First you must watch this clip by Renoir.
Now doesn’t that make you wish Renoir was your friend, and you could discuss this
with him? Well you can’t. You’ve got me. Sorry. But let’s give it a try. Now
consider that black and white can provide a certain quality to a filmic
experience which is lost when we move to color and digital video. Black and
white film would be just an example from that medium, but it could be Polaroids
for photography, or a musician who will only release his music on the worst
quality cassettes. The issue, Renoir explains, is that one cannot reverse the
hands of time, and the advance of technology. If a modern filmmaker released a
film in black and white, it would be a modern filmmaker releasing a film in
black and white, and that’s just not the same as watching a film made in an
earlier time. The contrivance would be inescapable and distracting, in spite of
all best efforts to overcome on the part of the filmmaker and the audience. Of
course many will resist the idea that a certain style or tool is no longer
allowed. There must have been some ideas which would have been suited to black
and white, but which were not realized during the available time. For example,
Jean Vigo could have directed another film, but he died, so he didn’t. What
about that film? I would have liked to see it. Some will think. Don’t tell me I cannot have more of that. The
fact a piece of art cannot be recreated after its time has been proven recently
by George Lucas. He has gone to great lengths to create in me a desire to see the
original Star Wars, and not the
destroyed version, which is available now for purchase.
So is there an answer to what I am going to
call the dilemma of obsolescence? Besides the logical one put forth by
Renoir, which is essentially to “get over it” and move on? I can think
of one, but it will not be easy. It will involve some deception. If one can
create a work which has every indication of being made in an earlier time, then
perhaps we can have another film noir which is good and real and gives us more
of that fast delight. We could discover an artist who had somehow slipped
through history’s microfiche. We could find a sunken ship with all its treasure
on it, for which no record of its voyage can be found. A tale of 16th
century love, when loved really mattered, between two young Sicilians, was
reconstructed by piecing together some fragments of letters. The letters were
written on parchment and they had been discovered when the top of an old marble
chest was lifted by some workmen. The chest had been buried in the basement of
a kindly old widow who had obligingly just passed away. She had no family that
anyone knew of, and the local officials had ordered her apartment cleared of
all its contents before they would send an expert to determine what should be
done with the place. A hotel? A
museum? A government office? At this time no
decision has yet been made. The letters were given to the local library as
always. They were scanned and uploaded to the library’s website, and that is
how I came across them. They have only begun to post translations of the
letters, so I will have to go back in the future and learn the whole story of
the two lovers. And I will tell you the rest of it just as soon as I know more.
But if I could write such letters, type out
slow on neo-parchment. If I could take such pictures, with a Polaroid
from Nina. If I could weave a
July 2007