Contemporary visual culture mostly represents war and its tragedies through archive images or low-resolution clips. Amateur footage shot by civilians and journalists on the site often appear in the news; and war documentaries rarely use digital reconstructions, preferring original pictures. That’s because the rawness and the immediacy of these images conveys a sense of authenticity and truthness to the spectator. However, we have to ask ourselves some questions. Can these archive images and low-resolution clips be considered original just for their appearance? In fact, high-definition pictures or movies could portray a war situation in a truthful way as well. And also, can the manipulation of archive images alterate their authenticity? Can it be considered as an improvement, a restoration?
An interesting example is offered by the documentaries from Apocalypse. The French series was created by Isabelle Clarke and Daniel Costelle for the television broadcaster “France 2”. In these documentaries, dedicated to the First and Second World War and to the figures of Hitler and Stalin, only archival images appear. Originally in black and white, these images were artificially colored through digital techniques. However, the choice of colors was not casual. In fact, the authors had tried to reproduce the effect of autochrome photographs of the 10s for the series dedicated to the First World War; while for the Second World War pictures they used the color spectrum of the first cinematographic films. The controversial result involves two different journey over time. One from the past to the present; as the colorful images recall the contemporary visual universe, which is completely in color. And one from the present to the past; since the colors of the pictures recall the style of past times. In this way the producers have introduced archive images in the current visual culture while still keeping a distance from it through the use of a color spectrum perceived by the viewer as belonging to another era.
