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On Color

MICHELANGELO ANTONIONI

On Color We had already seen Tom Sawyer in Venice two years ago; we saw it again recently, shortly after The Goldwyn Follies. There is a considerable difference between the two in terms of color. In the rst lm were still dealing with coloristic acrobatics; for example: the cave, the picnic, the glossy white set, etc. In the latter lm, the search for effect, while evident, is still less thinly justied. The lms value aside (well say only that it ts as usual into the Follies series, with the advantage of Hecht as scriptwriter and Gershwin as composer) the relation between color and event appears closer, with neither impudently infringing upon the other. On the contrary, we would say that the opposite is true. That sort of final symphony in blue, like the earlier flight, in Becky Sharp, of the soldiers in red capes, allows us to conceive of the horizons that might open up for lms in color. And from a purely technical viewpoint as well, progress is obvious: terracott a faces and oleographic landscapes are now replaced by an ensemble of tones that are paler and, in short, acceptable without too much trouble. Which leads us to consider the problem of color as the most pressing issue and as something destined to restore artistic dignity to this blessed cinema. Because, in all sincerity, little of note has been done in recent years. If you think of the old classics (The Golem, Kameradschaft, A nous la libert, etc.), you have to admit that lm-making as art has not progressed much since those distant times. The art of the screen has evolved gradually, settling onto a track that, while leading undeniably to commercial success, strongly deviates from the path of artistic success. Today, it ultimately isnt so much about making a good lm as making one that satises the public, because it is the public that pays and it is, precisely, with money (and for money) that cinema is made. With the result that one can hardly think of a producer in todays world giving a free hand to an inspired director; instead he imposes upon him whatever restraints he deems appropriate. And the scant exceptions only conrm the rule.

OCTOBER 128, Spring 2009, pp. 111120. 2009 October Magazine, Ltd. and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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Another reason for this standstill lies in the fact that when an art is no longer concerned with the representation of an inner world, with an enrichment of expressive means, and when people are content to retrace already beaten paths, afraid of the new, the unusual, then that art is finished. What then follows is the rule of the formula. But where formulas rule, art cannot remain. Today, with color, theres a new gleam of hope for cinemas future. We read that Ren Clair in Paris and Jean Painlev in London are up to their ears in color. Not to mention America, where thirty percent of production is currently in color. Which, moreover, is natural. Despite great expense and serious technical difculties, color is advancing steadily and decisively. Its impressive, it convinces; within a few years, lms in black and white will no longer be tolerated. The viewers eye is becoming accustomed to colors; it is caressed by the sweetness of certain combinations; it senses more truth in them, an inner truth, and draws new pleasure from them. America above all has understood this state of affairs and, as always, is preparing to turn it to its own advantage. Instructed by the [precedent] of sound [in cinema], it is counting on the war now occupying Europe and the limited possibilities of European producers to allow them to monopolize all our markets. And the danger is real. If the multicolored Hollywood wave reaches us before our productionincluding colorcan thwart its advance, its over. We will need years and years to revive. But sadder still is the thought of Italian cinema, which is now beginning to walk, like a baby, just out of bed after a bout of the u, who sees everything as rosy, beautiful, who believes in God and is optimistic. No one, apart from some sporadic experiments, is concerned with color. No one is thinking that all our daily efforts will come to naught if we persist in remaining stuck in black and white. But when will Italian producers convince themselves that they cannot ignore color and that sooner or later they will have to open the door to it? [Cinema, December 10,1942.] Suggestions From Hegel The desire to take the art of the screen seriously can lead to patient readings and re-readings, not always pointless nor without consequences. And so we happen to be re-reading Hegel. Generally, when anyone in cinema thinks of Hegel its because of that part of his philosophy that deals with the univer sal not ion and realit y of the Beautiful in nature and in art, the ideal as he puts it, in the unity of its fundamental determinations, independent of its specic content and its different modes of appearance. In other words and on the whole, where all the arts are

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regarded as equal. Elsewhere, on the contrary, we nd even more reasons for careful analysis, as in the Third Book of The Aesthetics, entitled The System of the Individual Arts, which is precisely where he turns to painting. And here too a selection is possible. We shall refer only to passages that are concerned with color, since for us, this is cinemas most pressing problem, the one to which the strongest aesthetic foundation for the future remains committed. As a fundamentally figurative art, filmmaking, like painting, derives its means of formal representation from the external appearance of nature and individuals, on the condition, however, that their inner nature is allowed to come clearly through. The reader is to understand by this the mode of appearance, not of materiality. We must therefore define the precise relationship between spirit and the senses. Once attained, that relationship coincides, on the one hand with the transguration of the real aspect of the world into the pure illusion of art, and on the other, with color, whose passages, differences and shadings allow for the same sort of transguration. The thought of color as indispensable to the absoluteness of gurative beauty is easily derived. One only need hold as valid the assertion that blackand-white cinema is to color cinema as drawing is to painting. It is, as Hegel asserts, color that makes a painter a painter. And he adds: We willingly stop before drawings and principally sketches, such as those that preferably show genius; but however the spirit, rich in invention and fantasy, might immediately stand out from the light transparent veil of the gure, there is always need for color, whereby painting does not abstractly remain to the side, sensible of the living individuality and particularization of its objects. The philosopher is not denying the great merit of drawing; he is simply stating that painting, when using only color, externalizes its perspicuously living quality. In the meantime it will be a great day when we can speak of equivalent Venetian or Flemish schools. But lets specify some basic points. The fundamental basis of color is chiaroscuro. Chiaroscurothe variable blending of br ightness and darknessappear s as a funct ion of light and shadow, pair ing the project ing and recessive, giving plast icit y to forms. However, in painting, chiaroscuro represents only the foundation, although this foundation is of the greatest importance. In effect, it determines only what remains in front of or behind, the outline, generally the actual contours of the form as form: what is called modeling. This, applied instead to cinema, would produce a more pronounced stereoscopic direction. The masters of color push in this regard to the point of extreme contradiction between the clearest light and the deepest shadows, and

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they obtain the greatest effect with it. But they are granted this contradiction, since harshness doesnt matter; that is since it doesnt lack a rich play of passages and mixtures, to place the whole uidly in harmony, and to proceed to infinitesimal gradations. If these inconsistencies are lacking, the whole becomes cold; while only the difference between the lightest and the darkest make certain parts pronounced and others recede. Consider what a master of color a Sternberg, ever sensitive to the play of light and shadow, could be in response to the Hegelian canon. As for a more precise determinat ion of light and shadows, this depends principally on the type of lighting employed by the artist. The most widely varying differences emerge in this regard from the type of daylightmorning, mid-day, eveningfrom the light of the sun or the moon, from a calm or cloudy sky, from storm light or candlelight, from a closed or striking light or a light that spreads equally, and from the other extremely diverse manners of lighting. In a rich, open action, in a lively awareness that is in itself clear, external light is something that is necessary; and the artist optimally clings to the ordinary light of day; when not, it becomes a necessary postulate, a dramatic vitality, the desired emphasis of decisive figures and groups, and other non-ordinary forms of illumination favorable for such differences can be omitted. When interiority is preponderant, when painting tends more directly toward the spiritual, lighting loses a bit of its value. This is not, however, the case for cinematography, where, if anything, the opposite occurs, and it is with appropr iate light ing that what one might call the inexpressible can be expressed. However, Hegels later statement remains valid. In landscapes and in the insignicant circumstances of ordinary life, the grandest magical effects, artistic and also artificial, play their proper role. In landscape, for example, daring contrasts between the largest masses of light and the strongly shaded portions have an optimum effect, but for the fact that they often become mannered. The contrary is seen with reections of light, direct light and reverberation, that mar velous echo of light that br ings a special living sort of chiaroscuro, and which require a substantial and valid study for the artist as well as for the viewer. The lighting that the painter [read: as director or cameraman] ascertains externally or internally in his conception can only be a rapid, mutable appearance. However instantaneous and non-habitual xed lighting might be, the artist, even in his most

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lively actions, must take care that the whole within such multiplicity does not remain restless, vacillating, confused, but rather clear and orderly. Except that light and darkness are not expressed in their purity, but rather through difference in color. Light and shadow must be colored. We must analyze color as such, on the understanding that all technical, non-aesthetic, impediments are to be overcome, and that whatever solely technical references are traceable shall be transferred, as far as possible, from painting to cinema. Above all, we can look at the interrelationships of various colors. Red, for example, and yellow even more, of equal intensity, is much lighter than blue. In effect, in blue, darkness is the principal thing, which appears as blue since it acts by means of a light but not completely diaphanous medium. The sky for example is dark; at the tops of mountains it is always darker; seen through a diaphanous but dark medium, such as the air of the lower plains, it seems blue, and lighter as the atmosphere is less diaphanous. On the contrary, in yellow, light acts in and of itself through a dark means, which does not allow the light to shine through. Smoke for example is one of those dark means; seen in front of something black, which takes effect through the same, it becomes bluish; in front of something light, it becomes yellowish or reddish. True red is a vivid, royal, concrete color, where blue and yellow, in themselves opposite, interpenetrate; green can be regarded as a similar union, but not as a concrete unity, but rather as the dissolution of differences as saturated, calm neutrality. And here are the aesthetic conclusions of this technical preamble: These colors are the purest, simplest, original colors. Consequently even in the manner and guise whereby the ancient masters employed them, one can look for a symbolic relationship; particularly in the use of blue and red. Blue has the sweetest air, more judicious, calmer and rich in feeling, in that it begins with darkness that offers no resistance; while light is more resistant, productive, living, cheerful: red is virile, dominant, regal; green indifferent, neutral. Because of this symbolism, Mary, for example, when she is depicted enthroned as queen of heaven, wears a red mantle, but when she is depicted as a mother, she wears a blue one. All the remaining, innitely various colors must be considered as mere modications, where a shading of these primary colors must always be recognized. In their reciprocal reaction, all these colors are lighter or darker in their effect.

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Another fundamental point is the overall harmony of colors. Colors brought together form a whole determined by the nature of the object. In a conceivable coloristic perfection, all colors must be represented; if Hegel, as he states this, alludes to painting, we relate it, somewhat more exibly, to modications where movement will take place, to the lm frame, or rather, to the series of frames. If some principal color is lacking, according to Hegel, the sense of the totality would perhaps be lost. He gives a pictorial example in the work of the Italian and Flemish masters, where blue, yellow, red, and green can always be detected in their canvases. This perfection is the foundation of harmony. Colors moreover must be put together in this way, so that both their pictorial contradiction and their fusion please the eye. The way of composing colors from one spectrum, and the intensity of each color, brings about this power of contraposition, of calm and fusion. It is difficult to use the primary colors in their purity, in their simple splendor, because of their violent mutual opposition, but once harmony is achieved, the sight is good to the eye. Meanwhile because of this resoluteness and strength of color, it is necessary for both the expression and the character of objects to be more decisive and simpler. Herein, along with content, there is a higher harmony of color. The principal gures, for example, must have more pronounced colors, and must appear, in their character, in their entire demeanor and mode of expression, nobler than the subsidiary gures, for which only mixed colors are needed. In landscape painting one sees fewer such contrapositions of simple primary colors; on the other hand in scenes where figures remain the principal element, and where garments in particular take up most of the plane, the hints of simple colors have their place. In them the scene emerges from the spiritual world, where the inorganic, the circumstance of nature necessarily appears more abstract, that is not at all in its natural and isolated perfection; and the various shades of the landscape in their multicolored rich gradations are not appropriate. And here is a passage that deserves close attention, on the psychological function of the setting. Generally, landscape is less suited to human circumstance, to a scene, than is a room or an architectural building; although situations that take place outdoors, taken as a whole, are not precisely those actions where the interior would fully stand out as something essential.

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Placing man, however, in nature, it is necessary for the latter to have the value of a simple circumstance. In those representations the most prominent colors require their appropriate place. However it is necessary to be bold and forceful in their use. Sweet, serene, loveable faces are not in accordance with these; such weak expressions, a similar paleness of physiognomy, should be darkened through the use of more prominent colors. Recently, insignicant, listless faces have come more into fashion; in affected, particularly graceful positions, which should, instead, be simple and dignied. Such insignicance in terms of the inner spiritual character also conveys the insignicance of color and tones of color; in such a way that all the colors remain suffocated, broken and without power, and nothing stands out; truly nothing obscures anything else, but together nothing stands out; certainly there is a harmony of colors, and often it is very sweet and of a attering amiability, but insignicant. Similarly, one reads, among other things, the following in an essay by Diderot on painting: It will not be said in any way that it is easier to harmonize a listless color than a strong one; indeed, clearly when the color is strong, when the colors appear vivid, then the eye also more easily senses harmony or discord; when, however, the colors become weaker, using them in images where some are light, others mixed, others blotchy, then one can never know if he is seeing a harmonious or a disharmonious image; one can only say that the whole is not effective and is insignicant. The last points on this topic to which Hegel alludes, those of aerial perspective, flesh tone, and the magic of optical illusions, lie outside the set boundaries. Nor does it seem to us that we can draw any conclusions whatsoever. Hegels philosophical analysis of color is precise but subjective, of course, and dissent will be forthcoming. No matter. Turning to issues of this nature cannot help but be protable for those intent on a close study of problems of color in cinema. Yes, it is technical, but it is also and always driven by presuppositions of an aesthetic kind. Awareness of these presuppositions, which govern the entire eld of natural colors no matter where employed, facilitates the formation of a pictorial mentality. Clearly, pictorialism in cinema, from now on, must not signify a feeling for framing, immobility, or a search for plastic material in composition, as Blasetti does; it must mean a distinct coloristic and tonal sense that is absolutely new in that it is subjected to the innite uctuations within movement. When Hegel speaks of color as an echo, its very easy to apply this

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mentally to cinema, where the fading of a tone, its merging with another, will become normal. Think of the passing of a cloud over a boundless prairie, as in the outdoor shots of Stagecoachthe shadow of the passing cloud; a whole play of colors so powerful they replace any musical correspondence. At the beginning of Tosca, the visual parallel of the echoing gallop of horses in the silence of the street is provided by the uttering of the white capes in the darkness of night. The expressive power is entrusted to chiaroscuro, fundamental to painting. But fundamental in this case, and abstract. If the entire range of primary colors and their combinations had been available to the director, the expressive power would, in the end, have been greater by far. Its pointless, however, to continue in this vein. The traditionalists have no illusions; just as with sound, silent lm becomes intolerable, so with color, black and white will have the same outcome. And in conclusion, while technicians worry about Technicolor, Gasparcolor, and the like, aesthetes are not averse to a deepening of research as described above. In the cinematic future, which will surely be in color, technique will not sufce for the scrupulous interpretation of the very delicate variations of tone without a purity of spirit that gives them the breath of art. [Corriere padano, June 2, 1940.] Color Does Not Come From America It is very easy to play the prophet, knowing that no one will take the trouble to check out your prophecies. However prophecies are always of some interest, if only because each one presupposes reection. And we Europeans never reect enough on the errors of American cinema, especially now that its attempting to supplant our industry and industrialize our fantasy. Mind you, very decent products do also come from America; recently, for example, Double Indemnity and The Lost Weekend, which, despite Billy Wilders European background, remain typical Hollywood fruits. They are fruits from the same tree, with the same taste and color. Yes, the same color. As color lms they would resemble For Whom the Bell Tolls, excellent but coloristically obvious. We now have long lists of color lms that Hollywood will be launching on our screens this year; we also have articles that still give black and white a few years of life. And yet we feel we can say that color, which will relegate black and white to the corner of a cellar or museum where silent film is already consigned, will not come from America. America is what it is. Renoirs contract was broken because he had dared group together some frames within a single oneextemporaneously modifying the script in the studio. Now imagine that you are with Mr. Samuel Goldwyn, having the following sort of discussion with him: Mr. Goldwyn, I think that Greta Garbos voice is

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violet and Barbara Stanwycks green. I think that Ingrid Bergman is a blue-pink young woman, and Lana Turner is brown, and that a yellow-green atmosphere suits Gene Tierney. I think that the tonality of a lm like The Tarnished Angels (supposing that you want to make a lm of Pylon), resembles that of three-color ads in illustrated magazines, where, as Cecchi notes, the red and blue of the ties, the chocolate, and the cream on the pudding, the gold of the oranges on the label of the jar of syrup, are so visually succulent that they anticipate the joy of material possession, and perhaps go beyond it. And the tonality of Lge de raison (again supposing etc) is wan and dirty, like paintings by Rosai. I think in that sort of scene in that sort of lm, based on the emotion of jealousy, some yellow is missing around the gure of the adulteress; I say yellow because that special jealousy then and there suggests this color to me. Its an impression. Impressions last such a short t ime. Color s also last but a short t ime, Mr. Goldwyn. For an object itself there are no set colors. A poppy can be gray, a leaf black. And grass is not always green; sky not always blue (Matisse). And so who says that light vermilion corresponds to the color of esh and that the shadows in a white cloth are gray? Try to put a cabbage or a rosebush next to a white cloth and tell me if you are still convinced that the shadows of the cloth are gray (Gauguin). If you think that its only up to me, the director, to put cabbages under the nose of Veronica Lake and artichokes in the hair of Alan Ladd, I am struck immediately by an idea of freedom that came to me in the arrangement of colors on the faces of actors. The green, for example, on one of Fred MacMurrays cheeks as he thinks over the crime in Double Indemnity (assuming that this were in color). But if Fred moved three feet away he could feel, while pondering the crime, spotted by someone and in shame and fear, try to hide; and now the green would disappear and in its place the vermilion that Gauguin speaks of, would disappear and spread, if not right over his face, this time, then on the wall, behind Fred. A tapestry? A curtain? Some glints of red with a hint of violet that makes the single tone tend toward a tainted, absurd red? It doesnt matter. What does matter is that the color is there. Yes, I know: there are also the red capes in Becky Sharp, but those are always the only example; we might wonder if it was an accident. In short, Mr. Goldwyn, very vast horizons open up to a director who has understood this simple fact: that the law of beauty doesnt lie in truth to nature. I am one of these, I have clear ideas, I am in other words a colorist director. Will you let me direct a lm? I believe that Mr. Goldwyn would very calmly ring a bell and have me shown to the door. No, color will not come from America. It may be that surprising discoveries and techniques of extreme skill will come from there. But it will once again be up to this old Europe to lay the foundations for a cinematic aesthetic of color. And its good to understand here and now that this is being done on a

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practical level, that of lms rather than theoretically. We know that poetics also are important a posteriori. Meanwhile the rst sign of our prophecys validity (and theres nothing unusual about it) is precisely a European lm, Oliviers Henry V. Although not awless, it already indicates what cinema may be like in the years ahead. [Film rivista, December 18, 1947.] Translated from Italian by Marguerite Shore.

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