welles in the years before his death may have been caused by nothing more than his realization that B&W, because of films like MANHATTAN, had become commercially viable again. KING LEAR and THE CRADLE WILL ROCK were to have been shot in B&W. I don't know about THE BIG BRASS RING, but I see that one as another STRANGER/DEEP, done for commercial purposes, to keep Oja quiet, and not to be taken seriously. And in the early 80"s, Welles got excited about DON QUIXOTE again. But it was too late...

Anyway, I would love to get some input here.

[Glenn Anders]

As usual, mido505, I think you have something.

To begin with, Welles thought that Color was not the best medium for film actors. He believed it took away the striking contrasts which made the performances of great film figures from the 1920's, 1930's and 1940's so interesting to watch. Key lighting was not so effective in color, and an actor's image seemed to sink back into the film's setting. One often had to look for it, to imagine a performance, as it were, in one's own head. At the same time angles and cutting were not so sharp, and acting, camera angles, cutting and light were Welles' great suits. Color tended to destroy the control he so loved.

He told Bogdanovich as much quite plainly.

Of the films you mention -- not having seen "Fountain of Youth" -- F FOR FAKE is clearly, I think, his finest accomplishment in color. But, from the footage I've seen of THE DEEP and THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND, I'm struck by how many sequences are duplicated in the rushes of both films, using filters and different film stocks. This phenomenon is especially true in TOSOTW, where it would appear that entire parts of the story might be contrasted with each other by the use of stocks, tints, camera types, and shifting point of view. Not only is he utilizing cameras as if they represented how the various characters see, but also commenting upon the action by his choice tints and stocks to suggest emotional differences.

And of course, earlier I've speculated that THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND might additionally be a film within a film, within a film.

By these methods, Welles was perhaps attempting to overcome what he thought was Color Film's weakness, by telling a complex story in new way, making Color dynamic rather than passive and painterly.

We may yet see what he was trying to get at.

The problem will be to overcome emotionally what now may appear to be academic.

Glenn

[Tony]

Mido:

I agree with you completely on this point, but I recall that Lear and Big Brass Ring were the ones to be in B&W, and Cradle, Dreamers and Wind were the colour projects. The only thing to be in colour in BBR was the fireworks which explode as Kim dies in the ferris wheel chair.

Not only Manhattan in 79 but Raging Bull in 80 must have given Welles enormous confidence in using B&W again. I believe if he had lived 5 more years we would have 3 more Welles masterpieces in B&W: Lear, BBR and DQ.

I remember an interview comment he made about Chimes, something along the lines of: "When I made Chimes in B&W, it was already unfashionable". However, we should remember that "Who's afaid of Virginia Woolf" was a huge picture in 66, bringing Taylor her second oscar. Its always seemed to me that the tradition in Hollywood of shooting dramas in B&W and extravaganzas in colour, a tradition which continued for about 30 years, ended because most TV programs went to colour in 1967, therby forcing Hollywood's hand.

As Welles observed, he didn't come to Hollywood too early, he came too late.

[LamontCranston]

Fountain of Youth is b&w...or at least the copy I downloaded is!

[Christopher Good]

Hello Lamont,

Can you tell us the site where you downloaded Fountain of Youth? I've been trying to find a copy for quite a while...

[LamontCranston]

I got it from the peer-to-peer network eMule. After you install that you can just search for The Fountain of Youth or for Orson Welles and it should appear

[Cyberstrike]

I think another reason that Wells might not cared for color was the price.
Lets remember that Wells had a hard time getting financing his movies and that simply put black and white was cheaper than color (and it still maybe cheaper for B&W even today but I'm not 100% sure on this).



Also be careful on those P2P networks you might download something else that you don't want, like a virus, worm, or a Trojan, and not to mention all the adware and spyware some of them have.

[Alan Brody]

I think it's also possible that Welles considered Black and White to be an effective metaphor for Good and Evil, which he claims to have believed in. Perhaps he thought that Color photography was more conducive to moral relativism and the modern Freudian notion of attributing evil to 'sickness' or 'disease'. This is why, for example, he wanted Othello to be shown in stark black and white, with no shades of grey. He considered Iago to genuinely evil, whereas Desdamona he wanted to present as purely good.

[MartynH]

There was a good reason why Welles didn't use colour more than he did. He hated it. He once told Peter Bogdanovich 'Name me one great performance in a colour film' His reasoning was b/w was kinder to the actor or words to that effect.

[Alan Brody]

If Welles hated color so much one has to wonder then why he would have fought RKO studio so hard for the right to film Four Men on a Raft in Color.

[MartynH]

Who knows what was on his mind at that time; he was a young man. It may have been the novelty of it. Don't forget he could have been curious about it as the carnival scenes were shot in colour. I think you have to look what happened subsequently in Welles's career regarding the films he made. It seems to me if Welles would have wanted to have made a film in colour he would have done it before The Immortal Story.

Can you imagine what The Trial, for example, would have looked like in colour?

[Glenn Anders]

Another factor you might wish to consider is the lock that Technicolor had on the making of color film well into the 1950's. The process was expensive, slow, required special high intensity lighting even in full sun, and needed by contract to be supervised by Herbert and Natalie Kalmus or their designees. All of these requirements were very expensive, frustrating to any true artist, and limited the color palette from which films could be made. In Europe these factors were a particular hardship because of the shortage in big lamps and power sources, not to mention the discouragement of the Hollywood Studio heads, who were able to influence the use and scope of Technicolor there.

Cinematographer Jack Cardiff had to commission a special lamp to register the effects he was able to achieve for Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger in THE RED SHOES (1948), which in turn, was copied by Hollywood. Welles' friend and collaborator, John Huston, building upon his experience with Cardiff in making THE AFRICAN QUEEN, had to resort to similar "outlaw" innovations with his cameraman, Oswald Morris, on pictures like MOULIN ROUGE (1952) and MOBY DICK (1956).

After that period, the color monopoly was upset by Eastman, which introduced its own, cheaper, more flexible, but in many ways inferior process.

Welles was never even able to get near Technicolor, except for that brief "rogue" operation in Rio on IT'S ALL TRUE. The failure of the production in Hollywood's eyes, the "waste" of valuable Technicolor stock and equipment, may be another reason why Welles was not able to gain, had he wanted to, access to the predominant color medium of his day.

Not until the 1970's was he able to find the kind of affordable, easy to use color processes and light cameras he could play with.

Glenn

[Roger Ryan]

Glenn has made a very salient point. To add to that, I'll only say that from 1966 on virtually everything Welles shot (finished or unfinished) was in color: "The Immortal Story", "The Deep", "Orson's Bag", "The Merchant Of Venice", "The Other Side Of The Wind", "Moby Dick", "F For Fake", "Filming Othello", "The Magic Show", etc. This corresponds to how the industry went from using primarily black-and-white stock to primarily color stock in the mid-60s.

Welles may have professed a preference for black-and-white (and may have intended to shoot "King Lear" or "The Cradle Will Rock" in that format), but apart from his test close-ups for "The Dreamers", I believe everything he actually commited to film after "Chimes" was in color. I don't believe he had an aversion to the format.

[tonyw]

Glenn and Roger have answered this question well. Technicolor was restricted to the industry and, even then, only strong directors such as Michael Powell and John Huston were able to circumvent the interference of Natalie Kalmus as "color consultant." I don't doubt that Welles could have dealt with her but he was an independent operating outside the system and the Kalmuses would have been reluctant to extend co-operation to anyone working in this area. So I think that these historical and industrial circumstances are relevant here.

[Tony]

Roger:

I can't understand what you wrote: As you well know, Welles strongly professed a dislike for colour. I recall the famous quote (roughly) where he said actor's performances are 50% worse in colour, and that B&W is an actor's medium. He aslo said that he did Chimes in colour in 66, past the point where it was really acceptable, and as we all know, planned Lear and BBR to be in B&W not only because he liked B&W, but because of the then current successes of Manhattan and Raging Bull.

It seems to me all the evidence points toward his using colour because he had to, and I know I'm not alone in believing his colour work to be his weakest.

Is there an interview somewhere where he says he likes working in colour, or where he says its preferable to B&W? I've always had the idea he made the best of the situation, was as creative as he could be in colour, but would have preferred working in B&W.