Chromatic Cinema

Chromatic Cinema

Color permeates film and its history, but study of its contribution to film has so far been fragmentary. Chromatic Cinema provides the first wide-ranging historical overview of screen color, exploring the changing uses and meanings of color in moving images, from hand painting in early skirt dance films to current trends in digital color manipulation.

In this richly illustrated study, Richard Misek offers both a history and a theory of screen color. He argues that cinematic color emerged from, defined itself in response to, and has evolved in symbiosis with black and white. Exploring the technological, cultural, economic, and artistic factors that have defined this evolving symbiosis, Misek provides an in-depth yet accessible account of color’s spread through, and ultimate effacement of, black-and-white cinema.

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

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

“Chromatic Cinema provides a much-needed technological history of machines and techniques for producing moving images in color, as well as a cultural history of color films.” (BRIAN R. JACOBSON, Technology and Culture, July 2012)

“An invigorating critical intervention into the history, theory and aesthetic analysis of colour in the cinema.” (JENNIFER M. BARKER, Screen, August 2012)

“Chromatic Cinema provides a wealth of information and of examples of different approaches to colour in cinema and stimulates enough thoughts and reflections to be a worthy addition to any library on colour in cinema.” (NICOLA MAZZANTI, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, April 2012

"Chromatic Cinema is an excellent critical history of screen colour by Richard Misek, who teaches at the University of Bristol, near which, as I recall, is a plaque to mark the birthplace of William Friese-Greene, the somewhat unfortunate British movie pioneer, one of who patents was for his own colour system." (Times Literary Supplement, 25 November 2011)

"The book touches on most of the important aspects of color cinema-from history to technology to ideology-and serves as an orientation course for a complex subject. It's a gateway read, neither intimidating nor frustrating. For a beginner (like me), it presented a smattering of philosophical ideas, a grounding in the why and how progression of color use, and a primer on the science of color technologies." (MUBI, September 2010)

Richard Misek is a film-maker and Lecturer in Screen Studies at the University of Bristol, UK. He has been published widely in film journals, and his short films have been shown at festivals including Cannes, Raindance, and Clermont-Ferrand, and broadcast on BBC2 and Channel 4.

Color permeates film and its history, but study of its contribution to film has so far been fragmentary. Chromatic Cinema provides the first wide-ranging historical overview of screen color, exploring the changing uses and meanings of color in moving images, from hand painting in early skirt dance films to current trends in digital color manipulation.

In this richly illustrated study, Richard Misek offers both a history and a theory of screen color. He argues that cinematic color emerged from, defined itself in response to, and has evolved in symbiosis with black and white. Exploring the technological, cultural, economic, and artistic factors that have defined this evolving symbiosis, Misek provides an in-depth yet accessible account of color’s spread through, and ultimate effacement of, black-and-white cinema. "This remarkable manuscript opens new vistas on what cinema is, how it works, and what it can mean, with a deep historical perspective and an unobtrusive but effective deployment of film theory. It is bound to be a major intervention in an exciting and growing field of film studies, and a significant contribution to technology studies." Sean Cubitt, author of The Cinema Effect

"Drawing on optical theory, art history, and film technology, Richard Misek rejects conventional distinctions between color and black-and-white, arguing instead for a 'chromatic cinema' which sees color everywhere. Original, thought-provoking, and sure to be controversial." Richard Koszarski, Rutgers University

"In this important and surprising study of cinema’s most central, seemingly simple, and notorious opposition--black and white versus color--Misek upsets the usual categories for understanding the development of cinema as technology and aesthetic practice. Chromatic Cinema should change the way we understand the so-called evolution of film style as the triumph of realism." Brian Price, Oklahoma State University

"The best color history with examples from Hollywood, the European Art Film, Asia and Eastern Europe, Chromatic Cinema moves from the early period to the advent of the digital, by arguing that the use of black and white must be discussed in the context of an ever-changing chromatic image. An indispensable text from the introductory to the advanced level, Richard Misek dialogues with art history and philosophy, with cultural history and economics." Angela Dalle Vacche, Georgia Istitute of Technology