In praise of watching your favorite movies in black and white

Sunday, March 22, 2020

Back in 2014, director Steven Soderbergh posted a black-and-white version of Raiders of the Lost Ark with The Social Network soundtrack as an exercise in studying staging. It’s since become my favorite way of watching the movie. I’ve seen Raiders probably a 100 times and I can recite the dialogue line-by-line, but when I watch it in black-in-white, it estranges me from it, and it’s like seeing a new movie. (Fresh eyes!)

“I’m not saying I’m like, ALLOWED to do this,” Soderbergh joked. But some directors insist that black-and-white is actually their favorite way to watch their own movies. “The best version of this movie is black-and-white,” said director George Miller on the “Black and Chrome” edition of Mad Max: Fury Road. “But people reserve that for art movies now.”

Director Bong Joon-ho says his mother wouldn’t let him go to the movies because of “bacteria” when he was growing up, so he watched all movies on their old black-and-white TV. A “classic” movie, for him, is a black-and-white one. So he made a black-and-white version of Parasite, which had a limited theatrical release. “The first time [I saw the black and white version], it felt like I was watching an old movie, a story from long ago. But the second time, the movie felt more intense; it felt [more] cruel.”

Last night my wife and I put on Jurassic Park, and a little bit into it I said, “I’ll bet this would look really good in black-and-white.” So I opened the picture settings on the TV, turned the Color to zero, set the Contrast all the way up, then turned down the Brightness down to about 40/100. I couldn’t believe how good it looked — all the rain and the smoke from Samuel L. Jackson’s cigarette in the control room made it feel almost noir-ish. (And it definitely emphasized the horror elements.) An old movie becomes new. Magic!

Update (3/29/2020): You may be surprised what works and what doesn’t! The Big Lebowski was underwhelming, but Nacho Libre in black and white was perfect — parts of it looked like Bergman or Fellini and the parts in the ring looked like Raging Bull!

And @jregan informs me that The Princess Bride in B&W is inconceivable!

The best parenting advice I’ve ever heard

Friday, March 20, 2020

My wife is the oldest of four kids. Her parents were once asked at a birthing class if they had any advice for the rookies.

My father-in-law stood up and addressed the group:

“Look, you’re going to want to throw it out the window… and that’s okay! The important thing is that you don’t.”

Then he sat back down.

After all these years, it’s still the greatest parenting advice I’ve ever heard.

(I thought the advice and this zine spoke to each other.)

5 good books I read this winter

Thursday, March 19, 2020

It was a light, lovely winter for me (well, most of it) and I spent it reading at whim.

Here are five books that stand out:

A Little History of the World
E.H. Gombrich

Gombrich is probably best known for his art history survey, The Story of Art, but he wrote this book before, in pre-Nazi Germany. When a textbook publisher hired him to translate a history book for kids, he thought it was so bad he could write a better one himself. So he read all day and wrote a chapter each night until the book was done. I love the way he starts and begins the book with visual metaphors to help kids picture history. [Buy indie]

Boom Town
Sam Anderson

Sam is one of my favorite working writers, but I didn’t really care much about Oklahoma City or basketball when I picked it up. And yet, I loved this book. While reading it I was like, “Is this as good as I think it is or is Sam nuts in the same way I am nuts or have I been driven nuts by reading it?” One thing I cannot get enough of is the sense when you’re reading a book that the author had a blast writing it — that they let themselves get carried away and went for the ride and wrangled the thing in just the right way so you could strap in, too. [Buy indie]

Normal People
Sally Rooney

Every year I try to read a bestseller that everybody’s talking about. Last year it was Educated, this year it was Normal People. It’s easy to see why Educated was a hit — it’s written well, it has an Oprah-style arc de triumph, and it confirms the dominant cultural narrative about the importance of formal education. But this book? The whole time I read this book, I was thinking, “Why am I so into this?” I think it’s the way Rooney manages to describe contemporary emotions (ew), but, like Educated, I also think there’s magic in the pacing and the chunking. Hey man, no need to overthink it: If you’re turning the pages, it’s good. [Buy indie]

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead
Olga Tokarczuk

Combination detective story and fairy tale with a huge dose of astrology and William Blake thrown in. (It gets its title from Proverbs of Hell.) A great winter’s tale. Definitely picking up her novel Flights soon — loved this excerpt. [Buy indie]

Mystery Train
Greil Marcus

If I had read this book when I was 19, it would probably hold a super high place in my personal canon. The thing that holds me back from outright adoration is my (perhaps unreasonably) low opinion of Elvis. I love the parts about the tension between artist and audience. I will probably go back and try to get through Lipstick Traces again this year. [Buy indie]

It strikes me, looking at this list, that every single one of these books was read on my Kindle. I think this is the first time this has happened and I don’t know how to feel about it. On the one hand, I much prefer reading on paper, with a pencil, but on the other, ebooks are so convenient, they allow me to flit and flirt and read promiscuously.

By the way, here are 5 other good books I read this winter: