They Shall Not Grow Old

[bigshot]

As technology gets better, complaints will fade away. When TV was new, people asked why anyone would watch a movie on a tiny little flickering screen. But now that home theaters are common, just about everyone does that several times a week.

You also have to remember that all these clips are taken from newsreels, which had beginnings, middles and ends of their own, and their own points to make. No one complains when Ken Burns pulls them out of their original context and plops them down in his documentary to make an entirely different point.

Media is fluid. It's a serpent devouring its own tail. It's always been like that. The only question is how good the chefs who are preparing that tail are at creating a new recipe for it.

[Arndt]

Also let us not forget that by far the greater part of WWI "documentary" footage was staged. Life at the front was too dangerous for filming. So maybe the footage was never that authentic in the first place.
Still my personal bugbear is that in all documentaries about anything these days the image is cropped to widescreen. Not only do you lose significant parts of the image, you see the footage not in the way the cameramen and directors intended. It's a bit like the Mount Sinai segment in Mel Brooks' HISTORY OF THE WORLD, where Moses brings the Israelites the fifteen, oops! never mind, the ten commandments.

[bigshot]

As time goes by and technology gets better, audiences won't be as insistent on things remaining the same. Remember, the Ken Burns documentaries are made of bits cut out from newsreels. They originally had the context the newsreel film makers had for them, but Ken Burns converted it to his own context. No one complains about that.

Media is fluid.

[IA]

All sorts of tinkering goes on all the time, why single out this one. Large parts of the world dub all their movies in another language, losing all original voices.

And I despise dubbing as much as colorization. Tinkering to compensate for the ravages of time is acceptable, but a major change like this is not tinkering but a comprehensive alteration that perverts the form of the original. That is doubly unacceptable in the case of historical footage.

They haven't replaced the originals, as it was once feared.

But in this case we have a big prestige documentary that will probably be taught and shown more than other productions featuring similar footage. Thus it stands a good chance of "replacing" the originals for the general audience. So Jackson is letting down his source footage and his audience with such patronizing moves as colorization. A filmmaker should be more responsible than that. But I would not be surprised if Jackson-style colorization drives black-and-white footage off every channel besides TCM within the next decade.

[William D. Ferry]

This is absolutely phenominal! Color me gobsmacked.

[Donald Binks]

All sorts of tinkering goes on all the time, why single out this one. Large parts of the world dub all their movies in another language, losing all original voices.

And I despise dubbing as much as colorization. Tinkering to compensate for the ravages of time is acceptable, but a major change like this is not tinkering but a comprehensive alteration that perverts the form of the original. That is doubly unacceptable in the case of historical footage.

They haven't replaced the originals, as it was once feared.

But in this case we have a big prestige documentary that will probably be taught and shown more than other productions featuring similar footage. Thus it stands a good chance of "replacing" the originals for the general audience. So Jackson is letting down his source footage and his audience with such patronizing moves as colorization. A filmmaker should be more responsible than that. But I would not be surprised if Jackson-style colorization drives black-and-white footage off every channel besides TCM within the next decade.

Reminds me of someone who said back in 1889 that if the then present rate of horse and cart proliferation continued - we'd all be knee-deep in horse manure by 1929. Where do you go if you wish to stick to the original and correct invention?

[Arndt]

As time goes by and technology gets better, audiences won't be as insistent on things remaining the same. Remember, the Ken Burns documentaries are made of bits cut out from newsreels. They originally had the context the newsreel film makers had for them, but Ken Burns converted it to his own context. No one complains about that.

Media is fluid.

So you were okay with the fact that for decades all silent material - factual and fictional - was run at 24 fps, because that was the way sound film projectors were set. Never mind that it made all old footage into comedies with jerky, accelerated movements. Because that is the same thing, and for the same stupid reason, that is happening now with the cropping. Everything has to be 16:9 now, so rather than have black bars at the side of the screen let's lose 20 per cent from the top and bottom of the image. Probably nothing important happening there anyway.
Are you seriously saying this is "technology getting better"?

[bigshot]

As long as the footage is preserved in its original format, it doesn't matter how it's commercially repackaged. I'll judge each reworking on its own merits. I don't know if I could sit through all the hours of raw footage from this documentary in its original state and context. But this documentary looks very interesting to me. They've added value to it.

If I'm going to watch a whole program that was composed for a certain aspect ratio, it's going to be very hard to crop it to a different one. But individual scenes in a documentary can certainly be selected on the basis of whether they will work in the format chosen for the documentary. Ken Burns completely disregards the aspect ratio of the still photos he uses in his documentaries. He zooms in on them, pans across them, eliminates part of the image, totally recomposing the image to suit his film. He's creating a new context, so he is judged by how well he creates his new context, not by how much he changed the old one.

Now if you take Chaplin's Great Dictator and crop it down to super panavision and you can't see the globe up in the rafters any more and turn around and sell it as Chaplin's Great Dictator, then that is different. It clearly isn't Chaplin's Great Dictator any more and there is no compelling reason to make the change. Documentaries are different. If you ask me, I'd rather see enhanced real footage used in documentaries than recreations jury rigged to look old timey.

[missdupont]

So you could watch THE GREAT DICTATOR in black and white, but god forbid, you had to watch all this in its original format in black and white, your eyes would fall out. So some things are sacrosanct, but the others, who cares, they were hacks, do whatever you want? There could have tinted the footage in the teens and they didn't because they didn't want it that way, but hey, we know more and we're smarter, so we can do whatever we want. Arndt is correct.

[Brooksie]

As long as the footage is preserved in its original format, it doesn't matter how it's commercially repackaged. I'll judge each reworking on its own merits. I don't know if I could sit through all the hours of raw footage from this documentary in its original state and context. But this documentary looks very interesting to me. They've added value to it.

If I'm going to watch a whole program that was composed for a certain aspect ratio, it's going to be very hard to crop it to a different one. But individual scenes in a documentary can certainly be selected on the basis of whether they will work in the format chosen for the documentary. Ken Burns completely disregards the aspect ratio of the still photos he uses in his documentaries. He zooms in on them, pans across them, eliminates part of the image, totally recomposing the image to suit his film. He's creating a new context, so he is judged by how well he creates his new context, not by how much he changed the old one.

Now if you take Chaplin's Great Dictator and crop it down to super panavision and you can't see the globe up in the rafters any more and turn around and sell it as Chaplin's Great Dictator, then that is different. It clearly isn't Chaplin's Great Dictator any more and there is no compelling reason to make the change. Documentaries are different. If you ask me, I'd rather see enhanced real footage used in documentaries than recreations jury rigged to look old timey.

To me, the most crucial difference is the demands and parameters of fiction versus those of non-fiction.

I won't pretend that the documentary camera is entirely objective in what it captures - someone behind that camera has generally decided what to film and what not to film - but the purpose of documentary footage is, first and foremost, is to capture real life as closely and dispassionately as possible. If Peter Jackson is able to use this footage to convey real life in a manner that makes it more immediate; more like it seemed to the people involved than the technology of the time was able to capture, then I have absolutely no problem with it.

Having done some extensive research into life during World War I myself, I can say that it's an epoch that can seem remote and unapproachable. Scratch the surface, and you find a situation with echoes of the current day, and people who were real, and the tragedy of whose demise still has the power to move us to tears.

Again, if Jackson can better evoke the reality of these people and their experiences for those living today, all power to him.

[Paul Penna]

I won't pretend that the documentary camera is entirely objective in what it captures - someone behind that camera has generally decided what to film and what not to film - but the purpose of documentary footage is, first and foremost, is to capture real life as closely and dispassionately as possible. If Peter Jackson is able to use this footage to convey real life in a manner that makes it more immediate; more like it seemed to the people involved than the technology of the time was able to capture, then I have absolutely no problem with it.

Agreed.

[CoffeeDan]

Here's an interview with Peter Jackson on how he used authentic WWI footage from the Imperial War Museum for this new documentary, along with more amazing transformations of the material:

[wingate]

Oh What A Lovely War and Blackadder were comments on Generals such as Butcher Haigh and his colleagues who were architects of the Battle of the Somme where the British Army suffered 60000 casualties on July 1 1916.Lions led by donkeys.

[bigshot]

So you could watch THE GREAT DICTATOR in black and white, but god forbid, you had to watch all this in its original format in black and white, your eyes would fall out.

No, you're setting up a straw man there. I'm not saying that I prefer color to B&W. What I'm saying is that I would probably grow tired of watching all the newsreels used to make this documentary in their original format. Peter Jackson is creating a new work here by re-editing, adding a soundtrack, restoring the footage and colorizing it. He's creating an entirely new thing. I judge this film by what Jackson is creating, not by the way the footage was originally presented. That's the same with any documentary I watch on TV that uses historical stock footage.

the purpose of documentary footage is, first and foremost, is to capture real life as closely and dispassionately as possible.

I don't think many documentary film makers would agree with you on that. I would imagine they make films to make a point and put across an idea, not just collect together "reality" on a particular topic. I don't think any of the three documentarians that I can think of off the top of my head... Ken Burns, Michael Moore and Werner Herzog... could be described as dispassionately presenting reality as closely as possible. If you substitute "a passionate point of view about the truth" for "dispassionate reality" I think you're getting closer to the core of what documentary film making is all about. Certainly, what Jackson is trying to do fits that.

[Paul Penna]

I'm currently rewatching the “Hollywood” series via my laserdiscs. The contemporary newsreel footage Brownlow uses for context most has sound effects added, ambient traffic noise, footsteps, etc.

[OLM]

Colorization is the work of the devil ! If a film was shot in black and white and meant to exhibited that way, I don't want anyone drawing on it with crayons. This goes double for historical footage, which does not benefit from fake color. It's patronizing to assume the public will not watch films in black and white. For history documentaries to engage in colorization is reprehensible--they are supposed to show the past as clearly as possible, not slap make-up on it. Unfortunately this despicable trend is a growing one.

No, cell phones are the work of the devil; colorization is the work of Ted Turner.
And what Peter Jackson has done with it is just marvelous...a technology come-of-age...
Just like the talkies were, once they got all the kinks out..

[Spiny Norman]

But in this case we have a big prestige documentary that will probably be taught and shown more than other productions featuring similar footage. Thus it stands a good chance of "replacing" the originals for the general audience. So Jackson is letting down his source footage and his audience with such patronizing moves as colorization. A filmmaker should be more responsible than that. But I would not be surprised if Jackson-style colorization drives black-and-white footage off every channel besides TCM within the next decade.

Well, I have a faily low opinion of him already. But he'll probably get away with it I fear. People tend to be overwhelmed by impressive visuals (what about avatar or downton abbey for example). The project will in all likelihood be considered deep and thought-provoking, a bit like that weird last blackadder episode.

[Spiny Norman]

Also let us not forget that by far the greater part of WWI "documentary" footage was staged. Life at the front was too dangerous for filming. So maybe the footage was never that authentic in the first place.
Still my personal bugbear is that in all documentaries about anything these days the image is cropped to widescreen. Not only do you lose significant parts of the image, you see the footage not in the way the cameramen and directors intended. It's a bit like the Mount Sinai segment in Mel Brooks' HISTORY OF THE WORLD, where Moses brings the Israelites the fifteen, oops! never mind, the ten commandments.

Important points indeed. I heard that too, about the footage never being actual combat footage.

Following that up, in some ways the fact that there has been a selection already can give things a twist. The choices what to film that were made at that time and what is used now will limit what we will get to see.

[Donald Binks]

We can settle all these arguments quite simply:

For all those who find fault with anything to do with the picture including the person who made it - don't go and see the picture

For all those who are intrigued by what has been achieved - go see it.
Q.E.D.

[Spiny Norman]

Meanwhile for those who want to actually know what it was all about, there's still the impressive 1964 BBC series The Great War.
Additional interviews, that had gone unused at the time, were made available 50 years later.

[Spiny Norman]

We can settle all these arguments quite simply:

For all those who find fault with anything to do with the picture including the person who made it - don't go and see the picture

For all those who are intrigued by what has been achieved - go see it.
Q.E.D.

Right, but then what will we argue about?
(And Q.E.D. is for proof, not for proposed solutions.)

[Donald Binks]

(And Q.E.D. is for proof, not for proposed solutions.)

Funny? I thought my solution was proved and foolproof!

[Spiny Norman]

[quote=
(And Q.E.D. is for proof, not for proposed solutions.)

Funny? I thought my solution was proved and foolproof!
[/quote]Do you mean it was proofed and proven by a fool? Or were we fooled by the proof?

[Brooksie]

the purpose of documentary footage is, first and foremost, is to capture real life as closely and dispassionately as possible.

I don't think many documentary film makers would agree with you on that. I would imagine they make films to make a point and put across an idea, not just collect together "reality" on a particular topic. I don't think any of the three documentarians that I can think of off the top of my head... Ken Burns, Michael Moore and Werner Herzog... could be described as dispassionately presenting reality as closely as possible. If you substitute "a passionate point of view about the truth" for "dispassionate reality" I think you're getting closer to the core of what documentary film making is all about. Certainly, what Jackson is trying to do fits that.

I was not talking about documentarians. I was talking about documentary footage, which exists separate from the directors who shape and contextualise it. As I said, the documentary camera is not entirely objective, but it is several degrees more objective than pure fiction.

Certainly, every documentarian lends narrative to their footage, but how is Jackson different from any other documentarian? He has a clearly stated intention - to bring reality and humanity to the subjects by enhancing the old footage - and from what we've seen so far, he has done a pretty good job of that. I'm baffled that this is causing such controversy. As others have said, the original footage remains intact. We're not talking about George Lucas attempting to wipe his original versions of Star Wars off the face of the earth here, and as far as alternative uses of such footage goes, his purpose strikes me not only as legitimate, but noble.

[Arndt]

his purpose strikes me not only as legitimate, but noble.

Let us hope that is what it turns out to be.

[wich2]

Colorization is the work of the devil !

Oh, indeed! And ever was - yes?

http://moviessilently.com/2016/12/22/na ... e-sampler/

[Mike Gebert]

At least it should be better than this:

[Spiny Norman]

(And Q.E.D. is for proof, not for proposed solutions.)

Funny? I thought my solution was proved and foolproof!

PS Perhaps you were thinking of Q.E.2.?

[Spiny Norman]

But now seriously.
Given that the previews look, and sounds, very impressive, it's possible that this will become for colourisation what Avatar was for 3D: A sudden breakthrough (even though it's been around for ages).

[bigshot]

People don't remember the first time a technology is used... They remember the first time it was used best.