*****
what
does black-and-white
do
to a movie?
it fixes
it
off
reality,
it turns it
into a story, into something made
up,
into an
artifact which, because it marks itself as make-
believe,
can better
tell us
what
we
are,
all the things
we’ve
lost
*****
Casablanca could only be shot (can only
be
seen)
in
black-and-white
producer
Hal Wallis was “anxious to get real blacks
and whites
with the walls
and the background in shadow,
and dim,
sketchy
lighting”[1],
and harassed Arthur
Edeson,
“the Little
Napoleon” of Warner Brothers, “kind of a weak
sister”,
who wept,
but complied[2],
did
a good job,
which won him an Oscar nomination,
his third
*****
television
mogul Ted Turner bought Warner Bro’s
pre-1950
films,
he had a tacky
dream, to colorize
all those
oldies,
premiere them
on his TV channel,
then pimp
them
out
for
syndication and home-video release,
his painted
lot
lizards
this idiotic
Ceasar paraded Casablanca
thus made
up
on his TBS
SuperStation on November 9, 1988[3],
like another
Cleopatra “i’ the posture of a whore”[4]
*****
Ilsa: …Let’s see, the last time we met…
Rick: It was ‘La Belle Aurore’.
Ilsa: How nice. You remembered. But of course,
that was the day the Germans marched into Paris.
Rick: Not an easy day to forget.
Ilsa: No.
Rick: I remember every detail. The Germans wore
gray, you wore blue.
Ilsa: Yes. I put that dress away. When the Germans
march out, I’ll wear it again.
(and
still the blue Ilsa wore at the La Belle
Aurore
scene
ought to stand
out in a movie which could only be shot
in
black-and-white,
so
I would tamper with the film, clumsily
color
her
dress
at
the Paris café
in
the flash-
back
scenes)
[1] Lebo (1992: 142).
[2] Francis Scheid, editor de sonido. Citado
en Harmetz (1992: 136).
[3] Miller (1992: 186).
[4] William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, Act V, Scene II,
220.
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