80 years of female portraits in film

August 14, 2007 12:58 AM

Women In Film, similar to the previously posted Women In Art
posted by aerotive (22 comments total)

Women in Art is better, if only because actresses are shallow and immaterial.
posted by dhammond at 1:09 AM on August 14, 2007

I recognized a lot more of the earlier ones...maybe because I'm not used to seeing more recent actors in black and white.
posted by frobozz at 1:10 AM on August 14, 2007

Women in Art is better, if only because actresses are shallow and immaterial.

Hmm... as a blanket condemnation that seems a wee bit harsh, no? Oh well, anyway, I think it has a lot to do with paintings being a better medium for this morphing stuff than photographs. Too many transitions are too crude, to "seeable".

Otherwise, I counted all of TWO non-white actresses. That's kinda lame.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 1:36 AM on August 14, 2007

I'll always admire Gloria Swanson for her role in Sunset Boulevard.
posted by BrotherCaine at 1:46 AM on August 14, 2007

Cute, but why are there only Hollywood actresses (with some exceptions thrown in)? No Liv Ullmann, no Gina Lollobrigida, no Gong Li, no Silvana Mangano, no Michele Morgan, no Maria Felix, no Jeanne Moreau, no Carmen Maura (Rossy de Palma: now she would have been an interesting challenge...) etc. Film != Hollywood. I know I'm bitching for no good reason about something that's actually cool, but the Hollywood-centric perspective of film-making is always a little bit grating.
posted by elgilito at 3:16 AM on August 14, 2007 [1 favorite]

way creepier than the original. especially for the first quarter or so, where all the actresses look so similar that you can pick out the single significant feature that changes from one to the other. Somewhere around Marylin Monroe things get a little less spooky.
posted by es_de_bah at 5:33 AM on August 14, 2007

It's cool to see the greater diversity in facial features (if not skin color) in later years.
posted by desjardins at 6:23 AM on August 14, 2007

All their noses look the same.

I saw this first on another forum I frequent. There was a bit of discussion about the lack of Black actresses and why. The general consensus was that it was probably because their photos wouldn't have morphed in as easily because of certain "typical" facial features. Giving the author the benefit of the doubt, maybe it really was just about the noses (and the lips) but I think at least Halle Berry could have fit in there relatively easily.
posted by fuse theorem at 6:44 AM on August 14, 2007

Where's Cate Blanchett? Boo. I'm glad it was early film heavy at least.
posted by spec80 at 6:54 AM on August 14, 2007

I think at least Halle Berry could have fit in there relatively easily.

Isn't the last one Halle Berry?
posted by waterlily at 6:56 AM on August 14, 2007

any idea what technique and or software was used to make the morphs?
posted by Grod at 7:53 AM on August 14, 2007

Looking at it again it almost looks like they chose pictures based on similarity of pose and then cross-faded from one to the next. Would the brain pick up on the most similar features and provides the illusion of metamorphosis, or is there more going on here?
posted by Grod at 7:55 AM on August 14, 2007

Grod, probably just WinMorph. It's free, too.
posted by fake at 7:56 AM on August 14, 2007

It's a well known computer graphics technique, which is much different than just fading from one image to the next.
posted by fake at 7:57 AM on August 14, 2007

Creeeeepy. Not because they all look the same but because you're watching real people morph into other real people. They start to look like aliens after a while. "Women in Art" was beautiful, though.
posted by katillathehun at 8:13 AM on August 14, 2007

I think at least Halle Berry could have fit in there relatively easily.

Isn't the last one Halle Berry?

That's interesting because when I saw the video last week Halle Berry and Angela Bassett were not in there, and I'm 98% confident Dorothy Dandridge wasn't in there either. I guess the author added them after they saw the comments? Good on them but perhaps these women should have been there to begin with instead of as an afterthought.
posted by fuse theorem at 12:59 PM on August 14, 2007

I very much liked Women in Art. But I did not enjoy Women in Film. When morphing is applied to photographic human faces, the results are almost always a little creepy or grotesque. This may come down to personal taste, but it does make me recoil -- the way I recoil from clowns.
posted by McLir at 2:17 PM on August 14, 2007

Some morphing faces with 1985 technology Godley and Creme - Cry
posted by vronsky at 3:09 PM on August 14, 2007

White Women in American Film
White Women in Western Art
posted by Slam I Am at 3:37 PM on August 14, 2007

Lots of multi-ethnic morphing at the end (3:34) of this video, including the star who morphed from a black man into a white woman;) It is like the Benetton of morphing videos. Everybody happy now?
posted by vronsky at 4:16 PM on August 14, 2007

It's also interesting to note the change in portrait photography styles from the beginning to the end.
posted by KingoftheWhales at 4:31 PM on August 14, 2007

Just as creepy as the art one. I think that if they stayed on each face for a second it might be better.
posted by philomathoholic at 1:56 AM on August 15, 2007