🚀 go-pugleaf

Leo Enticknap states:
> Unless you're dealing with
> actuality footage being shown as such, in which case the spectator will
> probably give you the benefit of the doubt, "realism" depends first and
> foremost on how good you are at selling your film as "real".  Remember the
 crap
> Spielberg came out with about draining the hues so that the D-Day sequence
> would look like a colour newsreel?  I still can't believe that no-one pointed
> out that there were no colour newsreels in 1944.  Some of the Capra "Why We
> Fight" films - yes.  The odd Techicolor documentary - yes.  Regular, bi-weekly
> newsreels in colour - no.  Still, it sounded good, and that's all that
 mattered.

That overstates the case.  George Stevens filmed the death camps in
color, and as I mentioned in an earlier post, there is newly-dsicovered
color footage of the Normandy invasion itself, filmed by John Ford.  I
still haven't actually stopped to read the article, but here's the
citation:


The New Yorker July 20 1998, v74, n20, p34(3)
        Author: Brinkley, Douglas
         Title: The color of war. (rare color film footage of the invasion
                   of Normandy) by Douglas Brinkley
   Description: ill. (photograph)
      Abstract: Noted film director John Ford led a camera unit for
                   US forces when they landed on Normandy beach, June
                   6, 1944. Melvyn R. Paisley decided to search for
                   the film of Operation Overlord. He found it in College
                   Park, MD and turned it into a documentary. It is
                   rare color film of World War II battles.


Of course, te existence of such footage still begs the question of how
Spielberg uses the device, but at least it's not as anachronistic as it
might seem!

Don Larsson

----------------------
Donald Larsson
Minnesota State U, Mankato
larsson@Mail.Mankato.MSUS.EDU

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