What’s it like when you’re about to die?

“Well, it’s like pulling away from the maze. While you’re in the maze you go through willy-nilly, turning where you think you have to turn, banging into dead ends, one thing after another. But get some distance on it, and all those twists and turns, why, they’re the shape of your life. It’s hard to explain, but seeing it whole gives you some peace.”

These are the words of Ed Crane (Billy Bob Thorton), a man who isn’t really a barber. He’s been sentenced to death for a crime he didn’t really commit. How he got there isn’t really straightforward. Only one thing is certain: this could only be a Coen Brothers production.

The Man Who Wasn’t There is a modern film in black and white, falling somewhere in between the works of Raymond Chandler and Albert Camus. It has all the trappings of noir: a deadpan, sardonic protagonist, a heavily shadowed atmosphere, and a crime of both money and passion. But its idea, the question it poses over and over, is undeniably modern. “What kind of man are you?” Ed is asked, repeatedly. But being just another gear in the machinery of society, it’s a question he’s hard-pressed to find an answer to.

Many moviegoers would ask why anyone would willingly film a movie in black and white. It’s often been seen as the restriction of an era and medium. After all, as history has shown us, if directors could film in color, they did. Well, not quite.

The advent of color film as we know it is popularly associated with Technicolor in the 1940s and 50s. In reality, the first movie with color was made in 1895, soon after Thomas Edison had a working prototype of the Kinetoscope viewer. It was titled Anabelle Butterfly Dance (Youtube Link) and each frame was hand-painted. Annabelle Whitford was a vaudeville dancer, specializing in racy, exotic routines. This movie was soon banned after being publically shown. Soon after, A Trip to the Moon (1902), known as the first science fiction film, also utilized color in order to enhance its visual effects. There were other methods besides hand-painting, such as tinting the film a solid color or using toning to color dark parts of the film. These effects were typically used to invoke an atmosphere: blue tinting was often symbolic of a night scene whereas magenta tinting could be used for the warm hearth of a home. The first full-color talking movie was titled On With the Snow (1929).

So why did it take over sixty years to catch on? The profit of such films never outweighed the cost: moviegoers simply didn’t care that much more for color over black and white. Without the demand, color films remained a novelty until they were cheap enough to make for the masses.

In fact, The Man Who Wasn’t There is a working experiment that shows black and white cinematography can often be essential to the story itself. With their obsessive attention to detail, the Coens didn’t just set out to create a homage to the noir genre, they created a film that from all appearances could have existed nearly sixty years ago. Much of the movie is made with black and white in mind. The drabness of Ed’s life is well-suited to the medium. The interplay of light and shadow create contrasts between characters and settings. Seeing Ed walk with half of his face obscured is a telling indication of his nature. Cigarette smoke becomes an integral prop–Ed chain smokes through nearly every scene in the movie. The curling wisps of smoke in the light create a surrealism to an otherwise hard reality. With slight adjustments to the lighting and exposure, the cinematographer, Roger Deakins, effortlessly creates scenes of banality, mystery, and drama.

The film, however, does more than showcase style. The story of Ed Crane’s fall is carefully balanced between personalities and the circumstances driving them. There are many characters woven into the plot, some of them more important than others. Yet all of them have distinct traits and mannerisms that make them stand out on their own. Ed is perhaps the most paradoxical of them all.

He could be called an “everyman,” except that there’s not an ounce of variety in him. There’s little that he reacts to. His low, dispassionate voice rarely betrays any emotion. All in all, he makes a brick wall look lively. So what’s his appeal?

Something is writhing underneath the surface of Ed. His expression lies somewhere in between discontent and disgust. He finds out that his wife is sleeping with her boss, Big Dave Brewster. Does he care? It’s hard to tell where he stands with it all.

Then one day at the barber shop, a sleazy entrepreneur is looking for venture capital for a business he wants to start. It’s the future of the service industry. It’s called dry-cleaning. At first Ed barely pays him any mind, but the thought of becoming something more than a barber at his brother-in-law’s shop begins to eat at him. He decides to put up the $10,000 capital. How is he getting the money? He’s going to blackmail Big Dave, threatening to expose his affair with Mrs. Crane. Maybe he doesn’t care all that much.

The plot spirals out from there with key characters dying and people you wouldn’t expect to be accused of the crimes ending up in jail. Along the way, there are some illuminating performances by Frances McDormand, Tony Shalhoub, and Scarlett Johansson.

Does Ed ever find out what kind of man he is? Maybe, maybe not. Perhaps what he finds out in the end is that the search for our identity in this brave new world becomes our identity. And by the time that search comes to its inevitable end, we’ve stop caring about what we were looking for in the first place.

Bill likes to follow people. It isn’t a sexual thing or anything like that; he just picks someone at random and begins to follow him or her. He wants to see where they go, what they do, and who they talk to. He wants to be able to pick a face out of a crowd and come to know who that person really is.

It’s an exercise in character development. Bill wants to be a writer.

Then Bill (Jeremy Theobald) makes the mistake of following the same person twice: a clean cut, good-looking man in his twenties that is always carrying a bag. He follows the mark into a cafe, at which point the tables are turned on him: the mark gets up, sits down at Bill’s table, and looks him straight in the eye.

This is how Bill and Cobb (Alex Haw) meet. Perhaps there is something in Cobb’s mannerisms that triggers a sense of familiarity with Bill. It ends up that they aren’t all that different. Cobb also likes to get to know people. He breaks into apartments and homes not only to fence valuables, but to violate sentimental keepsakes.

You see, according to Cobb, everyone has a box. Sometimes it’s a fancy deal, most times it’s just a cardboard shoe box. But it always holds little, seemingly unrelated, odds and ends that delve deeply into who a person is. Photographs, sea horses, stones, strands of hair…

Cobb always makes sure that they know he’s been through all of these things. He says that people want these things to be found. It’s an exhibitionism that’s ingrained into all of us. Cobb just helps make it happen.

Seeing yet another opportunity to study “character,” Bill decides to tag along with Cobb in order to write a story about him. Of course, it never occurs to Bill that Cobb also has something in mind for him.

Following is the first in a series of modern black and white films that will be reviewed. Often people only associate older films with the medium. But there’s a whole sub-genre of films that have all the sensibilities of the latest thrillers. Sometimes it’s a matter of budget, and other times for aesthetics. Following falls somewhere in between the two. Directed by Christopher Nolan on a budget of $6,000, the film has all the narrative elements that fans would later recognize in Memento; the most notable being the lack of chronology.

If shown from start to finish, Following really couldn’t pass as a mystery. Nolan, however, infuses the motivations and outcomes of the characters with mystery by playing different story arcs out of order, all the while still maintaining a coherent narrative. Not easy, not by a long shot. It takes meticulous outlining and a very clear mind for what needs to be filmed ahead of time. The black and white stock creates an air of noir, providing the Following with a sophistication that would otherwise be lost with color film, given the equipment that he had to work with.

The fact that Following can hang with Memento and Insomnia is not only a testament to Nolan’s writing and directing, but also his aesthetic sense.

Of all the crimes that Hollywood could be accused of, its treatment of silent films is perhaps the worst. During the first twenty years, thousands upon thousands of films were made annually. In 1909 alone, Mary Pickford starred in over fifty films. This created a massive back catalog. There was, however, one problem: with the huge output of new films each year, early Hollywood saw little value in replaying last year’s fare.

There were countless warehouses in Los Angeles with reel tins stacked to the ceiling. In the sweltering heat, miles of film stock would often spontaneously combust due to the silver nitrate in them. Sometimes it wasn’t so accidental: studios would destroy decades’ worth of irreplaceable art to make room for copies of the newest talkie. Of all the silent films that were produced, between 80% and 90% have been lost or destroyed.

Silent film actors weren’t treated much better.

Once seen as Hollywood’s royalty, most of the Golden Era’s greats could not make the transition to talking films. Clara Bow, the original “It” girl, lost her considerable fanbase when they finally heard her lower class Brooklyn accent. Mabel Normand found that despite being the female Charlie Chaplin, her inability to project her voice dimmed her performances. Pola Negri, a vamp once lusted after by millions, met a cold reception with her thick Polish accent.

These stars were but a few that saw the door of opportunity slam in their face with the advent of talkies. The reason for their failure may not be apparent at first. This is often due to the misconception that silent films were simply films without sound. In reality, however, they were entirely different art-forms which emphasized different aspects of an actor’s repetoire. The necessity of extremely expressive faces became nearly comical when an actor could simply say what was going on in a character’s mind. For many, this drastic shift turned the paradigm of acting upside-down: what was a strength yesterday was now a glaring weakness today.

It was precisely this abandonment, this sense of disenfranchisement, that lies at the heart of Sunset Boulevard. The film opens with a narration from Joe Gillis (William Holden), a screenplay hack with a few B titles to his name. We first meet Joe in an upward perspective shot as he’s floating face down in a swimming pool with two bullets in his back. Detectives and newspaper photographers look on.

Even Joe admits that this was would be a fairly unremarkable event in LA, where the good old days never were. But this murder is unique in that happened in a rundown mansion on Sunset Blvd. owned by the once-great Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson). This was something that would make headlines.

Although he is the first to be introduced, Joe really isn’t the focus of the movie, merely its catalyst. It’s Norma Desmond, frozen in a single frame of her past glory, that holds this momentary world together. She bides her time, working on a screenplay that she believes will usher her name back into the spotlight. Joe is brought in to help edit it, although he quickly finds out that it’s futile: the writing is train wreck and Norma won’t stand to see a single word changed. She was, after all, an international star. Joe attempts to tell her that the script needs more dialog, but to no avail:

“There was a time when this business had the eyes of the whole wide world. But that wasn’t enough. Oh, no! They wanted the ears of the world, too. So they opened their big mouths, and out came talk, talk, talk!”

But so long as she continues to lavish clothes, jewelry, and attention, Joe is willing to maintain the illusion. Part of this small world is Max von Mayerling (Max von Stroheim), a servant who seems just as intent as Norma in keeping her fantasy. Not surprisingly, this convenient business arrangement begins to have more intimate overtones on Norma’s part. Joe is then torn between a nice gig and an evermore controlling woman.

The stakes are raised when the present reality of life slowly begins to intrudes on Norma. Joe meets Betty Shaefer (Nancy Olson), a fellow writer, and collaborates with her on a real script. The situation further mirrors Norma’s world when Joe and Betty begin to have an affair. This self-reflective triangle of characters is an effective comparison between different realities.

In the end, we find out just what it takes to maintain Norma’s reality.

If it were just that, Sunset Boulevard would be a fairly entertaining movie and little else. But this idea of what is reality in such a place as Hollywood was taken another step with director Billy Wilder. It wasn’t enough for a movie to tell a story, it had to be part of the story.

There are a number of uncomfortable parallels in Sunset Boulevard with the reality of Hollywood. During preproduction, Wilder wanted to cast an actress who not only would play a former silent star, but in reality was one. He approached a number of actresses without any luck. Mae West thought herself too young at 57 to play the part. Mary Pickford stared at Wilder horrified when he described the story; she believed that the movie would tarnish her wholesome image. Pola Negri reportedly threw a fit at the thought of being portrayed as a has-been. Her accent didn’t help matters, either.

Finally, they found a star willing to take the risk: Gloria Swanson. This almost fell through also when Paramount requested a screen test from her. After having done many films with Paramount, Swanson thought it insulting. Her friend, realizing the potential of the role, threatened to shoot her if she didn’t swallow her pride. The rest is history.

All the photos that Norma Desmond had of herself in the house were publicity stills during the height of Swanson’s career. The movie that Norma screens for Joe was a clip from a movie that Swanson had starred in, Queen Kelly (1929). The director of that movie? None other than the servant, Max. When he states that there were three promising directors in the early days of Hollywood: D.W. Griffith, Cecil B. De Mille, and Max von Mayerling, it wasn’t far from the truth. Max was in fact one of the most prominent directors alongside Griffith and De Mille. Much like in the movie, Max had been reduced over time to starring in bit roles where he played stereotypical Nazi characters and butlers.

When Norma visits Cecil B. De Mille on his Paramount set, De Mille was indeed filming for a new movie of his: Samson and Delilah. All of the actors and crew were there to film a scene. When De Mille calls Norma “young fellow,” this was a reference to the pet name that he had for Swanson back when he directed her.

Norma’s friends, “the waxworks,” were all actors of the silent era: Buster Keaton, H.B. Warner, and Anna Nilsson. All of the industry people referred to in the movie either existed or were alive at the time.

Not surprisingly, all of these references went over like a fart in church with industry icons. During a preview of Sunset Boulevard in Paramount studios, legendary producer Louis B. Mayer screamed that Wilder should be tarred, feathered, and whipped for sullying Paramount’s “reputation.” Wilder’s response to Mayer? “Fuck you.”

Mayer’s reaction was understandable. It was an embarrassing blemish on the history of Hollywood. In a sense, it accurately reflected the nature of this industry: you’re only as good as your last movie. Those that Tinseltown adores one day will be forgotten the next. The fate of many of its stars was best described by Joe as he observed Norma:

“Poor devil, still waving proudly to a parade which had long since passed her by.”

What was lost in those studio warehouses was more than just movies, it was an entire era of the silver screen. Its stars and scandals are mostly lost to us, now. Thus, Billy Wilder’s final touch on Sunset Boulevard is perhaps his most poignant: it was the last movie to ever be filmed on silver nitrate.