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Raiders of the Lost Ark as a Black-and-White Silent Film (2014)
- jonfromsf 6y agoThis is amazing to watch.
- sparrish 6y agoI was very disappointed. The overlayed music doesn't match the film period or the visual tone at all.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- konsumer 6y agoI get that they were trying to focus on staging, but unlike old silent films, this is very hard to follow without dialog cards, if you've never seen the original. Also, the music really doesn't fit.
- keiferski 6y agoI don’t know, I thought the brilliance of the staging is that you almost don’t even need dialogue to follow the plot. It is all communicated pretty clearly through cuts and body language.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- booleandilemma 6y agoThis would have been better without the music.
- richardanaya 6y agoI liked it
- keiferski 6y agoOh, and I’ve removed all sound and color from the film, apart from a score designed to aid you in your quest to just study the visual staging aspect. Note that the music is only intended to be filler. Otherwise, watching this in black and white really made obvious how well staged and choreographed the film is. I don’t consider myself much of a Spielberg fan, but I was impressed. If the music bothers you, try the section at 1:22:35. It goes pretty well with that scene.
- germinalphrase 6y agoI think Jaws holds up very well, too. It is a wonderful transitional film between classic and new Hollywood shot tempo and visual style.
- lai-yin 6y agoI know this is an easy downvote and foolish statement, but I find very few pre-90s blockbuster movies to be watchable. Spielberg's movies hold up well though. There are a few others, like When Harry Met Sally, that I also still love.
- solipsism 6y agoClash of the Titans is top notch.
- gumby 6y agoI agree (including When Harry Met Sally) if you include ~1935-1955 which was a of great experimentation. The films that held up well weren’t always the prize winners though.
- kenjackson 6y agoJust watched Trading Places and it was still really fun.
- jonplackett 6y agoPositives: great idea. it really makes you notice the beats in each scene. The ups downs ups downs. Spielberg is so good at that. The negatives: music does not fit at all. No dialogue. Would love to see a more deliberate attempt at making this an old b&w movie.
- jacobolus 6y agoThe point is not to make it a complete self-contained film, but to focus the attention of visual artists trying to study the lighting and camera work. Including dialog of any kind would just be a distraction. Just turn off the audio (optionally, play something else) if it distracts.
- jonplackett 6y agoI actually made a website called ‘The Artistifier’ at the time the artist was released (8 years ago?). It let you import any YouTube video, it made it black and white and a bit stuttery, put the music from the artist over the top and let you add silent movie captions. That music had a way of kind of enhancing anything you put behind it. Unfortunately it is now buried in the mass grave of internet past with all the other Flash websites.
- kristopolous 6y agoAs I was reading that I was going through the implementation in my head, totally doable in current tech
- jonplackett 6y agoYeah you could do it again now, but there was a dark age of mobile dev when it wasn't possible. I guess I should put it on the to do list!
- charliebreslau 6y agoHehe. I think that op is playing some game with you. Actually the whole staging in this movie was ripped of from another silent movie. Spielberg ripped of whole scenes. I think you can still find some comparisons somewhere. I will try to google it. https://youtu.be/Ns8bG9AbfwM https://youtu.be/Ns8bG9AbfwM http://www.unleashthefanboy.com/news/indiana-jones-was-a-rip-off-and-heres-the-proof/3502 http://www.unleashthefanboy.com/news/indiana-jones-was-a-rip...
- charliebreslau 6y agohttps://youtu.be/Ns8bG9AbfwM https://youtu.be/Ns8bG9AbfwM http://www.unleashthefanboy.com/news/indiana-jones-was-a-rip-off-and-heres-the-proof/3502 http://www.unleashthefanboy.com/news/indiana-jones-was-a-rip...
- zxcvbn4038 6y agoCute! They change camera angles a lot more then they did in the old movies. Missing is the required woman in long skirt and high heels trooping through the jungle. If made in the 40s the temple would have had one giant paper mache spider at the entrance instead of all the live ones. Natives would have all been white guys in black face wearing leopard skin togas. Nazis would have spoken more then three words of German. Spirits in the ark would have been a single skull superimposed over the scene after which all the Nazis fall down and the hero has to explain what happened. Buy war bonds!
- tillinghast 6y agoI've watched my ahem private copy of Raiders many times in B&W _with_ the original sound using VLC's built-in video effects. Highly recommend.
- ggm 6y agoGreat film made by people who had long history of making great films. "Rushes" or rapid prints of the days shooting were b&w and I have no idea if that changed, but as high contrast pushed (speedy development) review footage maybe just mechanistically it influenced shot design? There's another doc somebody did analysing raiders and treasure of the sierra madre shot by shot.
- ironchief 6y agoDo you have the link to the documentary?
- ggm 6y agohttps://archive.org/details/antoniamackenzie_gmail_0 https://archive.org/details/antoniamackenzie_gmail_0 Isn't loading fast enough for me to be sure this is the one. Its a comparison, and interesting.
- ggm 6y agoIts not. Its good but the one I'm thinking of runs side by side sequences to show how framing was related. Turns out it's a "premake" mashup of raiders, and an amalgam of 1950s era movies. Including i believe "treasure of the incas" https://youtu.be/eE9-FcJnQGA https://youtu.be/eE9-FcJnQGA is a shot comparison somebody put together. I misremembered two things.
- JKCalhoun 6y agoJust an aside: I was amused when someone pointed out that the plot of "Raiders" would have reached the same climatic end if Indiana Jones were completely removed from the script. I have noticed too that "This Island Earth" (if you know this old classic sci-fi film) is another such script in which the protagonist could be removed with no change in the outcome.
- maxerickson 6y agoThe bad guys may not have ever found the ark without the information on the other side of the amulet.
- JKCalhoun 6y agoBut they would have had the amulet.
- aarchi 6y agoIt would be so much more enjoyable set to John Williams’ score. I’m sure that fans have constructed the complete score. Many silent films had live musical accompaniments, so it would fit the aesthetic.
- TigeriusKirk 6y agoAs the page header suggests, this is the work of Steven Soderbergh. He went through a phase of doing several exercises along these lines and posting them to his blog. Intercutting the original Psycho with its remake. Recutting the famous flop Heaven's Gate entirely. He also recut 2001, but took it down at the request of the Kubrick estate. His Heaven's Gate is pretty good if you get the time to watch it - https://extension765.com/blogs/soderblog/heavens-gate-the-butchers-cut https://extension765.com/blogs/soderblog/heavens-gate-the-bu...
- aidenn0 6y agoThe HN title is very misleading, but the blog title of "Raiders" isn't very illuminating. Maybe "staging in raiders of the lost ark"?
- FiddlerClamp 6y agoIn this version Belloq's head explodes at the end...I thought that footage was lost to time!? It's strange to see it in such pristine quality.
- Maursault 6y ago> In this version Belloq's head explodes at the end...I thought that footage was lost to time!? They preserved it for future generations on the BluRay. What version is there where Belloq's head does not explode at the end?
- mnouquet 6y agoWait did you just remove the sound and made it black and white to defeat copyright infringement algorithms ?
- kristopolous 6y agoWill that actually work?
- andi999 6y agoNow let's compare to secret of the incas...
- ggm 6y agoFrom my comment lower down https://youtu.be/eE9-FcJnQGA https://youtu.be/eE9-FcJnQGA which includes masses of this film transcoded to b&w
- fractallyte 6y agoYou should have written more! For those who don't know, Secret of the Incas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_of_the_Incas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_of_the_Incas) was the inspiration for Indiana Jones. It's a fantastic adventure movie, with some great dialog, and set in pre-tourism Cuzco - all in Technicolor! Definitely worth watching, for its own merits alone.
- cptnapalm 6y agoDon't forget Carl Banks' Scrooge McDuck comics. Not even kidding.
- vbsteven 6y agoThis is nice. Sometimes I watch a movie or TV show with the TV sound turned off and a Spotify playlist playing on my speakers or headphones. This works great with old black and white movies, but also with absurd comedies or cult movies you've watched a number of times with the sound on. Actually one of my weekend project ideas was to create a community-curated library of movies/episodes with Spotify playlists that go well with it. For example "Un Chien Andalou" (a french silent b/w short film from 1929) goes well with Hemelbestormer - Portal to the Universe (post-metal album). Possibly combined with some THC for an even more immersive experience.
- kuang_eleven 6y agoReminds me of the fan-made "Black and Chrome" edit of Fury Road. B&W with all dialog removed, was a interesting watch! Highlights the brilliance of the choreography, even though I wouldn't suggest watching that version the first time! There was also an official B&W version, but I believe that one had the standard audio tracks with dialog.
- chucky 6y agoBlack and Chrome is an "official" version made by director George Miller himself. It does feature the standard audio tracks. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/nov/12/mad-max-fury-road-black-white https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/nov/12/mad-max-fury-ro...
- kuang_eleven 6y agoIt was originally a fan-edit, based off a comment by George Miller. The official version came later, using the same name. https://blackandchrome.wordpress.com/ https://blackandchrome.wordpress.com/ (Although the video is long, long since taken down)