Chromatic Cinema a History of Screen Color Richard Misek
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Chromatic Cinema A History of Screen Color Richard Misek A John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Publication 9781444332391_1_pretoc.indd iii 1/22/2010 10:14:29 AM 9781444332391_1_pretoc.indd ii 1/22/2010 10:14:29 AM Chromatic Cinema 9781444332391_1_pretoc.indd i 1/22/2010 10:14:29 AM 9781444332391_1_pretoc.indd ii 1/22/2010 10:14:29 AM Chromatic Cinema A History of Screen Color Richard Misek A John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Publication 9781444332391_1_pretoc.indd iii 1/22/2010 10:14:29 AM This edition first published 2010 © 2010 Richard Misek Blackwell Publishing was acquired by John Wiley & Sons in February 2007. Blackwell’s publishing program has been merged with Wiley’s global Scientific, Technical, and Medical business to form Wiley-Blackwell. Registered Office John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, United Kingdom Editorial Offices 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148-5020, USA 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK For details of our global editorial offices, for customer services, and for information about how to apply for permission to reuse the copyright material in this book please see our website at www.wiley.com/wiley-blackwell. The right of Richard Misek to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accord- ance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or other wise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, without the prior permission of the publisher. Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book are trade names, service marks, trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publisher is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. This publication is designed to provide accurate and authorita- tive information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold on the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Misek, Richard, 1971– Chromatic cinema : a history of screen color / by Richard Misek. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4443-3239-1 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Color cinematography–History. 2. Colors in motion pictures. I. Title. TR853.M57 2010 778.5′342–dc22 2009037084 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Set in 10.5/13pt Minion by SPi Publisher Services, Pondicherry, India Printed in Singapore 01 2010 9781444332391_1_pretoc.indd iv 1/22/2010 10:14:29 AM To Marcus, for the motivation To mum, for everything else 9781444332391_1_pretoc.indd v 1/22/2010 10:14:30 AM 9781444332391_1_pretoc.indd vi 1/22/2010 10:14:30 AM Contents List of Plates ix Acknowledgments xi Introduction 1 1. Film Color 14 Coloration in Early Cinema, 1895–1927 14 The Rise of Technicolor, 1915–35 25 Chromatic Cold War: Black-and-White and Color in Opposition 29 “Technicolor Is Natural Color”: Color and Realism, 1935–58 35 Chromatic Thaw: Hollywood’s Transition to Color, 1950–67 41 2. Surface Color 50 Color in European Film, 1936–67 50 Chromatic Ambivalence: Art Cinema’s Transition to Color 57 “Painting with Light”: Cinema’s Imaginary Art History 65 Unmotivated Chromatic Hybridity 68 Monochrome Purgatory: Absent Color in the Soviet Bloc, 1966–75 77 3. Absent Color 83 Black-and-White as Technological Relic, 1965–83 83 Black-and-White Flashbacks: Codifying Temporal Rebirth 89 9781444332391_2_toc.indd vii 1/22/2010 6:34:17 PM Black-and-White Films, 1967–2007 97 Nostalgia and Pastiche 111 4. Optical Color 117 Cinema’s Newtonian Optics 117 White Light: Hollywood’s Invisible Ideology 122 Darkness Visible: From Natural Light to “Neo-Noir,” 1968–83 132 Cinematography and Color Filtration, 1977–97 139 Case Study: Seeing Red in Psycho 147 5. Digital Color 152 Crossing the Chromatic Wall in Wings of Desire 152 An Archaeology of Digital Intermediate, 1989–2000 155 Digital Color Aesthetics, 2000–9 164 Conclusion: Painting by Numbers? 179 Notes 181 Bibliography 195 Index 210 viii Contents 9781444332391_2_toc.indd viii 1/22/2010 6:34:17 PM Plates Plate section appears between pp. 116 and 117 1.1 Hand-painted color in Annabel Serpentine Dance 1.2 Stenciled color in Ali Baba et les quarante voleurs 1.3 Stenciled color in Le Scarabée d’or 1.4 Hand-painted color in the Great Train Robbery 1.5 Tinted “black-and-color” in Der Golem 1.6 “Black-and-color” in Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed 1.7 Redness and redness in Battleship Potemkin 1.8 Spectacular color in The Wizard of Oz 2.1 Artificial color in Les Parapluies de Cherbourg 2.2 Color as auteurist branding in Une Femme est une femme 2.3 Hand painted smoke in High and Low 2.4 Monochrome red in 2001: A Space Odyssey 2.5 Cries and Whispers: black-and-white in color 2.6 Cries and Whispers: black, white, and red 2.7 Gray oranges in The Red Desert 2.8 Anarchic color: tinting and toning in Daisies 2.9 Solaris: color in black-and-white 3.1 Black-and-white overruled in Star! 3.2 Black-and-white as technological relic 3.3 Self-reflexivity in And The Ship Sails On 3.4 Sisters: looking into cinema past 3.5 Manhattan: black-and-white and the “aesthetic craving” 3.6 Classical Hollywood lighting in Schindler’s List 4.1 The Garden of Allah: black-and-white in color 4.2 Written on the Wind: white light and blue night 4.3 Betty Blue: “blue-and-yellow” as soft black-and-white 9781444332391_3_posttoc.indd ix 1/22/2010 10:14:59 AM 4.4 Singin’ in the Rain: white faces and colored light 4.5 Lens filtration and ambiguous skin colors in South Pacific 4.6 Reprographic color in 2 ou 3 Choses que je sais d’elle 4.7 A color swatch in Le Mépris 4.8 Daylight and desaturation in Days of Heaven 4.9 Night light: Deckard’s apartment in Blade Runner 4.10 One From The Heart: learning from Las Vegas 4.11 Color and white light: a tableau vivant in Passion 4.12 Querelle: a world without white light 4.13 Olafur Eliasson’s The Weather Project 4.14 Unmotivated color in Suspiria 4.15 Unbalanced lighting in Chungking Express 4.16 Fallen Angels: color in motion 4.17 Prismatic color in Chungking Express 4.18 Hitchcock’s Psycho: “realistic” mid-tone grays 4.19 Van Sant’s Psycho: pastel pinks and fake tans 4.20 The menacing blackness of a doorway … 4.21 … becomes quite welcoming in color 4.22 Unmotivated shadow: a noir convention 4.23 But where is the light source? 4.24 Norman emerges from darkness 4.25 Norman separated from darkness by color 5.1 Chromatic mixture in Wings of Desire 5.2 Red and blue in the fake digital green of The Matrix 5.3 Technicolor desaturation in Moby Dick 5.4 Digital sepia tone in O Brother Where Art Thou? 5.5 Grayface in Cypher 5.6 Grayface in Pleasantville 5.7 Silver-retention in Saving Private Ryan 5.8 Fake silver-retention in Band of Brothers 5.9 Colorization in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow 5.10 Sin City: graphic cinema 5.11 Color cycling in Hero: from diegetic surface yellow … 5.12 … to excessive digital red 5.13 Anarchic color-movement in Waking Life 5.14 Line tames color-movement in A Scanner Darkly 5.15 Colorization in Mughal-E-Azam 5.16 Painted film color in Black Ice x List of Plates 9781444332391_3_posttoc.indd x 1/22/2010 10:14:59 AM Acknowledgments I would like briefly to express my gratitude to those who have aided me with the completion of this work. Influential contributors to this project have included the various col- leagues with whom I have worked over the last eight years, first at the University of Warwick, then at the University of Melbourne. Notable among these are my MA supervisor Charlotte Brunsdon, my PhD supervisor Angela Ndalianis, and my de facto mentor Sean Cubitt (sir, you are a scholar and a gentleman). Victor Perkins and Jon Burrows also provided me with support and advice at a crucial early point in the project, which was beyond the call of duty. Thanks also to Brian Price, my reader at Wiley-Blackwell, for his perceptive and supportive feedback. Particular thanks are due to Allan Cameron, who for four-and-a-half years was my most scrupulous critic and my favourite drinking companion; his ideas pervade this book. Various friends whose contributions, direct and indirect, have helped enrich my work also deserve thanks. These include the following: Ben Murphy, Magnus Aronson, Natasha Soobramanien, Luke Williams, Ian Edwards, Asa Sandzén, and especially Eszter Szabo, whose help with my research on light added a new dimension to the book, and whose under- standing and support helped me finish it. 9781444332391_3_posttoc.indd xi 1/22/2010 10:15:00 AM 9781444332391_3_posttoc.indd xii 1/22/2010 10:15:00 AM Introduction “A common greyness silvers everything.” Robert Browning (1991: 99) Aristotle observed that it is impossible to see color without light (On the Soul ¶419a).