There are so many elements in filmmaking that need to come together to tell the story.  The script has to be solid, of course, but so does the acting, the costumes, the set design, the special effects, the score, and of course the cinematography.  I’ve talked a little about the impact that music can have on a film as well as how much of an impact the gaze of the camera can have on what we remember about a film but today, I’d like to focus on colour.

 

There is this basic storytelling idea that different colours represent different things.  Red equals danger, blue equals calm, black is evil, white is good and so on and so forth.  However, the reality is a lot more complicated than that.

 

It is true that colours can be used to evoke a single emotion from an audience but it can be used just as powerfully to represent a character and a character’s emotional state.  For example, in the Disney film Treasure Planet (Musker, Clements, 2002) the main character, Jim Hawkins, starts the film wearing black and generally being an irresponsible scoundrel who does not understand his place in the world and longs for a father figure to show him his place in the world.  Throughout the film, as Jim gets closer to Silver, a secret pirate who may or may not be using Jim for personal gain, unbeknownst to him, he starts to gain that connection that father-son connection that he had been longing for and his clothes change from blacks to lighter browns.  then in the final scenes of the film, Jim has found his place, he has learned to take responsibility and he no longer has any longing for a father figure and he is shown wearing white, completing his journey from insecure misfit scoundrel to morally upstanding young man.

 

Some examples of colour use in film leave a lot more up for interpretation.  For example, in Star Wars (Lucas, 1977), there is the very obvious red is evil, blue is good connotation that comes from lightsaber colours.  Lukes lightsaber is blue and Darth Vader’s is red so they must represent good and evil.  But, Yoda and Obi-Wan have green lightsabers.  How does that fit in the binary red-blue understanding?

 

You could argue that Yoda and Obi-Wan are both Jedi masters and green is a step even further from red than blue is on the colour wheel so Yoda and Obi-Wan are even more good than Luke.  But, the laser from the Death Star is also green.  So, where does that leave us simple film analysts, simply trying our best to examine storytelling through colour?

 

Perhaps, within the Star Wars universe, green is simply a colour that is associated with power.  Or perhaps it just looks cool.  Mace Windu’s lightsaber is purple and it’s never explained in the universe of the films nor does anyone else wield one but, it does look cool as hell and sometimes that’s the only reason why colour is used.  Still, I think that it’s something that’s interesting to pay attention to and when you do, it may deepen your appreciation for a filmmaker’s hard work.

 

If you’re interested in a more in-depth look into the history of colour in film as well as a more in-depth analysis of the different ways it can be used I would highly recommend the video I have linked below!