Films that are dominated by a color

Like

Bergman's Cries and Whispers is dominated by red

Hitchcock's The Birds is dominated by green

Rivette's La Religieuse is dominated by blue

Just something I find interesting

kenneth anger to thread

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Colours_trilogy

I Know Who Killed Me has a ton of blue objects in it for reasons that don't make sense. It's great.

The Matrix, actually. (green)

Blue is a 1993 drama film directed by Derek Jarman. [...] The film was his last testament as a film-maker, and consists of a single shot of saturated blue colour - specifically International Klein Blue[1] (RGB 0, 47, 167, CMYK 100, 72, 0, 35).[2] This fills the screen, as background to a soundtrack where Jarman's and some of his long-time collaborators' narration describes his life and vision.

that was an amazing film

I loved Kieslowski's Blue, White, Red

Douglas Sirk used color in a way I haven't seen since

It used to take a lot of effort to do color right in films. You had to have objects the right color, use the right lighting for the cameras, and then you had to expose the film negative for the right length of time. Since digital color grading, I think it's gotten a lot easier, being able to do almost all of it in post-production. It seems less special to me now. I wonder if heavily tinted movies like the Three Colors trilogy would seem special if released today.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_grading

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflections_in_a_Golden_Eye_(film)

The film was originally released with all scenes tinted with a gold filter, with only certain shades of reds (such as a rose) or greens not appearing in or approaching tints or shades of gold.[6] This effect is a reference to the houseboy's drawing of a golden peacock in whose eye the world is a reflection.[6] As this version puzzled audiences, it was withdrawn within one week of release and replaced with a version processed in normal Technicolor.[6] Film critic Roger Ebert wrote:

"Since the film was photographed in full color and the 'fading' was done in post-production, most of the video versions have simply restored the color. That's not what Huston intended, and the thing to do is to use your color adjustment to fade the color to almost but not quite b&w. Does it work? That's for you to decide."[7]

A 2020 two-disc Blu-ray release of the film by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment features both Huston's intended version of the film and the re-color-timed reissued version.[8]

the Kieslowski films didn't seem tinted to me, and doing it all
in post-production doesn't equate to something like what Douglas Sirk did

Does Sin City fit in here?

teal & orange.xls

Colours don't exactly dominate the films but until I saw interviews with Eric Rohmer I didn't realize he did this all the time.

The 1977 Suspiria is red-dominant.

The Shining has a lot of red, popping out from drab colors.

Mulholland Drive has an interesting dynamic going on between red and blue in which some say each color represents a different level of reality.

There are quite a few brown films, I guess because it suggests age. McCabe and Mrs. Miller, for example.

I wonder if there are orange or yellow films.

Altman had the film stock in McCabe and Mrs. Miller flashed; interiors were shot on stock given a yellow tint, while exteriors were on blue-tinted stock.

I haven't actually seen it, but I jokingly refer to the recent Color out of Space as "Fuschia: the Movie"

This thread put me in mind of the introduction to DIVA (19891) that Alex Cox did for BBC2 in 1988 - god knows why it stuck in my head but there it is. Delighted to find someone has stuck it on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxJhYQS8YpI

Relevant bit: "It’s the only film I’ve ever seen where a whole sequence has been designed around a packet of cigarettes–the colour of the walls, the set decoration, the costumes, everything exists to complement a packet of Gitanes.|"

"I haven't actually seen it, but I jokingly refer to the recent Color out of Space as "Fuschia: the Movie""

I recently learned that fuschia/magenta is not on the visible spectrum. It's a combination of very different wavelengths of light that human eyes interpret as its own color. Makes sense for an alien color.

I totally associate Mean Streets with the colour red but that might just be that the bar scenes are so huge in my memory.

I wonder if there are orange or yellow films.

A while ago I saw a bunch of people joking about how every Hollywood movie that takes place in Mexico is filmed through an incredibly harsh yellow filter so it looks like you're looking at everything through those tinted lenses they give you at shooting ranges.

I wonder if there are orange or yellow films.

Lol woops, already called xp

Both Sicario films have a ridiculous amount of yellow filter.

Blade runner 2047 is the most sumptuous colorful film I can think of. Just a feast for the eyes

Moonrise Kingdom is very yellow.

Villeneuve’s ENEMY is his yellowest movie.

Sicario did come to mind. But it’s been a while and I also associate it with night vision green. Good call on Moonrise xp.

If memory serves, Traffic (Soderburgh) is very yellow.

Is it because Traffic has Mexican content?

When I try to think of orange films, The Man Who Fell to Earth springs to mind, because David Bowie has orange hair in it, and Candy Clark’s hair is kind of orangey as well. Also I associate it with the cover of Bowie’s album Low, which is very orangey. Despite these things I think the film as a whole cannot be said to be orange-dominated.

I also think of the 1975 Rollerball as an orange film, but that must be because James Caan’s rollerball squad wears orange, and they get a lot of screen time. The film is not otherwise orange iirc.

The films I think of as being dominated by one color are the ones where it’s obvious the production designer or whoever made sure that objects of that color were in every camera set-up. Actors’ clothes almost have to be in that color.

I tend to think of The Shining as yellow for a few reasons--the Volkswagen, the tennis ball, the underlight at the bar, and the Torrance's bedroom. But really, it's probably just the poster and soundtrack album cover.

Also I associate it with the cover of Bowie’s album Low, which is very orangey.

The cover is a still from the movie.

Something I just learned from Wikipedia:

The cover artwork, a profile of Bowie from the film The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976), was intended as a visual pun, meaning "low profile".

I tend to think of The Shining as yellow for a few reasons--the Volkswagen, the tennis ball, the underlight at the bar, and the Torrance's bedroom. But really, it's probably just the poster and soundtrack album cover.