Episode 2097 | Perception as Illusion: How Color Shapes Reality

Welcome to another episode of Exploring Art Podcast, a Florida International University student podcast for the creative curious. I'm your host, Kenzan. I'm very pleased to have Andrew and Leigh. Hello. Hello. And welcome to the Exploring Art podcast. In 1962, actor and filmmaker Peter Ustinov released his adaptation of Billy Butt based off Herman Melville's novella. The story is a dark, dramatic, and morally complex ideal for a black and white film. But Ustinov's choice to film in black and white puzzled some critics, especially given the growing popularity of color at the time. When asked why he didn't shoot the film in color, Ustinov famously replied so that it would seem real. But this raises a strange contradiction. We live in a world of color. So why would black and white feel more realistic? Film critic Ivor Montague pointed this out, questioning why our audience accepted Ustinov's statement so easily wasn't colored more true to like. And yet many viewers agreed with Ustinov. There was something about black and white film, its dark contrast, its shadows, its simplicity that made it feel truer than color, even if it didn't match the literal appearance of reality. This opens up a much deeper question about illusion, perception, and authenticity in art. Is realism about copying life or creating the strongest illusion of truth? Does black and white strip away distractions and focus of our emotional tension? Or is it just a cultural habit, something that we've been conditioned to accept as serious? We'll start about the Billy Bud movie, the novella. I think Leigh has a little bit more background information to start off for that. Yes, thank you. I would love to take over from now. So Billy Bud is a historical genre film that was released in 1962, and it is found in black and white. It is based around Herman Melville's novella. The film is about a young man named Billy Bud who is good natured and he's very innocent. He's an innocent sailor. He was forced onto this British naval ship. This is taking place during like a Cold War time era. So basically where the action begins is when an officer named Clark Gart has accused Billy Bud of a mutiny act and this did cause Billy Bud to strike Clark Gart and this ended up killing him. Captain Veer, which is played by Peter Yusuf, who is also the director and writer of this historical film, is the captain and he is deemed to make a decision on whether he should follow the letter of law or if he should follow his moral truth. The captain does not know who to believe. Clark Gart is dead so he does not know if Billy Bud was actually committing a mutiny act or if he was because again Billy is a innocent good natured young man. He has not caused any problems or any... he doesn't have a history of being problematic. So this film does focus on captain making those decisions. Again it was filmed in 1962 so color was becoming available and Peter Yusuf did choose to film it in black and white because he felt like black and white seemed more real. Peter Yusuf also co-wrote with Ivor Matsugu and they did have some complications on choosing whether they wanted to film in black and white or in color but although it was Peter's film and he was the director I guess he had first choice so Andrew should... Andrew will now get into the depths of who Peter is and then Kenzo will get into the depths of who Ivor Matsugu is. Let me start with a quick bio. Peter Ustinov was a British actor, director, writer and humorist who worked across theater and film starting in the 1940s. Beyond being a performer he became a respected public thinker and later a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. As a filmmaker he was especially drawn to stories that centered around moral complexity and deep character psychology which shaped many of the creative decisions he made. Now moving into what he chose to adapt Billy Budd. His 1962 film is based on Herman Melviz Novela about an innocent young sailor who become trapped in a conflict with a cruel master at arms. While the captain's struggle between what the law requires and what his conscience tells him, these stories explore ideas such as innocence versus corruption, the tension between law and morality and the weight of power, authority and sacrifices. This scene much Ustinov interests perfectly which helped explain why he not only direct the film but also choose to play Captain Veer himself. It shows how personally invested he was in bringing this moral drama to the screen. From there we get to one of his most interesting artistic choice, his decision to shoot the film in black and white. By 1962 color was already common so people naturally questioned why he avoided. This audio was created with podcastle.ai so people naturally questioned why he avoided. Ustinov famously explained that he wanted to the film to seem more real at the first that my son unusual since our world is full of color but what he meant was that realism is not always about mimicking reality directly. Instead it is about creating the strongest emotional true. Black and white helped strip away distraction focusing the audience on the moral intensity of the story. In other words the absence of color strength the illusion of reality guiding viewers toward the emotional core rather than the surface detail. And with that we have look at Ustinov version and choice as the director but he didn't create this film alone. It was shaped in collaboration with his co-writer Ivor Montagu who played a key role in adapting the story for the screen. To explain more about Montagu's contribution I will pass it over to Kenzo. Alright Ivor Montia born in 1904 was one of the most important figures in British cinema culture. Early in his career he's helped found the Film Society of London in 1920s he worked a lot in the UK especially in the Soviet Union working with Western critics and filmmakers to translate into different languages and things like that and provide films that he found helped out in political issues and social issues. Montagu is best known for being both a practical filmmaker and a theoretical thinker which made his reaction to Ustinov's choosing of a of incorporating black and white in the film very just interesting and contradicting to most people. Montagu's basically was saying that color is real so why use black and white. He digs deeper into the logistics and the logic of realism in film. His whole thinking his line of thinking was basically that we live in a world of color and so the filming in black and white which before used to just be a complication because people couldn't film in black and white but by the time that Billy Budd was filmed it color was very accessible like Andrew said. So by filming in black and white it removes an entire dimension of reality for the film but the audience is still perceived black and white as more realistic and they agreed with Ustinov. So this made him interested in this contradiction because of the fact that from what his thinking was is that realism isn't based off the color or based off black and white but it's it's psychological it's not it's not literal so that the audience accepts these conventions unconsciously and that it's not based off a logical line of thinking it's based off the physical not physical the psychological reaction that the colors happened to them and so Montague's objection wasn't a criticism of the film but it was more criticism of the reasoning behind the realism playing. He basically thought that the audiences looking at the film were a little below because the fact that they didn't claim a line of reasoning behind the color of the film they just felt it based off the color. Essentially he's asking if black and white is less true to life why do the viewers feel that it is more true. People echo this theory for years to come after him but he was one of the first people to say to ask what makes film seem real and why is it real. Pause for a second. So Montague's later discussion translates into discussion about black and white because of the fact that this film Billy Budd Biosenov was considered just like morally stark and serious and people thought about it as the truth as the fact that the black and white made it more realistic to reality. Montague's whole thing was the fact that he believed that it wasn't based off the fact that the black and white made it look more real or that it was more real in general it just made it feel more real. So that was his whole conversation and personally I believe that black and white film probably adds a more stark dramaticism and just emotional hit to whatever it's filming whatever the piece of art is trying to portray say imagine like a love film or or something like that or a drama in general. Black and white can definitely enhance the emotional aspect and enhance the the hit that it takes to you psychologically but I feel like it doesn't actually affect the realism or the realistic aspects of the film. Yes and I agree when focusing on black and white I do remember in the chapter 8th of KHP readings that it said that it kind of focused on contrast, texture and tone which also in our lectures I remember how shading was mentioned how light shading and pencil or in black could a lighter shade could be perceived as good while a darker could be perceived as evil. So I feel like that really ties into the black and white films. I also when I think of black and white films I also feel like they're from past time you know older time because now everything is color. So I also do agree that it does shape a sense of emotions and expressions and it also is very like strictly has a seriousness to it. It does have when focusing on shape and lighting and contrast I think that ties into the seriousness because we're kind of what we're focusing on while we're watching black and white is just strictly kind of emotions and and how different scenes are portrayed as lighter or darker again in the in the evil in the good aspect. And yes I do feel like Ustinov could, he kind of could say that the black and white can seem real so that is why he wanted to tie it in in the Billy Budd film which the film was in 1962 which to me that is still kind of like past times to me so I feel like they could have worked with or it did work or it was a it was an option and it wasn't a bad option but just the fact that there was color available I do still think that the film and being recorded in black and white kind of gives it a kind of significance to it especially since it was filmed in 1962 during the war and it's kind of based off like a British war-enabled ship concept. Andrew do you have anything else to add on to the black and white series? I think that's right. I don't think I will like to add any more to them. When focusing on color though I do feel like it gives off a realistic aspect. It kind of makes it feel real like alive like we see color now like if you look around now you're gonna see color everywhere so I feel like color does bring in the light the live light live like aspect when focusing on emotions I think of the movie inside out and how yellow represents joy. This audio was created with podcastle.ai Yellow represents joy red anger green disgust so I think colors do definitely tie into emotions as well just just the same as black and white I do feel like color kind of represents like a free fun flow which the black and white it does tie on to seriousness do you have anything else to add on to the color aspect? Yeah I think that color can definitely add a lot to a film especially because we saw we've seen a bunch of examples of movies in black and white like the early 40s 50s even animation in its early stages was in black and white things like Disney's first animations like the first appearance of Mickey Mouse was in black and white and it's all kind of like it doesn't have the same effect as it does in color like we look at it nowadays and even animation or real-life film it doesn't have the same effect but I think it has a more nostalgic kind of noir feeling it's an entirely different context so to compare them I feel like there is their plus there's their pros and cons for each I don't think either of them are perceptionally like better than the other one but I think it's just completely different energy and emotion that can be received from either of them okay so moving into some of the big idea behind this one thing we can ask is why do certain illusion actually feel more real than reality a lot of it's come from what we're used to we pick up habit from the media we watch us and certain genre like documentaries or news give us template for what we consider it's serious we also come in with expectation like thinking certain stories are supposed to look like a certain way because of that black and white can actually feel more authentic it's cut out that glossy Hollywood look the costumes stop feeling too polished and the whole image start reminding us of all documentary footage or classic war films so even if it's not literally more real our brain treat it like it is then there is the question of where our instinct about realism are actually culture when ustinoff says black and white seems more real he basically showing that we call realism is learn we are not responding to nature we're responding to film history color looks like real life but black and white looks like serious cinema so emotionally we treat like a small truthful and that's connect to the last point which is whether the illusion of true can be stronger than the literal true literally speaking the world is in color but the illusion of the true works differently black and white can hit us harder emotionally because it line up with our expectation of serious stories we see the same thing in other arts too stage set can be obviously fake but sometimes a simple set feel more powerful than a realistic one in painting artists might distort thing but the message still feel true what do you think about it do you want to yes I kind of agree I do feel like illusions is they're supposed to feel real and they have everything to do with our eyesight and our brain connection or patterns or our expectation the real world is not always ever clear so an illusion is powerful because it kind of connects to our brain like I said I kind of can tie this into a trip I had when I went to the Museum of Illusions or like those paintings whenever you see something or you see like an image and you you walk further back from it it may look a certain size or you go closer to it and it may look a different size so seeing that illusion it's it feels real and perceived as real so when you go back you may think oh this is actually small but in reality it's still the same size as was it as it is when you're in different standpoints of that object so I do feel like illusion is more powerful than what reality is solely based off what our what signals our brain can so do you have anything else to add on to that yeah I definitely agree with you guys's points that illusion does add more emotionally to something or the fact that it can change our perspective completely when observing a work of art like a piece of cinema or even like a painting like you were saying even like a movie soundtrack for example like you're watching an emotional scene in a movie say character dies or you know something like that and adding some sad violins in the background which could definitely add to the dramatic effect of the illusion created by the director and it's all based off the planning of the director or whoever's in control of that you know I mean but essentially I think that illusions can definitely affect greatly the psychological perspective of whatever we're watching lighting music the acting of course and in this in case in this case the color of the film in black and white compared to color and I think that's all the time we have for today so I want to thank you so much for joining us today Lay and Andrew I really appreciate it this concludes exploring our podcast subscribe on iTunes Spotify SoundCloud or wherever you get your podcast thank you for listening please join us soon and remember to stay curious