aka “color photos of a black-and-white world, part 4”
[part 3]
I love the painterly luminosity to the color here, especially to the skin tones. Just beautiful.
More on how these images were created at the Kodak blog A Thousand Words.
(via Dangerous Minds)
I found that strangely moving. It’s nearly 90 years old, and usually films from the 20s are black and white so you’re one step removed, but the colour made it so much more immediate. It was like a window into the lives of those women and they were alive and young so long ago. I don’t know how to explain it.
Thank you for this link! I love looking at the richness of the color, as well as it being a great snapshot of the hair styles and fashion of the moment. Really wonderful.
Wow. According to Wikipedia, this brand of film wouldn’t be released to the public for another 13 years. Had it been released in the 20’s it might have made some serious changes to classic black and white films. Both Keaton and Chaplin did a lot of their work in this era, as did the Marx Brothers after sound was introduced. Imagine if The Jazz Singer had not only been the first Talkie, but one of the first shot in color as well? Some of the old sci fi classics, Metropolis and King Kong, as well as horor staples Dracula and Frankenstein were also made between this test and the official release of Kodachrome.
Frankenstein… that’s an interesting one to consider isn’t it? It would also have meant that the Mel Brooks/Gene Wilder homage and spoof, Young Frankenstein would not have been shot in black and white either. It also makes you wonder if Schindler’s List would still have been shot in black and white, had colour film been popularized during the 30’s, rather than after WW2 ?
Isobel: I know what you mean. I found myself oddly moved while watching that, and thinking that they are probably long gone now. Of course, we have tons of film of people who’ve died, but there’s always something astonishing about seeing a glimpse of real, live people from practically filmic prehistory! Like the guy says on Kodak’s blog, it’s like time travel.
And on a sillier note, wow, look at that pancake white! Guess they had yet to develop makeup for color filming. And it’s a bit surreal to watch these women in color, still posing in that particular black-and-white silent-film style.
I think I see Mae Marsh and Mary Pickford.
That was absolutely riveting.
Oop, I meant Mae Murray.