Mad Max Fury Road: Black and Chrome (15.)
Directed by George Miller.
Starring Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Zoe Kravitz and Riley Keogh. 120 mins.
Most people these days have a fierce allergy to black and white (possibly to the past in general) but not on this site where there has been a run of three black and white releases in a week: La Strada, Twelve Angry Men, The Goose Steps Out. Still, when even Mad Max films are coming out in b'n'w, I think the situation is getting out of hand. Even if you were born a week or two before yesterday, I think you will instinctively baulk at the notion that the best way to see Mad Max: Fury Road is in black and white, even if the person telling you that is its director George Miller.
Miller himself pop ups at the start to introduce this new version, which is disconcerting because he looks exactly like a 50/50 cross breed of Michael Winner and Liberace; very much like the kind of chap who might be employed sitting on a chat show sofa exchanging quips and anecdotes with Gyles Brandreth or Frank Muir and precisely nothing like the kind of person you'd expect to be heading up a large film crew in Namibia, directing the most acclaimed action movie of the century.
His argument is that the best version of a Mad Max film he ever saw was when he wandered in on a scoring session for MM2 and the composer was working to a cheap black and white dupe of the movie, which he thought looked amazing. He felt that black and white would emphasise the abstract nature of the drama.
So is it better in black and chrome? Of course not. A film with that much sand and that many explosions is never going to benefit from the absence of yellow and red and orange. Having seen it in colour, you're inevitably going to think that something has been subtracted from the experience.
But that's not to say that Miller is entirely wrong about a black and white Mad Max film being a superior experience. The problem with Black and Chrome is that it is a colour movie, converted into monochrome. It's like one of those experimental projects Steven Soderbergh puts up on his website where he'll re-edit someone else's film to see if he can find something new in it, like his splicing together of the two versions of Psycho. I'm sure if it had been shot in black and white, with the production design and photography planned out to maximise that experience you could make a very fine film. I dream of a version of David Lynch's Dune, shot in the black and white style of his first two films Eraserhead and Elephant Man.
I'd assume that in black and white you could make things a little cheaper, that the special effects wouldn't have to be so elaborate to look convincing, so if a filmmaker had a sci/fi or action idea that was just a little bit unconventional or challenging, shooting in black and white could be a solution. But it's an unrealistic dream, whatever savings were made in the production would be dwarfed by the reduction in the potential audience – people, real people, hate black and white and they won't have it in their homes, let alone go out to the cinema for it, unless it's old. Black and Chrome got a one day big screen outing at the end of April (and it probably looks a lot better on a big screen) but the results from 138 sites were unexciting.
The Black and Chrome Edition has to be a good thing for one simple reason: it suggest that Warner Brothers haven't given up on the film that was a box office disappointment when it came out in 2015, making less money that Terminator Genysis, Warcraft, or even La La Land. With Miller eager to continue the saga, possibly with Furiosa spin off, anything that keeps revenues dribbling in and the film in the public eye is to be welcomed.
Directed by George Miller.
Starring Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Zoe Kravitz and Riley Keogh. 120 mins.
Most people these days have a fierce allergy to black and white (possibly to the past in general) but not on this site where there has been a run of three black and white releases in a week: La Strada, Twelve Angry Men, The Goose Steps Out. Still, when even Mad Max films are coming out in b'n'w, I think the situation is getting out of hand. Even if you were born a week or two before yesterday, I think you will instinctively baulk at the notion that the best way to see Mad Max: Fury Road is in black and white, even if the person telling you that is its director George Miller.
Miller himself pop ups at the start to introduce this new version, which is disconcerting because he looks exactly like a 50/50 cross breed of Michael Winner and Liberace; very much like the kind of chap who might be employed sitting on a chat show sofa exchanging quips and anecdotes with Gyles Brandreth or Frank Muir and precisely nothing like the kind of person you'd expect to be heading up a large film crew in Namibia, directing the most acclaimed action movie of the century.
His argument is that the best version of a Mad Max film he ever saw was when he wandered in on a scoring session for MM2 and the composer was working to a cheap black and white dupe of the movie, which he thought looked amazing. He felt that black and white would emphasise the abstract nature of the drama.
So is it better in black and chrome? Of course not. A film with that much sand and that many explosions is never going to benefit from the absence of yellow and red and orange. Having seen it in colour, you're inevitably going to think that something has been subtracted from the experience.
But that's not to say that Miller is entirely wrong about a black and white Mad Max film being a superior experience. The problem with Black and Chrome is that it is a colour movie, converted into monochrome. It's like one of those experimental projects Steven Soderbergh puts up on his website where he'll re-edit someone else's film to see if he can find something new in it, like his splicing together of the two versions of Psycho. I'm sure if it had been shot in black and white, with the production design and photography planned out to maximise that experience you could make a very fine film. I dream of a version of David Lynch's Dune, shot in the black and white style of his first two films Eraserhead and Elephant Man.
I'd assume that in black and white you could make things a little cheaper, that the special effects wouldn't have to be so elaborate to look convincing, so if a filmmaker had a sci/fi or action idea that was just a little bit unconventional or challenging, shooting in black and white could be a solution. But it's an unrealistic dream, whatever savings were made in the production would be dwarfed by the reduction in the potential audience – people, real people, hate black and white and they won't have it in their homes, let alone go out to the cinema for it, unless it's old. Black and Chrome got a one day big screen outing at the end of April (and it probably looks a lot better on a big screen) but the results from 138 sites were unexciting.
The Black and Chrome Edition has to be a good thing for one simple reason: it suggest that Warner Brothers haven't given up on the film that was a box office disappointment when it came out in 2015, making less money that Terminator Genysis, Warcraft, or even La La Land. With Miller eager to continue the saga, possibly with Furiosa spin off, anything that keeps revenues dribbling in and the film in the public eye is to be welcomed.
