Color my world: movie magnificence

“Color in Motion: Chromatic Explorations of Cinema”

On view at the Academy of Motion Pictures

by Bondo Wyszpolski

The citywide Getty initiative, PST ART: Art and Science Collide, which has corralled dozens of Southern Californian galleries and museums, is kind of a mixed bag, with several of the institutions going overboard on trying to be politically correct, all-inclusive and kowtowingly diverse, and the overall impressive catalogue for “Color in Motion” strays into that as well. But it’s a fascinating read, and it thoroughly enhances the exhibition at the Academy Museum that’s on view (along with “Cyberpunk: Envisioning Possible Futures Through Cinema”) through July 13.

The exhibit spans 130 years, from 1894-2024, and contains about 150 objects, such as costumes, props, and posters, the ruby slippers from “The Wizard of Oz,” the green dress worn by Kim Novak in “Vertigo,” as well as several screens that show movie clips. It’s divided into six primary themes: “Choreographing Color,” “Technologies and Spectacles,” “Monochrome Film Installation,” “Color as Character,” “Experimentation,” and “Color Arcade.”

You can’t tell much from these headings, but as one might guess some themes are better geared for the layman and others for the more knowledgeable cinephile.

The catalogue, which is edited by Jessica Niebel and Sophia Serrano, is focused on the science behind the art of cinema. Or, as the premise makes clear, “Cinematic color works as a narrative device, a psychological phenomenon, and a means of artistic experimentation.” In other words, the use and application of select color schemes enhances mood and atmosphere. In some ways, though, it’s about tonality as much as color, as anyone who has studied classic black-and-white film can attest.

Basically, the catalogue explores the development and application of color technologies, which began as early as 1896 with the practice of tinting film. We read that “by the 1920s, an estimated 80 to 90 percent of all films were at least partially dyed.” However, this begs some explanation: All films where? Just in America? Or also in Europe and Asia?

In this era of reckoning with and handwringing over past injustices and omissions, we are reminded that in the early days of filmmaking thousands of women worked long and tedious hours handpainting silent black-and-white films. Co-editor Niebel underlines this when she states that her interest in this project had a lot to do with “exploring the history of film colors and the overlooked role of women in this narrative.”

Coming at “this narrative” from another angle, color calibration (as former director and president Jacqueline Stewart writes in the Director’s Foreword), was “a practice that favored white skin and fostered racial biases on film materials.” As they say during political debates, “Needs context.” Early films were made by white people for predominantly white audiences.

Introducing one of the book’s contributing writers, Niebel says, “Expanding on the portrayal of people of color in film, Joshua Yumibe examines the challenge of accurately depicting Blackness with conventional color technologies and film stocks, revealing colonial contexts and inherent biases.” What does “people of color” really mean? Couldn’t she have said people with darker skin pigment? One has to sidestep this pussyfooting to reach the more objective and informative gems that the book contains.

Just as color from ancient sculpture has peeled off or otherwise vanished, so have the tints on early silent films faded over time. The catalogue contains a generous sampling of scenes, now restored to convey how they may have appeared when the films were originally shown. Also of interest are the five prints, each toned or tinted differently, that enhanced “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.” This variety, subtle though it may have been, probably conveyed a different mood, or feel, depending on which tinted version one saw.

Barbara Flueckiger’s essay, “The Materiality and Technology of Film Colors” takes us back to the introduction of color, revealing the hits and misses as technology improved, leading up to the present. The author’s “A Selected Timeline of Historical Film Colors” is at the end of the catalogue but isn’t really for the layman as it’s rather technical. It does, however, reveal the progress of one innovation and development after another.

An interview conducted by Sophia Serrano with three color experts, entitled “The Science of Color,” explores how our brains interpret color and then compares this to how the camera sees and captures color. This may sound like a difficult read, but I found it quite understandable.

In her essay, “Choreographing Color: The Captivating Dance of Color and Motion in Cinema,” Jessica Niebel (who falls back of the word “empowerment” a little too often), considers films ranging from “The Red Shoes” and “An American in Paris” to “West Side Story,” “Suspiria,” and “Hero,” and says, “In the end, the convergence of color and motion on screen remains an ever-evolving dance, a symphony of emotions, narratives, and sensations that extends an invitation to the audience to step beyond the ordinary and explore the infinite realm of cinematic possibilities.”

Related to this, and well-illustrated, are several brief essays such as “Red and ‘In the Mood for Love’” and “Green and ‘Vertigo,’” that show how certain colors were highlighted for effect (atmosphere; desire, danger, etc.) in some prominent films. Sophia Serrano’s “Blue and ‘Moonlight’” is nicely written, concise and informative.

Sarah Street’s essay, “Women and Color Technologies,” “foregrounds key contributions made by women through silent cinema’s exquisite hand-colored and stenciled frames, films advertising sumptuous fashions, the glorious attractions of Technicolor, and animated films that experimented with color and motion.” The general reader will not know many of the women who Street writes about (again, we’re back to redressing past slights and omissions), but she brings out their overlooked but important roles in the ongoing history of cinema, with nods to the likes of Natalie Kalmus, a color consultant from the late 1920s to the 1950s on most Technicolor films.

Another fascinating piece concerns “Leader Ladies” who appear (or appeared) in frames of film with a line of color bars, and the image is “essentially a color calibration tool that’s used in the photochemical processing and printing of analog film.”— Rebecca Lyon. Also, “The portrait of the woman is essentially a visual confirmation that you have your settings right.” — Ivy Donnell. Sophia Serrano interviewed a few women who have created the Leader Ladies Project, and there are many examples of leader ladies (also known as China Girls, etc.) from ages past. In short, a surprising bit of cinematic lore that most of us would not have known about.

“Cinematic Blackness: Color, Race, and the Moving Image,” despite falling back on the easy tropes of slavery and colonialism, is basically about trying to elicit the best from images of people with dark or darker skin. Technical advances have improved rapidly and greatly over the years so that we get clearer detail and more graceful tones. That’s really what Joshua Yumibe’s essay boils down to. He references such films as “Pariah,” “Atlantis,” and the award-winning “Moonlight.” As for racial biases, I can only add that when I’m taking or working or photographs of people I’m not fixated on their race or ethnicity, but only on how to elicit an image that is the best possible under the circumstances.

In another piece, Ranjani Mazumdar writes about the effect that Eastmancolor had on Bombay cinema during the 1960s. The films discussed are not widely known; although India does a thriving business when it comes to movies, not many of them make it to the U.S. market.

“American Animation in Color” is primarily about Disney’s use of Technicolor IV in such films as “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” from 1937. The author, Kirsten Moana Thompson, walks us through the development of and the effects of the process. She references other early-era cartoons. Vibrant color wasn’t achieved overnight, of course, and we rarely think about the trial and error that has led us to where we are today.

There are films, fairly short for understandable reasons, that are purely shape or form and color, kind of like animated abstract art, which may employ music but otherwise are mostly or entirely devoid of narrative and the human connection. This is the subject of Sophia Serrano’s “Abstracting Color: Experimental Cinema and Color Effects.” She highlights such early innovators as Oskar Fischinger, Mary Ellen Bute, Len Lye, James Whitney, and Jordan Belson. These may not be household names, but their innovations helped cinema to evolve. In Serrano’s words, “As Hollywood embraced auteurs such as Hitchcock, Kubrick, and Ridley Scott, these directors often drew directly from the work of experimental artists to incorporate the unexpected and cutting edge into their oeuvre.”

These are some of the ways that, chromatically speaking, at least, cinema has progressed since its inception. “Color in Motion,” a 272-page catalogue published by the Academy of Motion Pictures and DelMonaco Books, is a pretty impressive compilation of essays and interviews. It complements and enhances the exhibition of the same name.

Color in Motion and Cyberpunk are on view through July 13 at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, 6067 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles. To learn more, visit academymuseum.org. ER