Vienna tram ride colorized 1906

[Schenkerian]

Just slightly shy of 80 years after the death of Schubert and deeply affecting as it has his music accompanying the images of people long, long dead. Those workers certainly took risks working on the tram line up until the last second it passed by. You just couldn't do that today! Perhaps Hollywood can identify the last section of the journey as the tram heads along the Ring towards Schwarzenberg Platz, past the Apotheke!! I got lost. It seemed to jump from one place to another.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBLpxvlEhnI

[Peter]

Yes wonderful that they can do this now and slow the fast moving images to normal. How beautiful Vienna looks and the people so smart. I expect to see Mahler walk out of the opera house!

[Chris]

The color really does make it feel more real. Amazing!

[Quijote]

Yes wonderful that they can do this now and slow the fast moving images to normal. How beautiful Vienna looks and the people so smart. I expect to see Mahler walk out of the opera house!

I love this sort of stuff, it really brings the past alive. I was watching the video attentively, looking out for the young Hitler selling his wares (watercolours) on some street parallel to the tramline but then I realised he wasn't there until 1908! No matter, it was fascinating to see Vienna as it was back in the day and it only takes a bit of imagination to go back a few decades more and imagine Vienna as it was in Beethoven's day. Reading the first volume of the Beethoven Conversation Books helps me visualise all that.
I have to say though that it also makes me feel very melancholic, to see all these people going about their daily lives and who are now long dead, as we will all be one day.

[Quijote]

The color really does make it feel more real. Amazing!

It does, doesn't it. I'm not a "black and white" snob, one of those effetes that swear by monochrome film; colour does it for me.

[Schenkerian]

This one of Paris from the end of the 19th century is speed-corrected with sound added, but it's not colorized. Notre Dame as silent witness to the centuries:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjDclfAFRB4

There are others in this restored format available of Berlin, Amsterdam and New York, but I'm skeptical of the claims when some of these were actually photographed because of the cars and other commodities being used. Some anachronistic elements have probably arisen as a result of putting the images together for the purposes of restoration, with some of them being simply too short as stand-alone historical records.

Here are some very old still photographs of Vienna, claimed to be from 1858-1912: I have some doubts about the date of that 1858 image myself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o51Pi-RYeZE

[Hollywood]

That film was made back back in the days when traffic in Vienna was on the left hand side just like in the U.K. It remained like that until Hitler took over Austria in 1938 and he changed the traffic direction to the right hand side.

Now about the line that goes by that Apotheke. I haven't been downtown where that tram line is in about 18 months. Thanks to Covid I pretty much stay around home here in Heiligenstadt. It has been so long since I have traveled downtown that I can't remember which tram lines goes where. I know that there are only 2 lines that actually go around the Ring but there are 7 tram lines that depart from Schottentor and go outside of the Ring area. Once Covid is no longer a threat I will take a trip downtown but I feel that won't happen until at least 2022. Parts of Austria are going through another Covid outbreak but at least for the moment Vienna has avoided another outbreak, knock on wood.

[Chris]

It does, doesn't it. I'm not a "black and white" snob, one of those effetes that swear by monochrome film; colour does it for me.

For realism, it makes a big difference. But for some TV and films, black and white does something special itself. The Andy Griffith Show will always work better in black and white for me. And even modern films like Pi deliberately used black and white to great effect.

[Peter]

For realism, it makes a big difference. But for some TV and films, black and white does something special itself. The Andy Griffith Show will always work better in black and white for me. And even modern films like Pi deliberately used black and white to great effect.

Schindler's list also comes to mind.

[Schenkerian]

For realism, it makes a big difference. But for some TV and films, black and white does something special itself. The Andy Griffith Show will always work better in black and white for me. And even modern films like Pi deliberately used black and white to great effect.

Woody Allen works in black and white; "Manhattan" is a film which simply looks magnificent and there are plenty of modern films which also require a special kind of artistry to highlight the velvety hues and chiaroscuro tones to be found in black and white. The wonderful British cinematographer Roger Deakins specializes in this medium, mainly for the Coen Brothers, as did Sven Nykvist (for Bergman and Allen) and, of course, two of the greatest masters were Gregg Toland and Karl Freund..

This scene from "Dr. Strangelove" is a symphony in black and white:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZct-itCwPE

But this is straying away from the topic.

[Schenkerian]

Just to deviate again briefly; "Dracula",1931 Tod Browning, director and Karl Freund cinematographer. It's impossible to think of this film being made in colour but the hues are wonderfully gloomy and match the subject matter. It's important to understand that in these earlier times of cinema most decisions about whether black and white or Technicolor were made with purely budgetary considerations, since colour was so much more expensive and required bigger cameras. This scene is delicious with its shafts of light and in 1931 the sound is still quite 'drummy' because of early sound technology.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_N-H_5Pvu8

[Hollywood]

Just to deviate again briefly; "Dracula",1931 Tod Browning, director and Karl Freund cinematographer. It's impossible to think of this film being made in colour but the hues are wonderfully gloomy and match the subject matter. It's important to understand that in these earlier times of cinema most decisions about whether black and white or Technicolor were made with purely budgetary considerations, since colour was so much more expensive and required bigger cameras. This scene is delicious with its shafts of light and in 1931 the sound is still quite 'drummy' because of early sound technology.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_N-H_5Pvu8

I agree with you. Being that this is one of my top 3 films, I have seen it more than 50 times. I could never imagine seeing this film in color. I think colorizing it would ruin it.

I was always curious as to what they used in these old films for blood. I eventually found out from that Universal Studios tour eons ago that for any blood scenes they used chocolate syrup. I love it! Also I love my favorite line that Count Dracula said in this film: "There are far worse things awaiting man than death". So true...

[Schenkerian]

The chocolate syrup was used in "Psycho" (that old facade of Norman's house was at Universal; I saw it in 1971) as the film was in black and white. For colour film a mixture of food colouring in balloons with thickening agents are used.

I'm totally opposed to computer-colourization of motion pictures, regarding that as an act of vandalism. Woody Allen has spoken about this too, quite a lot. Thankfully that practice has now ceased.

But I do think colourization of those historic documentary images of Vienna (and other cities) really brings the city to life.

Same with speed correction from circa 22fps up to 24fps This standardization was a consequence of synchronization/sound technology. Before that cine-cameras were hand-cranked with increasing degrees of technological improvement in the cranking mechanism. These days with digital, camera speeds are no longer relevant - this latter became a problem for cinema-owners having to convert to expensive new technology. And now we have streaming on the computers, so what was that investment all for, after all? Who'd be in the movie-making business these days!!!?? Perhaps the moguls and their integrated system of studios and theatres, broken up by fiat in the 1950s, was the most cost-effective model after all!!

When I worked in television in the 1970s we used mostly black and white 16mm film for documentaries - and occasionally colour, depending on our budget. For the very infrequent slow motion scenes we used a Mitchell variable speed camera, which shot at much slower speeds and when played back it was fast at 24pfs. The Mitchell had a very noisy motor but it didn't matter as sound couldn't be used with slo-mo then. It was a much smaller camera, as I recall, than the standard Arriflex we used. So long ago....

[Henrik Stromberg]

Just slightly shy of 80 years after the death of Schubert and deeply affecting as it has his music accompanying the images of people long, long dead. Those workers certainly took risks working on the tram line up until the last second it passed by. You just couldn't do that today! Perhaps Hollywood can identify the last section of the journey as the tram heads along the Ring towards Schwarzenberg Platz, past the Apotheke!! I got lost. It seemed to jump from one place to another.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBLpxvlEhnI

Beautiful. People are the same in any age. Going somewhere, doing something, main gadget is tram. No nuclear weapons, no global wars.

[Schenkerian]

Yes, there's something deeply affecting looking at people who are now long dead going about their daily lives over 100 years ago. Reminds me of that scene from the film "Dead Poet's Society" where the English teacher Keating tells the boys to 'seize the day' as they stare at pictures of students from decades ago who are now "fertilizing Daffodils". He tells them 'they were just like you; full of hormones'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vi0Lbjs5ECI