Abstract
In 1927, a group of young Parisian cinéphiles founded the so-called Ligue du noir et blanc, positioning colour in the domain of the commercial, and black and white in that of the artistic cinema. This dichotomy between colour and black and white in cinema is still part of our present-day film-historical dis courses. As a result, the ligue strongly defined our relationship to early col our films in the archives and film museums. To better understand the 1920s debate, I position it within the broader French discourse on colour and film art, showing that there were other voices that declared colour to be an excel lent element to use in an artistic way. The debate was not as black and white as our current historiographical knowledge might make us believe.
Lameris, Bregt