"Parasite Goes Black and White For Criterion"

Have you seen the Directors’ monochrome versions of Fury Road or Wolverine? This is nothing new. The Fury Road “Black & Chrome” version looks amazing.
 
Thanks for pointing those out, Mitch. I had not heard of those versions.

I find those irksome as well. I think I have a compulsion to believe there is a "perfect" version of a finished film, and if it's so damn good in B/W then why didnt they make it that way in the first place.

But maybe I need to relax. There are alternate versions and live recordings of songs put out all the time, of course.

But especially Fury Road - the color in that movie was so amazing. I can see how it works in B/W but I really feel like it takes something special away.

Also, the Parasite director had sort of a silly/pretentious reason for doing it, since he wanted it to nestle in with the movies he considers classics, which are all black and white.

But at least he's not burning all the color copies of Parasite, like Lucas has done with his superior original edit of A New Hope...
 
Interesting story on Fury Road. Miller really wanted it in black & white but there was no way the studio would finance that release. So he went with the teal and orange of the desert but in his heart he always knew it was a monochrome vision. He also said that it could have been a silent movie, or at least a dialog-free one. Before the official "Black & Chrome" release there was a fan version available online that was monochrome with the dialog removed. It was pretty amazing.
 
Mitch Gross said:
Interesting story on Fury Road. Miller really wanted it in black & white but there was no way the studio would finance that release. So he went with the teal and orange of the desert but in his heart he always knew it was a monochrome vision. He also said that it could have been a silent movie, or at least a dialog-free one. Before the official "Black & Chrome" release there was a fan version available online that was monochrome with the dialog removed. It was pretty amazing.
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Hmm I could see that...

Sometimes the director needs to be saved from his own indulgences though... I rewatched Wrath of Khan recently and then was looking at side-by-side theatrical and director's cut scenes. The director had some more dialogue and notes that he wanted to hit. But it was clear to me that they were flab that had been wisely cut.

I absolutely loved this painterly shot from Fury Road. The movie could work in B/W but I loved it in color. It's already pretty monochromatic and low-dialogue. I mean come on man...
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I wish I had known this, because I just bought the color version a short time ago.

Why can't producers/directors just decide on what cut of the movie they want released? Everyone seems to want to release a theatrical cut, then shortly after a new version, nowadays it seems. Is it just to make more money?
 
It was specially graded to be monochrome, you know, it wasn't like they just desaturated it (what director would be ok with that?) I believe Bong said he had been interested in making the film Black and White but it wasn't considered commercially to be a good idea. I saw the movie for the first time in B&W theatrically right after it won the academy awards, and it does look amazing -- and it had been in the works from before then.
 
Right I'm sure they didn't just turn the saturation all the way down. I just feel like one would make different choices shooting if one knew it would be shown in B/W. I'm also just a little compulsive and the idea that there's not a definitive version tweaks me a little.
 
ahalpert said:
Right I'm sure they didn't just turn the saturation all the way down. I just feel like one would make different choices shooting if one knew it would be shown in B/W. I'm also just a little compulsive and the idea that there's not a definitive version tweaks me a little.
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Try being a Blade Runner fanatic. I have half a dozen versions on DVD and they're ridiculous, because they are all radically different. I guess I like Ridley's non-VO version the best. Harrison Ford told me that he hated recording the VO and that Ridley hated putting it in
but the studio heads thought audiences would be too dense to divine what was happening. Exposition is a dual headed beast.
 
Which non-VO version? The director's cut or the final cut?

Yes, Blade Runner was in the back of my mind this whole discussion. The theatrical cut is definitely not the definitive version. At least, it's not the best version.

Now you've made me buy the Final Cut. Looks like they did gorgeous color work on the Final that the Director's didn't get. Not sure how many other differences are.

My vote is the Final Cut is definitive. And my god I love the editing in the beginning. The whole opening up until the interviewer gets shot is just perfectly edited.

And the shooting...sorry Deakins and Villeneuve, you guys have nothing on the original

As for exposition - a little bit of mystery goes a long way. It's nice to wonder and open up your imagination. I still don't fully understand 2001. And the ending of The Lobster - that left my wife and I debating what Farrell did next. Less is more
 
For Blade Runner, I've always been more partial to The Director's Cut myself, over the others.

As for Parasite, usually black and white movies are shot at a higher exposure since it makes skin look better in black and white. But in Parasite in color, the exposure looks normal for color, unless they just turned up the exposure in post for the black and white version. In the color version of Parasite though, they really go all out on blue, green and orange lighting, so I am surprised they did that if they just are going to go black and white later.

You think the director would just shoot normal white balanced, if he wanted to go black and white all along, rather than go for a blue and orange and green color palette.
 
For Parasite, Bong may have wanted to shoot B&W initially but he probably knew during the production that it was going to have to be in color. Its surprising success is what made the monochrome version possible. But I would think that the huge dynamic range and uncompressed Chroma of whatever they shot it on would let them do pretty much whatever they wanted in Black and White.

I believe Bong said he wanted to have the film look like the classic black and white movies of the 60s, movies like The High and The Low. And it really does have that feeling in B&W. Why not watch that version, why would you want the same experience watching it you did the first time? As if that was even possible!
 
mothmachine said:
But I would think that the huge dynamic range and uncompressed Chroma of whatever they shot it on would let them do pretty much whatever they wanted in Black and White.
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Arri Alexa 65, in ArriRAW. So yeah, they have plenty of room in post to color grade or to go monochrome.
 
mothmachine said:
For Parasite, Bong may have wanted to shoot B&W initially but he probably knew during the production that it was going to have to be in color. Its surprising success is what made the monochrome version possible. But I would think that the huge dynamic range and uncompressed Chroma of whatever they shot it on would let them do pretty much whatever they wanted in Black and White.

I believe Bong said he wanted to have the film look like the classic black and white movies of the 60s, movies like The High and The Low. And it really does have that feeling in B&W. Why not watch that version, why would you want the same experience watching it you did the first time? As if that was even possible!
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Oh okay, but a lot of people have said that felt that Parasite was heavily inspired by High and Low, so if Bong Joon-Ho, puts in black and white, it will just cause people to see it as even more similar, rather than Parasite being more different.

Also if Bong Joon-Ho wanted to release it in black and white, then why not just put the black and white version on the original blu ray release, along with the color version, rather than re-releasing the black and white on a whole new blu ray?
 
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