Modern Monochrome
Great greyscale! or, the best of black and white: masterly monochrome from the turn of the 21st century onwards.
It’s long been the norm for films to be presented in glorious technicolour, but many directors remain drawn to the more austere beauty of black-and-white cinematography.
There’s an assumption that when a contemporary director chooses to go greyscale, it’s a self-consciously arty decision. And to be fair, sometimes a filmmaker will shoot in monochrome in the belief that black and white will be more appealing to a certain arthouse crowd than colour. There are usually other, more artistically sound reasons why a director has opted for monochrome, though, and there are a lot of great modern black-and-white films. It’s a shame that many people are put off by the whiff of pretentiousness that greyscale photography can give off.
Why shoot a modern movie in black and white? We see the technique most often in historical films. Some recent biopics have alternated between colour and black-and-white scenes; see Maestro, Oppenheimer, and Blonde (although I wouldn’t recommend actually seeing Blonde). Monochrome cinematography can evoke archival photos and footage, lending a film a sense of historical authenticity; it can reflect the bleak horror of certain subject matter, as in Schindler’s List; it can, conversely, add a certain dreamy unreality to a film.
Choosing to shoot in black and white has long been a stylistic decision rather than a practical one, but this list focuses only on films from the last 30 years. So – no Raging Bull.
Without further ado…
FRANCES HA (2012)
Directed by Noah Baumbach
Cinematography by Sam Levy
The Algorithm(™), having worked out that I am just out of university and At a Crossroads in my life, won’t stop trying to feed me YouTube videos, Instagram Reels, and Medium think pieces about ‘Feeling Lost in Your 20s’.
I resent the assumption that I’m rudderless, even though it’s probably (definitely, completely) true. But if I’m going to consume any media about being an aimless twentysomething, I’d plump for Feeling Lost in Your 20s: The Mumblecore Movie — or, to give it its proper title, Frances Ha.
The collaborative writing efforts of Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach most recently produced a little film called Barbie — the highest-grossing film of the year, one of the highest-grossing films of all time, and the highest-grossing film ever by a solo female director. In the wake of that gargantuan success, it’s fun to revisit the low-key beginnings of the Gerwig-Baumbach writing partnership with Frances Ha, the first film they scripted together.
It’s a funny but moving film centring on a 27-year-old dancer, Frances (played by Gerwig). The black-and-white cinematography recalls the French New Wave films — like Agnès Varda’s Cléo from 5 to 7 — that the lively, freewheeling script evokes. Also, Adam Driver’s in it. And Frances’ moving ‘What I Want’ monologue inspired lines in Wolf Alice’s ‘Don’t Delete the Kisses’. So this film can do little wrong in my eyes. That it does a lot of things right in a tight 90 minutes is even better.
ED WOOD (1994)
Directed by Tim Burton
Cinematography by Stefan Czapsky
An eminently successful filmmaker like Tim Burton making a movie about the so-called ‘worst director of all time’ could easily have produced condescending, mean-spirited results. But Burton’s expertise in tales of misfits and outsiders shines through here; his biopic about filmmaker Ed Wood is a deeply empathetic and warm-hearted work.
Johnny Depp is brilliant as Wood, his breezy line delivery and ingenuous smile perfectly capturing the sunny optimist who just wants to make movies. The film focuses on the developing friendship between Wood and Bela Lugosi, the washed-up ex-Dracula actor whom Wood brings back from the brink by casting him in his movies. Martin Landau’s Oscar-winning turn as Lugosi is terrific. And keep an eye out for Bill Murray’s scene-stealing role as drag queen Bunny Breckinridge.
Burton’s decision to shoot Ed Wood in black and white is one of the ways in which the biopic pays homage to the style of Wood’s own work. It’s also a decision that the execs at Columbia Pictures balked at, leading to Burton’s film being picked up by Disney’s Touchstone Pictures instead.
Ed Wood ended up bombing at the box office, but perhaps that’s fitting, considering its subject matter. A director staying committed to their artistic vision, no matter its commercial viability? Pardon the pun, but Ed Wood have been proud.
LA HAINE (1995)
Directed by Mathieu Kassovitz
Cinematography by Pierre Aïm
A searing critique of inequality in France, and perhaps the most sustained — and literal — example of the ‘Chekhov’s Gun’ principle I’ve ever seen, the raw power of Mathieu Kassovitz’s La Haine remains undiluted nearly 30 years after it was first released.
The film tracks 24 hours in the lives of three young men in an impoverished Paris banlieue, in the wake of a suburban riot against police brutality. It’s a movie in which the tension builds and builds to a devastating finale. But La Haine doesn’t just stand out because of its hard-hitting theme and righteous anger; it’s also very impressive technically. Kassovitz gives us several brilliant long takes where he has the camera swerving, dodging and ducking around characters and buildings with real panache.
At times funny, at others deeply uncomfortable, La Haine is a monochrome masterpiece.
THE LIGHTHOUSE (2019)
Directed by Robert Eggers
Cinematography by Jarin Blaschke
Ah, The Lighthouse. A film that works on so many levels.
Superficially, this tale of two lighthouse keepers marooned on an island is about Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe boozing, shouting at each other, and generally losing their minds.
Look closer and there is perhaps more to dig into: the prominent classical allusions and spiritual elements encourage us to read the film as a tale of Promethean overreach, or a biblical allegory; and the psychosexual power play between the two ‘wickies’ suggests the film would be a fun one to unpick with the help of Messrs Jung and Freud.
First and foremost, though, this film is about Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe boozing, shouting at each other, and generally losing their minds.* And there’s a lot of nasty, nightmarish fun to be had in watching that.
Partly a horror, partly a briny black comedy, and fully unhinged, The Lighthouse is a masterclass in creating and sustaining atmosphere. The terrifically eerie sound design has almost as much of a starring role as Pattinson and Dafoe. Right from the opening shot, we hear the thrum of the lighthouse’s foghorn; that sound will be deployed to nerve-jangling effect throughout the film, complemented by Mark Korven’s spooky, oceanic score.
Jarin Blaschke’s cinematography is a grubby monochrome perfectly suited to the bleak situation, in a nearly-square aspect ratio that gives us something of the claustrophobic experience of the stranded wickies.
Eggers said of the film, ‘Nothing good can happen when two men are left alone in a giant phallus.’ Quite.
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* Eggers’ The Lighthouse (2019) is not to be confused with Chris Crow’s The Lighthouse (2016), a film in which two marooned lighthouse keepers booze, shout at each other, and generally lose their minds.
CONTROL (2007)
Directed by Anton Corbijn
Cinematography by Martin Ruhe
Joy Division’s music is remarkable partly because it manages to attain a shimmering kind of beauty even though the songs are all really depressing. Anton Corbijn’s biopic of Ian Curtis — lead singer and songwriter of the legendary post-punk band — achieves a similar feat, finding a delicate beauty even amid the pain and suffering of Curtis’ short life.
Corbijn’s film is based on Touching from a Distance, the memoir by Curtis’ wife Deborah, who also served as co-producer on the film. And Corbijn’s history as a photographer and director of music videos (including taking some of the early, iconic photos of Joy Division) makes him an ideal director for this project, which is filmed with real style and sensitivity. It’s shot in black and white, because how else could the film have looked? This was a band that seemed to exist in monochrome.
Corbijn traces Curtis’ teen years, the early days of Joy Division, and the singer’s struggles with epilepsy, depression, and his failing marriage, all building to his suicide at the age of 23.
One of the things I admire most about the film is that it avoids slipping into hagiography. Corbijn doesn’t downplay the callousness with which Curtis treated his wife and young daughter, and Samantha Morton’s performance as Deborah is magnificent. The performance you’ll remember the most, though, is Sam Riley’s breathtaking, transformative turn as Ian. It’s staggering how much Riley disappears into the role — and yes, he does the dance.
Never uplifting, but often tender, and hauntingly beautiful. A downbeat, feel-bad classic.
C’MON C’MON (2021)
Directed by Mike Mills
Cinematography by Robbie Ryan
Another black-and-white delight from A24, but in a far subtler key than The Lighthouse, Mike Mills’ C’mon C’mon offers a quietly profound meditation on our human ability to keep keeping on in the face of hardship.
Tonally, I found it similar to Spike Jonze’s Her. This is partly because both films star Joaquin Phoenix, and partly because of their thematic likeness — but it’s probably also because both movies’ scores are sleepy, warm collections of synths and organs, often layered over shots of city skylines and under sombre monologues.
The music for C’mon C’mon, composed by The National’s Aaron and Bryce Dessner, is one key element in the film’s success at sustaining a gently meditative atmosphere. Overall, the film conjures — like Her — the kind of aching melancholy that sinks into your bones and sticks around long after you’ve finished watching. Finishing the film feels like waking from a dream, a sense of soft unreality that the black-and-white photography only furthers.
COLD WAR (2018)
Directed by Paweł Pawlikowski
Cinematography by Łukasz Żal
In the same year that Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma was getting rave reviews and generating awards buzz, another black-and-white historical drama was released to similar levels of acclaim.
A nominee for the Best Director, Best Foreign Language Film, and Best Cinematography Oscars which Roma went on to sweep, Paweł Pawlikowski’s film is a quietly devastating portrait of love in a cold climate.
Cold War begins in Poland in the late 1940s, where romance blossoms between a pianist, Wiktor (Tomasz Kot), and a young singer, Zula (Joanna Kulig). Pawlikowski checks in with the pair over a number of years, following their relationship and the threats it faces from the chilly, fraught political climate they are living in.
The elliptical storytelling adds a cryptic quality to the tale of Wiktor and Zula, but the film’s great strength is that — thanks in part to the excellent central performances — we still feel like we know these people. Pawlikowski’s film is moving, visually striking, and haunting.