DMS 417 Filmic text

Shilina-Conte  :: Th 5-8:40 :: 112 CFA
Reg# 17429

A feast for the eyes, this class will take you on an “over the rainbow tour” of color history and effects in cinema. “There never was a silent film,” famously declared Irving Thalberg, and just as with sound, color has accompanied cinema since the day of its inception. Early filmmakers employed applied processes such as hand-tinting or stenciling of film stock, long before the advent of such photographic systems as Technicolor and Eastmancolor. After a brief overview of the history of cinematic color, we will concentrate on its expressive and affective use as a means of evoking atmosphere, establishing mood and conveying implicit messages. We will examine color palettes of various directors, comparing Tom Tykwer’s saturated and succulent reds and yellows with Andrey Tarkovsky’s subdued and subtle greens and browns. We will also discuss the concept of synesthesia and color’s ability to create cross-communication among the senses through visual outbursts of emotion. Our special agenda in this class will be to scrutinize color symbolism with a particular emphasis on monochromatic images as abstract canvases of negative space, including those of black and white, as vital filmic fluids. Films and excerpts will include a number of early shorts, Flowers and Trees, Becky Sharp, Ivan the Terrible, Niagara, The Red Balloon, Kwaidan, Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, Stalker, Cinema Paradiso, The Three Colors Trilogy, Blue, Run Lola Run, 20 Fingers, and The Fall, among others. This course fulfills the Advanced Analysis or Media Study electives.