Why Black and White Endures

Black and white is not a limitation, it is a language. Shadows carry moral weight in film noir, faces become landscapes in closeup, and abstraction sharpens attention to form.

Citizen Kane, Seven Samurai, and 12 Angry Men use monochrome as design. Modern directors return to it deliberately, from Raging Bull in 1980 to The Artist in 2011.

Give a classic monochrome film ten minutes and the eye adjusts. The images stay..