I like the idea, and I don't necessarily believe it would affect ticket sales, if done properly. Perhaps, based on other movies that have used similar palettes, it could be scenes that flash forward or backward, thereby making it a part of communicating a shift in time. It doesn't need to take up a large part of the movie. This could be wondrously and cleverly done with The Magician's Nephew. Imagine when Digory returns with the apple from Narnia, it could be the only truly colorful point of reference, yet casting color around on all that is near it.

It's an interesting idea. As Meldred has said, perhaps some black and white could work with The Magician's Nephew for the initial segments in England. Beyond that 'perhaps' I don't really see it working otherwise. Also conscious it would seem too copycat with the Wizard Of Oz films which already have a few similarities!

The other day I watched the Wizard of Oz prequel "The Great & The Powerful" on Disney Plus (well, I got about halfway through, which is just about as much as the film deserved) and probably the only thing that was kind of interesting about the film was that the opening scenes were not only shot in Black and White (as per the original Oz film) but that it was also framed in a rather boxy 4:3 ratio.

Whilst this did allow the movie to then have this rather cool moment where the movie transitions both from B/W to Colour and from 4:3 to Widescreen, .. bringing with it this explosion of colour in on the screen ... Overall I felt the gimmick had the unintended consequence of adding an unnecessary level of artifice to the real world scenes which completely detached me from their believability, which is ironically the exact opposite intention of the original movie, which used Black & White for the real world scenes to make it more relatable to general audiences at the time.

Therefore I wouldn't really be a fan of trying to repeat that same gimmick with Narnia.

Side note - in my opinion, the best recent use of B/W photography in a film was in Dune 2, which was shot using Infrared cameras. It gives the whole sequence this incredible otherworldly look, and really tied in well with the overall aesthetic of the scene.

Posted by: @icarus

Whilst this did allow the movie to then have this rather cool moment where the movie transitions both from B/W to Colour and from 4:3 to Widescreen, .. bringing with it this explosion of colour in on the screen ... Overall I felt the gimmick had the unintended consequence of adding an unnecessary level of artifice to the real world scenes which completely detached me from their believability, which is ironically the exact opposite intention of the original movie, which used Black & White for the real world scenes to make it more relatable to general audiences at the time.

Very interesting, although I'm somehow not surprised you found the entire film not worth sitting through — it doesn't quite sound like my thing either.

I was under the impression that the switch from black and white (sepia, technically) to colour in the 1939 movie of The Wizard of Oz was also an ultra-literal interpretation of how the original book, in the opening chapter, describes everything in Kansas as "grey", whereas Oz is much more colourful. It also of course gave MGM the chance to show off the then-new Technicolor filming technology, at a time when filming in B&W was standard and a movie with such a brilliant colour palette was something tremendously exciting — which isn't the case in today's world.

(In fact in the book and its sequels, the four countries surrounding the Emerald City each have their own "favourite colour" that's used everywhere in their houses and clothing and so on, but the film didn't go into that at all. In the books, for the land of the Munchkins (east of the Emerald City), the colour is blue; for the Quadlings (south), red; for the Winkies (west), yellow; and for the Gillikins (north), purple — we only find that last one out in the second book, The Marvellous Land of Oz. But that's getting even further off topic!)

Therefore I wouldn't really be a fan of trying to repeat that same gimmick with Narnia.

No, I wouldn't either. It would be far, far too obvious a reference to The Wizard of Oz, which is a natural thing to do in an attempt at a prequel to that movie, but it would be TOTALLY out of place in an adaptation of Narnia. Narnia as a fantasy world is very different from Oz — different author, different underlying philosophy, different aesthetics. And as I've said in a couple of threads recently, the movie (not the book) of The Wizard of Oz deliberately portrays Oz as a product of Dorothy's imagination, of her hopes and fears and dreams and so on, as it's strongly implied she only "went" there while in a coma during the cyclone. Narnia is the complete opposite. We as the audience need to understand that it is a fully real and independent world in its own right, not a projection of the children's own inward thoughts and feelings.

(That's especially important when we get to the revelation, near the end, that Susan has rejected Narnia with the claim that it was just "all those funny games we used to play when we were children." We need to have the certainty that she's the one kidding herself, for whatever reasons, or else that scene loses its meaning.)

I just cannot see any reason why filming any part of a Narnia movie in black and white — let alone making the this-world scenes B&W and Narnia full colour in a blatant homage to The Wizard of Oz — would enhance the product in any way. I very much doubt Greta Gerwig has any such thing in mind either — well, I hope she doesn't.

Posted by: @courtenay

I just cannot see any reason why filming any part of a Narnia movie in black and white — let alone making the this-world scenes B&W and Narnia full colour in a blatant homage to The Wizard of Oz — would enhance the product in any way. I very much doubt Greta Gerwig has any such thing in mind either — well, I hope she doesn't.

In that light, I would agree. Perhaps because The Wizard of Oz movie pioneered the idea of mixing the two, the association cannot be avoided. However, as I envisioned such a possibility (and only a possibility), I had Schindler's List in mind, but rather than most of the movie using the sepia tones, it would be the exception, not the rule. I remember being struck by the little girl in the red dress, it was very powerful, and The Wizard of Oz never entered my thoughts during the movie. Of course, and here's the rub, Schindler's List is about a historical atrocity rather than fantasy fiction. For that reason alone, I must admit it would seem impossible to avoid a connection with Oz.

Posted by: @meldred

However, as I envisioned such a possibility (and only a possibility), I had Schindler's List in mind, but rather than most of the movie using the sepia tones, it would be the exception, not the rule. I remember being struck by the little girl in the red dress, it was very powerful, and The Wizard of Oz never entered my thoughts during the movie. Of course, and here's the rub, Schindler's List is about a historical atrocity rather than fantasy fiction. For that reason alone, I must admit it would seem impossible to avoid a connection with Oz.

Ah yes, well, that's different. I hadn't thought of Schindler's List, but that's a perfect example of a film using mainly sepia tones for a specific aesthetic effect — both because most of the photos and footage of that era are in sepia or black and white, and because (I'm guessing this is also the intention) it's documenting atrocities that could be seen metaphorically as draining the colour out of the world. But as we've both said now, because Narnia is a fantasy world and so is Oz, that's going to be the first thing people think of if a new Narnia adaptation tries to do something similar.

I think the only scene where I can imagine something like it working is the one you already mentioned earlier, where Digory brings the apple from Narnia into his mother's room. The narrative says it straight out:

There were of course all sorts of coloured things in the bedroom; the coloured counterpane on the bed, the wall-paper, the sunlight from the window, and Mother's pretty, pale blue dressing jacket. But the moment Digory took the Apple out of his pocket, all those other things seemed to have scarcely any colour at all. Every one of them, even the sunlight, looked faded and dingy. The brightness of the Apple threw strange lights on the ceiling. Nothing else was worth looking at: indeed you couldn't look at anything else. And the smell of the Apple of Youth was as if there was a window in the room that opened on Heaven.

That could be done on screen pretty much as described — so that the apple is the only bright thing we see (although not brightly coloured... canonically, it's silver ) and all the things around it fade to, if not quite sepia tones, much more muted colours than they had before Digory took the apple out. But that's one thing I'd want to leave up to the judgment of (I hope) a really good, really talented film-maker, simply because it could easily be overdone, to the point of looking glurgy and saccharine. (You know, cue the high-pitched angel chorus for the background music, while we're at it. ) Like the creation of Narnia itself, it's something that sounds truly wondrous on paper, but how to translate it into a visual format is something that needs a lot of care and thought for it to have the right effect.

I actually watched the BBC series for the first time on an old black and white television set. I don’t think it made much difference since I enjoyed it just as much as when I saw it in color at a later time. Since the BBC series was designed to look old fashioned I didn’t mind it at all. It was on a PBS station which offered other serials based on books such as Masterpiece Theatre programs from the novels of Charles Dickens. I actually found it quite enjoyable. Today those TV sets are considered mostly obsolete, but I have to admit they had a kind of nostalgic charm when watching a Narnia adaptation.  🙂

Does anyone here remember the Viewmaster reels from the 1960’s?   I always wished they would have made them of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.  There were some of them that were based on classic children’s stories such as Alice in Wonderland and A Christmas Carol.  They were color pictures presented in three dimensions, and there were many different topics.  It would have been interesting to see Narnia in that format.  And I think the pictures would have encouraged children to read the original books.

I can think of one, I repeat, one instance where it would make sense to have part of a Narnia movie be in black and white and the other part in color. For The Last Battle, you could have the Real Narnia and Aslan's Country be in color and everything prior be in black and white. However, I wouldn't want any of the other Narnia films to be in black and white so that would probably just be weird. 

Actually, having the Real Narnia be in 3D would be closer to what C. S. Lewis described in The Last Battle. 3D gives me a terrible headache though. 

I really wish I could think of a good way to convey the Real Narnia in a movie. The Last Battle is such a great book, but the ending is kind of unfilmable. 

Posted by: @icarus

Side note - in my opinion, the best recent use of B/W photography in a film was in Dune 2, which was shot using Infrared cameras. It gives the whole sequence this incredible otherworldly look, and really tied in well with the overall aesthetic of the scene.

I know I'm replying to my own comment here, but thinking about it, I wouldn't actually mind them using the Dune 2 effect for depicting Charn - i.e. a world that's become so devoid of life it's literally had the colour sapped out of it.

Admittedly, doing this also runs the risk of stealing someone else's gimmick (as per the Oz comparisons) but it's such an interesting visual aesthetic (not quite traditional black & white in that sense) that I'd definitely like to see more of it in cinema in general.

https://www.polygon.com/24087644/dune-2-black-and-white-harkonnen-arena-scene-infrared-ir-cameras-part-two