Uncanny Colours of the Past. Phenomenological Notes on Remediation and Colourization of Black-and-White Footage

The article analyses the problem of colouring black and white archival footage in Spain in Two Trenches: The Civil War in Colour (Espana en dos trincheras . La guerra civil en color, Francesc Ecribano and Luis Carrizo, 2016), which was made by digitizing and colouring more than 450 surviving films of the Spanish Civil War. The analysis focuses on the kind of affects and perceptual mechanisms which might ensue from the colourization of archival black and white footage, and on the justification of the use of colour to authenticate an event that has already happened. At the beginning of the paper, the author briefly reviews the approaches of the increasingly close relationship between mediatization and memory, then focuses on the justification of colourization in the light of the Spanish documentary and compares it with issues of perceptual realism. In the final part of the analysis, the author examines the historical consequences of the reconfiguration of the past in colour.

Automated summary

This article analyzes the issue of coloring black and white archival footage in Spain and explores the emotions and perceptual mechanisms that may arise from colorization, as well as the justification for using color to authenticate past events. The author briefly discusses the relationship between mediatization and memory and compares the use of colorization with issues of perceptual realism. In the final section, the author examines the historical consequences of reconstructing the past in color.