Entertainment desk
< November 21	<< Oct \| November \| Dec >>	November 23 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Entertainment Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

November 22

Fade to black

Resolved

– Queuing up Breathless, The 400 Blows, and Hiroshima mon amour

Fade (lighting) is unsourced and unhelpful so I thought I would ask my question here: what happened to the fade to black technique in film, and when did it go out of fashion? It was obviously used in theatre first, and then in films. At some point, it fell out of fashion and film transitioned to new styles and editing techniques, I’m guessing in the 1980s? It’s weird, because you find it everywhere in film up until the early 1970s, at which point it disappears. Was there a technological advancement of some kind in terms of film stock, cameras, or technology in general, or just a realization that film should no longer try to mimic theatre and should devise its own style? I guess what I’m really asking is when did the fade to black style as a transition from scene to scene fall out of style and what was the reason? Viriditas (talk) 06:32, 22 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The article is Fade (filmmaking), a redirect to Dissolve (filmmaking). The later paragraphs of its section Use discuss its falling out of grace in favour of the jump cut. --Lambiam 13:03, 22 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

But that discussion is about dissolves as opposed to jump cuts (i.e. to further action), whereas the question was specifically about fading to black (i.e. at the end). --174.89.144.126 (talk) 15:56, 22 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think Lambiam pointed me in the right direction. The article in question points to the French New Wave as responsible for changing the direction of the fade, and the timeline does seem to make sense. Also, I think I knew this a long time ago but forgot it, so it’s a reminder for me to watch some old Godard films and try to see how they changed the fade. Thanks, Lambiam. Viriditas (talk) 18:46, 22 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

"Fade to black" is also the usual term for a transition between two shots in which the screen, at the end of a shot (typically the last shot of a scene), fades to all black and goes from there to the next shot. The term of art is not reserved for a final fade-out. --Lambiam 20:37, 22 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly, and it can be confusing. Viriditas (talk) 20:57, 22 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Passing on a note to you Viriditas. I've heard a film scholar or two discuss the idea that fading to black takes a viewer into the interior of their imagination. They then point out that the opposite happens with a fade to white which takes a viewer to the harsh reality of what they've seen, I don't know if I fully subscribe to this notion but Rainer Werner Fassbinder uses fade to white a bunch in Berlin Alexanderplatz (miniseries) and the harsh bleakness of that story really comes through. I'm not sure if Scorsese's use, of a fade to yellow in The Age of Innocence (1993 film) has any meaning or not :-) All of this may be quite useless to what you are doing but I thought I'd mention it on the off chance. Enjoy your Godard viewing! Regards. MarnetteD|Talk 02:13, 23 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Scorcese discusses his fades to colour in an interview with Mark Cousins, available on YouTube: [1]. --Lambiam 10:52, 23 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Great Lambiam. Thanks for the link :-) MarnetteD|Talk 15:13, 23 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Viriditas: Try also Review: Une Femme Mariée and The Hybrid Realism of Godard's Vivre sa vie. I haven't watched King Lear (1987 film) recently, but the B&W intertitles may achieve a similar effect. MinorProphet (talk) 16:32, 23 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]