“Eastman Colour Films For Professional Motion Picture Work

G. J. Craig, O.B.E. (Fellow)

Read to a meeting of the Film Production Division on April 15, 1953.

In modern processes of colour photography a technique has been established by which colours are analyzed in accordance with their reflectances within the three broad spectral regions, blue, green and red. This can be done, either by taking three separate photographs through blue, green and red filters on normal panchromatic emulsions, or by using emulsions with colour sensitivities localized as far as possible to the appropriate spectral bands.

The photographs may be recorded on three separate films, as in the Technicolor camera, or on a single normal picture negative film, as in the successive frame method used for animation work. Yet another system is one in which a multilayer film is employed, with the emulsions coated one above the other on a single support. If the three layers can be separated after exposure then black and white images may be used — Multilayer Stripping Film¹ is an example of this technique. But if the multilayer is integral, and not meant to be separated, the images must be selectively coloured to allow for subsequent separation by colour analysis.

When the three separation records have been made, there are two basic methods whereby the scene can be reproduced in colour: additive and subtractive synthesis. The additive method is outside the scope of this paper.

The subtractive method makes use of certain dyes and pigments which have the property of selectively absorbing blue, green or red light while transmitting the remainder of the spectrum. These dyes and pigments are called the subtractive primaries, and they control the amounts of blue, green and red light in a mixture by absorbing or subtracting from white light the amounts of blue, green and red not required.

For this purpose, three positive images in dye or pigment form are prepared from the separation negatives, the red separation negative being printed in the red-absorbing or Cyan dye; the green negative in the green-absorbing Magenta dye; and the blue negative in the blue-absorbing Yellow dye. The three images may then be superimposed on a single support to make the completed colour reproduction.

The Eastman Colour Films are multilayer films of the type in which the layers are not separated after exposure. Films of this class are known as Multilayer, Monopack or Integral Tripack. “Multilayer” is descriptive not only of this particular group of films, but also those in which the layers may be separated after exposure, while “Monopack” is liable to be associated with a particular process which has been quite widely employed by Technicolor. “Integral Tripack” is therefore adopted as the most convenient term for describing the Eastman Colour Films.

Three types of Eastman Colour Film are manufactured. These are the Colour Negative Film, intended for use as the picture negative material in the camera; the Colour lnternegative Film, used for a similar purpose to black-and-white duplicating negative film; and Colour Print Film, which may be employed in preparing prints from either the Colour Negative or Colour lnternegative. A special black-and-white Separation Positive Film is also provided and this is intended for use in preparing three separation positives from the Colour Negative. The separation positives form an intermediate link with the Colour Negative when making a Colour Internegative, so that their function is similar to that of a master positive in a black-and-white system.

Integral tripack camera films have the advantage that they may be used in a standard black-and-white camera, and apart from a check on the colour correction and focus of the lens, no special precautions are necessary. It is of interest to note that the colours of integral tripack negatives, as well as the densities, are reversed compared with the original scene.

The coloured images in Eastman Colour Films are produced by a method known as dye-coupling development. For this a special developing agent is used in conjunction with a second compound known as the colourforming coupler. Photographic development is a process of chemical reduction brought about by the developing agent, which is oxidized in proportion to the amount of silver formed. The oxidized developing agent combines with the colour forming coupler to create a dye of appropriate colour, the concentration of which is proportional to the amount of silver in the image. The dye thus formed must be insoluble in water so that the reaction shall be quite local and a dye image of high resolution obtained. The silver image is removed at a later stage of the process.

Three colour-forming couplers provide the appropriate dyes and are incorporated in the relevant emulsion layers.

Colour Rendering and Image Sharpness in Integral Tripack Processes

At present, there are two basic problems associated with the design of a satisfactory integral tripack process. The first of these is accuracy of colour rendering which, of course, is not confined to the integral tripack system but is of special importance in this case because of the practical problems involved in correcting deficiencies. The second factor is image sharpness, necessarily important because the optical image loses sharpness by light scatter when it passes through successive emulsion layers. Special measures have been adopted to meet these problems in the design of Eastman Colour Films.

Certain theoretical difficulties in the accuracy of colour rendering by additive and subtractive processes have already been described before this Society.² Another practical problem is concerned with the transmission characteristics of the dyes formed in colour development. Ideally, the dyes used in a subtractive process should completely absorb one-third of the visible spectrum and completely transmit two-thirds. In practice, the available dyes fall considerably below this aim. Consequently there is appreciable colour degradation, even when only one set of dyes is involved as in a reversal process, if the original camera film is subsequently used as the projection positive. Degradation is considerably greater when a negative has to be printed on a positive material having dyes with similar characteristics, and worse still after passing through a duplicating stage. Transmission characteristics of ideal and practical subtractive dyes are shown in Fig. 1.

Automatic Masking by Coloured Dye Couplers

In Eastman Colour Films the transmission characteristics of the yellow dye are fairly good, but the magenta dye absorbs rather heavily in the blue where there should be full transmission, the degree of absorption varying with the dye strength. Similarly the cyan dye absorbs in the blue and green, where it should fully transmit. These shortcomings, if uncorrected, would have considerable adverse effect on the colour quality, and the reproduction would be desaturated and false in colour rendering.

This situation is a familiar one in subtractive colour processes, and some correction is often attempted by a technique known as masking, in which one or more compensating weak positive images are combined with the negative during printing. Such masks are used with the intention of cancelling out the unwanted blue and green absorptions in the cyan and magenta dyes of the negative image. Eastman Colour Negative and Internegative Films incorporate a very valuable masking device, the coloured dye-coupler, which provides the necessary correction automatically.

It will be appreciated that if the magenta dye is absorbing some blue, and the cyan dye some blue and green, then the final print will appear desaturated and wrongly coloured. If, however, the unwanted blue and green absorptions can be made constant, no matter what the dye image density, it will be easy to rectify the deficiency during printing, simply by placing a suitable colour compensating filter in the printing light beam, or alternatively by adjusting the overall colour balance of the tripack print film.

The coloured dye-couplers used for the formation of the magenta and cyan dyes in the appropriate layers achieve this in the following manner. The magenta dye-coupler is coloured yellow and absorbs in the blue region of the spectrum where unwanted absorption is taking place. The coupler is used up as the dye image is formed, so that where image density increases, the colour strength of the coupler decreases. Thus where there is high image density, and therefore high unwanted blue absorption, there is low coupler concentration with consequent low blue absorption. The coloured coupler can be selected so that its maximum absorption corresponds to the blue absorption of the magenta dye at maximum density. In such a case the combined blue absorption of the magenta dye and residual coloured coupler is constant, and remains substantially so at all intermediate densities. A similar function is performed by the coloured coupler in the cyan layer, which is reddish-orange in colour. The behaviour of these coloured couplers is represented diagrammatically in Fig. 2.

The colours of these two couplers result in an orange hue which is visible in the processed negative and obscures the actual colours in the negative to an extent which makes visual assessment impossible. This system of masking is adopted only in the negative stages of the colour process: it cannot be embodied in the final print because of the orange hue of the couplers.

Image Sharpness

When considering maximum sharpness in a subtractive type colour process it must be remembered that the magenta image has the greatest influence upon the sharpness of a projected picture, the cyan image is next in importance and the yellow image least. It is therefore desirable in an integral tripack film, because of the light scatter in the layers during exposure, to arrange for the magenta image to appear in the top layer, the cyan image in the middle and the yellow image at the bottom.

With the camera negative film such an ideal arrangement is not possible, for in practice the blue sensitive layer (forming the yellow image) has to be placed at the top. A high speed picture negative emulsion is strongly responsive to blue light, so that although two of the three layers in the film can be selectively sensitized to green and red, the fundamental blue sensitivity of the silver halide emulsion is always present and must be eliminated from the green and red sensitive layers by the use of a yellow filter. It is for this reason that the blue sensitive layer must be placed at the top; in such a position it is a simple matter to locate beneath it a yellow filter layer which will completely remove the blue light while transmitting green and red. The filter layer can be designed to be eliminated during processing of the film.

In the print film it is possible to achieve the desired dye layer arrangement because high emulsion speed is not essential, as in the camera negative material, and this permits selection from a wider range of emulsion types.

The internegative film presents a special problem, for although it is a low speed material, and as such might follow the same design as the print film with regard to layer positioning, the fact that coloured couplers are incorporated for automatic masking complicates matters. The blue-absorbing yellow and orange-red couplers would prevent an image being registered on the blue sensitive emulsion if it were at the bottom. The problem is solved by adopting a noncomplementary relationship between the dye image colour and spectral sensitivity of each layer.

Non-Complementary Dye Relationship

In conventional integral tripack materials Yellow, Magenta and Cyan dyes are used for the formation of images originating in the Blue, Green and Red sensitive emulsions respectively. This is because each dye absorbs in the particular spectral region to which the emulsion is sensitized, while freely transmitting (at least, in theory) all other parts of the spectrum. In other words, the dyes bear a complementary relationship to the spectral sensitivities of their respective layers. They control light transmission in exactly the same way as does a silver image, but exercise of this control is confined to light of wavelengths within the colour sensitivity region of the appropriate emulsion. If, therefore, blue, green and red are accepted as the normal regions for which the three emulsions are sensitized, then the normal complementary relationship with the dye image will be Blue/Yellow, Green/Magenta, Red/Cyan. Such a relationship is obligatory, for example, in a reversal type camera film intended for subsequent use in projection; but when integral tripack films are employed at an intermediate stage between the camera negative and final print it is by no means essential for this complementary relationship to be maintained, so long as it can be established in the print. These films may therefore have a non-complementary dye relationship.

Eastman Colour Internegative Film has a non-complementary dye relationship in that the top emulsion layer is blue sensitive and forms a magenta image, the green sensitive middle layer forms a cyan image, and the red sensitive bottom layer a yellow image. In this way, the desired layer positions for the subtractive images are obtained.

Use of this technique in the internegative film is permissible as it is used in conjunction with black-and-white separation positive films. Suitable light filters can be employed when printing from the separation positives on to the internegative to match the noncomplementary dye relationship of the latter. (See Fig. 3).

Preparation of an Internegative

To make an internegative, three separation positives are first prepared. These represent separate records of the three dye images in the original negative. They are obtained by printing the negative successively on the three films using blue, green and red printing lights of suitable quality. Ignoring dye deficiencies, the blue light is obstructed only by the yellow layer in the negative and freely transmitted by the magenta and cyan layers: in the same way green light is affected only by the magenta layer and red light by the cyan layer.

The blue record separation positive is called the Yellow printer, green record the Magenta printer, and red record the Cyan printer, because those are the respective dye layers they control in the internegative.

The separation positives are now successively printed on to the internegative film, suitable light filters again being used to restrict the exposure from each positive to the appropriate emulsion layer of the film. It will be apparent, therefore, that red light must be used with the Yellow printer, green light with the Cyan printer and blue light with the Magenta printer. Production of an internegative in this way is shown schematically in Fig. 3.⁴

General Properties of Eastman Colour Films

(a) Eastman Colour Negative Film.

Eastman Colour Negative Film is at present manufactured in two types, identified as 5247 and 5248. Type 5247 is suitable for use in daylight illumination, or in high intensity arc light with a straw-coloured filter, such as the Brigham Y.l, before the lamp. In either case a Wratten No. 2B filter should be used on the camera lens to absorb ultra violet radiation. The Exposure Index^* for Type 5247 is 16.

Type 5248 is colour balanced for use in tungsten lamp illumination at a colour temperature of 3200°K. In practice, CP lamps operating at 3350°K can also be used, since correction for small differences in colour temperature of the light source can easily be applied during printing. It is not advisable, however, to attempt the lighting of subjects with lamps of mixed colour temperature, at least until ample experience has been gained.

Type 5248 has an Exposure Index of 32 to tungsten illumination. As a guide to lighting level, a key light of 200 foot candles at f/2 is recommended, although lower illumination values can be used if necessary without seriously affecting the quality of the negative. Practical camera tests are always advisable as a check on correct exposure.

The film may be exposed in daylight, or high intensity arc plus a straw-coloured filter such as the Brigham Y.l. In either case a Wratten No. 85 filter is required on the camera lens. In these conditions the Exposure Index becomes 24.

When working with the Colour Negative lighting contrast should be fairly soft, with evenly distributed illumination. Good modelling can be obtained with lighting ratios lower than those used for black and white work.

Although both Type 5247 and Type 5248 are manufactured at present, it is probable that in the near future production will be concentrated on 5248, especially since the two types cannot readily be intercut for printing purposes.

A diagrammatic representation of the emulsion layers in Eastman Colour Negative Film, before and after processing, is shown in Plate 1.

(b) Eastman Colour Print Film.

The type identification number for Eastman Colour Print Film is 5381, while an improved Type 5382, giving increased sharpness, is now being manufactured.

The film is colour balanced for exposure to tungsten lamp illumination. It is appreciably slower than Eastman black-and-white Fine Grain Release Positive Film Type 5302. As a guide to speed, an average density Eastman Colour Negative will print at light 10 on a Bell Howell Model D printer fitted with a 300-watt Reflector Lamphouse and the necessary colour balancing filters in the light beam. A Wratten No. 2B filter must always be used when printing on to the Colour Print Film in order to absorb the ultra violet radiation from the light source, which would otherwise desaturate the colours in the print.

Any standard printer suitable for black-and-white work can be used in making Eastman Colour Prints, provided it has a tungsten lamp light source and means are available for inserting colour balancing filters in the light beam to correct for differences in colour balance of the negative or print film. Such a printer does not permit of the rapid filter changes often required for scene-to-scene colour balance shifts, and for this work special equipment is necessary.

A preferred type of printer is one in which the illumination at the printing aperture is obtained by mixing light from the source after it has passed in three separate beams through narrow band red, green and blue filters, the intensity of each beam being separately controlled.⁵ A diagram of the optical arrangements for such a printer appears at Fig. 4. Not only does a printer of this type provide a wider range of colour balance changes, but problems associated with the use of colour balancing filters, such as fading and complications due to unwanted absorptions in the filters themselves, are avoided. Moreover, frequent replacement of filter material is liable to become an appreciable cost item. Apart from these advantages tests have shown that improved quality is obtainable on Eastman Colour Print Film exposed in this way.

The sound track on Eastman Colour Print Film is composed of both the silver and dye images, from which very satisfactory sound quality is obtainable.³ A point of interest is that the film is perforated with American Standard Combination Negative-Positive perforations.

A diagrammatic representation of the emulsion layers in Eastman Colour Print Film before and after processing is shown in Plate 1.

(c) Eastman Colour Inter negative Film.

Eastman Colour Internegative Film, designed for use in conjunction with Eastman Colour Negative Type 5247, is identified by the number 5243. A second internegative material, similar in characteristics to 5243 but designed for use with Eastman Colour Negative Type 5248, is known as Type 5245. As has been explained, Colour Internegative has a non-complementary dye relationship and a spectrogram illustrating this is shown at Plate 1. A diagrammatic representation of the emulsion layers before and after processing is also seen in Plate 1.

Colour Internegative Film requires a printer with a high intensity light source in order to obtain adequate exposure. This is partly because the light filters employed for printing the separation positives on to the internegative have narrow transmission bands to restrict exposure to the correct emulsion layer in the film. Additional reasons are the low inherent speed of the internegative film and the necessarily high minimum density of the separation positives. As a guide to the type of printer required, adequate exposure has been obtained from separation positives of 0.8 minimum density in an equipment fitted with a 1000-watt tungsten lamp, reflector, and condenser system, and running at 25feet per minute. A registeringtype printer is essential for printing from separation positives.

(d) Eastman Panchromatic Separation Film, Type 5216.

This material, specially designed for making black-and-white separation positives from colour negative originals, is broadly similar to the black-and-white Eastman Fine Grain Duplicating Negative Film, Type 5203. However, it is capable of a somewhat higher contrast, and the definition is superior to that obtained with 5203. The film has an extended red sensitivity to allow the use of a Wratten No. 70 filter for exposure of the red separation positive. An absorbing dye is incorporated in the emulsion to improve definition, and this is not completely discharged during processing. Consequently, separation positives prepared on this material have a characteristic greenish tint.

Comparative spectrograms for Type 5216 and Type 5203 film are shown in Fig. 5, and typical sensitometric curves for Type 5216 appear in Fig. 6.

Processing of Eastman Colour Films.

Apart from an extra stage to permit removal of the silver image, the processing of Eastman Colour Negative, Colour Print and Colour Internegative Films does not differ fundamentally from the techniques applied to black-and-white materials. But control of solution temperatures and bath compositions has to be much more precise, and the processing machine needs to be built to more rigorous specifications than would be warranted for handling black-and-white films. Discretion is necessary in choice of the materials for machine construction, and efficient squeegee systems are needed at several points, especially when processing Colour Print Film, just before the sound track redevelopment stage. Washing is essential several times during the process, and to minimize reticulation problems it is necessary for the water temperature to be maintained within two or three degrees of the other solutions. Fig. 7 shows in diagrammatic form the various processing stages.

All Eastman Colour Films have a soluble, opaque black backing applied for the purpose of reducing halation, and this must be removed before development. It is first softened in a special bath, and from this the film passes to a rinse tank where the backing is completely removed by buffing the support side of the film, using a roller covered with a soft material such as sponge rubber rotating in the opposite direction to the film travel.

After removal of the backing the film enters the developing solution. It is not greatly different from a black-and-white picture negative developing solution, apart from the special developing agent used, a very low sulphite content, and a higher pH. Development takes 12 to 15 minutes at 70°F., a combined silver and dye image being formed. In black-and-white processing the time can be varied considerably in order to control the ultimate contrast of the negative. Such methods are inadvisable when processing colour film because three emulsions are being developed simultaneously, and they may not all react similarly to a given change in development time. This can lead to an alteration in colour balance.

Development is followed by a brief spray rinse, and the film then passes into the first fixing bath, which is of the normal type used in black-and-white processing. Here the undeveloped silver halide is removed and the emulsion is hardened. A wash follows, after which the film enters the bleach bath where the silver image is converted to silver bromide. After a further wash the film passes to the second fixing bath, identical in composition with the first. Here the silver bromide into which the silver image was converted by the bleach bath is removed, leaving the dye image.

In the case of Colour Print Film, if a sound track has been printed there is a further step which occurs prior to the second fixing bath. A sound track composed of dye image alone is not so satisfactory as one which incorporates the silver image. It is therefore desirable to redevelop the silver bromide in the sound track area only, and this is done by applying a high energy developing solution to the sound track after the wash following the bleach bath. A convenient method of application is by picking up the developing solution on an applicator wheel which forms a bead of developer on the emulsion surface of the film in line with the sound track. In order to prevent spreading of the developing solution into the picture area, development time is kept to a minimum and the solution is made viscous by the inclusion of suitable ingredients. A diagram and photograph of a sound track applicator wheel are shown in Fig. 8.

Following a final wash after the second fixing bath, the film may be passed directly into the drying cabinets if it is Colour Negative or Internegative, or alternatively it can first be run through a tank containing wetting agent to minimize the risk of water spotting. Colour Print Film must be passed through a final stabilizing bath, which, if desired, may also include wetting agent. The stabilizing agent, consisting of formaldehyde, is necessary because the processed print film contains unused colourless colour-forming couplers, which may cause fading of the dye image. These couplers are converted to an inert form by the action of the formaldehyde.

Conclusion

The increasing availability of integral tripack colour films brings nearer the time when all motion picture productions for the commercial entertainment field will be in colour. While the inherent characteristics of the colour film itself must always be a primary factor in determining ultimate quality, it cannot be emphasized too strongly that, far more than in black-and-white photography, good results depend on a high standard of technique in the camera work and film processing. Cameramen accustomed to working with black-and-white films will find adjustments in method essential if good colour quality is to be obtained. Lighting can be less dramatic, exposure must be somewhat more precise, colour temperature of the light source becomes an important factor, and it should always be borne in mind that colours seemingly similar to the eye may not appear so to the colour film. Laboratories must assimilate new methods of sensitometry, and extend their chemical control systems if the requisite standard for colour film processing is to be maintained. Unless these needs are recognized and met, disappointment will surely follow.

Acknowledgment

The author’s thanks are due to Mr. J. A. Carter of the Kodak Research Laboratories for much helpful advice during the preparation of this paper.

Discussion

R. H. BOMBACK: I recognized the film projected as a print from a WarnerColor negative. Have you any comments on this?

THE AUTHOR: Eastman Colour Films are used in the WarnerColor process.

W. LASSALLY: You said in your lecture that intercutting of the daylight and tungsten type colour negative was difficult. If this is so, what is the recommended procedure for intercutting exterior and interior scenes?

THE AUTHOR: It is true that intercutting of 5247 and 5248 negatives is difficult on account of the difference in the coloured coupler density. As I explained, future production will probably be concentrated on the 5248 negative, with the intention that it should be used both for exteriors and interiors, with a suitable compensating filter in the case of exterior work.

W. S. BLAND: I notice that the preferred type of printer projects three separate beams through narrow band filters for analysis of the light. These beams pass through different parts of the bulb and so will be subject to their different rates of blackening. Will this not upset the colour balance? In my experience lamps of this type are subject to rather rapid loss in light output through blackening of the bulb? What is the effective life of the lamp?

G. W. ASHTON: Possibly Mr. Bland did not realise from the diagram that the light reaching the printing aperture is automatically controlled to a pre-determined value by the photoelectric cell assembly. Therefore, change in light output due to blackening of the bulb is automatically compensated.

THE AUTHOR: That is true, but the question of the total lamp life must still remain a problem. At the present time this is secondary to the problem of getting sufficient exposure on the film.

R. L. HOULT: You mention that when using 5248 film in daylight a Wratten 85 filter is recommended for colour temperature correction. If 5248 is colour balanced for 3200 K, why is a Wratten 85B filter not recommended for this purpose?

THE AUTHOR: The Wratten 85 filter corrects to one colour temperature only. In practice colour temperature of daylight varies over a wide range, so that a correction at the printing stage is nearly always necessary. In these circumstances it does not much matter whether an 85 or an 85B filter is used. Work is going on with a view to producing a series of colour correction filters intended for use with 5248 film. These will provide more specific colour correction under varying conditions of daylight.

I. B. M. LOMAS: In view of the amount of work which has been carried out on automatic masking methods in recent years, would it not be true to say that ideal subtractive dyes are impossible to obtain?

THE AUTHOR: I think it is reasonable to say that the attainment of ideal dyes in practice seems to be virtually impossible.

F. BUSH: The speaker has said that 5248 film is colour balanced for 3200°, and that satisfactory results are obtainable at 3350°K. Could he say from experience what a practical lower limit to the colour temperature would be, while still maintaining reasonable exposure balance in the three emulsion layers.

THE AUTHOR: I have no practical experience on which to base an answer, but I would estimate it at 3000°K.

A MEMBER: Colour film for daylight use is usually balanced to Mean Noon Sunlight. Is it possible to correct, in the printing process, for daylight conditions other than this, so as to obtain a uniform effective colour temperature in the print?

THE AUTHOR: Certainly, some correction along these lines is possible, but I would not like to suggest that extreme conditions can be corrected in this way.

A MEMBER: Could you say if the Eastman Colour Films are likely to prove more economical than other types of colour processes in current use?

THE AUTHOR: The answer to this depends on the number of prints you wish to have. For quantity production of release prints there are other methods which may well prove cheaper, but as the number of prints required decreases this discrepancy disappears, and may even go the other way.

S. GOOZEE: No mention was made by the speaker of a colour chart to be used when shooting with Eastman Colour Negative so as to provide the laboratory with a check on the actual exposure conditions. Is it intended to provide such a chart?

THE AUTHOR: Yes, a suitable chart will be made available in due course.

B. HONRI: Ealing Studios have used a reproduction of the Ilford colour chart on metal for underwater photography, using Eastman Colour Negative. At 25 feet or more, the chart (and everything in the water surrounding it) appeared greenish blue in the print but as the camera was brought nearer the chart the colour rendering improved until at a distance of five feet perfect colour rendering was obtained.

W. S. BLAND: What width of sound track may be used on Eastman Colour Print Film while still obtaining even density? I had the impression that the bead of developer might be hard to apply over a wide track in order to obtain a uniform density. What sort of dynamic range is obtainable from the Colour Print sound track?

THE AUTHOR: Undoubtedly some care is necessary in designing the applicator for sound track re-development, but no difficulty should be experienced in obtaining uniform re-development on standard tracks. With regard to the dynamic range, I would refer you to the paper “Sound Track on Eastman Color Print Film,” by C. H. Evans and J. F. Finkle, published in the August, 1951, issue of the Journal of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers.

W. LASSALLY: Is any re-focusing of the camera lens necessary if Eastman Colour Negative is used in place of black-and-white negative?

THE AUTHOR: This might be necessary for really critical work.

B. TILL: In my experience, better colour quality is obtainable on colour films at large lens apertures as against small, say f/2.8 as against f/11. Is there any reason why neutral density filters should not be used so as to be able to work at large apertures in bright lighting conditions?

THE AUTHOR: I do not know why you should find better quality at large apertures, but certainly neutral density filters can be used to cut down the light, always remembering that such filters are seldom truly neutral. This fact may lead to printing complications if intercutting is necessary between negatives exposed in various cameras, using an assortment of neutral density filters. If only one neutral density filter is in use, there is no problem.

F. BUSH: With reference to the last question, at large lens aperture there is usually some image flare which lowers the overall contrast and desaturates the colours slightly. Generally speaking, the public seems to prefer this quality to the more saturated higher contrast result obtained at small lens apertures.

P. W. DENNIS: Is there any theoretical or practical reason why coloured couplers as described should not be used in a reversal type film intended as a “master” from which copies are to be made?

THE AUTHOR: I see no reason why coloured couplers should not be used in this way.

P. W. DENNIS: Will WarnerColor negatives made in America be printed on Eastman Colour Print Film in this country?

THE AUTHOR: In America, prints from WarnerColor negatives are made on Eastman Colour Print Film. As this film may not be available in sufficient quantity in this country, it is difficult to say what may happen in this respect. Eastman Colour Negative Film is quite a flexible medium in the sense that other colour printing techniques can be employed apart from Eastman Colour Print Film.

S. IRVING: Why is it that lenses suitable for use in black-and-white photography may not be suitable for Eastman Colour Films?

THE AUTHOR: This depends on the degree of colour correction in a given lens. Black-and-white films, especially if used with light filters, will not require such complete correction in the lens as do integral tripack colour films. A practical test with the particular lens and film is advisable.

A. HINDS: Are Eastman Colour Films easily obtainable?

THE AUTHOR: Supply of the films in Great Britain is subject to a Board of Trade Import Licence. Whether this is granted will depend on the purpose the film is wanted for. So far as actual supplies are concerned, adequate quantities of all types should be available later this year.

MR. WILLIAMS: In order to avoid using internegative, would it be possible to introduce fades and so on by using A and B roll printing technique?

THE AUTHOR: Yes, that should be quite possible. American practice, however, appears to be to make internegatives for all optical inserts.

W. LASSALLY: I thought that, apart from a slightly increased graininess, the internegative sequence we saw in the projected colour print matched extremely well with the sequence from the original negative.

Complete information on Eastman Colour Films is contained in the publication “Production of Motion Pictures in Color using Eastman Color Film.” A copy is available for reference only in the Society’s Library.

References

¹ Capstaff, J. G.: “An experimental 35mm. multi-layer stripping negative film. ” J. Soc. Mot. Pic. & Tel. Eng. , 54, 445, 1950.

² Hunt, R. W. G.: “Colour cinematography and the human eye.” Brit. Kine. , 19, 173, 1951.

³ Evans, C. H., and Finkle, J. F.: “Sound track on Eastman Color Print Film.” J. Soc. Mot. Pic. & Tel. Eng. , 57, 131, 1951.

⁴ Anderson, C. R., Groet, N. H., Horton, C. A. and Zwick, D. M.: “An intermediate positive-internegative system for color motion picture photography.” J. Soc. Mot. Pic. & Tel. Eng. . 60, 217, 1953.

⁵ Streiffert, J. G.: “A fast-acting exposure control system for colour motion picture printing.” J. Soc. Mot. Pic. & Tel. Eng. , 59, 410, 1952.

^* This Exposure Index is suitable for use with Weston, General Electric and similar exposure meters with or without the calculators for ASA Exposure Indexes. It may be regarded as an equivalent to’the British Standard Exposure Index (arithmetical). ”

(Craig, G.J. (1953): Eastman Colour Films for Professional Motion Picture Work. In: British Kinematography, 22,5, 1953, pp. 146-158.)

“Eastman Negative-Positive Color Films For Motion Pictures

by Frederick Foster

In recent years, a number of negative and positive color films of the integral tripack type have been made available to the motion picture industry. Their use has been greatly encouraged by the flexibility offered by the negative-positive system, which enables a studio to produce color films with the same ease it does black-and-white. This has been especially true more recently in the production of many three-dimensional films, where 3-D cameras taking single film strips are employed instead of Technicolor 3-strip cameras.

In this respect, the new Eastman color films — three in all: color negative, color positive, and color internegative — have had wide use, and now that the manufacturer has increased the output of these films, their use will become even more general. At present, nearly every major studio in Hollywood is using Eastman color negative in one way or another. Some are using the entire color series. Examples are Warner Brothers, whose Warner-Color system employs Eastman negative and positive film, and Republic Studios whose Trucolor process also employs the full range of Eastman color films. Warner’s House of Wax is an outstanding example of all-Eastman color film use. Twentieth Century-Fox studio is using Eastman color negative in its cameras in the production of CinemaScope films. Columbia Studio uses Eastman color negative in shooting all its 3-D films, with the release prints being produced by Technicolor Corporation.

In all, Eastman Kodak now offers four different film materials which can be used in color productions, such as those outlined above, or which can be used in conjunction with existing commercial color motion picture production processes. Three of these materials represent improvements over earlier Eastman color films which were used in the last few years for a number of motion picture productions.

The most acceptable systems for color motion picture production require the use of intermediate steps in order to include special effects and to provide protection masters. A number of systems are possible when working from a color original, but the preferred system appears to be one employing black-and-white separation positives and an integral tripack-type color internegative, For this, Eastman Kodak has provided special film stocks.

The key film, of course is the negative. The new Eastman Color Negative Film, Type 5248, is balanced for use with tungsten illumination at 3200°K. and requires no filters over lights or lens. It can also be used with daylight or carbon-arc illumination when a Kodak Wratten filter No. 85 is used on the camera lens. The speed is high enough to allow sufficient exposure at a keylight level of about 200 footcandles at F/2.0. It has a tungsten exposure index of about 24, and about 16 for daylight. These are only average specifications and, in many cases, satisfactory exposure can be obtained at even lower lighting levels.

This new film has somewhat lower graininess than the earlier Eastman color negative, and improvements have also been made in the colored couplers to allow better rendition of blue subjects. This results in a lower blue density for the processed film, which is advantageous in printing.

The new Eastman color negative now makes it possible for producers of 35mm films in many fields to make pictures in color using any type of 35mm camera. It is expected that soon we shall see newsreels in color, and more and more explorers and travel and documentary film makers are certain to turn to color, using Eastman color negative in portable Eyemo, Camerette, and Arriflex cameras.

The new Eastman Color Print Film. Type 5382 (35mm) and Type 7382 (16mm) is similar to the earlier product, but improvements have been made to provide better image sharpness. A new magenta coupler is also incorporated in this film which gives better rendition of red hues than was the case with the earlier film.

Printing of the color negative onto Color Print Film can be done with either subtractive type printers employing color compensating filters, or with additive-type printers which utilize three filtered light beams (obtained from three separate sources or from a single source with beam-splitters). In either case, the printer must be designed to permit adjustment of both the intensity and color balance of the light for printing each scene. Additive-type printers have been found to give the best results from the standpoint of good color contrast and saturation.

The sound track can be printed from conventional black-and-white sound negatives prepared in the usual way. Either variable density or variable width tracks may be used. It has been found that better frequency response is obtained if the sound track exposure is confined to the two top emulsion layers of the print film instead of to all three layers.

When effects are to be included in the production, black-and-white separation negatives are made through appropriate filters on Eastman Panchromatic Separation Film, Type 5216, using registering-type printer. Preparation of such separations also provides protection against damage to the valuable color original or against possible fading of the dyes. This step also permits slight corrections for contrast and density variations which have occurred in the exposure and/or processing of the color negative original. The separation positives are processed in a standard black-and-white negative developer by conventional methods.

The separation positives are printed onto a new type Color Internegative Film (Type 5245) using a registering printer. This new film has slightly higher contrast characteristics than the earlier film, hence requires somewhat lower contrast separation positives than was required for the earlier product. As with the Color Negative, improvements have also been made in this film, with the result that there is better rendition of blue subjects. The separate layers of the Color Internegative Film are exposed through the appropriate separations using filter packs of the proper type.

Processing of the Color Negative, Color Print and Color Internegative Films is carried out in conventional type continuous processing machines, which provide for all of the steps required. These include, in addition to the washing steps, prebath for backing removal, color development, first fixing bath bleach, second fixing bath, and wetting agent or stabilizing bath. Processing of the Color Internegative Film requires the same solutions as for the Color Negative, but a somewhat shorter development time is used for the former. For the Color Print Film, a different color developer solution is used than for the Color Negative Film. Other solutions are the same.

The accompanying schematic diagram illustrates the various steps in processing Eastman color films with the Eastman Color processing machine. Two additional diagrams show details of the power buffer, which removes the anti-halation backing on the films, and the sound track developing unit.

Development of the sound track is done by means of a bead-type applicator wheel, which dips into a small tray of sound track developer solution. This unit is located in the production line of the processing machine, after the wash tank following the bleach tank.

The processed color internegative may be intercut with the original color negative for release printing onto Color Print Film, Type 5382. Reduction prints can also be prepared on the Type 7382 (16mm) Film from the 35mm color negative or internegative.

In order to maintain proper control of the processing of these color films, it is necessary to make regular chemical analyses of the various solutions and sensitometric tests as well.

More complete data concerning these new color films, including full details on processing procedure, formulae, etc., are contained in a paper to be published shortly in the Journal of the SMPTE, and prepared by W. T. Hanson, Jr., of the Research Laboratories, Eastman Kodak Company, Rochester. N. Y., and W. I. Kisner, Motion Picture Film Dept., Eastman Kodak Company, Rochester, to whom the author is indebted for the technical data furnished for this article. ”

(Foster, Frederick (1953): Eastman negative-positive color films for motion pictures. In: American Cinematographer, 34,7, July 1953, pp. 322-333, 348.)

“Eastman Color

The Eastman Color Process is a three-color subtractive color process introduced in 1950 by the Eastman Kodak Company.¹ When it was introduced the process consisted of two elements that could be used singly or together: a coupler-incorporated, integral mask, three-color negative, and a coupler-incorporated, three-color print film. The negative achieved almost immediate success and has become the basic unit for most of the 35 mm color motion pictures photographed in the United States. The print film was used first chiefly for daily prints but its popularity has consistently increased and at present it is one of the most popular films used for motion picture release printing. A large part of the success of the Eastman Color Films has been due to the continuing effort of the Kodak Research Laboratories. Since the introduction of the process there have been six different camera negative films and seven different print films; also two different panchromatic separation films, four different internegatives, a reversal color intermediate which produces a duplicate negative directly from an original color negative, and a color intermediate film which can be used as either an intermediate positive or an intermediate negative.

During the first few years following its introduction Eastman Color Negative Film, Type 5247 was used to photograph feature films released in several print processes.

Columbia Pictures
The Redskin Rode, Super Cinecolor
The Texas Rangers, Super Cinecolor
The Barefoot Mailman,Super, Cinecolor
Hurricane Island, Super Cinecolor
Sunny Side of the Street, Super Cinecolor
The Magic Carpet, Super Cinecolor

Warner Bros.
The Lion and the Horse, Warner Color
Carson City, Warner Color
The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima, Warner Color
Springfield Rifle, Warner Color
House of Wax, Warner Color
Stop, You’re Killing Me, Warner Color
She’s Back on Broadway, Warner Color

Twentieth Century-Fox
The Sword of Monte Cristo, Super Cinecolor
The Robe, Technicolor
How to Marry a Millionaire, Technicolor
Beneath the Twelve Mile Reef, Technicolor

Paramount
Sangaree, Technicolor

United Artists
Drums in the Deep South, Super Cinecolor

Republic Pictures
Fair Wind to Java, Trucolor
Lady Wants Mink

Negative Materials

The camera negative films manufactured under the name of Eastman Color Negative are multilayered color films which consist of three light-sensitive emulsions sensitized to red, green and blue light respectively, and coated on a single film support (Fig. 50). Incorporated in the emulsion layers are dye couplers which react simultaneously during development to produce a separate dye image in each layer complementary to the sensitivity of the layer. The light and dark areas of the image are reversed with respect to those of the original subject. Also the various color areas of the negative are complementary in color to the corresponding areas in the original scene. The overall orange cast of the negative film is due to the color contributed by the unused coupler in the red and green sensitive layers. These colored couplers act as masks to correct for the deficiencies of the dyes which form the image.

The dyes used in color photography, whether they are produced by dye coupling or by any other means, have absorption characteristics which lead to undesirable results when a color reversal film is duplicated or a color negative film is printed to a color positive film. In addition to the desired absorption, there is a certain amount of unwanted absorption in other regions of the spectrum which tends to degrade the color reproduction. The cyan-dye image absorbs some blue and green light in addition to the red light which it is intended to absorb, the magenta-dye image absorbs some blue light in addition to the green light which it is intended to absorb and the yellow-dye image absorbs some green light in addition to the blue light which it is intended to absorb. The effects of this unwanted absorption can be minimized through the use of separate silver masks as described by T. H. Milter.² However, this type of correction is most suitable for still photography; when applied to motion picture photography it becomes both cumbersome and expensive. A more suitable method for motion picture reproduction is to use couplers which have an original color that is nearly equivalent to the unwanted absorption of the dye images found after coupling.³ The use of this technique to obtain improved color reproduction in motion pictures represents a significant advance in the state of the art. Couplers of this type were used for the first time in a motion picture film in the red and green sensitive layers of Eastman Color Negative Film. The cyan dye-forming coupler is colored orange. When it is converted by exposure and development to cyan dye the orange color is destroyed in proportion to the amount of development which takes place. The unexposed areas where no development takes place retain their original color forming an orange-colored positive image along with the negative cyan image in the red sensitive layer. The magenta dye-forming coupler is colored yellow. When it is converted by development to magenta dye the yellow color is destroyed in proportion to the amount of development which takes place. The unexposed areas where no development takes place retain their original color forming a yellow color positive image along with the negative magenta image in the green sensitive layer. The yellow dye-forming coupler is colorless because at the time when the process was developed there were no entirely suitable magenta colored couplers. If such a coupler were available it would be possible to improve the reproductions of yellow and green.

Six different color negative films having the general characteristics described above have been manufactured as Eastman Color Negative Films:

Eastman Color Negative Safety Film, Type 5247⁴

A color negative film balanced for use under average daylight conditions, that is for the mixture of sunlight and some blue skylight. The speed of this film was E.I. 16, introduced in 1950.

Eastman Color Negative Film, Type 5248⁵

A color negative film balanced for use with 3200°K Tungsten illumination. The speed of this film was E.I. 25 Tungsten and 16 Daylight with a Wratten 85 Filter. Introduced in 1953 this film replaced the earlier type 5247 film. In addition to having a higher speed for tungsten exposure it had finer grain and improved color reproduction compared to its predecessor.

Eastman Color Negative Film, Type 5250⁶

A color negative film balanced for use with 3200°K Tungsten illumination. The speed of this film was E.I. 50 Tungsten and 32 Daylight with a Wratten 85 Filter. Introduced in 1959 this film replaced the earlier type 5248 film. Its improved characteristics included one camera stop more film speed and a new yellow-forming dye-coupler which produced an image dye having less absorption for green light, giving improved color reproduction.

Eastman Color Negative Film, Type 5251⁷

A color negative film balanced for use with 3200°K Tungsten illumination. The speed of this film was E.I. 50 Tungsten and 32 Daylight with a Wratten 85 Filter. Introduced m 1962 this film replaced the earlier Type 5250 film. Its improved characteristics were substantially improved color balance.

Eastman Color Negative Film, Type 5254⁸

A color negative film balanced for use with 3200°K Tungsten illumination. The speed of this film was E.I. 100 Tungsten and 64 Daylight with a Wratten 85 Filter. Introduced in 1968 this film replaced the earlier Type 5251 film. Its improved characteristics included one lens stop more film speed with no increase in graininess maintaining the same sharpness and preserving the same color rendition.

Eastman Color Negative Film, Type 5247/7247⁹

A color negative film balanced for use with tungsten illumination. The speed of this film was E.I. 100 Tungsten and 64 Daylight with a Wratten 85 Filter. Introduced in 1972 this film replaced the earlier Type 5254 film. Its improved characteristics include a significant increase in sharpness, and reduction in graininess along with a substantial reduction in processing time.

Positive Materials

The print films manufactured under the name of Eastman Color Print Film are multilayered color films which consist of three light-sensitive emulsions sensitized to blue, red and green light respectively and coated on a single film support (Fig. 51). Incorporated in the emulsion layers are dye couplers which react simultaneously during development to produce a separate dye image in each layer. When printed from a color negative or additively from three color-separation negatives a three-color reproduction of the original subject is obtained. The couplers used in these films are colorless.

Eastman Color Print Safety Film, Type 5281¹⁰ (35 mm), 7381 (16 mm)

A color positive film balanced for printing with filtered tungsten illumination. The manufacturer’s instructions stated that better contrast and color reproduction could be obtained if this film was printed by additive rather than subtractive means. Introduced in 1950.

Eastman Color Print Film, Type 5382¹¹ (35 mm) and 7382 (16 mm)

A color positive film balanced for printing with filtered tungsten illumination. Introduced in 1953 this film replaced the earlier Type 5381 film. Its improved characteristics included better sharpness, better sound track and a new magenta dye-forming coupler which resulted in improved red reproduction.

Eastman Color Print Film, Type 7383¹² (16 mm)

A color positive film balanced for printing with filtered tungsten illumination. Introduced in 1959 this film was only available in the 16 mm size where its improved sharpness could be used with the greatest advantage.

Eastman Color Print Film, Type 5385¹³ (35 mm) and 7385 (16 mm)

A color positive film balanced for printing with filtered tungsten illumination. Introduced in 1962 this film replaced the earlier Type 5382 (35 mm) and Type 7383 (16 mm). Its improved characteristics included better sharpness in the 35 mm size and higher effective speed and improved color balance in both 35 mm and 16 mm sizes.

Eastman Color Print Film, Type 7380¹⁴

A color positive film balanced for printing with filtered tungsten illumination. Introduced in 1968 this film was only available in small format sizes where its improved sharpness and finer grain characteristics could be used with the greatest advantage. Since the improvements mentioned above were accompanied by a substantial loss in film speed a demand never developed for this film in larger formats.

Eastman Color Print Film, Type 5381¹⁵ (35 mm) and 7381 (16 mm)

A color positive film balanced for printing with filtered tungsten illumination. When it was originally introduced in 1970 this film was only available in small format sizes (8 mm and Super 8). In January 1972 it became available in 35 mm formats. Its improved characteristics included sharpness and grain levels equal to Type 7380 with a speed increase equal to 5385/7385; these improvements were particularly significant in laboratories making high-speed reduction prints in 8 mm or Super 8 formats. A later improvement introduced in mid-1974 improved the yellow color reproduction.

Eastman Color Print Film, Type 5383 (35 mm) and 7383 (16 mm)¹⁶

A color positive film balanced for printing with filtered tungsten illumination. Introduced in 1974, this film was sold concurrently with Type 5381/7581. Its general characteristics were similar except this film had a hardened emulsion which permitted it to be processed in the higher temperature more rapid access ECP-2 process.

Duplicating Materials

Approximately one year after the introduction of the first Eastman Color Negative and Print Films the system was made complete by the addition of two intermediate films:

1. A black and white panchromatic film having a contrast range intermediate between the negative and positive films usually used in black and white work.

Eastman Panchromatic Separation Film, Type 5216¹⁷

The emulsion of this film was slower, sharper and had finer grain structure than the usual panchromatic duplicating films. Its purpose was for making three-color separation positives from color negatives. Introduced in 1951.

Eastman Panchromatic Separation Film, Type 5235¹⁸

A black and white panchromatic duplicating positive film used for making three-color separation positives from color negatives. Introduced in 1956 this film replaced the earlier Type 5216 film.

2. A multilayered duplicating color negative film which consisted of three light-sensitive emulsions sensitized to red, green and blue light respectively (Fig. 52). Incorporated in the emulsion layers were dye-forming couplers which react simultaneously during development to produce separate dye images in each layer. This film differed significantly from its companion camera film Type 5247 in that the dyes formed were not complementary to the sensitivity of the emulsion layers. The magenta dye-forming coupler was in the top blue-sensitive layer so that the blue light exposure led to the formation of magenta dye. The cyan dye-forming coupler was in the middle green-sensitive layer so that the green light exposure led to the formation of cyan dye. The yellow dye-forming coupler was in the bottom red-sensitive layer so that the red light exposure leads to the formation of yellow dye. This arrangement of dye forming couplers and sensitizing was used to give maximum sharpness.

The internegative contained colored couplers similar to those used in Eastman Color Negative which provided automatic masking to correct in part for the unwanted absorption of the cyan and magenta dyes of the negative.

Eastman Color Internegative Safety Films, Type 5243¹⁹

A multilayered duplicating color negative film which consisted of three light-sensitive emulsions sensitized to red, green and blue light respectively. Introduced in 1951.

Eastman Color Internegative Film, Type 5245²⁰

A multilayered duplicating color negative film which consisted of three light-sensitive emulsions sensitized to red, green and blue light respectively. Introduced in 1953 this film replaced the earlier Type 5243 film. Its general characteristics were similar to those of its predecessor with improvements in graininess and sharpness.

In 1956 the Eastman Color system was augmented by the addition of two new films, Type 5270 a duplicating negative for use with reversal color originals and Type 5253 a color intermediate that can be used as either a color master positive or a duplicate negative. The latter eventually replaced completely the Type 5245 internegative.

Eastman Color Internegative Film, Type 5270²¹ (35 mm) and 7270 (16 mm)

A slow, fine-grain, long latitude multilayered duplicating color negative film which consisted of three light-sensitive emulsions sensitized to red, green and blue light respectively (Fig. 53). As in the Eastman Color Negative Film colored dye-forming couplers were employed to provide color correction for unwanted absorption of the image dyes of the reversal original.

Eastman Color Internegative Film, Type 5271²² (35 mm) and 7271 (16 mm)

A slow, fine-grain, long latitude multilayered duplicating color negative film for use with reversal camera originals. Introduced in 1968, this film replaced the earlier Type 5270/ 7270 film. Its improved characteristics included improved sharpness, finer grain, improved color reproduction, slightly higher speed, improved curve shape and increased processing compatibility. Optimum processing is obtained in the Eastman Color Print Process at 75°F using the same solution composition, times, and temperatures required to process Eastman Color Print Film.

Eastman Color Intermediate Film, Type 5253²³ (35 mm) and 7253 (16 mm)

A multilayered duplicating color film that can be used for the preparation of either a color master positive or a color duplicate negative. In addition to the color-forming coupler this film contains absorbing dyes which prevent scattered light traveling within the emulsion layers. This improves image sharpness to the degree that it is not necessary to use the inverted order of layers employed in Types 5243 and 5245 (Fig. 54).

As advances in emulsion technology continued to progress it became possible to design a new film which by reversal processing could produce a duplicate negative in a single printing and processing operation. This advancement improved laboratory efficiency but more important to the final screen image it also improved graininess, color reproduction and sharpness. Introduced in 1968 the new film was an immediate success.

Eastman Color Reversal Intermediate Film, Type 5249²⁴ (35 mm) and 7249 (16 mm)

A multilayered incorporated-coupler duplicating color film which by reversal processing produces duplicate color negatives directly from the original negative. The spectral sensitivity and image dye absorption characteristics are similar to those of Eastman Color Intermediate Type 5253 permitting intercutting with the original and other color negative duplicating films. With this new film it is necessary to place the original base to emulsion in an optical printer when exposing the duplicate. This is required to preserve orientation as well as to introduce effects or change picture format, also modified techniques are required for fades and dissolves. An additional requirement for the use of this new film is the installation of a new processing machine and process CRI-1.

Eastman Color Processing

The films employed in the Eastman Color family can be processed in conventional type continuous processing machines with minor modifications to allow for all of the steps required. Until the introduction of the ECN-2 process in 1972 the processing steps had remained approximately the same throughout the evolution of the process. Improvements as they came were accomplished in film manufacturing. The only significant exception was the change in processing times necessary when the film was changed from Type 5247 to 5248. The introduction of EC N-2 process in 1972 had a major effect on motion picture laboratory operation. The processing time was reduced from approximately 45 minutes to 12 minutes, also substantial changes were made in solution chemistry. The result was more rapid access to the developed negative and a reduction of processing machine size for a given level of productivity. A more gradual evolution has taken place in the print process. Changes in film manufacture made possible increases in solution temperature with subsequent reduction in processing time.

The following tables give the processing steps and times for the various members of the
Eastman Color Process family described in the previous sections.²⁵ Table 1 shows the ECN- 1 process for color negatives and internegatives, the reduced times for the higher temperature ECN-2 process being given in Table 2. The steps of the positive process ECP-1 are shown in Table 3, with the EC P-2 process in Table 4. Table 5 indicates the steps of the reversal process CRI-1.

References

¹ HANSON, W. T., “Color Negative and Color Positive Film for Motion Picture Use,” Journal of The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, March 1952, p. 223,

² MILLER, T, H., “Masking: A Technique for Improving The Quality of Color Reproductions.” Journal of The Society of Motion Picture Engineers, Feb. 1949, pp. 133-155.

³ HANSON, W. T., “Color Correction With Colored
Couplers,” Journal of The Optical Society of America 40, March 1950, pp. 166-171.

⁴ HANSON, W. T., “Color Negative and Color Positive Film for Motion Picture Use,” loc. cit. pp.
223-230.

⁵ HANSON, W. T. and KISNER, W. I., “Improved Color Films for Color Motion Picture Production,” Journal of The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, Dec. 1953, pp. 670-680.

⁶ DUNDON, M. L. and ZWICK, D. M., “A High Speed Color Negative Film,” Journal of The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, Nov. 1959, pp. 735-738.

⁷ KISNER, W. I., “A New Color Negative Film for Better Picture Quality,” Journal of The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, Oct. 1962, pp. 776-779.

⁸ BEELER, R. L., MORRIS, R. A. and WESTON SIMONDS, C, “A New Higher Speed Color Negative Film,” Journal of The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, Sept. 1968, pp. 988- 990.

⁹ ANDERSON, R. G., BONHEYO, G. L., CLIFFORD, J. D., DANIELSON, A. D., HESTER, J. R. and SHAFER, R. K., “Improved Emulsion and Processing Technology for Motion Picture Negative Film.”

¹⁰ HANSON, W. T., “Color Negative and Color Positive Film for Motion Picture Use,” loc. cit., pp. 231-238.

¹¹ HANSON, W. T. and KISNER, W. I., “Improved Color Films for Color Motion Picture Production,” loc. cit., pp. 681-692.

¹² KISNER, W. I., “A Higher Speed Color Print Film,” Journal of The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, Oct. 1962, p. 779.

¹³ Ibid., pp. 779-781.

¹⁴ “New Products,” Journal of The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers.

¹⁵ “New Products,” Journal of The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers.

¹⁶ SCHAFER, R. K., BAPTISTA, J., O’CONNELL, R. and KNUTSEN, E. V., “A New Color Print Film with a Shortened Processing.” Presented at 115th Technical Conference of The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, Los Angeles, April 1974.

¹⁷ ANDERSON, C, GROET, N. H., HORTON, C. H. and ZWICK, D., “On Intermediate Positive Internegative System For Color Motion Picture Photography,” Journal of The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, March 1953, pp. 217-225.

¹⁸ Internal Memo, Motion Picture Film Department – Eastman Kodak Company, 1956.

¹⁹ ANDERSON, C. et al., “An Intermediate Positive Internegative System for Color Motion Picture Photography,” loc. cit., pp. 217-225.

²⁰ HANSON, W. T. and KISNER, W. I., “Improved Color Films for Color Motion Picture Production,” loc. cit., pp. 694-696.

²¹ ZWICK, D. M., BELLO, H. I. and OSBORNE, C. E., “A New Color Internegative Film for Use in Color Motion Picture Photography,” Journal of The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers,
August 1956, pp. 426-428.

²² BROWN, R. C, MORRIS, R. A. and O’CONNELL, R. J., “An Improved Color Internegative Film,” Journal of The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, Sept. 1968, pp. 990-994.

²³ BELLO, H. J., GROET, N. H., HANSON, W, OSBORNE, C. E. and ZWICK, D. M., “A New Color Intermediate Positive Intermediate Film System for Color Motion Picture Photography,” Journal of The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, April 1957, pp. 205-209.

²⁴ BECKETT, C, MORRIS, R. A., SCHAFER, R. K. and SEEMANN, J. M., “Preparation of Duplicate Negatives Using Eastman Color Reversal Intermediate Film,” Journal of The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, October 1968, pp. 1053-1056.

²⁵ “Production of Motion Pictures in Color Using Eastman Color Films.” (Motion Picture Film Department, Eastman Kodak Co., Rochester, N.Y., 1952, 1954, 1960, 1963.)”

(Ryan, Roderick T. (1977): A History of Motion Picture Color Technology. London: Focal Press, on pp. 148-158.)

“The Evolution of Eastman Color Motion Picture Films*

By Wesley T. Hanson, Jr.

The author became active in color film design shortly after the introduction (1935) of the Kodachrome amateur reversal film, created by Mannes and Godowsky. In this article, he traces the history of Eastman Color films from Troland’s patent on monopack film and Fischer’s discovery of color couplers, to the completion of the first negative-positive Kodacolor film system for still photography.

The author of this paper was involved in the research and development work related to motion picture products for many years, and feels very strongly that he is still a member of the motion picture community. Having been closely associated with much of the work that led to the Eastman color motion picture film, I shall relate some of my recollections of the highlights of that work.

However, this will not be a complete history of the development of color motion pictures. Little reference will be made to work of other organizations active in this field. In no way is this omission intended to belittle the importance of those other activities.

Kodachrome – 1935

In 1935, Kodachrome 16-mm amateur film¹ was placed on the market. This was the first commercially available integral subtractive color process, and it was immediately successful. I joined the program in 1936 in a group whose responsibility it was to apply the process to 35-mm slides. The process was ideal for this purpose, giving excellent transparencies of very low grain and high sharpness. From the beginning, one of our objectives was to adapt this process for professional motion picture purposes.

But there the requirements were, and are, quite different. Many prints, or copies, are required, and intermediate steps in going from the camera film to the print are required for effects and embellishments. Copying the dye image of Kodachrome, or any other color original, introduces problems, the details of which we shall not consider at this point. Masking techniques were the then prevalent approach to solving those problems, and we investigated every way we could think of to mask a Kodachrome film.

Monopack Color Film

At that time, the Technicolor process with its three-strip camera was the only commercial motion picture color process. In 1931, Troland² of Technicolor had been granted a patent on “monopack” films, a single film base on which were coated the many layers of emulsion required in a color film. Kodachrome was such a film.

Because the Technicolor process involved three separation negatives exposed in a camera, it was felt that a monopack film using the Kodachrome process could be used by Technicolor with separation negatives being made from the original film. Research on evolving a film which would have the characteristics suitable for such use was undertaken and monopack was worked out. In 1942, Twentieth Century Fox released the picture Thunderhead, shot on monopack and printed in Technicolor.³ Monopack was used for a few years, and in the late 1940’s Cinecolor – who by then had developed a three-color process – and some other companies were giving consideration to shooting some motion pictures in monopack.

lncorporated Couplers

At the same time that the work on monopack was being done, general research on color photography was also progressing. lt became possible to incorporate color couplers directly into the emulsions and coat them in the several superimposed layers instead of having the couplers in the developers, as was the case with Kodachrome. This would lead to a much simpler process.

The idea was first put forth by Fischer in Germany in 1912, but it was not until the late 1930’s that it became possible to carry it out. Agfa in Germany worked out incorporated couplers of one particular type. In the Kodak Labs, couplers which were dissolved in an oily liquid and then dispersed in gelatin, were developed. This was called the protected coupler process.⁴

A Still-Photography Negative-Positive Color Process

The incorporation of protected couplers made possible a negative-positive color process for still photography and, in 1942, Kodacolor roll film⁵ for amateur use was placed on the market. Prints made from these color negatives had color problems of their own, resulting from the characteristics of all the intervening dyes, just as copies of Kodachrome slide had theirs. A great deal of work aimed at solving these problems was carried on. In 1943, colored couplers⁶ were invented, and these essentially solved the problem. Many papers have been presented describing how colored couplers effect color correction by appropriate masking, and hence we need not consider this aspect here. When such couplers were finally perfected for use in negative sheet and roll films, the quality of the prints was very much improved.

lncorporated couplers were also soon used in a reversal material and process, the Ektachrome sheet film. Thus, in the 1940’s Kodacolor roll film and Ektachrome sheet film were available for still photography.

Motion Picture Color Film – A Dream

At that time, the application of incorporated couplers to professional motion picture film was not feasible because of speed, sharpness, and graininess problems. Coatings containing couplers were very thick. But it did appear that incorporated couplers in a very fine-grain print film emulsion might give adequate grain and sharpness, though at very low speed, for use by Technicolor in making rush prints from their camera negatives. Work on this kind of print film was initiated.

But we still had dreams of an entire Integrated motion picture process. In considering such a process we had to keep three major factors in mind: quality, economics, and convenience. There had to be at least; a camera film, a print film, and an intermediate stage, and we dreamed of the day when films with incorporated couplers would have adequate graininess and sharpness.

So we speculated. If we used an Ektachrome camera film, we could have an internegative and a positive; or we could use three stages of reversal intermediate and a positive film…and so on. We were probing: what was the best combination of the technologies available?

One interesting process that we were working on was “monolayer”. It had become possible to separately sensitize three emulsions to red, green, and blue, and to mix them and coat them in one layer without the sensitizers wandering.⁷ The processing of such a film fairly complicated, but the economics of the film itself would be the most desirable of any we could imagine. This might be a low-cost release print film. For release print film, with hundreds of prints being made, film cost was of prime importance.

Such a film, using a reversal process, would require three stages of reversal if Ektachrome were the camera film. If Kodacolor were the camera film, then an interpositive would be the intermediate stage. Exploratory experiments in all these directions were carried out during the late 1940’s.

By 1949 colored couplers had been introduced into Kodacolor roll film. The print quality was excellent. Enough progress had been made in improving the grain characteristics and sharpness, and therefore we decided to take a look at it as a possible motion picture film. Some of the products coated for roll film experiments was prepared in the 35-mm format Negatives exposed on this material were printed on experimental positive film which was being worked on for other purposes.

When we first viewed the results we were very excited. We immediately showed the prints to company management. the color and tone qualities were better than anything else we had seen in a two-stage print process. They were as good or better than those of Kodachrome original. The graininess and sharpness could stand improvement, but still we were very encouraged. We decided to institute a major development program to work out a color negative camera film and a color print film. Many problems had to be solved and the question of intermediate was not even addressed at the time. We would solve that in due course.

Improvement of Graininess

The graininess and sharpness problems would not go away. Finally an idea occurred to us. Graininess would be improved if each of the three color components of the negative was separated and coated in two layers, each layer being much thinner than previous coatings. The first tests of this idea, though all out of color balance and showing many defects, did show, however, that we were on the right track with regard to graininess.

To obtain adequate sharpness and finer grain in the print film, it was decided to put the magenta layer on top because the magenta dye image carries a major part of the sharpness. Yellow, contributing least to the sharpness, would be coated on the bottom. Chlorobromide emulsions which could be used in this format were worked out and a print film with very high resolving power was produced.

Motion pictures projected in our small viewing room and viewed from quite close up looked excellent. However, when they were presented to a large audience on a big screen and viewed at greater distance, where the magnification was actually less than it was on our small viewing screen. The pictures were very unsharp. Back to the drawing board!

What was the problem? It turned out to be back scatter of light from the bottom blue sensitive layer. This did not affect resolving power but resulted in very low acutance at low line frequencies. We added inert absorbing dyes to the coating and eliminated this problem.

Eastman color negative and print films were described in a paper presented to the SMPTE in 1950 and published in the JOURNAL of the SMPTE in I952.⁸
In 1950, Columbia Pictures photographed The Redskin Road on Eastman color negative film. It was released by Cinecolor in 1951.

The first full-length color motion picture using the entire Eastman color process, negative and print films, was Royal Journey, which was produced by the National Film Board of Canada. This feature presented the royal tour made by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, who was then Princess Elizabeth, and the Duke of Edinburgh. Twenty-eight days after the end of the tour, production was complete and a test print was ready. The film was released by Columbia Pictures of Canada 12 days later on December 21, 1951.

State of the Art in the 1950’s

The color negative film at that time had an Exposure Index of 16 and was balanced for use with daylight type arc lights. All color motion pictures were shot with this type of illumination at that time. The paper describing the negative and the print films mentioned the possible use of separation positives and separation negatives, but did not deal seriously with the major requirements of intermediate steps.

An integrated process involving a negative, an interpositive and internegative, and a positive was still needed. Short of this, the requirements for motion picture production could be met by means of a process involving a negative, separation positives, an internegative, and a positive. The optical effects and other embellishments, printed by means of separation positives on a single internegative, could lead to an internegative which could be intercut with the camera negative so that release printing could be done in a continuous and economical fashion. Because a simple internegative film which could be printed from black-and-white separation positives had much less stringent design requirements than a color film which could be used as both an interpositive and an internegative, design of the simpler internegative film became the objective

As our research continued we concentrated on emulsions, on tone reproduction, on latitude, on graininess, on sharpness. Some of this research was aimed at high-speed emulsions for negatives. Some was aimed at finer grain emulsions for use in intermediates or print film.

For an internegative film, which was to be printed from separation positives, the magenta layer could be on top. This would give the best sharpness. The green separation positive could be printed with blue light on a top, blue sensitized layer that gave a magenta dye image. So, such a “false sensitized” intermediate was conceived. Work on this, as well as work on improving the negative was successful and, in 1953, an entire integrated process was presented. The color negative, separation positives, false sensitized internegative, and release print film were described in an SMPTE paper.⁹

The camera film had an Exposure Index of 25 and was now balanced for use with tungsten illumination. This was the first time that professional color motion picture film had been fast enough to be used with tungsten lights. Here was a complete color system to be used widely by the motion picture industry.

Simultaneous Multilayer Coating

There was still much left to be desired, however. We still had our dreams. Monolayer Kodachrome-type film continued to intrigue us as a very economical release print film. A process involving a negative, and interpositive, and a monolayer film still demanded some attention. Then another invention came along which changed all of that.¹⁰ In early 1954, the idea evolved that the various layers in a color film could be coated simultaneously – without mixing – by the proper arrangement of the various emulsion coating outlets delivering the emulsions to the film base during the coating operation. Believe it or not, this idea worked! Several emulsions could be coated together without intermixing as they flowed on the film base. This changed things. The economics of a multilayer print film could not compare much more favorably than before with a monolayer film. Because of the monolayer processing problems, and because of the inadequate quality so far achieved, work on monolayer was discontinued.

Research would now be concentrated on developing an interpositive film which would replace the separation positives. This work was successful. In a paper presented at the SMPTE meeting in 1956 and published in 1957,¹¹ a new intermediate film was described having a gamma of one and sufficient latitude for making high-quality intermediates. It could be used as an interpositive and printed back on itself to make a duplicate negative.

Perfectioning Motion Picture Color Films

Now there was an integrated color film system that would fill the requirements of the motion picture industry. The production of motion pictures in color did not have to be restricted any longer to a few experienced organizations but could be undertaken wherever desired.

However, much still remained to be done and the research effort was not relaxed. In 1959, a paper titled “A High-Speed Color Negative Film” was presented.¹¹ This film had an Exposure Index of 50.

One of the ongoing prime objectives of research on photographic emulsions was, and is, to improve the speed-to-grain ratio. Higher speed emulsions can be made by using larger silver halide grains, but the graininess becomes unacceptable. So the basic improvements involve improvements in the ratio of speed to grain. As a result of continuing basic research in emulsion technology, the graininess of the 50-E.I. Eastman color negative film was improved in 1962.¹³ At the time this product was announced, a new print film was also announced,¹³ which had a fourfold speed increase and also had improved graininess and color. These qualities resulted from many years of research in emulsion technology, couplers, sensitizers, processing chemistry, and coating technology.

Nineteen sixty-eight was a banner year. A new, higher speed color negative film with an Exposure Index of 100 was announced.¹⁵ That same year, a new kind of duplicating film, “color reversal intermediate,” was made available.¹⁶ Duplicate color negatives are shipped to various countries for release printing in those countries. A color reversal intermediate film is the means for making, in one single step, a duplicate color negative for such a purpose from an original camera negative.

The idea for this film came from the Kodak Laboratories in France, and the original work on it was done there. In this film, colored couplers are used for the purpose of giving improved color reproduction. This is the only reversal film using such couplers. The emulsion was designed for processing in the Ektachrome reversal process which was already in use in the 16-mm commercial field.

It should be noted that the development of the use of color in the 16-mm field is an entirely separate story with which this report docs not deal. However, 1968 did bring the two fields together, with the introduction of 16-mm internegative film.¹⁷ This product was designed for printing from reversal color originals on Eastman color print film.

The characteristics of this film were influenced by the use of a new kind of coupler, a development inhibitor releasing or DIR coupler. Such color forming couplers were invented back in the early 1960’s¹⁸ and it took a long time to tame them, to get them under control for use in a photographic product. Such couplers cause edge effects and enhance image sharpness. This is quite important in 16-mm film.

Research continued on emulsions, on couplers, on hardeners, and on many other aspects of photographic systems. All of this research came together in 1972. At the 112th Conference of the SMPTE a new color negative process, Eastman Color Negative Process 2, was described, along with the new Eastman Color Negative II film.¹⁹ This film had the same speed, 100 E.I., as the previous film but had improvements including better grain quality. These improvements made it useful in the 16-mm field.

Research on the color positive film took a different turn. For this film, economics is of prime importance. Productivity gains are important. The work on new hardeners led to the ability to work out a film which could be processed at higher temperatures and thus in shorter times. In 1973, Eastman color print film for a short process was introduced. This process takes nine-and-a-half minutes for completion, and it is the author’s understanding that some of the processing machines in use run at 400 feet per minute.

In 1976, the color intermediate film was improved and adapted for processing in the ECN2 process. That just about brings us up to date. Now, most motion pictures are photographed in color. This procedure is used worldwide. Duplicate negatives are shipped all over the world to be printed locally.

Some Final Words

We have come a long way from the 16-E.I. daylight film with marginal graininess and sharpness to a 100-E.I. tungsten balanced film for general purpose use, with quality intermediates and print film adapted for high speed printing and processing. It is not the author’s intention to give the reader the false impression that each of the described breakthroughs came easy. On the contrary! Each research project, each invention and innovation in film design represents an enormous commitment. Making each invention work, solving the many problems of tone reproduction, color balance, stability, which are introduced when each of the many variables is changed, has required blood, sweat, tears, and faith. And it won’t stop here.

What is to come? I shall not try to predict improvements in detail, but I feel quite confident that many improvements will be made so that the utility and convenience and the relative economics of motion pictures in color will continue to improve. Motion pictures and the motion picture industry will continue to grow in importance and will have a pervasive influence and an enormous impact on our culture and our social behavior. As the world becomes more and more visually oriented, motion pictures will influence the way we perceive it through news, through social commentary, and through entertainment.

Notes

*A paper presented at the 122nd annual SMPTE Technical Conference, November 9-14, 1980, New York, N.Y. Author: Vice President (Ret.) and Director, Research Laboratories, Eastman Kodak Company, Rochester, N.Y.

References

¹ Mannes L. D., Godowsky L. Jr., “The Kodachrome Process for Amateur Cinematography in Natural Colors,” J. SMPE, 25: 65-68, July 1935.

² Troland L. T., U.S. Patent 1,808,583, 1931.

³ Clarke C. G., “Practical Utilization of Monopack Film,” J. SMPE, 45: 327-332, Nov. 1945.

⁴ Jelley E., Vittum P. W., U.S. Patent 2,322,027, 1943.

⁵ Mees C. E. K., “Direct Processes for Making Photographic Prints in Color,” J. Franklin Inst., 233: 41-50, Jan.1942. (Also in J. SMPE, 42: 230-238, Apr. 1944.)

⁶ Hanson W. T. Jr., U.S. Patent 2,449,966, 1948.

⁷ Carroll B. H., Hanson W. T. Jr., U.S. Patent 2,592,243, 1952.

⁸ Hanson W. T. Jr., “Color Negative and Color Positive Film for Motion Picture Use,” J. SMPE, 58: 223-228, Mar. 1952.

⁹ Hanson W. T. Jr., Kisner W. I., “Improved Color Films for Color Motion Picture Production,” J. SMPE, 61: 667-701, Dec. 1953.

¹⁰ Russell T. A., U.S. Patent 2,761,791, 1956.

¹¹ Bello H. J. Jr., Groet N. H., Hanson W. T. Jr., Osborne C. E., Zwick D. N., “A New Color Intermediate Positive – Intermediate Negative Film System for Color Motion-Picture Photography,” J. SMPE, 66: 205-209, Apr. 1957.

¹² Dundon M. L., Zwick D. M., “A High-Speed Color Negative Film,” J. SMPE, 68: 735-738, Oct. 1962.

¹³ Kisner W. I., “A New Color Negative Film for Better Picture Quality,” J. SMPE, 71: 776-779, Oct. 1962.

¹⁴ Kisner W. I., “A Higher Speed Color Print Film,” J. SMPE, 71: 779-781, Oct. 1962.

¹⁵ Beeler R. L., Morris R. A., Simonds C. W., “A New Higher Speed Color Negative Film,” J. SMPTE, 77: 988-990, Sept. 1968.

¹⁶ Beckett C., Morris R. A., Schafer R. K., Seemann J. M., “Preparation of Dublicate Negatives Using Eastman Color Reversal Intermediate Film,” J. SMPE, 77: 1053-1056, Oct. 1968.

¹⁷ Brown R. C., Morris R. A., O’ Connell R. J., “An Improved Color Internegative Film,” J. SMPE, 77: 990-994, Sept. 1968.

¹⁸ Barr Ch. R., Williams J., Whitmore K. E., U.S. Patent 3,227,554, 1966.

¹⁹ Barr Anderson R. G., Bonheyo G. L., Clifford J. D., Danielson A. D., Hester R. J., Schafer R. K., “Improved Emulsion and Processing Technology for Motion-Picture Color negative Film,” a paper presented at the 112th SMPTE Technical Conference, Oct. 22-27, 1972, in Los Angeles, Calif.”

(Hanson, Wesley T. (1981): The Evolution of Eastman Color Motion Pictures. In: Journal of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, Vol. 90, No. 9, 1981, pp. 791-794.)

“Colour Masking

No dye produced by colour coupling has perfect spectral transmission, showing unwanted absorbtion in certain regions; this can lead to a degree of colour degradation in absorbtions can be partly compensated by the use of masking images, which were originally separate low-density black and white prints, but Eastman Kodak developed a method by which the colour couplers in the emulsions could themselves form the required masks. For example, in the green sensitive layer, the magenta-forming coupler has a yellow colour; where a magenta image is formed, this yellow is destroyed but remains in the other areas to provide a proportionate correction for the unwanted absorbtion of blue light inherent in the imperfect magenta dye. Similarly in the red-sensitive layer, an orange-coloured coupler corrects for the unwanted absorbtion of blue and green light by the cyan image. Eastmancolor negative with this integral masking thus has a characteristic orange-yellow appearance in the unexposed areas, very different from the unmasked Agfacolor negative and its derivatives.

Eastmancolor negative and positive were first introduced in 1950, the print stock having the visually important magenta image as the top layer, unlike Agfacolor positive. But it was the appearance in 1953 of an improved negative balanced for exposure to tungsten light which rapidly led to its widespread adoption: within a year or so it had clearly become the most favoured material for professional cinematography. On the positive side, Eastman’s lead was by no means so well defined: Technicolor continued to make large quantities of release prints by dye-transfer, while Agfa-Gevaert, Ferrania (later 3M) and Fuji all produced competitive colour print stocks once the market was established.

Continued Progress

In due course, the other manufacturers recognised the need for a masked negative stock but it was also clear that the laboratories could only conveniently process materials compatible with the developing systems installed for Eastmancolor. This was re-emphasised in 1974 when Eastman introduced revised processes for both negative and positive in which higher solution temperatures greatly reduced processing times; compatible stocks from both Agfa-Gevaert and Fuji followed.

As the table shows, there has been a steady increase in the sensitivity of colour negative, with lower lighting levels and costs, and this has been accompanied by continued improvement in image quality – finer grain, higher resolution, better tonal and colour reproduction. As a result, the need for large-area negative systems for wide-screen presentation has practically disappeared, while 16mm negative has widely replaced reversal stocks in many applications.

Similar improvements have taken place in the positive print materials, one of the most recent being better colour stability in long term storage, a factor which was sadly lacking in many of the earlier tripack stocks.”

(Happé, Bernard (1984): 80 Years of Colour Cinematography. London: British Kinematograph Sound & Television Society, on p. 16.)

“Blazing Technicolor”, “Stunning Trucolor”, and “Shocking Eastmancolor”

David L. Parker

Like almost everything else, the technical evolution of the movies did not happen in a simple, orderly way. It took trial-and-error experimentation to arrive at an industry standard for sound. Tussling over a standardized aspect ratio continues to this day. And the means of filling a film image with color have been many and diverse. Film preservation offers an opportunity to trace not only the aesthetic and sociological milestones (and detours), but also the technical, physical changes that film has gone through – a history both complicated and, more to the point, colorful as well.

Although it is commonly believed that films in color began with the introduction of full-color Technicolor in the middle thirties, from the outset there have been three kinds of color films, and examples of these may be found in The American Film Institute Collection and other collections in the Library of Congress.

As early as 1895, New York City audiences saw movies that had been colored by hand. The Edison Kinetoscope Company in their film of Annabelle’s Dance attempted to simulate the effects of the colored lights which played over her body during her stage performance by hand-coloring the black-and-white pictures frame by frame. A print of this 1894 film in the collection of the Library of Congress has her white dress hand-painted in half a dozen different colors.

By 1907, Pathé Frères was applying color mechanically, by the use of stencils, one cut for each color, then retouching by hand. The colors, though sometimes charming, were limited in number and in realism, but, thanks to them, a Pathe film such as Down in the Deep, could offer pink fairies rising from blue sea froth, green whales, and heroes in gold armor, an effect so striking that it was remembered from his childhood movie-going by the Russian director Sergei Eisenstein.

The practice of hand-coloring a part of the black-and-white picture persisted as late as 1922, as can be seen in the red-painted heart in a print of Cecil B. De Mille’s melodrama, Fool’s Paradise. Because the rest of the frame is without color, the colored part seems to jump out with three-dimensional ferocity and crudity. While no modern theatrical hand-tinting has been done, contemporary filmmakers such as Jules
Dassin and Claude Lelouch have effectively adapted other antique effects such as occasionally tinting and toning sections of their films in much the same way as was common in the first two decades of the century.

Tinting (the immersion in a dye of the developed black-and-white film by which the entire stock is colored uniformly) can be seen in the amber-colored love scenes and blue-colored night driving scenes of Lelouch’s A Man and A Woman (1966), while toning (chemical treating of the developed black-and-white image in which only the image is colored by altering the color of the silver deposit) survives in the brown-and-white images of the sepia night sequences of Dassin’s 10:30 PM Summer (1966). Such current uses of the technique may impress modern audiences unaware that feature film prints in the collection dating from the twenties are likely to be on film stock tinted any of eleven standard colors. This process was used functionally – blue for night scenes – and often dramatically, as in the sudden plunging of the slightly tinted lavender into deep red in the Nazimova Salomé of 1922.

When the emulsion coating on the film was tinted one color and its clear celluloid base was toned another, a two-color effect was achieved, as in the combination of amber and green in the Goldwyn romance, A Tale of Two Worlds (1922). The travel films and landscape shorts of the twenties attempted to use the tinting and toning effects to advantage as well, making the earth brown and the sky and water green.

In contrast to hand-coloring, and tinting and toning, “natural color cinematography” was attempted in 1909 with a process known as Kinemacolor. “Natural color” referred to the fact that Kinemacolor recorded directly on film from nature instead of applying colors artificially later. Its natural colors were virtually restricted to reds and browns, produced by the filming and projecting of its subjects through alternating filters while the frames on the film itself alternated between red and green. This effect presented to the eye, as the patent application worded it, “a satisfactory rendering of the subject in natural colors.”

Kinemacolor – spotty, smeary, and suffering from a rash – was a successful vaudeville “act” reaching its greatest commercial standing with the longest film produced before 1911, the two and one-half hour newsreel of the crowning of George V as Emperor of India at the Delhi Durbar, its ceremonies and pageantry recorded by twenty-three cameramen.

An improved Kinemacolor known as Prizma appeared in 1916. One side of its film was coated red-orange, the other coated blue-green to give a compromise coloring to its subject matter. Prizma’s OLD GLORY (1916) offers an accurate rendering of the United States flag, but gray skies and brown-gray grounds and buildings. A copy of Prizma’s A Day With John Burroughs (1917) captures insects, flowers, children, and the eighty-year-old naturalist in primary reds and greens.

That same year the Technicolor Corporation produced The Gulf Between, a feature-length fiction film in Jacksonville, Florida. Its unsuspenseful and drawn-out scenario was designed solely to show off the colors best reproduced by the process. This was achieved by placing fileters between the film and the screen during projection.

Although the principles underlying color photography were known as early as 1862, it would not be until the 1920s that a partially satisfactory color motion picture would be achieved. This came about as Technicolor dropped its additive color process (in which one color is added to another to produce a third color) and developed a subtractive process (in which colors are produced by filtering out other colors, each positive image being printed in a color complementary to the color of the filter). Technicolor’s two-color process was used for Metro’s Toll of the Sea, a two-reel variation on “Madame Butterfly” with Anna May Wong, which was expanded into a full-length, five-reel feature and released in 1923. The film was praised for its bright, yet non-harsh colors and its “nearer simulation of nature.” The film was a success, grossing $250,000.

The next year William van Doren Kelly, the developer of the Prizma process, introduced his subtractive process called Kellycolor. That Kellycolor was not as good as the perfected Prizma is shown by a 1927 two-reel drama in the process called The Gaucho.

Following the two-color Technicolor sequences in The Ten Commandments (1923) and Ben Hur (1925), it became the fashion to include color sequences in black-and-white films. Typically, color was not used to intensify dramatic development but to provide an interlude, as exemplified by the 1926 fashion show sequence of Irene; by the Corpus Christi Day processional at St. Stephen’s in Vienna with its plumes, epaulettes, and solemn cavalry in Stroheim’s The Wedding March (1928); and in thirty other films in a five-year period (1925-1930). Dramatically significant use of color would not appear until the last years of two-color Technicolor (1932-1933).

Mack Sennett, the pioneer comedy producer, introduced color in a subtractive red-and-green process he called Sennett Color into such 1928 two-reel comedies as The Swim Princess and one that survives, The Campus Vamp, featuring Carole Lombard. Within the next year, over forty shorts were produced in two-color processes in America. This tremendous increase in volume resulted in quality control problems as well as the more basic problems inherent in any two-color process: a two-color process yields a compromise coloring with less pure values than are possible with three-color systems, which can theoretically produce any color in the spectrum. Two-color processes could reproduce pinks, salmons, browns, tans, red-orange, and blue-green but could not reproduce pure reds and yellows, neutral grays, light or deep blues, violets and purples.

Tony Gaudio, cinematographer of the first all-sound, two-color musical On With The Show (1929), remembered that certain colors were achieved by showing the camera an entirely different color, that “an unbelievable amount of light was needed,” and that makeup was very unnatural.

Critics scoffed at “aluminum skies” and “revolutionary reds.” Color became identified with the decoration of drama and formula musicals, as typified by color sequences from The Dance Of Life (1929) – a Ziegfeld-like reel of production numbers – and from the remake of Mae Murray’s Peacock Alley (1930).

Perhaps the best surviving example of the two-color Technicolor process is The Mistery of the Wax Museum (1933), the Warner Brothers film recently restored by the AFI in collaboration with The Museum of Modern Art. It is still remarkable for the sharpness of its photography, its virtual absence of grain, and the rendition of its colors, but most especially for its use of a limited palette for effect: the lack of accuracy in its flesh tones was used to accentuate an eerie resemblance between the human actors and the museum’s wax models, crucial to the effectiveness of the plot. In such sequences, dramatic mood was created by colored light and two-color renditions of the subject matter, so that no lack in the coloring was felt by audiences. But it came too late to restore faith in two-color films.

The success of Disney’s three-color Technicolor cartoons, Flowers And Trees (1932), and The Three Little Pigs (1933), not only prompted Columbia to produce its “Krazy Kat,” “Scrappy,” and “Barney Google” cartoons entirely in Technicolor by 1935, but also launched the first successful full-color system. From this time three-color Technicolor would dominate until the introduction of Eastmancolor.

The film used to record the color information in three-color Technicolor was panchromatic silver bromide stock, each of the three black-and-white strips registering only the relative intensities of its primary color. In the special Technicolor camera, three black-and-white negatives, exposed at the same time behind their respective filters, combined to give a complete color record: a red barn in a green field photographed against a blue sky would leave on the red record negative an image of the barn; on the green record black-and-white negative an image of the field; and on the blue negative an image of the sky.

Each of the black-and-white strips yielded, upon printing, a positive relief image in which gradations were represented by varying thicknesses of hardened gelatin. This gelatin absorbed dye of the appropriate color. The dye images were transferred upon coated blank film, one after another, one for each primary color; and the resulting print became the projection copy sent to theatres.

Most color films of the time – with the exception of the self-conscious use of colored lights in the first live-action three-color Technicolor short, La Cucaracha (1934) – in attempting to avoid the charge of “postcard colors,” copied 19th Century naturalistic painting in their exteriors, and the genteel, tasteful designs of home decorating magazines in their interiors. The results were unobtrusive, decorative, but rarely useful in intensifying dramatic effect.

Quite pleasing were the pastel blues and browns and soft skin tones of Magnacolor, a two-color process related to Prizma, Multicolor, and Kellycolor which was first used in Paramount’s short subject series, “Popular Science” (1935-1939) and “Unusual Occupations,” 1937-1939, many of which are represented by original prints in the AFI Collection at the Library. Later, Magnacolor was used in full-length Westerns and melodramas produced by the subsidiary of Consolidated Labs, Republic Pictures.

Kodachrome – introduced in 1935 – had five coatings of emulsion on one side of the film: three layers, each sensitive to its own primary color, and two layers for support. It was used primarily in 16mm non-theatrical productions for schools and industry, as in the 1943 U.S. Department of Agriculture film Tree In a Test Tube (which includes the only color film appearance of the comedy team of Laurel and Hardy).

A later variation called monopack a single-strip color film – was used to record aerial footage for the Technicolor features Dive Bomber (1941) and Captains of the Clouds (1942), films which are among the sixty-five Technicolor features held in their original camera negative form in the AFI Collection. Although results with monopack did not equal those of the three-strip method for Technicolor release, it was the method by which World War II actuality footage in color would be seen in theatres, in such documentaries as With the Marines at Tarawa, Memphis Belle, and Battle of Midway.

Gasparcolor, a three-color print process introduced in the mid-thirties, carried two light-sensitive layers on one side of the film and the third on the other side. Among the most notable examples of Gasparcolor in the Collection are George Pal’s puppet animation advertising film Ship of the Ether, produced for Philips Radio, and the beautiful abstract films of Oskar Fischinger, such as Circles.

Cinecolor, yet another descendant of the Prizma process and perhaps the most successful of all, was first used for a feature film in 1942. In 1948, the combined footage printed by Cinecolor and Magnacolor equaled the total Technicolor footage printed in the United States – more than 200 million feet of two-color film.

For the compromise color reproduction of two-color systems, makeup had to be light to avoid either sallow or red-orange flesh tones; sets and costumes had to be in pastel tones. Cinecolor and an improved version of Magnacolor were capable of producing pleasing skin tones and soft colors, despite an inaccurate tendency toward shades of green and orange. Representative examples in the AFI Collection include a dozen features from the studios of Columbia and Hal Roach, shorts from Warner Brothers and Paramount, including “Popeye” and “Looney Tunes” cartoons. The two-color films survived until the early fifties when Trucolor, a Cinecolor process, became three-color. But even with this improved Trucolor, best exemplified by Nicholas Ray’s Johnny Guitar (1954), Eastmancolor prevailed.

The most important breakthrough since the introduction of three-color Technicolor in the thirties came in 1949 with the debut of Eastmancolor negative and printing stock. Within five years the Technicolor camera was obsolete.

The end of the era of the Technicolor camera coincides with the discontinuation of the use of nitrate film base. Nitrate films are subject to deterioration within forty years of manufacture (a threat hanging over all films, black-and-white and color, on nitrate base, in use prior to the fifties); color films face further dangers, as exemplified by the original negatives for Gone With The Wind: by the late sixties, the base of each of its three-color record negatives had shrunken, each to a different extent, so that it had become impossible to superimpose them in sharp registration by the use of the registration perforations on the films, some of which had been damaged.

Re-registration of the three color records had to be done by eye and required establishing a different relationship among the three positions than that given by the perforations. One color record was established arbitrarily as the standard, and the other two color records were conformed to it.

The color information contained in the black-and-white emulsions in the three-color Technicolor process is relatively stable because black-and-white emulsions are not subject to great change. In contrast, multiple-layer color films, such as Eastmancolor, are subject to some shifts in color and fading of the less stable dyes which provide the color.

Although dye stability has been improved in the last decade, processed film which is to be kept for a long time (for archival purposes or for anticipated reissue) has to be given attention so that color shifts can be minimized. This is done by careful washing at the time of processing, controlling temperature and humidity at the place of storage, and periodic inspection of the color films.

The best method of guaranteeing permanence of the color image is by making black-and-white records, one for each of the primary colors. This doesn’t make a color image immediately available for inspection but a color negative and a print for screening can quickly be made from this negative. It is an expensive method, not only because of the initial preparation of the three separate records, but also for the later reconstitution of the color image, with the subsequent requirements of retiming within a decade’s time.

In the past three-quarters of a century, patent offices have recorded dozens and dozens of ways of effecting color motion pictures. Every possible method – and many an impossible one – has had its moment and then disappeared. Of the few systems that were successful, most are obsolete, their achievements remaining in the two-color and three-color examples which survive.

No color movie process is capable of reproducing every color in the spectrum with complete accuracy at the same time: there is only an indirect relationship between the colors of the subject as perceived by the eye and colors available through dyes. But this is not to deny the effectiveness of Technicolor or Gasparcolor or of the many two-color processes in those films which are their finest achievements. The secret of eloquent color in movies may well lie elsewhere than in an obsession with literal color accuracy.”

(Parker, David L. (1973): ‘Blazing Technicolor,’ ‘Stunning Trucolor,’ and ‘Shocking Eastmancolor.’ In: Tom Shales et al. (ed.): The American Film Heritage, The American Film Institute. Washington, D.C.: Acropolis Books Ltd., pp. 19-27.)

“GLORIOUS AGFACOLOR, BREATHTAKING TOTALVISION AND MONOPHONIC SOUND. COLOUR AND “SCOPE” IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA

Anna Batistová

The cinema industry was one of the first industries to become state-owned in post-war Czechoslovakia.¹ Although state interference in film production, distribution and exhibition grew as the political climate of the cold war became increasingly tense, it did not stop Czechoslovak cinema from following technological changes which were happening abroad. However, isolation from the western world and political and economical dependence on the centre of socialist power in Soviet Russia caused considerable problems. Efforts to evolve independently inside the socialist block were affected by the growing internationalization, standardization and globalization of the cinema industry.

In this chapter I will examine how this tension between Soviet self-sufficiency and a global cinema market affected the adoption of colour in Czechoslovakian cinema in particular in relation to the change of colour process required by the adoption of widescreen. While the Czechoslovak film industry was content to use low-quality East-German colour film stock in the late 1940s, owing to the international adoption of widescreen it was forced to exchange it for Eastmancolor during the following decade. In this period therefore the necessity for technological change powered by the global industry overwhelmed the political realities of the Soviet system.

The first mainstream natural colour films were screened in Czechoslovakia well before 1945, including films utilizing various two-colour systems in the 1920s, American Technicolor productions in the 1930s and German Agfacolor films in the 1940s.² Although there were minor independent experiments with colour in the period, and Czech workers helped during production of Agfacolor features at Barrandov studios in Prague during the war, regular colour production would start only after 1945.³

The particular character of the Czech film industry between the wars did not allow for the earlier proliferation of colour films. Since the mid 1920s the state would only licence charitable organizations to run cinemas, which discouraged entrepreneurship and meant that film production was not seen as a profitable enterprise and thus was never supported by banks or other private investors. In addition so many distribution companies were set up in the post-First-World-War period, flooding the market with hundreds of films from all over Europe and the U.S. every year, that they did not leave much space for domestic releases, nor did they enjoy long lives in this highly competitive atmosphere themselves (Heiss and Klimeš 2003: 303-320).

After 1945 on the other hand, the state-owned industry was provided financial protection by vertical integration and, on account of the German occupation of the Barrandov studios during the war, not only were experienced workers and fully equipped laboratories available, but also a limited supply of colour film stock. However, before Czechoslovak cinema ventured into its own colour production, it needed more experience, hosting Soviet colour production in the first few post-war years.⁴ But they could not wait long. Colour production was supposed to prove both the technological and the artistic maturity of the industry. As in other countries, the first attempts at colour cinema were made with short and nonfiction films, and from the latter half of 1945 colour stock was used prominently for both short and feature-length animation. While the focus on short films is understandable due to initial experimenting and high costs of colour stocky the choice of the animation genre not only copied foreign patterns, but also drew on the international reputation of Czechoslovak animation at the time, such as Jiří Trnka’s Animals and Bandits (Zvířátka a Petrovští, 1946) or The Christmas Dream (Vánoční sen, 1945), collaboration of Karel Zeman, Bořivoj Zeman and Hermína Týrlová, both in Festival de Cannes competition in 1946. The young state-owned industry was in need of reorganization and lacked modern equipment in both production and cinemas, as well as the support of domestic manufacturers of technology and film stock.

In such a situation, colour animated films seemed an ideal product to be exchanged for much needed foreign currency.⁵ For example, in 1947, thirteen out of seventeen short animated films were in colour, as was the only feature-length animated film produced that year, while only one feature out of eighteen and two out of fifty-three non-animated shorts were in colour. At the same time, only some of the films shot in colour were distributed as such at home, the colour copies being reserved for international festivals and the foreign market. The first live action feature film in colour, Jan Roháč of Dubá (Jan Roháč z Dubé, 1947), was made in 1947 and the production of colour films increased steadily every year until the mid-1950s. Even in the critical year of 1951, when only seven feature films were made in total, two of them were in colour.⁶ The 1950s were also marked by an interesting (but quite understandable) inclination of colour productions towards popular films in general and children’s movies in particular. Children’s and animated films were successful at international festivals and often sold abroad. They constituted prestige product, not only securing the foreign currency, but also showing both possibilities and abilities of the newly nationalized cinema industry, advertising the idea of socialism.

Before 1945, domestic manufacture of film stock was virtually nonexistent, and even in later years only a small amount of black-and-white positive material could be secured internally.⁷ Czechoslovakia thus depended on foreign supply. The negative colour film stock used well into the 1960s was East German Agfacolor, initially bought through the Soviet Union administration after 1945, and later directly from the Agfa factory in Wolfen (from the mid-sixties, the same stock was called Orwocolor). However, since the mid-1950s, the industry had been experimenting with stock by other European manufacturers and with Kodak products, looking for new and better colour material.

It is important to consider at this point how similar the background for decision-making mechanisms are when it comes to comparison of technological change in the nationalized cinema of a socialist country such as Czechoslovakia, and other cinemas governed by the free market. This is largely due to the nature of cinema as an industry. While in the late 1940s and early 1950s the cinemas of the East-European countries tended towards separatism, as did other industries, quite soon the need of at least partial success in the international market became obvious. Also, while Soviet and other socialist countries’ films were preferred by individual governments, tastes of the audiences in these countries did not differ much from those in the western world (Skopal 2009). Finally, although the main goal of the cinema was to educate the people in the ways of the new and future socialist world, economics constituted an inseparable force behind the control of the industry.

While shooting in colour was not without issues, screening colour films proved to be equally problematic. Firstly, the quality of the eastern Agfa stock was low. In various tests conducted in the period, Czechoslovak technicians found the definition of Agfacolor positive materials 50 per cent lower than that of Eastmancolor, while the sensitivity of the emulsion was uneven, sometimes in the same reel. Up to 10 per cent of the Agfacolor material was sent back to Wolfen as faulty every year. Reports from the period comment on the low quality of the colour stock causing problems during shooting and processing (Anon. 1955). Proof of this is evident in the poor colour saturation in scenes with lower intensity of light (for example night scenes) and changes of colour during dissolves which are visible on the surviving prints and recently released digital copies of some films. Second, domestic cinemas were very poorly equipped for the projection of colour films. Nation-wide surveys showed that some cinemas only had one projector and most of them had machines that were more than twelve years old. Even silent-era equipment, only later adjusted for sound screening, was not unusual. Old projectors were feared to be more likely to damage expensive colour copies during screenings. Furthermore, these projectors had very poor lighting properties. Not only did their optics absorb most of the light before casting it on a screen, but also the light sources were insufficient themselves, as were the reflective qualities of materials used to make screens. Before colour, even a dim projector light was enough: black-and-white films required less light to be sufficiently luminous and cinemas in Czechoslovakia were mostly small, with short distances between projector and screen.⁸ Screenings in larger venues, however, revealed the inadequacy of the machines.⁹ Not surprisingly, when reviewing projectors manufactured domestically after 1945, cinema representatives usually complained, about lamp houses and optical arrangement, which had the biggest effect on the light efficiency of the projector.

The survival of Czechoslovak cinema depended on foreign product and the ability to screen films produced abroad.¹⁰ As coordination and division of labour and flow of product inside the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON) was still poor, Czechoslovakia could not close itself inside the Eastern bloc, at least from the point of view of the cinema market. Being able to screen foreign films and occasionally sell some domestic product abroad was necessary, and therefore if the foreign product was in widescreen, Czechoslovakia needed to be able to adapt to new formats.

The widescreen revolution brought a new set of concerns for Czechoslovak cinema and they were to test the new organization of the industry after little more than a decade of its existence. Firstly, the administration of the centralized cinema industry had to decide which of the emerging new formats to adopt. Having more than one new format alongside academy ratio was impossible for economic and organizational reasons.¹¹ In the initial anarchy of emerging new formats, Czechoslovak cinema technicians had to decide, or rather guess, which of the formats would get the major share of the cinema screens in the world. As they started to consider a new format quite late, around the end of 1954 or the beginning of 1955 (and in these years only preliminary research was made, while the actual adoption was planned for 1956), the chosen format was CinemaScope, which was at that point the dominant widescreen format and had a number of fully compatible competitors. While the word CinemaScope appears (in various distortions of the original spelling) in cinema journals and archival documents of the period, this actual brand never made it to Czechoslovakia, and was substituted by compatible European technology for shooting (for instance French Totalvision), and by domestic equipment for screening.

Now that the decision was made, the next step was to prepare the industry for the transition as quickly as possible. A five-year plan was prepared for the period 1956-1960, during which ten features were supposed to be made, and forty cinemas adapted for the new technology. While the number of films actually made corresponded with the initial plan, over 250 cinemas were adapted during the period. Of these, however, only approximately forty had stereophonic sound reproduction alongside the wider image.

While Agfacolor negative stock was barely sufficient for academy ratio shooting and screening, it was even more inadequate for “scope” or even masked formats.¹² As a result, from 1957 the situation became more complicated. For “scope” films, Eastmancolor became the standard, while academy ratio productions continued to use eastern Agfacolor/Orwocolor. We can see this distinction in the film Death in the Saddle (Smrt v sedle, 1958). The film was shot in two formats, academy on Agfacolor and “scope” on Eastmancolor stock.¹³ A similar situation arose with Provisional Liberty (La Liberté surveillé / V proudech, 1957), the first “scope” feature finished in Czechoslovakia, which was a co-production with the French Trident company. According to negotiations, the French co-producer was supposed to supply the Eastmancolor stock, although in fact what they provided was western Agfacolor. Czech cameramen working on the film found the quality sufficient, although the material needed some changes in lighting and laboratory processing. The release copies were printed on Italian Ferraniacolor.¹⁴ A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Sen noci svatojánské, 1959), a “scope” animated feature by Jiří Trnka that went into production in 1956 and was released in 1959, was shot entirely in Eastmancolor. However, in 1956 there was no laboratory to process Eastmancolor in Czechoslovakia, so the rushes were sent to Paris, while Trnka used black-and-white academy materials shot simultaneously to check the movements of his puppets. Also, he was forced to make alterations to his usual methods of puppet-making, due to the differences in colour rendering with Agfacolor and Eastmancolor.¹⁵

While the first colour widescreen films were being made, research groups were formed to compare the qualities of Agfacolor and Eastmancolor and to investigate possibilities of introduction of the latter into laboratory practice. The main problems were connected with old and insufficient machinery and inaccurate measuring instruments. However, unlike the Agfa/Wolfen factory, Kodak provided technical support during the introduction of the new laboratory equipment and processes, and remained in contact with the Prague laboratories. While preparing for Eastmancolor as a new negative material, Czechoslovak researchers continued to review other colour stocks produced in Europe. Small groups of technicians (usually two or three) were sent to the Soviet Union, as well as the DEFA studios in Germany, the Gevaert factory in Belgium and the Ferrania factory in Italy. During the 1960s and 1970s, Eastmancolor became and remained the main colour stock for negatives and intermediate materials, while cheaper colour processes (most often eastern Agfacolor, later Orwocolor) were used for distribution copies. There were however a few scope films using Agfacolor or Orwocolor negative film stock, especially in the late 1960s.

Although the widescreen revolution did not take a direct course and was held back, in Czechoslovakia probably more than elsewhere, it did significantly influence the transition from black-and-white to colour. While eastern Agfacolor was perceived as problematic and inferior from the very beginning, the major impulse for a change of colour system came with the introduction of widescreen in Czechoslovakia, as anamorphic processes tested the limits of the film stock, and made all the known issues even more visible. Czechoslovak studios never saw the real CinemaScope and worked with compatible European “scopes”, as the cinemas had to use domestic technology, however clumsy it might be. It was therefore not glorious Technicolor, breathtaking CinemaScope and stereophonic sound at first in Czechoslovakia.

Furthermore, initially Czechoslovak encounters with colour were determined by the character of the cinema industry – low domestic production, small number of cinemas and dependence on international cooperation – rather than by the political situation. Yet after 1945 colour production gained an increasingly prestigious standing from both apolitical and economic point of view. Politically, colour films were meant to show the accomplishments of the state-owned industry, while economically they constituted a unique source of foreign currency. Ultimately the latter half of the 1950s and the 1960s saw a period of development and expansion in the Czechoslovak industry and liberation in politics and society, which encouraged and enabled the government to spend more on the superior Eastmancolor stock. Where colour film stock was concerned, political issues ceased to be important, and once it became economically possible, the cinema technicians and engineers went for the quality first. Eastmancolor was adopted as the standard negative stock material in the following decades, which in turn saw a significant increase in the number of films made in colour, leaving the use of black-and-white marginal by the end of the communist era in 1989.

NOTES

¹ By the government decree no. 50/1945 on arrangements in the cinema sphere of business, the Czechoslovak state gained a monopoly on cinema production, laboratory processing, distribution, public screenings and international trade.

² Short Prizmacolor films were distributed in 1921-1922. In December 1923 The Glorious Adventure (UK, 1922) premièred and The Toll of the Sea (US, 1922) in two-colour Technicolor was released in December 1924 (Štábla 1982: 355-357).

³ For example IRE-film, a Prague studio owned by Irena and Karel Dodal, made several animation shorts in colour between 1933 and 1938 (Strusková 2006: 99).

⁴ For example, the shooting of Alexander Ptuschko’s colour film The Stone Flower (Kamennyy tsvetok, USSR 1946) began in August 1945, and the film was the first to be finished in the Barrandov studios after the war.

⁵ While the studios did not suffer much damage during the war (at least in comparison with other Central and East-European countries), the cinemas were in desperate need of new equipment. According to a post-war survey, up to 85 per cent of them were “insufficient for orderly operation”, not only in terms of equipment, but also in issues of hygiene and safety (Bystřický 1947: unpaged).

⁶ In 1950, several films were reprimanded by communist party officials and a list of preferred topics was issued. This interference led to a production crisis in 1951, when only a fraction of the originally scheduled 52 films for that year were actually produced.

⁷ On the other hand, film for still photography had been domestically produced since 1914 by Neobrom, and from 1921 by Fotochema (now Foma), alongside other smaller companies.

⁸ According to the data collected in 1947, only 110 cinemas had an auditorium longer than 30 metres, and the maximum length was 42 metres (Anon. 1950a: unpaged). In 1950, only nine cinemas had a capacity of more than 1,000, while almost 85 per cent of all cinemas could seat less than 500 (Černík 1954: 89, 198). In later decades, the national cinema network was being improved, also by building new cinemas in previously neglected regions. Of these cinemas, some were constructed especially for widescreen or 70 mm, and as such, they tended to be larger. Also, open-air cinemas, with programming concentrated to summer months, had longer distances between the screen and the projector booth, and could have up to several thousands of spectators. For example, the first “scope” screening in Czechoslovakia during the International Film Festival in Karlovy Vary in summer 1956 took place in a newly constructed open air cinema, which would seat up to 3,500 spectators (Anon. 1956: 9).

⁹ As the report by a member of Cinema Technology Committee (FITES) states, during the screening at the Fair palace in Prague held in 1950 for the anniversary of the Soviet October Revolution, the visibility of the image was so reduced that a viewer could hardly have recognized that the film was in colour. In conclusion, the report suggested that if the minimum luminance required for colour screening is not achieved, colour films should not be shown at all, as that would ruin their political mission (Anon. 1950b: unpaged).

¹⁰ Because of the small number of cinemas, low ticket prices and high costs of production, an average Czechoslovak film would theoretically take thirty-six months to break even, during which time demand would fall dramatically. Thus only extremely popular Czechoslovak films or foreign films turned a profit (Bláha 1955: 12).

¹¹ Although since 1964 some new large cinemas were built for 70 mm projection, Czechoslovak cinema never produced a film on 65 mm negative, except for a handful of co-productions with the USSR. A few other Czechoslovak films were released in 70 mm blown-ups from original 35 mm negatives. It should also be noted that masked formats (1:1,66 and 1:1,85), which could be screened with just small alterations to current projectors, were quite common in Czechoslovakia, but there is no data on their actual proliferation.

¹² Only during the 1970s did colour become standard in Czechoslovakia. Until then the majority of both academy and “scope” films were shot in black-and-white.

¹³ This practice was used for a few early widescreen films, as the Prague laboratories did not have a way to make academy copies from the “scope” originals yet, and at the same time, only a few cinemas were scope-friendly. Having a film on widescreen only would substantially limit its use in distribution.

¹⁴ In general, co-production became the way of obtaining quality colour stock and better shooting technology in the late 1950s and during the 1960s (see Skopal 2009).

¹⁵ In a monograph on Trnka, the reason offered for switching from Agfacolor to Eastmancolor is the blurriness of the wider image towards the left and right extremes. Also, Eastmancolor is described as more “naturalistic”, showing the materials used to manufacture the puppets for what they really are (Boček 1963: 247-248).

REFERENCES

Anon. (1950a) Zápis 60. schůze komise promítací FITES dne 19.6.1950 [manuscript], Filmový technický sbor, FITES 1950, Praha: Národní filmový archiv.

Anon. (1950b) Zápis 65. řádné schůze promítací komise 14. listopadu 1950 [manuscript], Filmový technický sbor, FITES 1950-1951, Praha: Národní filmový archiv.

Anon. (1955) Zápis plenární schůze Filmového technického sboru ze dne 28. září 1955. Zavádění nových technologií. Filmový technický sbor, FITES 1951-1959, Praha: Národní filmový archiv.

Anon. (1956) “Preparations for the IXth International Film Festival at Karlovy Vary in Full Swing”, The Czechoslovak Film, 4: 9.

Bláha, R. (1955) Ekonomika čs. kinematografie. Učebnice pro III. a IV. ročník Průmyslové školy v Čimelicích a příručka pro filmové pracovníky, Praha: Československý státní film.

Boček, J. (1963) Jiří Trnka. Historie díla a jeho tvůrce, Praha: Státní nakladatelství krásné literatury a umění.

Bystřický, J. (1947) Zřizování kin a užití substandardních formátů pro veřejný provoz [manuscript], Filmový technický sbor, FITES 1947, Praha: Národní filmový archiv.

Černík, A. (1954) Výroční zpráva o čs. filmovnictví. Rok 1950, Praha: Československý státní film.

Heiss, G. and Klimeš, I. (2003) Obrazy času / Bilder der Zeit. Český a rakouský film 30. let / Tschechischer und österreichischer Film der 30er Jahre, Praha: Národní filmový archiv.

Pilát, F. (1972) Studie dlouhodobého rozvoje filmové techniky, Praha: Ústřední ředitelství Československého filmu.

Skopal, P. (2009) “The ‘Provisional Liberty’ of Colour and Widescreen: The Czech Co-Productions with the ‘West’, 1959-1969”, paper presented at NECS conference at Lund, 2009. Also online. Available at http://www.phil.muni.cz/dedur/?lang=l&id=21534 (accessed 30 April 2011).

Strusková, E. (2006) “Iréna & Karel Dodal. Průkopníci českého animovaného filmu”, Iluminace, 63: 99-146.

Štábla, Z. (1982) Rozšířené teze k dějinám československé kinematografie, vol. 2, Praha: Filmový ústav.”

(Batistová, Anna (2013): Glorious Agfacolor, Breathtaking Totalvision and Monophonic Sound. Colour and “Scope” in Czechoslovakia. In: Simon Brown, Sarah Street and Liz Watkins (eds.): Color and the Moving Image. History, Theory, Aesthetics, Archive. New York, London: Routledge, pp. 47-55.)

“Compared to Eastman Kodak, Technicolor was a small company. Its success lay in taking financial risks and in investing heavily in research and development. Gorham Kindem compares this aspect of the two companies:

Technicolor’s major inventions involved substantial economic risk. Technicolor continued to invest heavily in research and development despite the fact that between 1923 and 1935 Technicolor, Inc., accumulated a net loss of $2 million. In 1931, Technicolor invested over $180,000 in research and development. Despite the fact that Technicolor possessed a virtual monopoly on three-color for feature films throughout the 1930s, it didn’t actually profit after taxes until 1939.

Eastman Kodak, on the other hand, invested over $ 15 million in color photographic research between 1921 and 1948, but it also had net sales of $435 million compared to Technicolor’s $20 million in 1948. In 1.948, Eastman Kodak also secured its major patents upon colored couplers [substances in the film emulsion or developing solution which form colour dyes during photochemical processing of the exposed film] for Eastman Color, while it invested $3 million in color research. Obviously, Eastman Kodak never undertook financial risks proportionately equal to Technicolor’s in its quest to secure a virtual monopoly over film color through patent protection of its major inventions.¹⁶

Notes

¹⁶ Gorham A. Kindem, ‘Hollywood’s Conversion to Color: The Technological, Economic and Aesthetic Factors’, Journal of the University Film Association, vol. XXXI, no. 2 (Spring 1979) pp. 31-2. ”

(Neale, Steve (1985): The Beginnings of Technicolor. In: Angela Dalle Vacche and Brian Price (eds.): Color. The Film Reader. New York: Routledge, 2006, pp. 13-23, on p. 20.)

“The advent of Eastman Color

The introduction of Eastman Color by Eastman Kodak changed markedly Technicolor’s place within the colour field, leading first to modifications in Technicolor’s practices, technologies and services and eventually, in the 1960s, to a policy of diversification, in which the company expanded its operations to include not only films but television (and not only colour, but also black and white). Eastman Color was a development of the German Agfa-color single-strip process. Its hallmark was that the three strips of colour sensitive film needed for the production of a colour image were bonded together in a single tri-pack roll. Henceforth, a colour film could be shot on an ordinary one-lens camera, while in principle any laboratory with conventional processing facilities could produce colour prints. Technicolor’s monopoly, based on its special camera and on its processing services, was henceforth a thing of the past. Eastman Kodak offered not only negative tri-pack film, but also colour positive and internegative stock as well. Within two or three years, nearly every major studio had adopted Eastman Color negative, while a number used the whole colour series. As the studios adopted and adapted the Eastman Color process, a new series of commercial brand names for colour processes used by the studios began to appear and proliferate: WarnerColor, Ansco Color, TruColor, De Luxe and so on. And this at precisely the point at which television was beginning to have a major impact on the industry, the point at which colour began more and more to be used in film as an attraction vis-à-vis TV’s black-and-white, and the point at which widescreen, 3-D, and other technical developments and novelties were to be used (in conjunction with colour) to intensify the spectacle of cinema in general, the primary means by which the cinema sought to counteract the threat that television posed. An article written by Frederick Foster for The American Cinematographer in 1953, for instance, noted that Eastman Color was being used in particular ‘in the production of many three-dimensional films, where 3-D cameras taking single film, strips are employed instead of Technicolor’s 3-strip cameras’¹⁸ and that ‘Twentieth Century-Fox studio is using Eastman color negative in its cameras in the production of CinemaScope films.’¹⁹

Notes

¹⁸ Frederick Foster, ‘Eastman Negative-Positive Color Films for Motion Pictures’, The American Cinematographer, July 1953, p. 332.

¹⁹ Foster, ‘Eastman Negative-Positive Color Films for Motion Pictures’, p. 332.”

(Neale, Steve (1985): The Beginnings of Technicolor. In: Angela Dalle Vacche and Brian Price (eds.): Color. The Film Reader. New York: Routledge, 2006, pp. 13-23, on pp. 21-22.)

“From 1953 on, Technicolor would process only Eastman Color negative stock using its peerless imbibition process. Nearly the last to enter the field, Kodak by 1950 had come up with a multi-layered negative stock combining Agfa’s economy and flexibility with Technicolor’s consistency and brilliance. Kodak’s innovation was to eliminate the colourless dye couplers from the emulsion itself and introduce the dyes only in the laboratory. Its original negative stock therefore was essentially three layers of black and white film on a single base mutually self-filtering and recording information about the red, blue and green light entering the lens. In processing, this information was converted into dyes for printing. This could be done conventionally or with the richer, slower imbibition method.”

(Andrew, Dudley (1980): The Post-War Struggle for Colour. In: Angela Dalle Vacche and Brian Price (eds.): Color. The Film Reader. New York: Routledge, 2006, pp. 40-50, on p. 47.)

“4. LES PROCÉDÉS SOUSTRACTIFS

Autour des années trente, on assiste à la naissance presque simultanée des principaux procédés modernes qui relèvent tous du système soustractif. Dans ce système, la couleur est matérialisée sur la copie destinée à la projection. Le quasi-monopole exercé par les procédés soustractifs tient à un fait très banal : il ne demande aucune transformation du matériel de prise de vues et de projection. Mais cette simplification d’utilisation résulte d’une complexité accrue au niveau de la fabrication et du traitement des émulsions. C’est là que se situe le problème du point de vue de la conservation : les trois couches qui composent la structure de la plupart des films soustractifs sont composées de matières colorantes beaucoup plus instables que l’argent réduit de l’émulsion en noir et blanc.

[…]

e. Les procédés chromogènes négatif/positif : ces procédés apparaissent en 1941 avec le nouvel Agfacolor dont les brevets seront dispersés après la guerre et donneront naissance à tous les procédés modernes (Gevacolor, Ferraniacolor, Fujicolor, Anscocolor, Sovcolor, Eastmancolor…).

La prise de vues s’effectue sur un négatif comportant trois couches argentiques sensibles respectivement au rouge, au vert et au bleu. Au cours du développement chromogène, des coupleurs ancrés dans chaque couche produisent des colorants cyan, magenta et jaune. L’argent est ensuite entièrement éliminé. On obtient ainsi une image négative où couleurs et valeurs sont complémentaires de celles du sujet. Pour le tirage, on utilise un film du même type qui rétablit les couleurs et les valeurs du sujet. Les procédés chromogènes négatif/positif sont quasiment les seuls utilisés aujourd’hui dans le cinéma commercial. Leur traitement est relativement simple mais cet avantage comporte une contre-partie : l’usine n’est plus à l’extérieur du film comme dans le Technicolor ou le Kodachrome, elle est à l’intérieur. La complexité des multiples réactions qui se produisent dans ce très faible volume fragilise le produit final. Les procédés chromogènes ont été longtemps instables. Les fabricants nous promettent maintenant des émulsions susceptibles de durer plusieurs siècles (sous la réserve du respect des procédures de traitement, d’une bonne utilisation et de conditions de stockage correctes). Il reste néanmoins à sauver quarante années de cinéma en couleur et la tâche n’est pas mince.”

(Pinel, Vincent (1992): La forêt des techniques. In: Michel Ciment (ed.): Ciné mémoire. Colloque international d’information (7-9 octobre 1991). Paris: Femis, pp. 17-24, on pp. 21-24.) (in French)

“There are several color negative films manufactured by different companies throughout the United States and Europe. These negative films can be used in any ordinary black-and-white camera. They have three emulsion layers superimposed on a cellulose acetate base. These three emulsion layers are differently sensitive to different colors of light. This means that the photo-sensitive silver halide particles in the separate emulsions are exposed by different colors of light. Generally, color negative films have a filter layer between the top two emulsions. Where the color sensitivity is not complete, this filter aids in separating unwanted colors from a particular emulsion.

In the United States the most widely used color negatives are Eastman and Ansco.

Both Eastman Color Negative and Ansco Color Negative have only one strip of film surfaced with three layers of emulsion, each being sensitive to a different primary color. Either film can be used in a conventional 35mm camera.

Similar to color negative, 16mm color positive film has three layers of emulsion, each sensitive to a different primary color – red, green and blue, The commercial film is low in contrast and differs from color negative in that a positive color image is obtained by reversal development rather than a negative.

From it three 35mm separation negatives are made when dye transfer release prints are to be made for 35mm exhibition.

In Europe, there are three additional color negatives, Agafcolor, Gevacolor and Ferraniacolor. These negatives are similar to those used in the United States in that three layers of emulsion are superimposed on a single film base.

The Technicolor laboratories, in both United States and England, manufacture release prints from all of these color negative systems.

[…]

When photographing with 35mm Eastman or Ansco color negative, any standard 35mm camera may be used, including the “hand-held” or portable models. Specific “color” cameras are not required. After the negative is developed, positive prints may be made in a manner similar to that for black-and-white film, or by the dye transfer method from the color negative, or from separation negatives, as will be explained later.

[…]

Only Technicolor offers the producer the alternative of having film printed on color positive stock or by the dye transfer method. Dye transfer release prints offer a cost advantage when a large number of prints are required for worldwide release. And by dye transfer printing from matrices valuable negative is saved from constant re-use.

Color positive release prints are manufactured only from color negative. Color positive stock is similar to color negative in that it has three super-imposed emulsion layers. Color positive stock is contact-printed by light coming through the color negative. Color negative has different colors correlated to the sensitivities of color positive emulsion layers.

Color positive stock records one color image aspect in each of its three emulsion layers and, after printing, is developed.”

(Anonymous (1956): Current Techniques of 35mm Color Film Photography and Printing. In: American Cinematographer, 37,1, January 1956, pp. 26-27 and p. 58.)

“Introduction

Advances in photographic technology during the past few years make possible the incorporation of color-correcting masking in color-photographic processes.^{1, 2} Color reproduction or masking equations serve as a guide in indicating the kinds and amounts of masking which should be employed. Numerous methods have been suggested for determining optimum sets of equations.³ One of these methods involves the application of the method of least squares to obtain equations for the approximate reproductions of a number of object colors.⁴ The purpose of the study reported here was to investigate more fully the usefulness of the least-squares method in determining masking equations. Special attention has been given to the effects of (1) the particular selection of object colors, and (2) the assumed set of film spectral sensitivities.

Equation Derivations

Color-reproduction equations for color-photographic processes may be written in the form of:

c = g₁₀ + g₁₁D_r + g₁₂D_g + g₁₃D_b
m = g₂₀ + g₂₁D_r + g₂₂D_g + g₂₃D_b     (1)
y = g₃₀ + g₃₁D_r + g₃₂D_g + g₃₃D_b

The quantities c, m, and y denote the amounts of the cyan, magenta, and yellow dyes in any small area of the photographic film. The dyes are deposited as functions of the exposure densities, D_r, D_g, and D_b, of the corresponding small region of the scene photographed. The exposure densities are defined in terms of the exposures R, G, and B as

D_r = -logR      D_g = -logG      D_b = -logB,       (2)

where

R = ∫ S_rPTdλ    G = ∫ S_gPTdλ    B = ∫ S_bPTdλ.      (3)

Each of the quantities inside the integral signs is a function of wavelength, λ; S_r, S_g, and S_b denote the spectral sensitivities of the component emulsions of the film; P denotes the energy distribution of the incident illumination of the scene; and T is the reflectance or transmittance of the small region of the scene under consideration. The energy distribution P is so normalized that for T=1.00 throughout the region of the spectrum to which the film is sensitive, the values of R, G, and B are also equal to 1.00. For this same value of T, D_r = D_g = D_b = 0.

The constants g₁₀, g₂₀,and g₃₀ pertain to the color balance of the film. The remaining g‘s indicate the gammas to which the various dyes should be developed as functions of the various exposures. For a chosen set of object colors whose reflectances are known, Eqs. (3) and (2) are applied to determine the exposure densities. The tristimulus values X, Y, and Z for each of the same object colors are also determined. From the known spectral densities of the cyan, magenta, and yellow dyes of the photographic film, values of c, m, and y are determined which yield the same X, Y, and Z values as each of the object colors. For each object color, an equation can then be written which includes the undetermined coefficients g₁₀, g₁₁, g₁₂, and g₁₃, and numerical values for c, D_r, D_g, and D_b. If there are more than four object colors involved, all of the equations are not apt to be satisfied by the same set of values for the unknown coefficients. Unique sets of coefficients can be determined, however, by application of the method of least squares to minimize color-reproduction errors (in terms of c) for all the object colors. Similarly, values for the remaining g’s can be found using the same D_r, D_g, and D_b values, along with the values of m and y for each of the object colors.

Selection of Object Colors

Ideally, the values of the coefficients in the color-reproduction equations would be relatively independent of the sampling of object colors for which they are derived. Under such conditions, any one set of object colors would be about as good as any other. If, however, the coefficients are markedly dependent upon the set of object colors chosen, these colors should be carefully selected for their importance in the completed color photograph.

Three sets of object colors, of twenty colors each, were selected for this study. The first two sets were chosen on the basis of being important in a color photograph. Specifically, they were selected as follows: A group of engineers and supervisors concerned with quality control in the processing of photographic prints were asked to name the object colors which they considered to be most important in color photographs. Based upon examinations of a large number of color pints and tabulations of the frequency with which various object colors appeared, they provided a list of twenty colors.^§ Table I gives this list. Recommended weighting factors were also given, but were not used in the subsequent calculations. Based upon this list, the authors selected two sets of colors, each color representing a particular object corresponding to one of the twenty given in Table I. The chromaticities and visual densities of these two sets of object colors are given in Figs. 1 and 2.

The third set of object colors was selected to span the color space of colors which could be reproduced by the dye set used for the study. The chromaticities and visual densities of this set (Color Set 3) are given in Fig. 3. The spectral densities of unit concentrations of the three dyes from which they were derived are given in Fig. 4. This same dye set was assumed for the color photographic processes for which all the color-reproduction equations were derived.

Sensitivity Distributions

Six sets of sensitivity distributions were included for investigation. Three of these conform to color-mixture curves. Such choices are required for “exact colorimetric reproduction” in a color-photographic process.⁵ Each set of color-mixture curves has a corresponding set of primaries. Chromaticities of the primaries are shown in Fig. 5. The three sets of spectral sensitivities are shown as 1, 2, and 3 in Fig. 6. Sensitivities 1 are the colormixture curves, x, y, and z, for the CIE standard observer. They have been renormalized so that, for the assumed illuminant, CIE Illuminant C, the values of R, G, and B in Eqs. (3) are all equal to 1.00 when T = 1.00. Sensitivities 2 are the color-mixture curves corresponding to the monochromatic primaries, R= 620 mμ, G = 530 mμ, and B = 455 mμ. Sensitivities 3 are the colormixture curves corresponding to block-dye primaries, the red primary extending from 585 to 700 mμ, the green from 495 to 585 mμ, and the blue from 400 to 495 mμ.

Sensitivities 2 and 3 contain negative portions which are not found in real processes. Furthermore, even though color-mixture curves are required for exact colorimetric reproduction, they may not provide the best reproduction in processes with available dye systems. Sensitivities 4, 5, and 6, also shown in Fig. 6, were chosen to investigate sensitivities approaching those of real photographic processes. Sensitivities 4 are the chief positive portions (renormalized) of Sensitivities 2. Sensitivities 5 are the chief positive portions of Sensitivities 3. Sensitivities 6 are those of an actual color photographic process.

Color-Reproduction Equations

Color-reproduction or masking equations were determined for each of the three sets of object colors with each of six sets of sensitivity distributions. The coefficients for all the equations (g‘s) are given in Table II. The method of least squares, as described in the introductory section, was employed. Reproduction errors in terms of Δc², Δm², and Δy², each summed for the 20 colors, were minimized. Goodness-of-fit measures, in the form of root-mean-squares of the deviations (or standard deviations or sigmas), are shown under each set of equations as σ_c, σ_m, and σ_y.

Effects of Choice of Object Colors

In Table II the color-reproduction equations for Color Set 1 and Color Set 2 are similar to each other for most of the sets of sensitivities. The sigma values are also of the same general order of magnitude. For Color Set 3, however, almost all the terms in the equations are greater in absolute magnitude than for the other two color sets. Greater masking corrections are called for. Also, the sigma values are somewhat larger, showing that these equations did not give as good reproductions of the colors of Color Set 3. Reference to Figs. 1-3 indicates that the chromaticity and visual density gamuts for Color Sets 1 and 2 are more restricted than are the chromaticity and visual density gamut of Color Set 3. The choice of colors to be used in determining the color-reproduction equations does affect the coefficients in the equations. The effect appears to be associated with the gamut of the colors to be covered. Color Sets 1 and 2 sample more or less the same region of color space, and, even though no pairs of individual objects are exactly alike, give comparable results. The only marked inconsistency between the equations obtained for Color Set 1 and Color Set 2 are for Sensitivities 3. The magenta-dye reproduction equations are:

Color Set 1:
m = 0.007 – 0.169D_r +1.327D_g – 0.180D_g       (4a)

Color Set 2:
m = -0.003 – 0.405D_r +1.796D_g – 0.392D_g       (4b) The goodness-of-fit values for Color Set 1 were much worse, being 0.068 (σ_m) as compared to 0.011 for Color Set 2. Examination of the reproduction errors for the individual object colors revealed unusually large errors of 0.137 in the magenta reproduction for Object Color 4 and -0.146 for Object Color 20. Both of these colors are seen to be relatively saturated purples, having high-green exposure densities.

To ascertain the effects that these two colors had on the reproduction equations, they were eliminated from Color Set 1, and a recalculation of the masking equations was made. The equation for the magenta dye then was

      m = 0.003 – 0.392D_r +1.740D_g – 0.353D_g       (4c)

with σ_m = 0.011. Reasonably good agreement with the equations for Color Set 2 was thus obtained. Changes in the coefficients in the equations for c and y were not large, but were all in the direction of giving closer agreement with the equations of Color Set 2.

It should be pointed out that Object Color 32, also a saturated purple, was eliminated in the first calculation for the masking equations with Color Set 2 and Sensitivities 3. The elimination was necessary because, for Sensitivities 3, its green exposure value, G, was negative. No value for D_g could, therefore, be assigned to it. The only other colors eliminated from any of the calculations were Object Colors 42, 47, and 48 from Color Set 3. These were also for Sensitivities 3 and for the reason that some of the exposures had negative values.

These results [Eqs. (4a), (4b), and (4c)] again emphasize the importance of sampling the same region of color space if comparable sets of equations are to be obtained with different starting object colors. They also are indicative of the large changes which can be produced in the equation coefficients and goodness-of-fit values by a very small number of colors of high saturation.

Effects of Choice of Sensitivity Distributions

Large, and fairly systematic, differences in coefficient values are obtained for the different sensitivity distributions. For the color-mixture curve sensitivities, there is a downward trend in coefficient value size between Sensitivities 1 and 2 and between Sensitivities 2 and 3. These sensitivities, in the same order, correspond to primaries of decreasing saturation (see Fig. 5). Within the range studied, the more desaturated the primaries, the smaller will be the masking corrections. Sensitivities corresponding to the less saturated primaries, however, have larger and more extensive negative portions. As already indicated, these negative portions (even if obtainable) would have the effect of eliminating highly saturated colors from the gamut of colors for which positive exposures are obtainable. Such colors are outside the range of colors which can be reproduced by positive amounts of the primaries assumed in establishing the sensitivity distributions; they are outside the triangle formed on the chromaticity diagram by the three primaries.

With few exceptions, coefficient values for Sensitivities 4 and 5 are larger than for the corresponding sensitivities which include the negative portions. This seems reasonable to expect because the negative portions of the curves, in effect, perform some of the masking. Their elimination means that greater amounts of masking will be required. Coefficient values for Sensitivities 6 are, in general, smaller than for Sensitivities 4 and 5. This probably results from the greater spectral separation of the red, green, and blue spectral sensitivities for Sensitivities 6. The red, green, and blue exposures are more fully separated, and therefore less masking is required. The coefficient values are larger than for Sensitivities 3, but the negative portions of the curves for Sensitivities 3 have an even greater effect in exposure separation.

Trends in goodness-of-fit values with changes in sensitivities are not readily evident. There is an apparent slight tendency for the sigma values to become smaller for sensitivities corresponding to primaries of decreasing saturation. For the most desaturated primaries (Sensitivities 3), however, some of the more saturated colors must be eliminated from consideration. Even those colors which are near the outer limit of colors for which positive exposure values are obtained can cause decided increases in the sigma values. This effect is both direct and indirect in that, by effectively altering the masking equations, goodness-of-fit values for other colors are made worse.

Elimination of the negative portions of the sensitivity distributions resulted in slightly better goodness-of-fit values in most cases. It is therefore evident that sensitivities which are color-mixture curves, as required for exact colorimetric reproduction, do not necessarily give the best approximations to colorimetric reproduction when exact reproduction is not obtainable. Sensitivities 6 depart materially from color-mixture curves. The spectral regions of their peaks of absorption are considerably displaced from those of any possible set of color-mixture curves. Even so, the color reproductions obtainable with such sensitivities are not materially worse than those for the color-mixture curves giving the best color reproduction. Compared to Sensitivities 1, the only color-mixture curves which are positive throughout the spectrum, Sensitivities 6 appear to give colorimetric reproductions which are definitely better.

Neutral Scale Reproduction

Neutral colors in a scene give red, green, and blue exposure density values which are equal to each other. For a perfectly reflecting, perfectly diffusing white, D_r = D_g = D_b = 0. For other members of the series of grays, the exposure density values equal each other but are greater than zero.

Reproduction of the high-intensity white depends only on the values of g₁₀, g₂₀, and g₃₀. For Color Sets 1 and 2 in Table II, the absolute value of most of these quantities is less than 0.01, showing a reproduction which is very nearly neutral. Somewhat larger values are obtained for Color Set 3, but the largest is less than 0.20.

The gamma of the neutral-scale reproduction equals the sum of the coefficients of D_r, D_g, and D_b. If nonselective grays are to be reproduced at constant-color balance, the neutral-scale gammas for the c, m, and y equations in each set must all equal each other. If the grays are to be reproduced at their true relative luminances, these gammas will all be equal to 1.00.

Most of the neutral-scale gammas for the natural object sets of equations in Table II differ from unity by less than 0.01; the largest differs by only 0.022. Thus, true relative luminance reproductions of gray scales at essentially constant-color balances are indicated.

Departures from neutral-scale gamma values of unity are slightly greater for Color Set 3. The greatest departure is in the equation for y for Sensitivities 6 where the value is slightly over 1.2. This departure from unity can probably be accounted for as follows:

The twenty colors of Color Set 3 represent different combinations of the dyes of Fig. 4. The neutral for this dye set is somewhat selective, having a rather marked drop-off at the short-wavelength end of the visible spectrum. The blue spectral sensitivity curve for Sensitivities 6 is displaced toward the short-wavelength end of the spectrum as compared to all the other sets of sensitivities. Because of the displacement and the low-density values in this spectral region for neutral colors, the blue-exposure densities will tend to be low in value. To provide adequate yellow dye for reproduction of the neutral scale (and other colors), the coefficient of D_b must therefore be unusually large.

The relatively high neutral-scale gamma for the yellow dye of Color Set 3 and Sensitivities 6 is thus seen to be an artifact of the particular set of colors chosen for reproduction. The spectral characteristics of these colors have a consistency of pattern not found among natural object colors. The equations derived for them do not properly apply to natural objects.

Summary and Conclusions

Using the method of least squares, color-reproduction equations for three different sets of object colors for each of six different sets of sensitivity distributions have been determined. For sensitivity distributions which are color-mixture curves, the mask gammas tend to decrease in size with decreasing saturation of the primaries corresponding to the color-mixture curves. Although there also appears to be a slight tendency for goodness-of-fit values to improve with decreasing saturation of the primaries, the results are erratic and we doubt that the differences are significant. We therefore believe that, for a dye set such as used in this investigation, there is no unique set of primaries, or corresponding sensitivity distributions, which is most satisfactory.

Elimination of the negative portions of the sensitivity distributions tends to increase the values of the mask gammas, but not to worsen the goodness of reproduction obtainable. Sensitivities similar to those used in practice, which depart materially from color-mixture curves or their abridgments, give color reproductions essentially as good as any of the other sensitivities studied.

The gamut and nature of the object colors used in determining color-reproduction equations by the least-squares method have a marked influence on the mask values and on the goodness-of-fit measures. Sets of colors with spectral patterns not characteristic of natural objects may give results which are not properly applicable to natural objects. If special spectral patterns are avoided and the color gamut is restricted to the less-saturated colors which appear to have greatest importance in color photography, consistent results are obtained, even though the specific sets of object colors are different. If sensitivities which are color-mixture curves are used, the colors must also be restricted to those well within the gamut which can be matched by mixtures of the primaries corresponding to the color-mixture curves.

Notes

¹ W. T. Hanson, Jr. and P. W. Vittum, PSA Journal, 13, 94-96 (1947).

² W. T. Hanson, Jr., J. Opt. Soc. Am. 40, 166-171 (1950).

³ Evans, Hanson, and Brewer, Principles of Color Photography (John Wiley and Sons, Inc., New York, 1953), pp. 639-661.

⁴ Brewer, Hanson, and Horton, J. Opt. Soc. Am. 39, 924-927 (1949).

⁵ A. C. Hardy and F. L. Wurzburg, Jr., J, Opt. Soc. Am. 27, 227-240 (1937); see also reference 3, pp. 617-618.

^§ The authors are particularly indebted to Mr. John H. Baker, of the Color Print and Processing Department, of the Eastman Kodak Company, for this list.”

(Hanson, Wesley T. (1955): Subtractive color photography. Spectral sensitivities and masks. In: Journal of the Optical Society of America, 45, 1955, pp. 476-481.)

“Red, Blue, Godard

Godard’s first color film was Une femme est une femme (A Woman Is A Woman, 1961); two years later he dealt with color for the second time in Le Mépris (Contempt). In both works the colors are dominantly primaries (“In Le Mépris I was influenced by modern art: straight color, ‘pop’ art. I tried to use only the five principal colors.” – Godard in the New York Film Bulletin [No. 46; 1964], p. 13).

Red and blue are the colors appearing most frequently in both A Woman Is A Woman and Contempt; the recurrence of these hues in a variety of contexts suggests thematic implications. The films are also related in that their primary themes are love triads (a motif which later became geometrically equilateral in The Married Woman); in both, female nudity has the important function of finalizing a precarious relationship. Both are parodies, the former more obvious and comic while the latter is complex, oblique, and tragic.

In each film there is a difference in rhythm which corresponds to the difference of sense. A Woman Is A Woman is quick, choppy, compact and widely varied in locations while Contempt, although thematically complex, is much more slowly paced, has fewer locations and much longer development of individual sequences. Along with these changes in sequential methodology in the latter film, there is a change in the handling of the camera itself. For the most part, fragmented editing is replaced with full-length takes and camera movements are slow, smooth, and calculated. In Contempt, this not only facilitates the tragic sense but is of importance to the work’s visual construction. It is well known that working in color often creates new problems for the intelligent director – an excellent description of these problems was given by Antonioni when he was interviewed by Godard. (See the English edition of Cahiers du Cinema – No. 1, 1966, pp. 28-9.) Godard, through his experience with A Woman Is A Woman, seemed to learn that if color was to function thematically, he would have to extend the length of single shots and slow down his camera movements to allow the viewer adequate time for concentrating on the composition of colors.

Even a simple and incomplete inventory of the recurring colors in A Woman Is A Woman indicates the importance of hue in relation to characterization and narrative development. Angela, the character who motivates the film’s action, is first seen in a red nightclub; her eyelids are shadowed blue. She is shown wearing a white coat and lives in a white apartment with her lover Emile. Camille and Paul, in Contempt, also live in a white apartment. In both cases, the white seems to underscore conditions of neutrality and/or situations whose final outcome is still ambivalent – Angela very much wants a child by Emile, but Emile, who is cool to the idea of Angela having a baby, wears dominantly blue clothing. The neutral ground of the apartment contains a balance of red and blue objects: window awnings, clothespins, drinking cups in the bathroom, a sports poster on the wall in the living room, flashlights, a red lampshade and a blue bedspread. Seen through windows are blue and red neon signs that consistently comment upon the emotional climate of each scene which occurs in the apartment. Angela is also characterized as indecisive at several points; one time she has on one red and one blue stocking, and another time she wears a red and blue plaid dress. There are red dots on her underpants. After being repeatedly refused by Emile, Angela goes to Emile’s friend Albert to conceive. Albert, the film’s straight man, wears grey and feels no real affection for Angela; he is, however, delighted to help her out. At this point Angela is wearing a blue dress and has switched to a black coat. When she returns to Emile, after having intercourse with Albert, she still wears blue and the dots on her underpants are also blue. When she informs Emile, however, the action is still ambivalent and Angela again wears the white coat. The film ends with Angela and Emile in bed, still under a blue blanket; both are sad and confused. Then Angela thinks of a way to solve the dilemma: red neon light pulsates into the apartment and Angela takes off her nightgown for a willing Emile.

Very rarely, since Eisenstein’s Ivan the Terrible, has color in a commercial feature been used except to add a market value. When it has been dealt with at all, it has been used primarily for the enhancement of mood in separate scenes. Godard has attempted a more ambitious function for hue in A Woman Is A Woman: color is used as a leitmotif which parallels and comments upon the narrative theme.

If a color leitmotif is to be used, some system for structuring the colors must be created. In regard to the red and blue motif of A Woman Is A Woman, Kabuki make-up authority Masaru Kobayashi’s comments are important: “. . . the basic colors employed in kumadori are red and blue. Red is warm and attractive. Blue, the opposite, is the color of villains . . .” (The Film Sense, p. 137). These stylized, symbolic color values are more than likely formalizations of direct sensual experience, formalizations based upon relationships of hue sensation and inner emotional states (what Wassily Kandinsky called “der innere Klang”). Eisenstein felt that these alleged correspondences of sensation and emotion could not be the basis for the systematic organization of color due to the high degree of variation in subjective responses persons have to hues; instead, he suggested that each film create its own “functional” system of organization, using arbitrarily chosen but consistently recurring colors or values. Godard’s color system is in accord with Eisenstein’s theory insomuch as it is “functional” and its colors do not act upon the viewer in a directly sensual way. Godard admitted this himself when he made the following comment about a film in which each composition (through filtering and juxtaposition of hues) creates color “auras” that establish emotional responses in its viewers: “I was very impressed with the new Antonioni, The Red Desert: the color in it was completely different from what I have done: in Le Mépris the color was before the camera but in his film, it was inside the camera.” (New York Film Bulletin, loc. cit.) On the other hand, Godard’s dominant thematic hues were very likely not chosen arbitrarily since they have such obvious symbolic references to emotional states.”

(Sharits, Paul (1966): Red, Blue, Godard. In: Film Quarterly, 19,4, 1966, pp. 24-29, on pp. 24-26.)

“Gegenstand dieser Abhandlung ist eine Methode zur mathematischen Nachahmung des ganzen Farbwiedergabevorganges, so daß an jeder beliebigen Stelle Änderungen von Parametern in die verschiedenen Stufen dieses Verfahrens eingeführt werden können. Dadurch werden gewisse Möglichkeiten für die Prüfung der Farbwiedergabequalität von Farbmaterial geschaffen, was bisher in empirischer Weise noch nicht mit der erforderlichen Genauigkeit möglich war.

1. Mathematische Methode

Das Farbwiedergabeverfahren wird in elementare Stufen aufgeteilt, und jede Stufe wird in eine für die mathematische Behandlung leicht zugängliche Form übersetzt. Abb. 1 gibt das Blockschema des Rechenprogramms. Änderungsfähige Stellen sind umkreist.

Eine Reihe von 51 Farbvorlagen (Abb. 2), gleichmäßig über die Farbtafel verteilt, wird als Standard-Aufnahmeobjekt gewählt. Dazu gehören Konzentrationsreihen derselben Farbstoffe. Als repräsentativ wurden dunkle und helle Farben, sowie auch die mittlere menschliche Hautfarbe, das Himmelsblau und das Blattgrün (Evans¹ S. 493-497, Brenman²) genommen.

Ausgehend von den spektralen Remissionskurven dieser Muster wird die Aufnahmedichte für eine gegebene Spektralempfindlichkeit des Negativtyps sowohl für Umkehr- als auch für Negativmaterialien berechnet.

1.1: Umkehrsystem

Die Belichtungsdichtewerte werden in äquivalente Graudichtewerte der Kopie unter Verwendung einer standardsensitometrischen Kurve umgesetzt. Ein Vergleich von Wiedergabesystemen mit verschiedener Tonskala ist nur mit einem Bezugspunkt möglich. Wir wählten den Wert 0,64 als genau wiederzugebende Graudichte, weil in der Praxis festgestellt worden ist, daß dieser Wert am besten der Originaldichte gleichkommt.

1.2: Negativ-Positiv-System

Annähernd können die charakteristischen Kurven eines Negativmaterials als Gerade angenommen werden. In diesem Fall weiden die Belichtungsdichten in Maximaldichten der Negativfarbstoffe umgesetzt. Ausgehend von diesen 3 × 51 Maximaldichtewerten werden die spektralen Durchlässigkeitskurven der 51 Negative berechnet unter Verwendung der spektralen Durchlässigkeitskurven der Negativfarbstoffe, einschließlich der Maskenfarben, falls anwesend. Von diesen 51 Negativen berechnen wir die Kopierdichten für eine gegebene positive Spektralempfindlichkeit. Diese Kopierdichten werden an Hand einer positiven sensitometrischen Kurve in äquivalente Graudichten umgesetzt.

Zwei Bedingungen sind bei dieser Berechnung vorausgesetzt:

a) Die Originalgraufarbe der Dichte 0,64 wird, wie im Umkehrverfahren, gleich wiedergegeben.
b) Die Originalgraufarbe der Dichte 1,56 wird als neutrales Grau, im allgemeinen aber nicht mit derselben Dichte wiedergegeben.

Die Bedingung a) wird durch eine relative Verschiebung der drei Positivkurven erfüllt, die Bedingung b) durch Änderung des Gammas der gelben und blaugrünen Kurve bezüglich der purpurnen Kurve.

Von diesem Punkt an verlaufen die Umkehr- und Negativ-positiv-Programme gleich.

Die drei äquivalenten Dichten der 51 Vorlagen werden in die Konzentrationen der gewählten Positivfarbstoffe umgesetzt. Jeder Konzentration entspricht eine bestimmte spektralphotometrische Kurve; die subtraktiven Kombinationen der 3 × 51 spektrophotometrischen Kurven ergeben die 51 Kurven der Wiedergabefarben. Daraus werden die Normfarbwerte für Tageslicht berechnet. Um ein quantitatives Maß der Unterschiede zwischen Original- und Wiedergabefarben zu bekommen, werden die Normfarbwertanteile x, y in die α-β-Koordinaten des gleichmäßigen Scofield-Judd-Hunter-Diagramms³.

Schließlich erhalten wir die Länge des Raumvektors Δ in NBS-Einheiten durch Verwendung der Judd-Hunter-Formel [1 NBS-Einheit = 5 J.P.S. (just perceptible steps): gerade noch wahrnehmbare Stufen]⁴. Für jede Farbengruppe eines bestimmten Farbtons wird die mittlere Länge des Raumvektors berechnet und tabelliert. Zum Schluß wird ein Gesamtfarbwiedergabekoeffizient berechnet, wobei jeder Farbgruppe einem Gewichtsfaktor zuerkannt wird, je nach dem von einem durchschnittlichen Beobachter darauf gelegten Wert. Die Berechnungen wurden auf einem Wegematic 1OOO-Rechner durchgeführt, einer schwedischen Ausführung des Alwac III E-Rechners.
2. Experimentelles

Für die verschiedenen Veränderlichen des Systems wurden Daten von aktuellen Farbmaterialien abgeleitet, nämlich

zwei negative sensitometrische Kurven,
drei Sätze Negativfarbstoffe, von denen zwei maskiert sind,
zwei Positiv-Sensibilisierungen,
eine große Menge Positivfarbstoffe und ihre Kombinationen.

Die Gewichtsfaktoren der verschiedenen Farben wurden durch ein Referendum unter 150 Personen bestimmt. Als Gammawert, auf den wir uns in diesem Beitrag beziehen, wird der Richtungskoeffizient der Verbindungsgeraden zwischen dem Punkt 0,70 über dem Schleier und dem um 0,45 log (I · t) weiter liegenden Dichtewert definiert.

3. Resultate

3.1: Einfluß des Gesamtgammas

Abb. 3 zeigt den Einfluß des Gesamtgammas. Diese Kurve wird durch die Berechnung für das Negativ-Positiv-System durch alleiniges Variieren des Gammawertes des Positivmaterials erhalten. Der mittlere Farbunterschied zwischen Original- und Wiedergabefarben ist als Ordinate, das Gesamtgamma als Abszisse aufgetragen.

Die Farbwiedergabe verbessert sich mit steigendem Gamma (der mittlere Farbunterschied wird kleiner), bis ein optimaler Wert bei γ = 3,25 erreicht wird, wo die mittlere Differenz Δ = 22,8 NBS-Einheiten beträgt. Jedoch erreichen nicht alle Farben die beste Wiedergabe für denselben Gammawert (Abb. 4): Blattgrün bei γ = 1,90, Rot bei γ = 2,40, Gelb und Blau bei γ = 3,20, während die Farbe der menschlichen Haut und das Himmelsblau nicht einmal die beste Wiedergabe für γ = 4,00 erreichen.

Der Gesamtwiedergabekoeffizient zeigt also einen optimalen Wert in einem breiten Gammabereich.

Die Erklärung, weshalb Rot und Blattgrün ihren minimalen Δ-Wert bei niederen Gammas erreichen, kann in der Farbtafel der 51 Wiedergabefarben gefunden werden (Abb. 5).

Für ein relativ niedriges Gamma (z. B. γ = 1) werden alle Farben weniger gesättigt als ihre Originale wiedergegeben. Mögliche Gründe dafür sind:

a) die unvollkommene Spektralempfindlichkeit des negativen Materials;
b) die unvollkommene Maskierung der Negativfarbstoffe;
c) die unvollkommene Abstimmung der spektralen Empfindlichkeit des Positivmaterials auf die Absorption der Negativfarbstoffe;
d) die spektralen Absorptionseigenschaften der Positivfarbstoffe.

Durch Erhöhen des Gammas des Positivmaterials werden alle Farben gesättigter und näher bei den ursprünglichen Farben wiedergegeben (Abb. 6). Die in den steilsten Bereich der Positivkurve fallenden Farben werden zuerst die beste Wiedergabe erreichen. Die in den unteren Teil der Kurve fallenden Farben werden ein hohes Gamma für die optimale Wiedergabe erfordern.

Eine Farbe der ersten Sorte ist Blattgrün (Sommerfarbe), dessen Belichtungsdichten im Rot, Grün und Blau alle über D = 0,73 liegen, so daß die entsprechenden Negativdichten niedrig sind und im steilen Gebiet der Positivkurve kopieren.

Dieselbe Überlegung gilt für die gesättigste rote Farbe (Abb. 7) (Dichte Rot = 1,92, Grün = 1,79, Blau = 0,53); das mittlere Rot aber erreicht seine optimale Wiedergabe nur für höhere Gammawerte, weil den niedrigeren Konzentrationen auch Rechnung getragen wird. Die niedrigsten Konzentrationen fallen tatsächlich in den unteren Teil der Kurve und benötigen ein hohes Gamma für bessere Wiedergabe. Dies ist auch der Fall für das Himmelsblau und die Farbe der menschlichen Haut. Dieser Gedankengang wird bestätigt, wenn man eine Gerade als positive charakteristische Kurve verwendet. Die Farbwiedergabe mit solchem Material ist viel besser als mit einem Material mit S-förmiger Kurve in zwei Beziehungen:

a) dieselbe Qualität der Farbwiedergabe wird mit weniger exzentrischen Gammawerten erhalten;
b) die beste erzielbare Wiedergabe ist besser als die beste erzielbare Wiedergabe mittels eines Materials mit S-förmiger Kurve.

Tatsächlich erreichen mehr Farben ihre minimale Länge des Raumvektors für dasselbe Gamma (Abb. 8), so daß das Gesamtminimum enger und niedriger wird (Δ = 19,25 NBS). Das Minimum liegt bei niedrigerem Gammawert, weil das Kopiergamma nun für alle Farben, wenigstens im niederen Gammabereich, dasselbe ist.

Wie oben schon erwähnt, fallen die beste Wiedergabe der ungesättigten Farben und das Mittel der diese Farben enthaltenden Farbgruppen noch auf die rechte Seite des allgemeinen Minimums. Die niedrigsten Dichteweite dieser Farben werden bereits bei niedrigem Gamma durch die Dichte Null wiedergegeben, und die anderen Dichtewerte unter 0,64 werden durch steigendes Gamma herabgesetzt, so daß die Wiedergabe schlechter wird.

Purpur 1, Grün 1 und Rot 1 (Abb. 9) sind typische Farben, welche über γ = 1,34 als Weiß wiedergegeben werden.

Diese Betrachtungen gelten auch für das Umkehrsystem, andere Negativkurven, Negativfarbstoffe, Maskierfarbstoffe, positive Spektralempfindlichkeiten und positive Farbstoffe, unter der Bedingung jedoch, daß die quantitativen Resultate in jedem Einzelfall verschieden sein werden.

3.2: Einfluß des Negativ- und Positivgammas für ein konstantes Gesamtgamma

Für eine Reihe von negativen Geraden mit verschiedener Neigung, aber mit derselben Grauabstimmung haben wir das Positiv angepaßt, um ein konstantes Gesamtgamma zu behalten. Abb. 10 gibt die Resultate bei zwei Gesamtgammas (1,98 und 2,62).

Für Negativgammawerte zwischen 0,5 und 0,8 sind die Differenzen in der Farbwiedergabe so klein, daß sie nicht ins Gewicht fallen. Für höhere Negativgammas (γ > 1) werden die Resultate schlechter.

Diese Tatsache ist folgendermaßen zu erklären: Die Kopierdichte des Negativs nimmt mit steigenden Konzentrationen an Negativfarbstoff und demnach mit steigendem Negativgamma zu. Diese Beziehung ist aber nur linear in nahezu grauen Wiedergaben für kleine und für höhere Negativdichten. Für höhere Negativkonzentrationen ist die Beziehung für gesättigte Farben nicht mehr linear, und die Nichtlinearität nimmt mit steigender Sättigung zu.

Wenn also andere als farbmetrisehe Erfordernisse ein bestimmtes Negativ- oder Positivgamma wünschenswert machen (z. B. wegen des Belichtungsspielraumes bei der Aufnahme oder beim Kopieren von Negativen bei gleichbleibendem Gesamtgamma), wird die Farbwiedergabe, wenigstens im praktisch verwendeten Negativgammabereich, nicht erwähnenswert beeinträchtigt.

3.3: Das Umkehrverfahren

Der Einfluß des Gammas und der Kurvenform auf die Umkehrfarbenwiedergabe ist im allgemeinen derselbe wie für das Negativ-positiv-System. Es ist jedoch nützlich, beide Systeme zu vergleichen, weil sie einige typische Differenzen aufweisen. Das Umkehrverfahren ist vergleichbar mit einem eine völlig maskierte Stufe enthaltenden Negativ-positiv-System.

In Abb. 11 werden verglichen: die Wiedergabe mit einem unmaskierten Negativ, die Wiedergabe mit einem völlig maskierten Negativ, jene mit einem praktischen Negativ (einigermaßen übermaskiert in der blaugrünen Schicht) und die Wiedergabe mittels des Umkehrverfahrens.

In jedem einzelnen Fall wurden die Berechnungen für dieselbe Aufnahmespektralempfindlichkeit, dieselbe Positivkurve und dieselben Positivfarbstoffe gemacht. Wenn man die Resultate für das praktische Wiedergabegamma 2,1 vergleicht, wurde ein durch völlige Maskierung herbeigeführter durchschnittlicher Gewinn von 28,8 – 27,8 = 1 NBS-Einheit in der Farbwiedergabe erhalten. Mit einer Übermaskierung der blaugrünen Schicht, wie im Falle 3, wurde ein Gewinn von 28,8 – 26,2 = 2,6 NBS-Einheiten gefunden.

Beim Betrachten der Wiedergabe mit dem Umkehrsystem, bei dem dieselbe Gesamtwiedergabekurve verwendet wird, stellen wir eine Verbesserung von 28,8 – 22,7 = 6,1 NBS-Einheiten fest. Dies bedeutet eine Verbesserung, die sechsmal größer ist als diejenige mit völliger Maskierung. Unter Gleichhaltung aller anderen Elemente kann dies nur durch die ungenügende Abstimmung der Negativfarbstoffe auf die Positivspektralempfindlichkeit erklärt werden. Wenn z. B. ein Negativfarbstoff nicht völlig die positive Sensibilisierung deckt, ist die Kopierdichte nicht proportional der Konzentration des Negativfarbstoffes. Dies kann vorkommen bei Verwendung von Negativfarbstoffen mit zu engem Spektralbereich, von zu breiten Positivspektralempfindlichkeiten und besonders von zu hoher Blauempfindlichkeit der rot- und grünempfindlichen Schichten. Es ist immer möglich, die Abstimmung mit Farbfiltern auf Kosten der Lichtintensität zu verbessern.

3.4: Einfluß der Maske

Wenn wir die Wiedergabe des aktuellen maskierten Negativs im einzelnen betrachten, finden wir, daß der Gewinn für Blau, Gelb, Rot und Purpur (Abb. 12) am größten ist. Für die übrigen Farben ist der Einfluß weniger ausgeprägt; dennoch wird die Farbwiedergabe für jede dieser Farben verbessert. Die durch Maskierung der blaugrünen Schicht herbeigeführte Verbesserung in der Farbwiedergabe ist mit der mit einer 15%-igen Erhöhung im Gesamtgamma erreichten Verbesserung vergleichbar. Der Vorteil einer Maskierung vermindert sich mit steigendem Gamma, weil die Farbwiedergabe schon für hohe Gammawerte gut ist, so daß Übersättigung stattfindet.

3.5: Einfluß der Farbstoffe des Positvmaterials

Bei einem bestimmten Gammawert (γ = 2,1) wurde mit Hilfe des Umkehrprogramms eine große Menge von Farbstoffen (Gelb, Purpur und Blaugrün) des Positivmaterials zur Bildung eines Dreischichtenmaterials in Reihen zu je drei zusammengenommen. Die Farbwiedergäbe hängt stark von der gewählten Kombination ab und kann in der Praxis von Δ = 20 bis 25 NBS-Einheiten variieren. Eine solche Untersuchung wurde schon von MacAdam⁵ und Evans (S. 531)¹ beschrieben.

Das Betrachten einer großen Menge von Kombinationen erlaubte uns, mehr quantitative Angaben über die Größe der Verschiebungen in der Farbwiedergabe zu sammeln, welche auf die Änderungen in den spektralen Charakteristiken der Farbstoffe zurückzuführen sind. Beim Teilen des Spektrums in drei Gebiete für die Bestimmung von Haupt- und Nebenabsorptionen wurden die Normspektralwerte verwendet, weil ein Positivmaterial visuell beurteilt wird und wir auf diese Weise u. E. möglichst gut die spektralen Charakteristiken des Auges in die Berechnung einbeziehen.

3.51: Gelbfarbstoffe

Für eine gute Farbwiedergabe soll ein Gelbfarbstoff möglichst wenig im grünen und roten Gebiet des Spektrums absorbieren und eine möglichst zweckmäßige Blauabsorption aufweisen. Tabelle 1 gibt einen Überblick der Wiedergabequalität einiger Gelbfarbstoffe in Kombination mit einem festen Satz von Purpur-Farbstoffen (p₁) und Blaugrün-Farbstoffen (bg₃), sowie auch über die auf eine feste Hauptabsorption reduzierten Nebenabsorptionen.

Die hohe Absorption im roten Gebiet braucht uns nicht zu beunruhigen; sie ist eine Folge der speziellen Form der Normspektral wertkurve x̅(λ). Es sei bemerkt, daß sich die Farbwiedergabe verbessert, wenn die Nebenabsorption im grünen Gebiet kleiner wird. Den Sinn und die Größe in NBS-Einheiten der Verschiebung der verschiedenen Farben findet man in der Tab. 2.

Ein weiterer Vergleich der Gelbfarbstoffe führt zu dem Schluß, daß weniger die mit der Maximumdichte übereinstimmende Wellenlänge, als vielmehr die Flankenwellenlänge wichtig ist. g₃ und g₄ haben fast dieselbe Nebenabsorption im Grünen, während die mit ihrer Maximumdichte übereinstimmenden Wellenlängen weit auseinanderliegen, nämlich bei 460 nm und 428 nm. Jedoch sind ihre Wiedergabekoeffizienten wenig verschieden: 21,46 gegenüber 21,61.

Diese Betrachtungen wurden für die Kombination verschiedener Gelbfarbstoffe mit einem bestimmten Satz von Purpur- und Blaugrünfarbstoffen gemacht. Sie gelten im allgemeinen aber auch für die Kombination mit einem anderen Satz von Purpur- und Blaugrünfarbstoffen.

3.52: Purpurfarbstoffe

Prinzipiell ist der beste Purpurfarbstoff ein solcher, der eine hohe Grünabsorption und eine minimale Absorption im blauen und roten Gebiet des Spektrums besitzt. Weil sich die roten und grünen Spektralwertkurven x̅(λ) und ȳ(λ) einander stark überlappen, wird ein zweckmäßiger Purpurfarbstoff noch eine ziemlich hohe Rotabsorption aufweisen. Es muß aber ein Unterschied gemacht werden zwischen der Absorption im blauen und roten Gebiet wegen der Breite des Absorptionsbandes einerseits und derjenigen, die durch eine horizontale Absorption verursacht ist.

Tab. 3 gibt die Wiedergabekoeffizienten für verschiedene Purpurfarbstoffe, kombiniert mit einem gegebenen Gelbfarbstoff (g₃) und einem Blaugrünfarbstoff (bg₂).

Aus dieser Tabelle geht hervor, daß es nicht genügt, eine niedrige Nebenabsorption im roten und blauen Gebiet zu haben; vielmehr ist die Form der Hauptabsorption sehr wichtig für die zweckmäßige Wirkung des Farbstoffes. Abb. 13 zeigt, weshalb p₁, ungeachtet seiner höheren Blau-und Rotabsorption, doch eine bessere Farbwiedergabe ermöglicht als p₂; p₁nähert sich mehr die Blockform; p₅mit einer steilen Flanke an der roten Seite weist an der blauen Seite eine zu große Lücke auf, wodurch ihre Grünabsorption in diesem Gebiet wenig zweckmäßig ist.

Die Tab. 4 deutet die Art und die Größe der durch eine Änderung in den Absorptionscharakteristiken der Farbstoffe herbeigeführten Verschiebungen an.

Wir möchten hier abermals betonen, daß ein Unterschied gemacht werden muß zwischen den durch eine graue Absorption verursachten Nebenabsorptionen und den Nebenabsorptionen, welche die Folge des Verschiebens der Kurvenflanke sind.

Die Qualität eines guten Purpurfarbstoffes ist hauptsächlich seiner niedrigen Graunebenabsorption zuzuschreiben. Die guten Purpurfarbstoffe haben noch eine ziemlich hohe Blauabsorption, weil ihre Flanke stark ins blaue Gebiet durchdringt.

3.53: Blaugrünfarbstoffe

Weil die Normspektralwerte x̅(λ) und ȳ(λ) einander stark überlappen, wird eine gute Rotabsorption immer mit einer hohen Grünabsorption verbunden sein. Die Tab. 5 gibt die Wiedergabekoeffizienten einiger Blaugrünfarbstoffe in Kombination mit g₁ und p₂ sowie ihre Absorptionseigenschaften.

Durch die starke Überlappung der grünen und roten Normspektralwerte braucht eine hohe Grünabsorption nicht unbedingt ungünstig zu sein. Eine hohe Blauabsorption dagegen ist ungünstig.

Richtung und Größe der Änderungen der individuellen Farben findet man in der Tab. 6.

Wir sind uns darüber im klaren, daß neben den farbmetrischen Erfordernissen noch viele andere Faktoren beim Farbfilm zu berücksichtigen sind. Es war aber unsere Absicht, hier die relative Wichtigkeit der verschiedenen, die Farbwiedergabe beeinflussenden Parameter darzustellen.
Literatur

¹ Evans R. A., W.T. Hanson jr. und W.L. Brewer, Principles of Colour Photography. New York and London: 1953

² Brenman, E.J., Phot. Sei. Eng. 1 (1957), S. 74

³ Scofield, F., D.B. Judd und R.S. Hunter, A Proposed Method of Designating Color. ASTM-Bull. Nr. 110 (1941), S. 19-24

⁴ Hunter, R. S., Photoelectric Tristimulus Eolorimetry with Three Filters. J. opt Soc. Amer. 32 (1942), S. 509-538

⁵ MacAdam, D. L., Colorimetric Analysis of Dye Mixtures. J. opt Soc. Amer. 39 (1949)), S. 22-30″

(Smits, J.; Corluy, H.; De Kerf, J. (1966): Farbmetrische Analyse fotografischer Farbwiedergabe-Verfahren. In: Die Farbe, 15, 1966, pp. 102-118.) (in German)

“A Method of Pre-Exposing Color Negative for Subtle Effect

By Freddie Young, BSC

Speaking to Mr. Dennis Wratten of Kodak Ltd. London recently about a method of pre-exposing Eastman color negative to obtain a subdued color effect, I promised a full report on the procedure so that other lighting Directors of Photography may have all the facts.

I illuminated a dead white card with incandescent lighting of 3200 Kelvin; then, taking an exposure meter reflection reading, working at 50 A.S.A. for a full normal exposure if the camera shutter was 170 degrees on a Mitchell camera, I closed the shutter down to 60 degrees opening; this gave me roughly 30 per cent exposure to normal.

After exposing the film I did a series of tests, shooting normal exteriors and also various types of studio lighting. Incidentally, I also tried pre-exposures of 10 per cent, 20 per cent and 40 per cent, but came to the conclusion that 30 per cent was the most satisfactory for all general purposes.

Of course I immediately realised that this method of exposing the film through the camera with the mask line showing on each frame, together with the danger of camera scratches, etc. would not be satisfactory, so I asked Mr. George Gunn of Technicolor Ltd. to match my 30 per cent pre-exposing in the laboratory without the mask lines showing. This was done and we had Technicolor pre-expose batches of 30,000 ft. at a time, always keeping a week’s work ahead of us.

The whole film The Deadly Affair (Director Sidney Lumet) was shot using this method.

Mr. Lumet, whom I met for the first time on a special visit to New York, had asked me if I could think of some way to shoot the picture with subdued colour. He was delighted with the results obtained as were the Art Director, Make-Up Artist and the actors who viewed rushes.

Since then, Mr. Lumet has screened rushes for several Directors of Columbia Pictures Corporation, Mr. Frankovich of New York included, and they have all been most impressed.

The picture is a mood spy drama, but I would venture to suggest that almost any picture, or certainly sequences, could be photographed using this method to advantage, and the following important points should be noted:

– There is no loss in definition.
– The film speed is increased from A.S.A. 50 with incandescent light to at least 75 A.S.A. and 100 A.S.A. for night effect, all printing normal 15 to 17 printer light at Technicolor Ltd.
– Very little filler light is required in the studio.
– No retakes were experienced in any way, so no snags.

The Deadly Affair was shot in eight weeks, a week under original schedule. Technicolor is now in the process of making various tests such as duping, release printing etc. to endeavour to find out if there are any possible snags to the process.

It seems to me to be the answer to so many Directors’ requests in recent years for subdued colour. David Lean asked me on Lawrence of Arabia for such an effect on the long desert crossing to Akaba, and at that time I used slight fog filtering, but this present method could have been much superior.

To conclude – this method does not change the colour values in any way, it merely softens or subdues colour. The increase in speed of the film is very valuable, and personally I feel the colour is more true to life generally speaking”

(Young, Freddie (1966): A method of pre-exposing color negative for subtle effect. In: American Cinematographer, 47,8, Aug. 1966, p. 537.)

“Remember the Glorious Color of films gone by? It may soon be only a memory – for the prints are fading fast.

The house lights dim, a hush comes over the expectant audience, and a beam from the projection booth hits the screen. But the old film, so clear in a buff’s memory, looks to have deteriorated before his eyes – and memory is not at fault. What was once a color film is now a jarring mixture of faded dyes in a spectrum that runs from dull, muddy pink to deep, garish purple. The sunny, windswept fields of Oklahoma! have turned an eerie, strident pink. Marilyn Monroe looks jaundiced. The florid gold and pastel palace in The King and I is now a drab, dusky rose.

Filmgoers who regularly attend repertory theaters or museum retrospectives are finally getting visual proof that color films will not always appear as they did decades ago, years ago – sometimes even months ago. These color fading problems are not isolated nightmares confined to a few prints of certain films. Color fading threatens all color films, and there is a growing awareness that it has not only reached epidemic proportions but has surpassed all other problems of film preservation. Film companies are scrambling to save their precious libraries, motion picture archivists are watching their collections change hue, and audiences everywhere are subjected to a special visual agony that humane people wouldn’t wish on laboratory mice.

Color fading, if left unchecked, could very well do irreparable damage to film preservation and scholarship. It’s the disease that doesn’t discriminate: it can affect Gone With the Wind as easily as it can The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Already a litany of horror stories is intoned by film archivists throughout the world: the original negative to Kinugasa’s Gate of Hell is so badly faded that no viewable prints can be struck from it; one reel of the original negative of the 1956 Oscarwinning Around the World in 80 Days is missing an important color, and when the film was reissued a duplicate negative had to be made from a print in good condition; the original negative to The King and I is “shot.” Films that most people think are safely tucked away in some kind of Hollywood Heaven are, in reality, being damaged beyond repair.

Specialists today estimate that the average color print has a life of anywhere from six months to twenty years. Even more alarmingly, the original negatives of many films produced from the Fifties on are also in danger of fading. Needless to say, once the negative goes there is very little left. Already certain distributors have resorted to all kinds of visual “enhancement” in the case of negative fading, but the results are far from satisfactory.

It is not surprising that examples of color fading in film are rampant today. The entire history of full color in motion pictures spans slightly over forty-five years, and flaws in the system are becoming distressingly evident.

From the days of Edison, audiences have craved color in their films. Processes such as tinting and toning enjoyed immense popularity at the turn of the century. Hand-painted prints of The Great Train Robbery (1903) would surprise audiences with red-tinted gunshot blasts, and in C.B. De Mille’s Joan the Woman (1917) the execution sequence featured flames tinged with red. Handcoloring reached its peak in France, where Charles Pathé employed over 300 girls from the French countryside to hand-stencil films, much in the manner of penitent nuns making lace.

But neither tinting nor toning could produce a natural color spectrum on film, and research was concurrently carried on by the Technicolor Company and Eastman Kodak. In 1929 and 1930, Technicolor developed a two-color system which employed orange-red and blue-green dyes. The process, although limited in reproductive quality, was immensely popular, and audiences flocked to such two-color films as Warner Brothers’ On With the Show (1929) and the Florenz Ziegfeld-Samuel Goldwyn production Whoopee (1930).

Reacting to public favor, Technicolor rapidly sought to perfect its color process, and in 1932 developed a three-color system first used in Walt Disney’s animated short Flowers and Trees (1932). Disney thought so much of the three-color process that he used it for The Three Little Pigs (1933) and eventually for his first animated feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937).

The three-color system was used with equally positive results on live-action films. The process, called “three strip,” involved the simultaneous exposure of three separate rolls of color-sensitive film (the three dyes involved were magenta, cyan, and yellow) in a large, bulky camera. Becky Sharp (1935) became the first film to utilize full Technicolor, followed by A Star Is Born (1937), The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), and Gone With the Wind (1939).

As Technicolor became firmly entrenched in the Hollywood of the Forties, it began to acquire a familiar look. Down Argentine Way (1940) featured a more vibrant Technicolor with bold primary colors, notably a saturated red. The words “In Technicolor” became synonymous with the best of Hollywood’s musicals and epics.

In the early Fifties, however, an event occurred in color technology that would revolutionize color film. Eastman Kodak announced the development of a “multi-layer” film which already contained the three dye-sensitive layers necessary for color. This not only did away with the need for the bulky three-strip cameras, but also changed Hollywood’s method of striking prints. Until then, Technicolor struck prints utilizing the “imbibition” process, in which the three different color dyes were each applied separately to the film base, much in the manner of color lithography. But with Eastman’s new “multi-layer” film, colors could be obtained quicker and easier. Although the Eastmancolor prints were inferior in quality to Technicolor’s imbibition prints, they were less costly to produce and generally more economical in small print runs.

Unfortunately, the introduction of Eastmancolor in the Fifties laid the foundation for the problems in color fading we are seeing today. Hollywood and the public both accepted Eastmancolor without really noticing a difference in color quality. Each studio developed its own special variant of the Eastmancolor process, and the crazy quilt of color names that burst forth in the mid-Fifties captured the satiric eye of Cole Porter in a number for the film Silk Stockings:

If Ava Gardner played Godiva riding on a mare,
The people wouldn’t pay a cent and they wouldn’t even care
Unless she had glorious Technicolor,
Or Cinecolor, or Warnercolor, or Metrocolor, or Eastmancolor,
Or Kodacolor, or any color . . .

And although both the public and Hollywood seemed intrigued with the possibilities of the new Eastman-based color processes, no one was thinking of its archival qualities. As color researchers Henry Wilhelm and Klaus B. Henricks write in their forthcoming Preservation of Contemporary Photographic Materials:

“In the early days of Eastmancolor – in the late 1950’s – release print dye fading was not generally of serious concern to the professional motion picture industry because prints of major features were generally physically deteriorated from scratching and abrasion during repeated projection and handling, and were usually discarded before dye fading became a serious problem …. The dark storage stability of Technicolor imbibition prints is far superior to release prints made on Eastman color print film, and this fact alone would justify the added cost of imbibition prints for many applications …. Faced with increasing competition from Eastmancolor, Technicolor considered advertising its imbibition process on the basis of its excellent stability. However, permanence has never been a primary requirement of the motion picture industry, and Technicolor decided not to make a major issue of the permanence question . . . .”

The honeymoon between Hollywood and the new Eastmancolor processes was predictably short-lived. In less than a decade, evidence of bad print and negative fading would cause some film companies to invest in expensive “separations” of their major films to insure their longevity. Other companies apprehensively surveyed their libraries and found the color in some films too faded to halt.

Today, when all that remain of the great Hollywood studios are corporate skeletons and film libraries, the importance of color fading to a distributor who has active interests in television sales and theatrical reissues is crucial. Usually the urgency of a studio’s color fading problem is in direct proportion to the care they initially took in developing, printing, and preserving their films.

Perhaps the two studios best prepared to confront the color fading problem are Walt Disney Productions and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

The Disney studio has kept expensive separations on all of its major releases, both animated and live-action. Disney also, as policy, keeps an original Technicolor imbibition print on each title as a check if a question of color balance or tone arises during a reissue. Ironically, as far as the animated films go, the Disney studio could actually consult the original animation “cels” if needed. Naturally, the Disney organization’s concern with preservation is well-founded, as Disney films have the potential to keep earning money on a reissue basis almost in perpetuity.

MGM has had a long history of film conservation, which is now paying off with remarkable results. Wes Meyers, who heads the MGM Film Library in Culver City, California, confirms that MGM originally made protection elements on all of their films. In a continuing program of conservation, the studio has converted over 800 features from nitrate to safety stock, and has also finished converting over 700 shorts. The Company is currently working on trailers, travelogues, and cartoons. MGM keeps its original camera negatives in its vaults in California. And to assure that no negatives are ever destroyed by a man-made or natural disaster, the company keeps duplicate elements in an abandoned section of a salt mine in Kansas.

Myers credits the success of That’s Entertainment, the popular compilation of highlights from MGM musicals, with giving the company’s conversion program a shot in the arm by proving the public’s unflagging interest in MGM’s archival material. In fact, MGM has, in recent years, done very well financially with theatrical reissues of its films, organized into retrospectives that feature a wide variety of titles from the MGM library.

But even a preservation program as comprehensive as MGM’s can fall victim to the ravages of color fading solely due to the passage of time. During an MGM retrospective at The Museum of Modern Art in New York City, a print of George Cukor’s stylish Les Girls (1957) was a ghastly vision in beige-on-beige. A recent tribute to Vincente Minnelli featured a print of Tea and Sympathy (1956) that looked as if it had been brewed right in the pot alongside Deborah Kerr’s solicitude. Both prints had a history of minimal use and careful storage (MGM even labeled Tea and Sympathy an “archive print”), yet they showed as much color damage as prints subjected to callous treatment.

A relative newcomer to the area of repertory cinema distribution is 20th Century-Fox. The studio has recently tested the financial waters of the re-release market by assembling a program of about forty features from its library and playing them successfully in San Francisco and New York City. Unfortunately, Fox has many problems with negative and print fading. Much of their trouble stems from the inferior processing DeLuxe Laboratories (now DeLuxe General), a wholly-owned corporate subsidiary, did on Fox releases of the Fifties and Sixties. Many archivists accuse DeLuxe of processing Fox films too quickly and sloppily, and insist that improper “washing” of the developing chemicals from the prints and original negatives, as well as mediocre quality control, have contributed to Fox’s current preservation problems. One executive connected with the Fox reissue program referred to DeLuxe as “the cheapest and worst lab in the business. They simply do bad work.”

Sid Samuels, an affable, knowledgeable man who is in charge of print control for Fox, admits that the company has had trouble making up prints on some of their older films. “It’s an ongoing battle,” Samuels said recently. “We’re fighting time and chemistry. Fox does not want to see any of its films disappear this way, but we’ve had to depend heavily on the trickeries of modern technology to recover some of our pictures.” Certain Fox films on the reissue program recently shown at Manhattan’s Regency Theatre, such as The Seven Year Itch (1955) and Centennial Summer (1946), appeared to be in relatively good condition. But several other titles show painfully obvious problems in negative fading and improper laboratory timing. Sections of The Virgin Queen (1955) and Carousel (1956) appeared yellowish, and the lighting of indoor and outdoor sequences in both films was off. Bus Stop (1956) had a yellow tone from beginning to end, as did sections of How To Marry a Millionaire (1953). Forever Amber (1947) showed distinctly bad tonal shifts and contrast imbalances throughout the film.

Many of these problems are directly related to the storage and treatment of the original negatives. Samuels confirmed that many Fox negatives from the Fifties are in poor condition, mainly because they were used directly for striking prints, rather than utilizing a duplicating negative – the customary process to avoid damage to the original. Samuels said that negatives from the same period can vary dramatically in quality: “One negative may look gorgeous. Another, from the same storage area and the same time period, throws out a print that is an abomination.” Obviously, negative wear and fading is a complicated process, and proper temperature and humidity in storage, as well as clean chemical handling of the original negative, are important keys to longevity.

Despite the considerable trouble Fox has had preparing prints on older titles for theatrical engagements, the studio was able to improve the quality of problematic negatives and prints when preparing material for television broadcast. That’s Hollywood, a current half-hour television series syndicated by 20th Century-Fox Television, makes liberal use of excerpts from Fox films of the Fifties, many of which are badly faded. Through the use of computer circuits, technicians at Fox television were able to control each of the primary colors on the clips separately and, in effect, remix the color electronically to compensate for any dye loss in the original material. Although this technique proved reasonably successful for television broadcast, it cannot correct problems in theatrical release prints.

While distributors are understandably concerned over the significant problem of color fading, their concern tends to overshadow the additional problem of color consistency that occurs when films photographed in one color process are printed in another.

When new prints are needed on films originally shot in three-strip Technicolor, it is common practice for distributors to make up an Eastman internegative and strike prints on Eastman film. In the Fifties and Sixties this was done mainly for economic reasons, but now that Technicolor has phased out imbibition printing Hollywood no longer has a choice. This change from Technicolor to Eastmancolor results in a dramatic shift in color tone and balance. Hues that were rich and “warm” in the original Technicolor will become brighter and colder, almost neon-like, in Eastmancolor. Serious shifts in yellow tones occur, and Eastmancolor is simply not capable of reproducing the distinctive, saturated primary colors that distinguished three-strip Technicolor. Eastman prints of The Red Shoes (1948) struck recently lack the deep blacks and reds of the Technicolor imbibition prints. New prints of Meet Me In St. Louis (1944) and On The Town (1949) lack the vibrant quality they originally had.

A celebrated example of the incompatibility of different color processes involved Luchino Visconti’s The Leopard (1963). Visconti’s well-known penchant for detail and insistence on authenticity prompted him to lavish extraordinary attention on the costumes and sets for his epic. The Leopard was originally processed by Technicolor in Italy, but when Fox distributed the film in Great Britain and the United States they struck prints in DeLuxe color from a duplicate negative. This seriously affected the subtle, tapestry-like shadings Visconti had striven for, and sacrificed values in color fidelity and definition as well. The indignant director promptly fired off a letter to The Times of London, complaining that the film was “processed as if it were a bright piece of Hollywoodiana.”

Whether the problem involves color consistency or color fading, there is little a director can do about it after a film opens. Francois Truffaut admitted, somewhat fatalistically, that the best he could do to insure good color quality in Farenheit 451 would be to check personally the prints scheduled for major first-run engagements in Europe and the United States. After that, he confessed, the matter is beyond a director’s control.

Cinematographers are equally exasperated by the proliferation of faded prints that continue to circulate for years. Gordon Willis, who has worked with several directors known as meticulous color stylists (Francis Ford Coppola, Alan Pakula, Woody Allen), was understandably volatile when asked about the lax preservation of prints and negatives. “It has not been traditional for studio executives to preserve anything but their own jobs,” he remarked. “But then again, the basic overall structure of the motion picture business is not quality-oriented. Studios and labs usually think of film in terms of yardage.” When asked if he had personally seen faded prints of his work after its initial release, he quickly replied, “I generally don’t watch a movie after I’m through with it. Perhaps during the first six months of an engagement I’ll sometimes pop into a theater to check the print, the projection, and the audience reaction. But I certainly have no illusions about what a print will look like five years after its release.”

Retired cinematographer Arthur E. Arling, who began his motion picture career in 1927, served as operative cameraman on Gone With the Wind and won an Oscar in 1946 for his work on The Yearling, echoed Willis’s comments on the powerless position of a cinematographer regarding print quality during distribution. “Cinematographers usually lose control after the answer print,” Arling commented during a telephone interview. “Once the answer print goes to the lab, that’s it. I sometimes take a look at my films when they turn up on television, and I can tell they have deteriorated.” Arling also observed that the passing of the studio system may have something to do with the problems in color consistency and fading that are cropping up now. “When the major studios existed, we had more time to work on perfecting the color in films we photographed. Don’t get me wrong – we were still under pressure. But there was a continuity in laboratory procedures and systems, and we would also usually get the time to do things our way. That era, however, is gone for good, I’m afraid.”

As directors and cinematographers voice concern, even despair, over the color fading problem, the world’s film archivists struggle against time to save as many movies as they can. Listening to archivists provides a lesson in verbal intonation; their conversation is punctuated with pregnant pauses and laced with flashes of facetious wit (including a mordant reference to Vincente Minnelli’s “Rust” For Life). But the detrimental effects of color fading on various film collections are spoken of without levity.

Only a small percentage of The Museum of Modern Art’s 8,000-film collection is in color. But Eileen Bowser, a film curator at MOMA, cites color fading as the biggest problem in film preservation today – she fully expects the problem to get worse as the years go by. The Museum is currently putting its films into cold storage at just below freezing, in the hope that an economic method of dealing with color preservation will be developed in the next few years.

The Museum is also involved in making new prints of all the David O. Selznick color films, including Duel in the Sun (1946) and The Garden of Allah (1936), from Selznick’s original three-strip Technicolor negatives. The new prints will be prepared under the supervision of film technician Ralph Sargent and his staff at Film Technology Laboratory in California, specialists in the painstaking art of archival print manufacture. Sargent, who previously prepared two-color prints of Paramount’s 1929 film Redskin, is familiar with the difficulties involved in film restoration of this type. “The essence of this business is not only technical finesse, but also judgment,” he commented. “Many of these films require frame-by-frame checking.” This is taxing work that the larger laboratories are not equipped for, and so archivists rely more and more on the few specialists in this field.

Larry Carr, Administrator of Film Preservation for the American Film Institute in Washington, is convinced that most of the color problems coming to light today are due to “cutting corners by processing the film too quickly. The chemical process is very complicated, and rushing it can be a disaster. Actually, all handling, storage, and use of a film contributes to fading.”

One of the world’s largest film collections is in the Library of Congress, also in Washington. David L. Parker, Technical Officer for the Library, cites the years 1955 to 1958 as a “disastrous period in color fading,” noting that their prints of Carousel (1956) and The Long, Hot Summer (1958) have turned “monochrome fuchsia with some poisonous green overtones.” He sympathizes, however, with the problems studios have in getting good laboratory prints on their back titles. “They will often want 400 prints of 400 different films, instead of 400 prints of one film. The bulk of all their back titles could be considered non-commercial, except for the occasional reissue or booking into a repertory cinema. The labs and studios don’t really have the time to deal with the problem of striking quality prints on this basis. It goes against the entire grain of the film industry, which is to get the most money out of a picture at the time of initial release. The studios are also loath to throw good money after bad in the case of a film that was a financial disappointment the first time around.”

Archives that store Hollywood films are not the only ones threatened by color fading. Even the National Aeronautic and Space Administration, which owns the most elaborate archive in the United States for the storing of original film and slides from the manned space flights, will eventually have to face the problem of color fading. “It’s a fact of chemistry,” lamented Richard Thompson, Chief of NASA’s Photographic Technology Division. “The public is certainly not aware of the situation, but we anticipate color fading will be a big problem. The bulk of our most spectacular space footage is in color.” He seemed unfazed when told that many film aficionados would rather throw all the space footage out and replace it with rare prints of Orchestra Wives.

Color fading problems are, of course, not confined to archives in the United States. Harold Brown, Chief Preservation Officer for the British Film Institute, reported that early examples of hand-colored or stenciled films have survived much better than color films from the Fifties and Sixties. In the future, BFI will have to rely mainly on cold storage and expensive “separations” of their films to prolong their color life.

In June 1979, The New York Times reported that the Swedish Film Institute had asked the Swedish Government for $1.6 million to be used for film preservation. The Institute is alarmed, The Times reported, that “even modern films are not safe from the ravages of time. New films by Swedish directors such as Ingmar Bergman, Jan Troell, and Bo Widerberg start to fade, almost imperceptibly to the layman, as soon as they are made, and no one really knows how to halt the process, which accelerates with the passage of time.”

Without exception, each archive questioned said that Technicolor imbibition prints were in almost as good a condition as when they were first struck, with no measurable color fading. They were all distressed that Technicolor had discontinued a print process that had provided archives with a reprieve from color deterioration.

Technicolor had continued to offer its superior imbibition process in the United States until 1975, and Hollywood opted for it on such large-quantity print runs as My Fair Lady (1964), Dr. Zhivago (1965), and The Godfather (1972 and 1974). Faced with waning interest and increased costs, Technicolor finally closed its Hollywood inhibition plant in February, 1975. Their Rome operations were discontinued on June 1, 1978, and the last imbibition plant, in London, was shut down on June 14, 1978.

The imbibition process did not go out, however, without a fitting hail and farewell. Some years ago, Eric Spilker, a film writer, historian, and sometime entrepreneur, was interested in re-releasing The Gang’s All Here, the flamboyant Fox musical featuring some of Busby Berkeley’s most hallucinogenic musical numbers. Determined to present the film to the public as it had originally been seen, Spilker arranged to have Technicolor make imbibition prints of The Gang’s All Here and, in 1973, opened it in New York. Critics were enthusiastic about the film – and ecstatic about the color quality. Pauline Kael rejoiced over “the electric reds and greens of 20th Century-Fox’s Technicolor”; Rex Reed stated that “this one has been preserved in a print so beautiful and richly endowed with fadeproof Technicolor, it looks like it has been kept in a drawer with Darryl Zanuck’s old socks.” This was a unique instance where the superior imbibition prints of Technicolor garnered a large share of attention and praise – solely due to the instincts of a film historian convinced of the very real assets of the process.

An amusing and perhaps ironic conclusion to the Technicolor imbibition saga concerns the fact that in 1974, the People’s Republic of China contracted with Technicolor, Ltd. of England to have a complete imbibition plant built in China. Operation of the plant began in 1977. The Chinese are using the process to make large numbers of release prints of documentaries and training films. This makes China the last place where Technicolor imbibition printing can be done. Recently, the Chinese let it be known that they would be delighted to contract work from U.S. archives or studios in need of imbibition prints. And so, as the Technicolor sun rises in the mystic East, we ponder the ultimate implications of a laboratory populated by hard-working, happy Chinese technicians, engaged in striking new prints of There’s No Business Like Show Business.

Alas, color fading is not a problem that engages the concern of the general public. What little attention the problem does receive is due in part to the efforts of Henry Wilhelm, a specialist in the history of color in film. Wilhelm lays much of the blame for color fading at the doorstep of Eastman Kodak, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of film and film supplies. “Ultimately, the responsibility certainly rests with Kodak,” he recently said. “Their dye stability could be improved at a relatively small increase in cost. They have also been negligent in informing the public of just what the projected life of their dyes is. But color fading is a touchy subject with them.”

Indeed, for many years Eastman Kodak avoided dealing with the problem by issuing blanket statements on the quality of their products and affixing a famous disclaimer to every can of film they sold, warning that the film was not insured against any changes in dye color.

Recently, though, Eastman Kodak has adopted a more progressive, informative role on the subject of color fading, and the company’s research has also been responsible for two significant new methods of dealing with the problem. The first involves new film stocks with improved dye stability, which Kodak estimates will last up to twenty times longer than their other stocks. Company spokesman Michael More said that the new stocks are currently available in 16mm, but that Eastman Kodak will make them available in 35mm upon request.

The second development at Eastman Kodak is a method by which faded transparencies can actually be restored to their original color. This complex process is akin, at least in rudimentary theory, to the electronic restoration used by Fox to color-correct faded film clips. The three primary colors are separated and re-combined in their proper ratio, restoring the transparency to its correct color. It’s possible that, in the near future, a variation of this process will be developed to help restore film negatives that have been badly damaged by fading.

In other segments of the photography world, there has been great excitement over a new system of printing color transparencies called Cibachrome. Marketed by the Ciba-Geigy Company through its photographic subsidiary, Ilford, Inc., Cibachrome has impressed photographers with its ability to render startlingly sharp and vibrant colors. The visual excellence of Cibachrome is even more attractive because it is between three and ten times more stable than Technicolor imbibition printing. Officials at Ilford, Inc. admit that Cibachrome is basically a system for displaying transparencies and prints under constant light, but say that it could also be used by studios and archives as a duplicating stock for film prints. If it were to be used this way, it would probably be the most stable method of storage as yet discovered. Although the company has no immediate plans to work motion picture technology into Cibachrome’s development, it reports that researchers at the company’s scientific headquarters in Switzerland are interested in pursuing further motion-picture development of Cibachrome.

A permanent solution to the problem of color stability could involve the use of holograms, and important research, partially funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, is being conducted in this area. The holographic process, when refined, would utilize lasers to record and reconstruct correct film color.

Whatever method proves to be the key to color preservation in the future, it is a simple reality that the international film industry cannot be expected to be the curators of its own past. The money machine will not be responsible for the dream factory. Henry Wilhelm adds: “Why should Hollywood care about color fading? The business of Hollywood is to make films. Asking them to make and preserve them may be giving them too much responsibility. I think an outside group, backed by the government, should keep good prints and original negatives for the studios, and allow the studios retrieval rights to their films.”

The idea of a national repository is an attractive one, and could probably be funded for surprisingly little cost. Wilhelm suggests that a slight increase in copyright fees could cover the entire tab. But in an age when distributors are becoming sensitive over issues of film piracy, it’s rather doubtful that they would hand over negatives and prints to any national clearing house. Still, the studios have good relations with the archives: MGM gives its original three-strip negatives to Eastman House; Fox contributes prints to the U.C.L.A. Film Archive and The Museum of Modern Art; Paramount and Universal deposit hundreds of titles in the Library of Congress.

There is also the possibility for corporate action. Recently, the Philip Morris Company began an ambitious program to distribute 100 films throughout the United States as part of a promotional campaign for their Benson & Hedges 100s. One title, Hitchcock’s To Catch A Thief, was found to have an original negative in very bad condition. Philip Morris not only picked up the tab for all the restoration on the original negative, but paid for a duplicate negative to be deposited with the American Film Institute. It’s this type of forward-thinking corporate involvement that could lead to companies “adopting” films and restoring them, while getting favorable media attention for their efforts. IBM, currently sponsoring a television series entitled Movies To Remember, should realize that there won’t be any movies to remember unless steps are taken now to insure their survival in the future.

By whatever means the problem of color fading is ultimately solved, it is obvious that a problem of such magnitude will require the hard work – and hard cash – of distributors, archivists, laboratories, and researchers. Color fading is a problem that was created by more than one segment of the film industry, and it is a problem whose solution will be found in the combined efforts of all groups involved. One thing is clear: the task is formidable and the deadline is now.”

(O’Connell, Bill (1979): Fade Out. In: Film Comment, 15,5, pp. 11-18.)

“To the Editor:

I read Bill O’Connell’s excellent article in Film Comment, “Fade Out” (September-October), with a great deal of interest, since color preservation has always been a concern of mine. As you well know, the urgency and importance of this issue cannot be underestimated. Color preservation affects everyone who seriously concerns themselves with film. From filmmaker to cineaste, preservation of color film must become a public issue, to be dealt with in a serious, productive manner.

I would like to capitalize on your article and, hopefully, form an alliance between the Director’s Guild of America, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the American Film Institute to fund research for alternative methods of color film processing, as well as an all out effort to save color negatives from further deterioration. I have just returned from Japan, where new film techniques are being actively developed and researched. The Japanese laser technology is astounding, and its implications for future film production are truly remarkable. The possibilities that exist for color film preservation are, without doubt, plentiful, and we must take some form of affirmative action toward solving the color problem. Laser technology and holograms are here, and the future is now!

I cannot understand an industry that promotes new directors and new films without regard for the built-in obsolescence of those new movies. Although I am well aware of the expense involved in the present method of color preservation (three black-and-white negatives). I do not believe that a less expensive method is unavailable. How can we sit back and allow a classic film, 2001: A Space Odyssey, to fade to magenta? Far worse, can we continue to live with the problem and design our films around it as George Lucas, by his own admission, has done with Star Wars, a film color-designed to appear faded.

As a director and a filmgoer, I firmly believe this issue must be forced to resolution. My own work has been severely affected, in that New York, New York was made to look like a Technicolor imbibition film. Within five years, its color will have faded beyond any recognition of the original concept, and the film will suffer for that loss. My present film, Raging Bull, was shot in black-and-white in order to avoid the color problem entirely.

Finally, I believe that directors, film students, and the Academy must form a unified front to combat the problem. Through benefits, fund-raising, publicity, demonstration of the problem, and if need be, militant action, we must band together to face the issue and solve the problem. I personally offer my services, time, and finances to this cause, in an effort to motivate my colleagues and friends to action.

If your readers have any suggestions that will support my efforts, I would like to hear them. I thank you for your contribution in bringing this problem to the public attention.

Martin Scorsese”

(Scorsese, Martin (1980): Letter. In: Film Comment, 16,1, 1980, p. 79.)

“During the many years three-color subtractive reproduction has been in use, many cases have arisen in which the results obtained by straightforward means were not satisfactory and methods for improving these results have been sought. The technique of masking which was invented by Albert¹ in 1899 has become one of the important means of effecting improved color reproduction. A great deal of work has been done in developing practical techniques of masking to give better results; and the possible application of masking to the establishment of conditions for exact color reproduction has been investigated. In fact, masking has become an integral part of most of the theories of exact three-color reproduction.

A more recent method of improving color reproduction is the use of “colored couplers.” These materials have been described by Hanson and Vittum,² and by Vittum, Sawdey, Herdle, and Scholl.³ The usefulness of such couplers is limited to films, such as Kodacolor or Ansco Color, which contain couplers that react with oxidized developer to form dyes. If the coupler which is originally present in a given layer of such a film is colored, having absorption in the desired region of the spectrum, and if during the coupling or dye-forming reaction the color of the coupler which is converted to dye is destroyed, the final color-developed image will be composed of a negative (or positive, if reversal processing is used) composed of the coupled dye image and a positive (or negative) composed of the residual unused coupler.

The application of this type of coupler to color photographic films requires a knowledge, of the optical characteristics of the colored-coupler images and the control of these characteristics so that they conform with the known practical requirements for producing color photographs.

¹ E. Albert, German Patent 101,379 (1899); German Patent 116,538 (1900).

² W. T. Hanson, Jr. and P. W. Vittum, J. Phot. Soc. Am. 13, 94 (1947).

³ Vittum, Sawdey, Herdle, and Scholl, J. Am. Chem. Soc. (to be published).”

(Hanson, Wesley T., Jr. (1950): Color Correction with Colored Couplers. In: Journal of the Optical Society of America, 40,3, 1950, pp. 166–171, on p. 166.)

“However, while colour was briefly highlighted in the 1950s, as part of cinema’s campaign to win back audiences from (black-and-white) television, developments such as Cinemascope would prove detrimental to Technicolor, whose dyes were not well suited to its processes. Moreover, Eastman-Kodak had by then developed a cheaper and less complicated process, and Technicolor gradually lost its dominance.⁵

⁵ Other successful three-colour systems on the market included the German Agfacolor, and its Russian derivative Sovcolor, the Italian Ferraniacolor, and the Belgian-French Gevacolor.”

(Everett, Wendy (2007): Mapping Colour. An Introduction to the Theories and Practices of Colour. In: Wendy Everett (ed.): Questions of Colour in Cinema. From Paintbrush to Pixel. Oxford: Peter Lang, pp. 7–38, on p. 22.)

“Not until the legal break-up of the Technicolor monopoly was demanded by the U.S. Department of Justice in 1947 and the invention by Eastman Kodak in 1949 of Eastmancolor, which – unlike Technicolor – did not need to be shot through a special three-process camera, could the number of colour, films released increase markedly. Between 1947 and 1954, the number of coloured films produced in Hollywood rose from 12 per cent of the total in 1947 to almost 50 per cent in 1954 (Cook, 462).

But then, repeating the pattern of expansion and subsequent contraction that had happened in the past, the percentage of films produced in colour actually declined once again.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Cook, David, A History of Narrative Film, New-York: WW. Norton, 3^rd ed. 1996.”

(Stokes, Melvyn (2009): Colour in American Cinema. From The Great Train Robbery to Bonnie and Clyde. In: Raphaëlle Costa de Beauregard (ed.): Cinéma et couleur. Paris: M. Houdiard, pp. 184–192, on p. 187.)

“The cause, and the cures, for the problem of colour fading are inevitably bound up with economics. Until the 1940s, ‘colour’ in Western cinema almost invariably meant Technicolor. Prints of old Technicolor films are of course subject to the ills that befall all nitrate material; but the three-strip Technicolor system itself was a stable one, and although the colours will not last for ever they are not subject to any kind of rapid fading. In the early 1950s, the system changed. Bill O’Connell puts it succinctly in an article in Film Comment (September/October 1979), one of several informative articles in American magazines which predated the Scorsese campaign. ‘Eastman Kodak announced the development of a “multilayer” film which already contained the three dye-sensitive layers necessary for colour. This not only did away with the need for the bulky three-strip cameras, but also changed Hollywood’s method of striking prints. Until then, Technicolor struck prints utilising the “imbibition” process, in which the three different colour dyes were each applied separately to the film base… But with Eastman’s new “multi-layer” film, colours could be obtained quicker and easier. Although the Eastman colour prints were inferior in quality to Technicolor’s imbibition prints, they were less costly to produce and generally more economical in small print runs.’

The chemistry of colour film is by no means simple for the layman to follow; there are many factors involved, and of course there have been changes and advances in the last quarter of a century. But the basic problem of the instability of the now almost universal multi-layer system remains. (Eastman Kodak now has a somewhat more stable print stock. It would add several cents a foot to the cost of a print and is consequently not in use.) Unofficial information from Eastman Kodak, supplied to the Scorsese campaign, shows that movie colour stock has a shorter life expectancy than that used for photographs, and that within six years ‘a 10 per cent colour density loss affecting one or more of the principal dyes’ is predicted, though there is also a suggestion that a 10 per cent loss may not be too serious. But of course any imbalance in colour affects the whole, and if the blue and green fade the result will be an overall effect of magenta or pink (Visconti’s ‘pink leopard’). One of the more graphic quotations accompanying the Scorsese campaign stresses this: ‘After only five years, the blue is leaving the waters [of Jaws] while the blood spurting from Robert Shaw’s mouth gets redder and redder.’”

(Anonymous (1980): Colour Problem. In: Sight and Sound, 50, pp. 12–13, on pp. 12–13.)

“Hollywood relied on quick turnover of a large-scale production, and it would be years before TV screenings, cassettes and the whole opening up of the re-release market alerted the studios to the commercial value of the past. In the 50s, consequently, an impermanent art turned cheerfully to an impermanent format. Eastman Kodak leased out its process (as Warner Color, DeLuxe Color, etc.) and it became more and more general.”

(Anonymous (1980): Colour Problem. In: Sight and Sound, 50, pp. 12–13, on p. 13.)

“1981 has apparently been designated as the year of the colour film. If this had not already been decided, in whatever quarters these things are arranged, Martin Scorsese would probably have ensured it, with his characteristically vociferous and well-publicised campaign to draw attention to the fast fading colour on the modern screen. By Scorsese’s account, it’s virtually fading away before our eyes. ‘I have witnessed the deterioration and sometimes the destruction of most films I have seen. With the introduction of Eastman Kodak colour film in 1950, any hope for colour stability vanished. All films made in the Eastman colour process are about to deteriorate beyond repair. Some have already done so. Methods of restoration are so costly that if a film is not considered important it is left to die.’ And, in Scorsese’s terms, there are no such things as unimportant films: ‘All film must be saved. No committees should decide which film lives or dies, whether or not TV commercials are less important than movie trailers…’ Followers of the late, great Henri Langlois would agree.”

(Anonymous (1980): Colour Problem. In: Sight and Sound, 50, pp. 12–13, on p. 12.)

Deux ou trois choses que je sais d’elle (FRA 1966, Jean-Luc Godard)

“Jean-Luc Godard through his work is a stunning exception. Scanning his color films one immediately senses an unparalleled rigor in the organization of color. Overall, one might say, the color appears “artificial” or stylized with respect to the more familiar “natural” or postcard color of traditional films. But this generalization is unsatisfactory. I shall attempt to be more exact about the color strategies of Godard-, and the consequences of these strategies, by centering on one film, Deux ou trois choses que je sais d’elle [Two or Three Things I Know about Her] (1966-67).

[…]

I propose to analyze Godard’s palette in terms of four major tendencies: color tends to appear as a certain type of solid color, in a regular shape, with an arbitrary relationship to the surface of its object, and in primary opposition to other colors. It is important to note that not every color in Deux ou trois choses fits these specifications. This demonstrates that pertinent oppositions, when they appear, become structurally significant in terms of Godard’s overall color system.

[…]

Godard in Deux ou trois choses tends to limit himself to brilliant, solid colors. By “brilliant” and “solid” I have in mind a collection of attributes. First, the hue of the color appears uniform, relatively large in area, and autonomous – a solid – as opposed to the mixtures of hues found in designs, prints, or plaids. Secondly, the color appears both light in lightness and strong in saturation, hence “brilliant.”

There is one major variant of the solid hue in Deux ou trois choses: the striped hue. The reason that stripes are designated here as a variation of solids, rather than as a polar opposite to solids, is that Godard selects such a peculiar type of striped hue. Broad, evenly spaced stripes of one solid color, are alternated with similar stripes of a second solid color. The effect is of two brilliant solids juxtaposed equally edge to edge with neither one dominant and both distinctive. Indeed, striped patterns are employed in exercises by art students to minimize the influence of area and shape and to promote the effects of color.¹⁰ As we shall see, a principle of color equality is crucial to Godard’s color system.

These special stripes are seen in Deux ou trois choses for example, in the boutique when Juliette takes off her striped raincoat to hold up a striped shirt against a background of numerous shelves of striped clothes. And a red-and-white striped towel in a bathroom matches the red-and-white stripes of the American flag stenciled on John Bogus’s white T-shirt. The towel is also reflected in a mirror where we see a shirt striped in the complementary colors, yellow and blue-purple.

What are the consequences of using brilliant, solid colors? First, the consistent use of highly saturated colors is unnatural. Generally the colors of nature and everyday life are relatively unsaturated.¹¹ This fact is exploited most by advertisers who favor highly saturated colors for their attention value in billboards and posters; indeed, advertising material itself is conspicuous in the films of Godard.

Secondly, with respect to lightness, Godard follows the so-called natural order of light values. The colors of the visible spectrum at full saturation are not all of equal lightness. Yellow is the lightest, blue-purple the darkest, and between them – arranged in descending semicircular sequences on a color circle – are the hues orange, red, red-purple, and purple; and the hues yellow-green, green, blue-green, and blue. Values of natural light and frequently the coloration of plants and animals follow this order. Consequently, there is a powerful expectation in the viewer that the light values of a composition will follow the order in which they appear in nature; a dark yellow (olive brown) paired with a blue (of the baby blue variety) seems “unnatural” or, similarly, an orange with pink or, as in the final bedroom scene of Deux ou trois choses, dark green with pink. As indicated, though, Godard generally respects the natural ordering of lightness in color, partly because he chooses highly saturated colors (each hue reaches its greatest saturation at its natural lightness); but, more importantly, because his method is to restrict the possibilities of color, selecting only a few elements to construct a disciplined color system.

Lastly, it is apparent that Godard rejects color schemes in which saturation and lightness mutually vary. One way these two variables may interact is through what Wilhelm Ostwald termed a “shadow series.” By this convention a single hue undergoes a series of precise changes which are meant to represent the color gradations of an object as it models from light into shadow.¹² Thus the greens in a forest will progress from light and saturated near a light source (or apparent light source in the case of painting) to a darker, more grayish green in half-shadow to a green approaching black in deep shadow. The filmmaker, of course, unlike the painter, may actually use one or more light sources or filters in order to model colors in this way or to produce variations.

Godard does none of this. He typically uses high key, featureless lighting which suppresses shadow and creates flatter colors with less spatial or volume effect (chiaroscuro). Indoor scenes are as brightly lit as exterior daylight scenes. The traditional film, on the other hand, usually lights its objects to create depth, aligns its light sources with the mise-en-scène to emphasize “natural” sources (e.g., an open window, a lamp, fireplace, television set), and contrives its compositions so that the center of interest is accentuated by a sharp contrast with the surrounding light values. The uniformly lit objects of a Godard film, however, seem to glow on their own and are not so easily integrated into a natural, three-dimensional space. Also, the elimination of shadows intensifies and separates colors because the shadow from a colored object is not black, as is commonly thought, but approaches the complementary hue of the colored object. Eliminating these interfering shadows heightens the glowing flatness of surfaces, accentuates edge contrast, and imposes a certain equality on the elements of the composition.

Primary colors

So far I have discussed Godard’s use of lightness and saturation with respect to a uniform, solid hue. I now consider which hues are chosen and how they are ordered. This subject is usually examined by color theorists under the heading of color “harmony,” which is defined as a specific set of relations among the colors while all other relations create disharmony. The problem is that virtually every theorist has a different system of classifying colors and hence different criteria for the relations and harmonies among colors. The three variables or “dimensions” of color have been developed into numerous color systems which have taken the solid shapes of – among others – a rectangular chessboard, pyramid, double cone (Rood), toy top (Ostwald), sphere, irregular sphere (Munsell), and what resembles a smashed grapefruit (1SCC-NBS system). A “slice” of such a solid specifies basic hue relations. These slices have appeared as five, and six-pointed stars, “ring-stars” (Ostwald), pentagons, triangles,¹³ and, the most popular, circles, as well as combinations of these and others. To further complicate matters, there is no agreement on how many or which colors to include in a system.¹⁴

Systems are also constructed in terms of different primary colors. A primary color is one which may be combined in various amounts with other primaries to generate (almost) all the remaining colors of a system. The physical or light primaries (which mix toward white light) are red, blue, and green. The pigment or painter’s primaries (which mix down toward black) are red, blue, and yellow. The psychological primaries (which mix in vision toward gray) are red, blue, yellow, and green. It should be noted that there are still other primary systems, and that the above colors are not the same from system to system; for instance, the red physical primary is not the same as the red pigment primary.

It would seem that Godard chooses something akin to the painter’s primaries, selecting a brilliant, indivisible red, blue, and yellow. But, most startingly of all, a majority of the compositions in Deux ou trois choses are based on these three hues alone without the use of other, intermediate hues. Green rarely appears, although it is used decisively, for example, in the trees around the car wash/gas station, in the picture above the bed in the closing scene, and in the grass background of the final shot. Other colors are conspicuously absent. Thus, Godard tends to restrict color to brilliant and solid painter’s primaries.

One dominant color composition throughout the film involves the three colors red, white, and blue. First of all, this color combination has an inescapable cultural connotation. These are the national colors of the United States, Britain, and France. We see in the film the United States flag being worn by Johnny Bogus and an intercut of a poster with the letters U, S, and A colored red, white, and blue respectively. We also see the Union Jack painted on the lips of a model in magazine photograph. And of the opening thirteen title shots, all but two (which are green) are laid out in the order of blue, white, red. The letters of the end title (“Fin”) follow this order as does the French flag which contains these colors in three vertical blocks, left to right.

Other compositions employing these colors include the close-ups of Robert’s notebook (red ink on white paper ruled into blue squares); shots of the overpass (blue pavement, white curbs, and a red crane below); an extreme low angle of two derricks (one red, one white, against a clear blue sky); the frequent shots of a Mobil gas sign; and the appearance of various service stations. One of these latter shots in particular shows vast expanses of white concrete, blue gas pumps with red and white trim, an air pump in red and white, an attendant in blue uniform, red foreground flowers, two cars – one red, one white – and all the colors brilliant solids. There is also an extraordinary shot of Juliette lying in bed with, from left to right, a blue top, white sheet, and red blanket (cf. the colors of France). The next shot is of her son, composed in the same colors, but rearranged in the frame.

What are the consequences of color schemes based on the painter’s primaries red, blue, and yellow, and red and blue separated by white? First, there are no intermediate hues (nor intermediate values of light or saturation) to act as “transitions” between the primaries. Two colors are continuous in this sense when each contains something of the other. Thus, brown – which is, strictly speaking, not a hue but a dark shade of yellow, orange, red, or magenta – has the potential to link a number of colors. Transitional colors were important for the French Impressionist painters because they believed that, in scanning a painting, the eye follows the routes of least visual resistance; hence, patterns of transitional colors were called “passage.” Whether or not the theory is plausible with respect to eye movement, it does account for a system of differences and relations among the colors. According to this theory, then, the primary hues in Godard’s compositions are highly discontinuous and isolated. In fact, the juxtaposition of discontinuous colors serves to further increase the perceptual contrast of the two colors.¹⁵ Black, white, and gray – since they contain only the attribute of lightness – may mediate between any two colors but only in this dimension. The white of red, white, and blue combinations in Deux ou trois choses, however, is far too light with respect to the red and blue, and thus it serves to separate rather than bridge the two colors.

Though isolated, Godard’s colors are, nevertheless, balanced and symmetrical. The general rule of hue harmony states that hues should be either near one another or else far apart on a color circle. In this sense of “regularity” the concept of harmony is a requirement of form – a symmetry or repetition of units which assures that a work is a construction of meaning, not the result of chance.¹⁶ The traditional harmonies or forms are expressed in terms of degrees on a given color circle¹⁷ (cf. the 30-degree and 180-degree rules of spatial continuity in classical Hollywood films) or, most often, as various geometrical shapes rotated inside a color circle (straight lines, equilateral and isosceles triangles, squares, etc.) or spatial figures cut from a color solid. The primary colors of Godard might then be related as the points of an equilateral triangle – which neatly illustrates that the painter’s primaries, red, blue, and yellow, represent the strongest contrast of hue.¹⁸

These primary colors may be balanced, but they are not passive or static. This brings us to a second consequence of using primaries (the first was an isolation and discontinuity of color based on the absence of transitions): a tension is created between color areas. The tension is that of reds versus blues, the so-called warm/cool opposition.¹⁹ The contrast is sharpened by Godard’s tendency to limit color to brilliant solids. With primary colors, the tension is red and yellow versus blue; in red, white, and blue compositions the tension is at its most elemental, red versus blue.

The opposition of red and blue is often stated in spatial terms: reds advance toward the viewer, blues recede. This effect finds support in the well-known spatial cue of aerial perspective (the blueness of distance) and the fact that the lens of the eye is subject to chromatic aberration, which means that red light is focused behind the retina (as in far-sightedness) and blue light in front of the retina. Thus the tension engendered by red and blue appearing together begins as an optical stress in the musculature of the eye as the lens alternately tries to focus first one, then the other color. Two colors – green and magenta – focus directly on the retina and are spatially neutral; hence they are said to be “restful.” Godard’s system therefore creates isolated colors, equal and in opposition, with a selective use of green as mediation.

The warm/cool color dichotomy, established as difference, allows the text to construct meaning. The culture has already assembled a vast storehouse of possible (past) connotations (emotions) of the red/ blue opposition, such as, fire/ice, near/far, violent/tranquil, opaque/transparent, heavy/light, dry/wet, and more.

[…]

Repetition of color forces one to perceive it as a material element capable of entering into combinations and exchanges which coalesce into a system. Thus Godard’s color serves notice that nature will be radically reassembled, not imitated, and in a way which questions the dominant forms of assembly or representation. Color becomes a catalyst.

Regularity of shape

So far I have considered Godard’s color in terms of a selection of a limited number of solid hues of light value and strong saturation. I turn now to the shape of these colors and their placement within the frame. This is a complex subject and so 1 will sketch only some Godardian general tendencies.

The compositions of Deux ou trois choses tend to reveal strong horizontal and vertical lines and colors tend to appear in blocks and regular shapes, such as squares and rectangles. The preference for solid, uniform colors or stripes, noted earlier, contributes to the horizontal and vertical segmentation of the image. There is a shot, for example, of Juliette crossing the street prior to her entrance into the boutique. We see across the street six rectangular billboards. The first three contain no advertising, and each is painted in a brilliant, solid primary: red, yellow, and blue. The fourth is empty and unpainted. The last two are covered by shreds and tatters of various color posters. Many interior scenes contain posters which confine blocks of color against white, blank walls. In a 360-degree pan shot from the courtyard of a housing project, we see mostly the whites and grays of cement and skyline except for two large rectangular sections of wall that are painted a brilliant red. In the car wash, the car emerges a shiny red between two walls of bright yellow. And at another point in the film a woman wearing a sweater with horizontal blue stripes stands against a wall of three posters: one red, one yellow, and one blue. (Appearing on the blue poster are the words “color vision.”)

The repeated use of color in regular shapes tends to breakdown the “objective” image into a more formal, graphic segmentation. Natural contours tend to be replaced by a gridwork of lines that enforce not only the man-made (e.g., construction sites, cranes, buildings, advertisements, commercial signs, products) but also the abstract, the constructed – that which cannot be natural. The later paintings of Piet Mondrian, which are composed solely of rectangular color blocks, map the extreme of this strategy.

There is a major variation of these large color blocks throughout Deux ou trois choses. In the variation the same colors are used (brilliant, solid primaries) but are scattered into tiny pieces across the image. Again, the lack of intermediate colors promotes isolation and equality for the scattered hues. We see, for example, Juliette in the kitchen with fifteen or twenty household products – brightly colored boxes, bottles, and cans – scattered about. In the day care/brothel scene we see a table jammed with various brightly colored products. Later Robert appears against a massive advertising billboard which has been reduced to mere shreds and scraps of posters. In the cafe two men sit before stacks of multi-colored books including fiction, history, guidebooks, telephone books, and others in several languages, from which they randomly select and then quote a brief passage.

The last example illustrates that whatever breakdown has occurred in the visuals in terms of color is paralleled by a breakdown of the audio track and, perhaps, of narrative. The use of scattered color at various moments in the film seems to indicate a second disintegration of the objective image whereby the homogeneous color blocks have exploded into fragments. One is reminded of Juliette’s remark in the second scene when she says, “I feel as though I were being shattered into a million pieces when I dream…. When I wake up, I’m scared some of the bits will be missing.” In its episodic narrative and its color, Deux ou trois chose enacts a world, a social order, in the process of fragmentation.

Allied with the breakdown of color into equal elements is; a breakdown of the center of the image. The traditional film has often meant a tyranny of the center of the frame and central perspective, but in Deux ou trois choses there are compositions which reassert the equality of the sides of the frame. These effects are further emphasized by the expanded horizontal ratio of widescreen. We see, for instance, an extreme long shot of a construction site where a cement bucket suspended from a derrick moves at left frame, then off frame. The essentially static shot is now held until, finally, the cement bucket reappears briefly in the extreme top right corner of the frame (at a much greater distance from the camera). At the beauty parlour, Paulette’s soliloquy in close-up is punctuated by her hand breaking into the empty space at frame right. The rigorous spatial continuity of the second cafe scene depends principally on persons, reflected in a mirror, who appear in the top left or right corner of a shot. (Hence the continuity of this scene, and others in the film, is quite inaccessible to traditional reading procedures.) We also see from the distance of a long shot only Robert’s head at the lower left against a massive billboard. While the traditional film might shift a body off center frame, it would never show merely the head at that distance, but the entire body (cf. also the car wash scene).

These examples show how a tension is created between the centered and radically decentered compositions of Deux ou trois choses. The tension goes beyond a search for a new aesthetic balance; rather, it is in the end an attempt to reposition character with respect to the camera’s production of narrative space. Narrative no longer is the story of character, but is the story of a displacement of character. The political and ideological pressures and forces leading to displacement are the real subject matter of Deux ou trois choses. Prior to the first scene, an intertitle announces, “Eighteen Lessons about Industrial Society.”

What is important in the present context is that color plays an initial role in subverting the centered and hierarchical attention of a traditional reading. Colors may be positioned so as to compete with frame center. For example, a low angle shot of an overpass predominantly in whites and cement grays with a bit of light blue sky is marked by patches of brilliant red at lower left and at top right where a man, barely visible, paints a guard rail. Not only the position of color but other aspects such as movement, direction, shape, and size are important to the effect of color. Schemes have been developed which relate color and area into a new property called the “weight” or “force” of a color,²⁰ but so far these schemes are rather crude. On the whole, there is scant theory of what happens as color is fashioned into more complex forms. What is evident is that Godard’s consistent use of regularly-shaped color blocks, with its dialectical opposite of splintered color, together with a stress away from center frame, promotes color to parallel and equal status with other elements. Systematic color then becomes a tool capable of contesting traditional stylistic and discursive organizations of a text.

Nonreferential color

If there exists a system of color in Deux ou trois choses, how does it relate to the narrative system of the film? What are the larger functions of color in the text? I begin with some functions that color does not perform.

It does not provide clues to, or mirror, the psychological states of the characters. For most critics this is the sole, or at least paramount, way color is interpreted in film. A weaker claim stemming from the same approach is that color sets the mood or tone of a scene – “vivid” colors for a “lively” scene, and so forth. The essence of this method is to shift adjectives and nouns from the narrative and attach them to the appearance of colors, as in “a chromatic sensuality that sharpened the hedonism of the plot” or “an aberrant grayness of alienation” that later “is modulated into a murky grayness to underline the barrenness of a mind drained of dreams and emotions.”²¹

All other uses of color for these critics are shelved in the broad category of “symbols” or “comments” by the director; that is, if colors are not emotional they must be “intellectual.” Whatever the categories may reveal about underlying assumptions of mind, they certainly reveal an impoverished notion of narrative – usually no notion except perhaps that of “plot.” There is no concept of non-narrative or counter-narrative elements in the text – that surplus of signification which recent analysis has demonstrated is so crucial to the work of the text.²² Hence, despite a claim that color may have other uses, most critics and textbook writers in their examples fall back to a psychological recuperation of the filmic text.

Color in Deux ou trois choses also does not function to enhance a reality effect. When Marianne (Anna Karina) and Ferdinand (Jean-Paul Belmondo) escape across the rooftops in Pierrot le fou (1965), we see a number of ventilating pipes painted in brilliant, solid colors: red, blue, yellow. The color of these pipes stands out (almost as if it is being quoted) because normally we expect exhaust pipes and smokestacks to be black or at least a dingy color. Unexpected or unfamiliar color tends to separate color from its natural object in the same way that unfamiliar size frustrates a monocular depth cue (size perspective). It is the gap between color and object that is important in Deux ou trois choses. The gap is created chiefly through the strategies we have already discussed: a tendency to limit color to brilliant, solid primaries of regular shapes. Moreover, as previously noted, the consequences of these strategies in almost every case were to contest a natural reading of the image.

For example, when Juliette and Marianne emerge from their car in the car wash scene (see color illustration), they are dressed in brilliant, solid primaries: Juliette in a simple blue top and yellow skirt, Marianne in a simple red top and green skirt (the single reference to green in the shot). These exact primaries are reiterated throughout the shot: red, by the car, various rectangular electrical switch boxes, trashcan, and pail; yellow, by various painted machinery; and blue, by a painted wall. The repetition of color suggests that color is not working solely in a system of natural reference; background objects are not lost in the background as mere decor, atmosphere, or “accents.” The split between color and object is evidence that a logic other than verisimilitude (the probable) is at work. Later, during the bathroom and sex scene with Johnny (a john), Juliette, walking back and forth, wears a blue travel bag over her head (she had just taken off her blue top) while Marianne, walking back and forth, wears a red travel bag over her head (she had just taken off her red top). These actions fill out a series of comparisons begun in the car wash scene, namely, a woman’s body is like a car’s body; and washing a car (labor) is like washing a body (in the bathroom) for blind labor (sex). The result is that commerce is seen as a form of travel, i.e. labor is a trafficking in bodies.

If color in Deux ou trois choses is nonpsychological, nondramatic, and nonverisimilar, what is it? In negative terms it is nonreferential, or self-referential; stated positively, it is an element of equal significance with other elements – a reversible field²³ of permanences and permutations criss-crossing the text, capable of forming alliances at one point and contradictions at another. That is, a color is capable of connecting to various points in a text and helping to make patterns; it need not be confined to the surface of a specific object. This potential of color is seen most clearly in those moments when it is self-referential. In La Chinoise (1967) there is a close-up tracking shot past color samples from a paint chart. In Deux ou trois choses a giant commercial sign – Azur – appears several times and is painted blue. The word azur, of course, also names a shade of blue. (The color reference is enhanced by presenting the sign out of context.)

Color also achieves a certain independence when one object is seen to have more than one color. For instance, in a long held, extreme close-up of the hood of a car at the car wash we see green trees reflect as red, and blue sky as white. In the cafe the colors of a magazine advertisement are distorted through beer in a tall glass. In the hotel scene we watch as Juliette repeatedly turns a lamp on and off, changing the color of the lamp from white to blue and the wall from red to black; she says, “The image is permeated with meanings and memories.” These sorts of shots illustrate that in general Godard offers an image not as evidence for a fixed state of the world, but merely as a possible (cultural, personal, political, or common) description, a quotation or figure, which is limited and depends on further investigation. As Godard says in his whispered voice-over commentary in the cafe scene: “The frontiers, of my speech are the frontiers of my world…. [Whatever I say (or show in an image?) must impose limitations on the world, must make it finite [reduce it?].” (Cf. also Godard’s voice-over during the car wash scene and his inclusion of alternative camera takes within the plot of the film.)

Perhaps the most extraordinary use of color in Deux ou trois choses occurs in the final shot. The shot is, among other things, an elegant summary of the progress of color throughout the film. We see about thirty consumer products in boxes spread out on the grass (like the blocks of low-rent apartment buildings seen in the film). The colors of the products – essentially the primaries red, blue, and yellow – are set off against the green background of the grass and are modulated by a shadow series. As previously remarked, green is spatially neutral and “restful” while the shadow series contributes depth. Next, instead of a fade-out, Godard stops down the camera lens and holds on a darkness which completely loses the green, the shadow series, and the basic outlines of the products, but allows the scattered primary colors to continue to glow, almost independent of shape, referent, and nature.

At this point the breakdown of color through the film from nature to solid blocks to scattered pieces has become final. A parallel breakdown has occurred in the narrative where the traditional hierarchies of the causal-psychological chain – the “tight, economical”, plot – have been ruptured. The main character, for example, is first introduced as an actress, and the narrative veers promiscuously from drama to documentary to interview to soliloquy to guerrilla theater. But the breakdown in color and narrative can only be a starting point. As the voice-over commentary states at the end, “I’ve forgotten everything except that, as I’m going back to zero, I’ll have to use that as my point of departure.” We see that the color of Deux ou trois choses ultimately reveals a work in progress.

Conclusion

The psychophysics of color perception as well as the function of color in a textual system depend exclusively on context and relation. The aesthetic text no less than other texts is an instrument of social practice, and its meaning depends on a relationship with cultural conventions or codes. A set of color conventions that may be termed traditional or naturalistic may be employed as a background set in order to distinguish the color organization of Jean-Luc Godard in Deux ou trois choses, and the consequences of that organization with respect to traditional representation.

Godard tends to employ uniform hues, or stripes, which are light in brightness and strong in saturation (brilliant solids). Though his color generally respects the natural order of light values, the high saturations are more typical of advertisements than the low key colors of nature. Godard muses in whispered voice-over: “You might almost say that living in today’s world is rather like living in the middle of a big comic strip.” (Cf. also Godard’s ideas about the commodification of everyday life.) The shadow series – a special relation of lightness and saturation – is rejected in favor of high key, featureless lighting that suppresses natural depth and central perspective in order to create a flatter composition of equal elements. Also, the placement of off-center color blocks operates to subvert a centered and hierarchical attention.

The hues chosen by Godard are often the painter’s primaires – red, blue, yellow – which represent the extreme of three-hue contrast. Another frequent combination is the extreme of two-hue contrast: red and blue separated by white. This contrast is based on the warm/cool dichotomy and muscle stress in the eye. These extremes of contrast create colors in tension, though equal and balanced. The lack of intermediate colors (passage) accentuates the isolation and autonomy of color. The repetition of limited hue combinations acts to break down the natural image, which is expected to contain a multiplicity (a plenitude) of graded color.

The compositions of Deux ou trois choses tend to be strongly segmented by lines, often horizontal and vertical. As a result colors appear in blocks that act to destroy natural contours. A major variation is the appearance of the same colors but now splintered across the image as if color itself had broken down.

The colors of Deux ou trois choses cannot be read in terms of character psychology, the exigencies of drama, or of verisimilitude. Instead, color – divorced from its natural (probable) object through such strategies as the above – becomes a mobile element, and an element of equal significance with other elements of the text. The consistent use of color strategies means the construction of forms – positions and differences – which are the very foundation for the articulation of color in a pictorial system. Deux ou trois choses is one of the few color films which, to borrow Eisenstein’s phrase, is in color and not merely colored.

Notes

This, essay is a revised version of one that first appeared in Wide Angle, Vol. l, No. 3 (1976), pp. 20-31.

¹ Jean-Luc Godard, Deux ou trois choses que je sais d’elle (Paris: Seuil, 1971); Jean-Luc Godard, Godard: Three Films (New York: Harper & Row, 1975). See esp. Alfred Guzzetti, Two or Three Things I Know about Her: Analysis of a Film by Godard (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981).

¹⁰ Josef Albers, Interaction of Color, Rev. ed. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1975), pp.48-50.

¹¹ Color as Seen and Photographed, 2nd ed. (Rochester, N.Y.: Eastman Kodak Co., 1972), No. E-74, p. 54.

¹² For the fine points of this convention and certain deviations which result in crowding of light values or exaggeration of saturation, see Arthur Pope, The Language of Drawing and Painting (New York: Russell & Russell, 1949), pp. 44-49, 99-106, 128-31.

¹³ For one modern version of triangular hue relations, see Rudolf Arnheim, Art and Visual Perception, Rev. ed. (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1974), pp. 330-71

¹⁴ Most color circles are constructed with complementary colors – which neutralize each other when mixed – on opposite sides. Thus, there is a tacit assumption that colors seek an achromatic and absolute state, e.g., white light. Also, color circles include magenta (red-purple), which does not occur in natural light (it is mixed in the eye), and the circles invariably assume equal divisions for the colors (whereas reds and yellows comprise about 40% of the light spectrum).

¹⁵ Color has a temporal dimension. The perceptual mechanisms of simultaneous and successive color contrast – based on the formation of negative afterimages in the eyes – function to drive colors which adjoin or succeed one another further apart in the ways in which they differ. Camera and character movement, for instance, could be used to shift and juxtapose colors in simultaneous contrast while editing and optical effects, e.g., dissolves, would seem perfect tools to exploit the phenomenon of successive contrast. To my knowledge, no filmmaker has used these effects because negative afterimages are transitory and move with the eye and so produce an unstable, ambiguous and changing color.

¹⁶ Cf. Roland Barthes, “The Structuralist Activity” in Critical Essays (Evanston 111.: Northwestern University Press, 1972), pp: 217-18.

¹⁷ See Faber Birren, New Horizons in Color (New York: Reinhold Publishing Corp., 1955), pp. 32-33.

¹⁸ Johannes Itten, The Elements of Color (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Co., 1970), pp. 19-22, 29-31, 33, 72-74.

¹⁹ See William Charles Libby, Color and Structural Sense (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1974), pp. 56-61, 67-68, plate 3.

²⁰ See Itten, pp. 59-63.

²¹ Lewis Jacobs, “The Mobility of Color” in The Movies as Medium, ed. Lewis Jacobs (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1970), pp. 191, 196. Godard’s color design may also be subjected to the standard approach, which seeks to narrativize all the colors. See, e.g., Paul J. Sharits, “Red, Blue, Godard,” Film Quarterly, Vol. 19, No. 4 (Summer 1966), pp. 24-9. What happens when colors in a Godard film fail to match plot or character? The critic then relies on irony as an explanation. “Godard, in his treatment of Camille’s garment hues [in Le Mépris, 1963 [Contempt)], seems to have broken from what he may have felt was a too-obvious color system. Camille, because she is in love with her husband at the beginning of the film, ‘should’ be wearing red; however, the cyclic motif that occurs in regard to Camille’s development has a particular irony that befits the irony of the film in general, particularly the ironic paralleling of Contempt‘s development with that of the Homeric Odyssey.” (p. 27) This approach to Godard’s color design has the ironic effect of making more conservative a director who is trying to create an alternative film practice.

²² Stephen Heath, “Film and System: Terms of Analysis,” Part I, Screen, Vol. 16, No. 1 (Spring 1975), pp. 7-77; Part II, Screen, Vol. 16, No. 2 (Summer 1975), pp. 91-113. See also Heath, Questions of Cinema (New York: Macmillan Press, 1981).

²³ Cf. Roland Barthes, “The Third Meaning” from Image-Music-Text, trans, by Stephen Heath (New York: Hill and Wang, 1977).”

(Branigan, Edward (1976): The Articulation of Color in a Filmic System. Deux ou trois choses que je sais d’elle. In: Angela Dalle Vacche and Brian Price (eds.): Color. The Film Reader. New York: Routledge, 2006, pp. 170–182, on pp. 170–180.)

Pierrot le fou (FRA 1965, Jean-Luc Godard)

“When Marianne (Anna Karina) and Ferdinand (Jean-Paul Belmondo) escape across the rooftops in Pierrot le fou (1965), we see a number of ventilating pipes painted in brilliant, solid colors: red, blue, yellow. The color of these pipes stands out (almost as if it is being quoted) because normally we expect exhaust pipes and smokestacks to be black or at least a dingy color. Unexpected or unfamiliar color tends to separate color from its natural object in the same way that unfamiliar size frustrates a monocular depth cue (size perspective). It is the gap between color and object that is important in Deux ou trois choses. The gap is created chiefly through the strategies we have already discussed: a tendency to limit color to brilliant, solid primaries of regular shapes. Moreover, as previously noted, the consequences of these strategies in almost every case were to contest a natural reading of the image.”

(Branigan, Edward (1976): The Articulation of Color in a Filmic System. Deux ou trois choses que je sais d’elle. In: Angela Dalle Vacche and Brian Price (eds.): Color. The Film Reader. New York: Routledge, 2006, pp. 170–182, on p. 177.)

“Die Ausbreitung der Farbe

In den sechziger Jahren trugen weitere Farbfilmmaterialien wie Agfacolor, Eastman Color usw. zu einer größeren Verbreitung der Farbe bei. Nach der Einführung des Tons ist dies die zweite Revolution des Kinos. Die Farbe setzt sich zuerst in Western und Musicals durch, wo ihre Überlegenheit unbestreitbar ist. Anschließend erobert sie auch die Bereiche, die der Dramatik und Aussagekraft des Schwarz-Weiß-Kontrastes Vorbehalten schienen: den sozialkritischen Film, den Kriminalfilm und den psychologischen Film. Diese Revolution ist schleichend. Sie vollzieht sich nach und nach.”

(Borde, Raymond (1988): Die Filmarchive und der Farbfilm. Eine Einführung. In: Gert Koshofer: Color. Die Farben des Films. Berlin: Wissenschaftsverl. Volker Spiess, pp. 7–10, on p. 9.) (in German)

“In early 1950, Technicolor signed a consent decree that terminated its relations with Eastman. At least as important as the government suit was the fact that in 1945 the original Troland patents had expired. By the time that Technicolor had submitted to the suit, Eastman had already announced its own color negative process.²³

It took about four years for Eastman Color to dethrone Technicolor: the three-strip camera was last used on Foxfire (1954). What gave Eastman Color the edge was that it could be used in any camera and processed and printed by generally conventional means. Within two years, most studios began to use Eastman Color to a degree, some claiming it as the basis of their ‘own’ system (e.g., Warnercolor, Columbia’s Super Cinecolor). In 1953, Eastman introduced an improved, faster negative stock and corresponding print and internegative stocks. At about the same time, studios discovered that Technicolor dye-imbibition printing did not yield enough resolution for the new widescreen processes. Thus Eastman Color was used to film The Robe, How to Marry a Millionaire, Beneath the Twelve-Mile Reef (all 1953), and other early anamorphic films. As of November 1955, most widescreen productions were shooting Eastman Color negative.²⁴

[…]

Technicolor’s future was settled when Eastman entered the 35mm color market. A specialized firm concentrating on short-term and small-scale problems could not compete effectively with the basic-research program of Eastman Kodak. Eastman held thousands of patents, supported an immense laboratory, and invested millions in color research every year. (Eastman Color monopack grew directly out of the firm’s development of color couplers for still photography.) Most likely, Technicolor had long realized how precarious its control was and, expecting Eastman to devise monopack eventually, created the licensing agreements to give itself the first chance at the process. But color negative came too late, and three-color Technicolor gave way to a method which promised greater cost efficiency and compatibility with other innovations (e.g., widescreen).

²³ The most detailed examination of Technicolor’s relation to Eastman Kodak is George E. Frost and S. Chesterfield Oppenheim, ‘A study of the professional color motion picture antitrust decrees and their effects,’ The Patent, Trademark and Copyright Journal of Research and Education, 4, no. 1 (Spring 1960): 1-39, and 4, no. 2 (Summer 1960): 108-49. See also Basten, Glorious Technicolor, p. 146; ‘Technicolor,’ Fortune, p. 54; Howard C. Brown, ‘Movies in color,’ IP, 8, no. 6 (July 1936): 26; Ed Gibbons, ‘Color,’ IP, 9, no. 6 (July 1937): 5-7; ‘Technicolor system,’ IP, 10, no. 1 (February 1938): 10; Ed Gibbons, ‘Color progress dominates 1939 technical horizon,’ IP, 10, no. 12 (January 1939): 9-10; ‘Technicolor answers anti-trust action,’ Technicolor News and Views, 10, no. 1 (January 1948): 1; ‘Color film suit settled in US consent decree,’ Los Angeles Times (25 November 1948): sec. 2, p. 2; ‘Eastman gets color patents,’ Hollywood Reporter (10 July 1951): 1, 4; ‘Government case against Technicolor terminated,’ Technicolor News and Views, 12, no. 1 (March 1950): 1-2.

²⁴ ‘Color in the motion picture,’ pp. 164, 166; ‘Six companies now testing Eastman Color,’ Hollywood Citizen-News (10 November 1949): 19; Earl Theisen, ‘Notes on the history of color in motion pictures,’ IP, 8, no. 5 (June 1936): 8-9, 24; Don Hooper, ‘Negative-positive color,’ IP, 9, no. 8 (September 1937): 27-9; W.T. Hanson, ‘Color negative and color positive film for motion picture use,’ JSMPTE, 58, no. 8 (March 1952): 223-5; W.T. Hanson and W.I. Kisner, ‘Improved color films for color motion-picture production,’ JSMPTE, 61, no. 6 (December 1953): 670-2; Basten, Glorious Technicolor, pp. 149, 160; Frederick Foster, ‘Eastman negative-positive color films for motion pictures,’ AC, 34, no. 7 (July 1953): 322-33, 348; Robert A. Mitchell, ‘Color and its reproduction on film,’ IPro, 31, no. 2 (February 1956): 17; James Morris, ‘1954 seen as biggest year for color,’ IPro, 29, no. 1 (January 1954): 7-8; Robert A. Mitchell, ‘To which IP replies,’ IPro, 30, no. 8 (August 1955): 16; ‘1945 to 1955: ten years of progress in projection technology,’ IPro, 30, no. 12 (December 1955): 24, 38; ‘Summary of current widescreen systems of photography,’ AC, 36, no. 11 (November 1955): 676; ‘CinemaScope,’ International Sound Technician, 1, no. 2 (April 1953): 2; Robert A. Mitchell, ‘Anatomy of CinemaScope,’ IPro, 29, no. 6 (June 1954): 10; ‘Warner Brothers debuts “Warnercolor”‘ AC, 33, no. 3 (March 1952): 122; Edwin A. DuPar, ‘Warner-Color – newest of color film processes,’ AC, 33, no. 9 (September 1952): 384-5. See also R.M. Wiener, ‘Color film often doomed at birth – in the lab,’ Box Office (5 May 1980): 1, 5, 30.”

(Bordwell, David; Staiger, Janet; Thompson, Kristin (1985): The Classical Hollywood Cinema. Film Style and Mode of Production to 1960. London: Routledge, on p. 357.)

“Dank als Kriegsbeute beschlagnahmter Patente und mitgenommener Rezepturen sowie der Mitwirkung von Agfa-Fachleuten bei Konkurrenzunternehmen eroberte das in Deutschland ausgearbeitete Farb-Negativ/Positiv-Verfahren auch andere Länder: Aus Belgien kamen die sehr ähnlichen Gevacolor-Filme, aus Italien Ferraniacolor, aus der Schweiz Telcolor, in den USA folgten Ansco-Color und Kodak Eastman Color, in Japan Fujicolor.³¹

LITERATUR- UND QUELLENANGABEN

³¹ Gert Koshofer: Die Agfacolor Story, in: Weltwunder der Kinematographie, 5. Ausgabe, Potsdam 1999, S. 69ff.; Gert Koshofer: COLOR Die Farben des Films (1988), S. 109ff., 119ff.”

(Beyer, Friedemann; Koshofer, Gert; Krüger, Michael (2010): UFA in Farbe. Technik, Politik und Starkult zwischen 1936 und 1945. München: Collection Rolf Heyne, on p. 54.) (in German)

“Dave Davis was born in South Wales in 1921. After serving in the artillery in World War II he joined the Technicolor Labs in Denham in 1946 working in the administration side of the labs, taking care of customers’ requirements. He worked for Technicolor for thirty years, ultimately becoming production controller and then production supervisor. In this capacity Davis developed a system for organising the enormous volume of print jobs which the labs handled every day.

EXTRACTS PERTAINING TO COLOUR FROM BECTU INTERVIEW NO. 230

DATE OF INTERVIEW: 27 NOVEMBER 1991
INTERVIEWERS: ALAN LAWSON AND SYD WILSON

DAVE DAVIS: […] There was a competition between Eastmancolor and Technicolor dye transfer, because the facilities we were getting in the 1960s came sort of half and half. We got half of matrices and half of colour reversals, and the balance of the production schedule moved from being completely dye transfer to probably half Eastmancolor. Although we did all the scheduling, well with Eastmancolor, it wasn’t as complicated because you didn’t have backgrounds and things like that, and you couldn’t use overlays on printers, so all the things that made good films – the Rolls Royces of the industry – you could do. You had to photograph completely new bits of title into the film if you wanted to change it, and gradually with more people on the continent and over the world speaking English, more and more prints were shown in its [sic] English version.”

(Brown, Simon; Street, Sarah; Watkins, Liz (eds.) (2013): Interview. Dave Davis. In: British Colour Cinema. Practices and Theories. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 123–130, on pp. 125–127.)

“Ab 1954 kehrt sich das Produktionsverhältnis von Schwarzweiß- und Farbfilmen in Hollywood um. Wurden 1951 erst 23,8% aller Hollywoodfilme in Farbe gedreht, so steigerte sich die Quote über 39,8% 1952 und 42,7% 1953 bis 1954 auf 58,4% (Waidekranz/Arpe 1956, 263). Dies hängt vor allem mit dem preiswerteren Mehrschichtenfarbfilm von Eastman Kodak zusammen, der dem teuren Technicolor-Verfahren jetzt schnell den Rang ablief.

Literatur

Waidekranz, Rune/Arpe, Verner (1956) Knaurs Buch vom Film. München/Zürich: Knaur.”

(Penning, Lars (1988): Farbe im klassischen Piratenfilm. In: Karl-Dietmar Möller-Nass, Hasko Schneider and Hans J. Wulff (eds.): 1. Film- und Fernsehwissenschaftliches Kolloquium. Münster: MAkS, pp. 36–40, on p. 38.) (in German)

“WarnerColor – Newest of Color Film Process

Lab developed and field tested, new medium proves highly successful.

By EDWIN B. DuPAR, A.S.C.

EDITOR’S NOTE: WarnerColor is a negative-positive process, utilizing the new Eastman color films in which the natural colors of the scene photographed appear in their complementaries on the developed negative.

Prints can be made by two methods: either by contact on positive color stock or by making three color-separations on fine-grain panchromatic stock with proper filters, then printing from the separations in technique similar to lithography.

The speed factor of the new WarnerColor is 16, as against 12 for Kodachrome, making the former half a stop faster.

The development of WarnerColor has been pursued in two directions—in photography and in the film laboratory. In the former, Warner Brothers’ top directors of photography have lent their talents and knowledge of the photographic art. On the laboratory side, Fred Gage, A.S.C., Warner’s lab head, mothered the process to its present state of perfection. The process is exclusively Warner Brothers’. No plans for making it available to other studios have been announced.

WARNERCOLOR has become one of the most talked-about color film processes in the motion picture industry. At this writing, four pictures have been completed at Warner Brothers studio in the new WarnerColor, and we now can look back and evaluate the progress that has been made with this new and remarkable process.

I directed the photography on three of the initial four productions, and I sincerely believe that WarnerColor is the finest color film we have in the industry. It is certainly the most satisfactory that I have used in thirty years as a motion picture cameraman.

The colors are natural and true. Definition is extremely good, and extraordinary in shadows. Photography can be carried on in any weather. Extreme highlights do not bother the eye because glare is absent, even in intense sunlight or in a snow background. The film is unusually sensitive; it can be handled in the laboratory as easily as black and white film. No special equipment is necessary and rushes may be viewed the next day.

The tremendous progress the studio has made with the process is exemplified in “The Miracle of Our Lady Of Fatima,” the third WarnerColor picture now in general release. When I was assigned to direct the photography of “Miracle” I discussed the matter of makeup with director John Brahm and producer Bryan Foy, and it was determined that little or no makeup would be used on the players. Most of the cast represented peasants and children, and none wore makeup. Even when filming the crowd scenes, we asked the women to first remove their, street makeup – lipstick and rouge. This produced improved photographic results, because the true colors of the players’ features were brought to the screen.

A companion development in the WarnerColor process has been a new makeup for use with the film. Gordon Bau, head of Warner’s makeup department now has a light cosmetic specially for WarnerColor. When work first began on the film process, Bau set up an experimental laboratory just to explore and test new makeups for WarnerColor. He found that makeup could be eliminated almost entirely on players in all WarnerColor films, were it not for the day-to-day variations in players’ complexions. Some makeup, he found, is needed to equalize the skin color and conceal the slight daily changes that occur due to health, sunburn or windburn.

We discovered many interesting things about lighting with WarnerColor, too. “The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima” lent itself particularly to low key lighting in the interiors, and I therefore kept most of the interiors at a low level. The early scene between Gilbert Roland and Jay Novello in the wine shop responded particularly well to this lighting treatment, being sharp throughout and with genuine natural color. Because of WarnerColor’s great depth of focus, most of our exteriors have a strong three-dimensional aspect.

The numerous scenes on the hilltop in which the image of the Virgin appears to the three children were done on the original negative in the camera; however, the Warner Brothers’ laboratory is now using the three separation negative process in printing these scenes.

In “Fatima” the emphasis was on characterizations rather than on action, which implemented the previous WarnerColor productions. Director Brahm, therefore, was painstaking in developing compelling camera studies – virtually Portraits – of the principal players, which may very well become the envy of contemporary still life painters, so successfully did we achieve new pictorial results with this color film process.

I am naturally delighted with the reception that has been given the Warner-Color photography of “Fatima.” Already I have received many letters and telephone calls about it – some from persons not connected in any way with photography. As it would be to any motion picture cameraman, it was a great satisfaction to me that so many people recognized the great difference and improvement in this new phase of screen photography.

Two days after finishing “Fatima,” I went on to new and even more interesting experiences with WarnerColor when I started shooting Warner’s “Springfield Rifle,” starring Gary Cooper. We started the production by shooting exteriors at the famous Lone Pine location site, filming on Mt. Whitney, about 9,000 feet elevation. From the cameraman’s point of view, this Warner-Color production was vastly different from any of the preceding three. We didn’t have any booster lights along because the story lent itself to many different moods, and the studio had decided to shoot in any and all weather – which we did. As an example of the shooting weather often encountered, one day we were filming in the snow in bright sunlight when the sky suddenly became overcast and snow started to fall. For the next three hours we had a full-sized blizzard, with snow reaching a depth of four inches. Director Andre De Toth took advantage of the situation for its pictorial possibilities and had us shoot one full sequence during the blizzard. It was so dark, I could scarcely get a meter reading – the meter needle barely moved – but we took a chance, with the result that we filmed scenes that never could have been obtained if staged under artificial storm conditions, indoors or out. This further testifies to the unusual qualities of Warner’s new color film process.

“Carson City,” starring Randolph Scott, was the studio’s initial production with the new WarnerColor process. Quite naturally, John Boyle, A.S.C., who directed the photography, ran into many problems impossible to anticipate, even though extensive laboratory experiments had preceded the initial test-in-production of the film. Those of us who had worked on the experiments were a little nervous at the start, for no matter what our confidence was in the new film, we also knew that the studio had a good many dollars invested in pioneering it. During the tests and experiments, there were times when we were straining to get an exposure, and still other times when we were not at all certain that our focal depth was correct. However, none of us at Warner Brothers was prepared for the surprise in finding every exposure perfect. We now realized that we had not even begun to tap the vast potential of the new film’s possibilities. As the dailies rolled in, we knew we had a winner.

WarnerColor has been in steady use now for little more than a year. The strides that have been made are tremendous; the improvement in color quality, contrast, etc., from film to film has been a revelation; but all this is all the more intriguing when you consider we still have a lot to learn about WarnerColor’s limitless possibilities. This film process, I am sure, will open up a whole new era to the motion picture industry – an era sure to see most all productions made in color at a cost scarcely more than that for black-and-white.

The WarnerColor production on which I am now working – “Back To Broadway,” starring Virginia Mayo and Steve Cochran – is entirely different from all the others, with most of the scenes interiors. The film is set up for a 450 foot candle key at f/2.8, but there is very great latitude either way.

I have been fortunate in having the same crew with me on each WarnerColor production including operator Lou Jennings and gaffer Vic Johnson. Their vast experience and splendid assistance have made it possible for me to devote more time to getting the most out of this new color film process.”

(Dupar, Edwin B. (1952): Warnercolor. Newest of Color Film Process. In: American Cinematographer, 33,9, pp. 384–385.)

Track of the Cat (USA 1954, William A. Wellman)

“Désaturation

Dans le même temps où la couleur perd, par banalisation et fidélité croissante à la nature, quelque chose de sa distinction, certains cinéastes s’emploient à la réduire délibérément et comme arbitrairement. Une manière de nostalgie du bichrome ou des débuts du trichrome s’exprime là, qui bien sûr n’est pas un retour pur et simple aux schémas chromatiques primitifs, puisque cette nostalgie maîtrise les progrès techniques et les apports successifs de la couleur, mais avec la volonté, pour ainsi dire, de les tenir en bride. Il faut évoquer à cet égard Moby Dick de John Huston et Track of the Cat de William Wellman, qui fonctionnent de manière fort comparable.

Track of the Cat (1954), dont l’action est située dans le Colorado, déploie un paysage de western en CinemaScope, et des intérieurs primitifs, un peu de style shaker, d’où la couleur paraît presque absente. Sur la pellicule Technicolor, le noir et le blanc dominent: paysage de neige, glace, brouillard et brumes, et de sapins noirs; intérieurs où tout, les murs, les vêtements, les ustensiles, est blanc et noir, notamment une couverture qui servira de linceul. Le noir et le blanc s’étalent en larges taches comme sur une veste en peau de bovidé, ou constituent un motif monochrome à rayures genre prince-de-galles.

La règle semble ne tolérer qu’une exception, affirmée avec d’autant plus d’éclat: il s’agit du blouson rouge que porte Robert Mitchum, d’un rouge “indien” très vif comme on le voit souvent dans les westerns, avec une bande noire au milieu qui l’intègre en quelque sorte au système chromatique ambiant. Ce blouson servira aussi de linceul, et disparaît ensuite de l’action.

D’autres exceptions sont moins apparentes. En réalité, l’image n’est pas toujours, stricto sensu, monochrome. Des tons crème, la couleur du bois naturel, la carnation des visages composent une sorte de camaïeu. Les visages, les chevelures blondes ou châtain de certains personnages (l’un d’eux a, au contraire, une barbe noire et blanche), les yeux bleus… constituent autant de notes comparativement chaudes et colorées dans le système chromatique noir-et-blanc. L’intérieur d’un cercueil noir a un ton de bois naturel assez chaud, presque blond. Une bouteille de bourbon jette parfois, dans la salle des Bridges, une seule tache de couleur un peu vive et foncée. Vers la fin du film, quelques plans montrent le bleu du ciel, les conifères retrouvent une teinte plus verte que noire, la flamme jaune d’un brasier s’élève et équivaut plus ou moins à la tache rouge du blouson, dans la première partie. Renversement significatif: alors qu’au générique, un paysage blanc et noir était frappé de l’écusson W[arner] Brothers] en bleu et jaune vifs, la mention “the end” apparaît en noir sur un paysage encore monochrome mais où brille à droite la flamme jaune vif du brasier.

[…]

Le plus souvent, ces notations de couleur vive, qu’il s’agisse des éléments du “Pequod” ou des taches de sang, perdent bientôt leur éclat pour se ternir, se fondre dans le camaïeu de l’ensemble. A l’intérieur même du camaïeu, une évolution se dessine, de l’harmonie plus sombre (bistre/gris) de l’ouverture, où brillent par contraste les yeux extraordinairement bleus et lumineux de Richard Basehart, à la suite maritime, nécessairement plus claire, à dominante bleue/verte.

Cela montre, comme dans Track of the Cat, combien un tel parti chromatique est difficile à respecter. Le blouson rouge de Mitchum contraste, plus nettement que la flamme jaune, avec le paysage noir et blanc; il en va de même de l’œil bleu de Moby Dick, qui tranche moins nettement avec l’environnement maritime que les yeux de Basehart avec les intérieurs sombres du début. On en vient même à se demander si l’impression de monochrome n’est pas au moins en partie étayée sur des pilotis linguistiques, c’est-à-dire que certaines couleurs (le rouge, le jaune, le bleu…) sont faciles à nommer tandis que les nuances infinies du beige, du crème, de l’ocre, du bistre, des tons de chair, carnations et musculatures… n’évoquant pas une nomenclature précise, bien définie, sont ipso facto assimilées à un système plus ou moins monochrome, En ce sens, l’absence de couleur, dans Moby Dick comme dans Track of the Cat, serait plus ou moins l’absence de couleurs faciles à nommer.”

(Bourget, Jean-Loup (1995): Esthétiques du Technicolor. In: Jacques Aumont (ed.): La couleur au cinéma. Mailand: Mazzotta, pp. 110–119, on pp. 114–115.) (in French)

“D. 3.2.1. Farb-Negativ-Prozeß ECN-2

Vor einigen Jahren brachte Kodak neue Farb-Negativ-Materialien mit der Bezeichnung 5247 (35 mm) und 7247 (16 mm) heraus. Die Materialien sind im sogenannten ECN-2-Prozeß – einem Heiß-Prozeß mit kurzer Bearbeitungszeit – zu entwickeln. Die Bearbeitungsstufen im einzelnen gibt Tabelle Vll (S. 214–215) an. Bild 72 zeigt das Schema einer Entwicklungsmaschine für den Color-Negativ-Prozeß ECN-2.

D. 3.2.1.1. Verschleppungserscheinungen

Ein besonderes Problem ist die Verschleppung der dem Film anhaftenden Flüssigkeitsreste von einem Tank in den folgenden. Trifft man keine besonderen Maßnahmen, so wird etwa die doppelte bis dreifache Menge an Flüssigkeit vom Film mitgeschleppt, als von der Emulsion aufgenommen wurde. Während einerseits die Verschleppung von Wasser zu einer unkontrollierbaren Verdünnung der Bäder führt, führt die Verschleppung von Badflüssigkeit zu einer Anreicherung des Waschwassers mit Chemikalien, die eine unkontrollierte Nachreaktion oder eine Verunreinigung des Wassers zur Folge haben können. Um Fehler und Störungen dieser Art zu vermeiden, verwendet man Abstreifeinrichtungen beim Übergang des Films von einem Tank zum anderen. Sie wischen durch Abstreifblätter, Luft, Vakuum, Plüschrollen oder auch durch Absauger von beiden Seiten des Films die Flüssigkeit ab und verhindern somit den Übertritt in den folgenden Tank.

D. 3.2.1.2. Wässerungen

Eine große Ersparnis an Waschwasser kann durch eine “Kaskadenanordnung” der Wässerungstanks erreicht werden (Bild 73). Dabei fließt frisches Wasser in den letzten Tank der Entwicklungsmaschine, von dort in den jeweils davorliegenden bis zum ersten Tank der jeweiligen Wässerung. Da der Film gegen den Wasserstrom läuft, gelangt er von Tank zu Tank in saubereres Wasser.

D. 3.2.1.3. Trocknung

Die Trocknung des Films ist sorgfältig zu kontrollieren. Bei unzureichender Trocknung bleibt die Emulsion weich und klebrig. Bei zu starker Trocknung wird die Emulsion brüchig und kann abblättern. In beiden Fällen tritt eine Beschädigung der Oberfläche ein. Bei einwandfreier Trocknung ist der Film, wenn er die Hälfte des Trockenschrankes durchlaufen hat, bereits trocken, ohne klebrig zu sein. Vor dem Aufspulen muß er Gelegenheit haben, sich wieder auf Raumtemperatur abzukühlen. Nach der Abkühlung sollte das Material eine Feuchte haben, die mit Luft von 50% relativer Feuchtigkeit im Gleichgewicht ist. Ideale Trocknungsbedingungen erreicht man nur in Verbindung mit einer Vollklimaanlage.

D. 3.2.1.4. Umwälzung, Temperierung und Regenerierung

Um eine gleichmäßige Beschaffenheit der photographischen Bäder zu gewährleisten, muß eine ständige Umwälzung der Badflüssigkeit stattfinden. Hierzu verwendet man Pumpen aus korrosionsfesten Materialien, die die Badflüssigkeiten ständig in Umlauf halten (Bild 74).

Die Badflüssigkeit gelangt aus dem Bädertank (1) durch einen Überlauf (2) zunächst in ein Auffanggefäß (3). Von dort aus fördert die Umwälzpumpe (4) das Bad über ein Filter, das zur Reinigung der Flüssigkeit dient, über die Kühlung (6) und das Heizaggregat (7) zum Zulauf (8) des Tanks zurück.

Der Temperaturfühler (9) mißt ständig die Temperatur des Bades und gibt den Meßwert an die Temperaturkontrolle (11) weiter. Hier werden ständig die Ist-Werte mit den Temperatur-Soll-Werten (10) verglichen. Bei Abweichungen vom Soll-Wert wird Heizung (7) oder Kühlung (6) von der Temperatur-Kontrolle entsprechend gesteuert.

Die verbrauchten Substanzen der Bäder müssen ständig erneuert werden. Diesen Vorgang nennt man Regenerierung. Bei einer Reihe von Bädern geschieht das durch Zudosieren der verbrauchten Chemikalien aus einem Vorratsgefäß. Dabei ist zu unterscheiden, ob 35-mm-, 16-mm-Schichtfilm oder Blankfilm durch die Entwicklungsmaschine laufen. Dies stellt ein Meßfühler (17) bereits fest, wenn der Film in den Vorlaufspeicher der Maschine einläuft. Der Meßfühler gibt ein entsprechendes Signal an die Dosiersteuerung (12), die die Fördermenge der Dosierpumpe (13) bestimmt. Über die Dosierpumpe (13) gelangt das frische Regenerat (14) in den Bädertank.”

(Webers, Johannes; Westendorp, Kurt (1979): Einführung in die Kopierwerktechnik (XIII). In: Fernseh- und Kinotechnik, 33,6, pp. 213–215.) (in German)

Lust for Life (USA 1956, Vincente Minnelli)

“Failure to merge color with the elasticity and dramatic flow of the subject accounts in great part for the weakness of Moulin Rouge (1953) and Lust for Life (1956), whose color design stemmed from the palettes of Toulouse Lautrec and Vincent Van Gogh. Because the directors of these movies failed to realize that, on the screen, color can be structured in time and not just in space as in painting, they neglected to use color for more than its emblematic associations. […]

Yellows, oranges, reds, and black keyed the visual style of Lust for Life. But only toward the end of the film was the color pattern extended beyond individual shots to a succession that underlined the dramatic situation. As Van Gogh’s mind begins to falter and he becomes increasingly mad, the color progressively changes from shot to shot; the reds and browns appear less and less until there is only the pale yellow of a wheat field, which provokes an uncanny sense of foreboding and approaching death. When the artist finally dies, the yellow of the field is suddenly torn apart by the swift inundation of a flock of black crows. The impact of the abrupt contrast between yellow and black was striking and both dramatically and psychologically expressive. The scene gained an added overtone from the fact that the color scheme and composition which inspired it came from the artist’s own painting of a wheat field and crows, made at the very time of his own approaching madness and death.”

(Jacobs, Lewis (1970): The Mobility of Color. In: Lewis Jacobs (ed.): The Movies as Medium. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, pp. 189–196, on p. 193.)

“Over the past twelve years, numerous color motion-picture productions have been made on Eastman Color Negative Film and many are now familiar with its use. During that time, several significant changes have been made in this material to furnish greater versatility or to improve the quality of results. When first introduced in 1950¹ as Type 5247, the film was balanced for daylight or for the high-intensity carbon arc illumination then currently used for studio color production. Changes in studio lighting practice dictated the need for a film balanced for tungsten illumination. Accordingly, Type 5248 was designed to meet this need and was introduced in 1953.² Along with this change, improvements were also realized in the way of reduced granularity and better color reproduction.

A higher speed film, Type 5250, was introduced in 1959.³ Now widely used for color productions, this film provided twice as much speed as the earlier product without significant sacrifices in granularity or sharpness. This speed increase made possible greater economy in set lighting, or permitted exposures to be made under more difficult lighting conditions or at smaller apertures for greater depth of field. Changes were also incorporated in the design of the film to furnish further improvement in color reproduction.

Shortly after the introduction of Type 5250, work was started with the aim of making an even better product. In the light of existing technology, it was felt that the development program could proceed along either of two lines, namely, toward an increase in speed with no change in granularity or, alternatively, toward a reduction in granularity with no change in speed. Considering the high magnifications employed in present-day widescreen pictures, it was concluded that reduced granularity would offer a greater advantage than higher speed to most users of the product. Efforts were therefore concentrated in this direction, resulting in the film to be described.

Structure of Film

The new film is designated as Eastman Color Negative Film, Type 5251. Its structure is fundamentally the same as that of its predecessors and only a brief description will therefore be given. Adjacent to the safety support is the blue- and red-sensitive emulsion layer. Just above this layer is the blue- and green-sensitive emulsion layer. Next in order is the yellow filter layer, which serves to prevent blue light from reaching the bottom layers during exposure. Above the yellow filter layer is the blue-sensitive emulsion layer. A jet antihalation coating is contained on the reverse side of the support as for other Eastman Color Films.

The emulsion layers contain appropriate dye-forming couplers which yield the proper color images in each layer upon development. As with the earlier materials, the couplers contained in the two bottom emulsion layers are themselves colored. The unused portions of these couplers remain in the film after processing and serve as masks to correct for the unwanted absorptions of the process dyes. A description of this masking scheme has been given in an earlier paper.¹

Color Balance

The Type 5251 film is color balanced, in the same manner as Type 5250, for studio tungsten lamps operating at a color temperature of 3200 K. The film may of course be used under daylight illumination conditions using the Kodak Wratten Filter No. 85 over the camera lens. Other illuminants may also be employed using the same conversion filters as recommended for Type 5250.

Exposure Index

Since Type 5251 is designed to have the same speed as that of Type 5250, those who are familiar with exposure of the latter may continue to use their preferred exposure index values. For those who may be using Eastman Color Negative Film for the first time, it is recommended that an exposure series be made at settings above and below those called for when using an exposure index of 50 for tungsten and 32 for daylight with the No. 85 filter. Higher or lower values may be found desirable depending on the individual meters and method of use.

Incident Illumination Values

Most cameramen will prefer to measure the incident illumination. In this case, the basic level of 100 ft-c for an aperture of f/2.0 and 1/50 sec is generally satisfactory.

Spectral Sensitivity

The new film exhibits slightly different spectral sensitivities for the three emulsion layers than those shown by Type 5250, as illustrated in Fig. 1. With reference to the yellow-forming layer, the peak sensitivity is at the same wavelength as Type 5250. The sensitivity of the magenta-forming layer extends slightly further toward the short wavelength region but is about the same as Type 5250 in the long wavelength region. The cyan-forming layer shows a slightly broader sensitivity, extending further toward both shorter and longer wavelength regions than the corresponding layer of Type 5250.

These differences may cause certain object colors to be rendered differently with Type 5251 than with Type 5250.

However, it is reasonable to expect that most studios will want to make wardrobe and makeup tests before proceeding with production work using the new film.

Processing

The processing solutions and procedures are the same as those recommended for Type 5250.⁴ One point which might be mentioned is that the clearing time in the first and second fixing baths is slightly longer for the new film than for the old film. The recommended total fixing time of 4 min is entirely adequate, however, for Type 5251.

As with Type 5250, either the dichromate or ferricyanide bleach solutions may be used. It has previously been reported that a dichromate bleach produces an edge effect as a result of its tanning action.⁵ This effect shows up in the print as a slight improvement in sharpness. A dichromate bleach also causes the surface layer of the negative film to be rougher in character. If the printer illumination conditions are specular in nature, this rougher surface may appear as increased graininess in the print.⁶ These same effects occur with Type 5251, but to a lesser degree.

A ferricyanide bleach does not produce the rough surface and will therefore be preferred for minimum graininess in the prints. Another advantage to be gained by the use of a ferricyanide bleach is that it may be regenerated easily with sodium or potassium persulfate.^*

The recommendations for handling and storage of raw stock and processed negative are the same as those stated for Type 5250.⁴

Sensitometric Exposures

In making exposures for process control, the same procedures as those recommended for the old product may be used.⁴ The sensitometric strips are measured on a photoelectric densitometer which measures the integral densities to red, green and blue light. It is preferable to use filters designed to give readings representing densities which the negative presents to the print film. Typical curves plotted from such readings are shown in Fig. 2.

Sensitometric Curves

It will be noted from Fig. 2 that the sensitometric curves for Type 5251 exhibit better linearity and somewhat greater latitude than those for Type 5250, especially for the blue- and green-sensitive emulsion layers. This results in better overall tone reproduction, particularly with reference to the neutral scale.

It is to be noted that the minimum blue density of Type 5251 has been adjusted so as to be very close to that of Type 5250. The minimum green density for Type 5251 is slightly higher than that found for the old film. The significance of these differences will be apparent in the description of the printing characteristics.

Spectral Density Curves

The couplers used for the new film yield the same dyes upon development as are produced in the Type 5250 film. However, a cyan coupler having a slightly different original color, and hence slightly different masking properties, has been used in the new film. Slight differences in the equivalent dye density curves for the new and old films are therefore noted, as illustrated in Fig. 3.^** The only practical significance of this change is seen in the printing characteristics discussed below.

Granularity and Graininess

The reduced granularity obtained in the new negative film results in lowered graininess as observed in the projected print. This improvement will be of particular benefit where high magnifications are employed, such as in wide-screen and drive-in theater presentations. It is also of special interest to note that the improvement in granularity of the original negative material is carried through to the final print even when duplicating stages are employed. In fact, prints made from duplicate negatives derived from Type 5251 are very nearly comparable from a graininess standpoint to prints made directly from Type 5250 negatives. This result is most gratifying since any enhancement of the quality of portions of a production involving special effects, where duplicate negatives are employed, has constantly been sought. Distinct benefits will also be realized in instances where release prints are made from duplicate negatives of the complete production, as is often done in overseas countries.

Printing Characteristics

One question which naturally arises is what if any differences exist in the printing characteristics of Type 5251 relative to the older film. To answer this question completely, it should be noted that the new negative film is tailored primarily for use with an improved Eastman Color Print Film, Types 5385 and 7385 discussed in a companion paper.⁷ For some months ahead, laboratories may therefore be called upon to print both old and new type negatives on either the old or new type print films, and any one of four different film combinations will be encountered. The printing characteristics for both subtractive and additive printing systems are therefore presented with these facts in mind.

Subtractive Printers

The data shown in Table I illustrate the filter corrections required for combinations of the new and old type negative and print films for a typical subtractive-type printer. The data are derived from tests made on a modified Bell & Howell printer equipped with a 500-w lamp, operating at 100 v, a Pittsburgh Heat Absorbing Glass No. 2043 and a diffuser. For ease of comparison, all data shown are for operation of the printer at 90 ft/min and at diaphragm 11. Modifications of the filter packs will be required for other printing conditions and for different emulsion numbers of print stock.

Additive Printers

The data shown in table II are derived from tests made on a modified Bell & Howell printer equipped for additive color printing. The printer used employs three 1000-w projection lamps operating at voltages ranging from 50 to 100 (to control intensity and color balance) and with suitable dichroic mirrors and filters. The printer speed is 90 ft/min.

For convenience of comparison, it is assumed that the color balance conditions for printing Type 5250 negatives onto Type 5382 print stock are known; therefore, the red, green and blue exposure level is arbitrarily given as 100% for each. For other negative and print film combinations, the corresponding log E or percentage changes in red, green and blue exposure levels are given.

As an example of the use of the data given in Table II, suppose that the printer calls for lamp voltages of 88 for the red, i77 or the green and 59 for the blue when printing Type 5250 onto Type 5382. If it is now desired to print Type 5251 onto Type 5382, reference to the table below shows that no increase is needed in the red and blue exposure but the green exposure must be increased by 63% or by a log value of 0.20. Reference to the calibration chart for the particular printer used shows that for a log exposure increase of 0.20 the voltage on the green lamp must be increased by 12. The new voltages are therefore 88, 89 and 59, respectively.

Duplicate Negatives

The requirements for making the most satisfactory color duplicate negatives from Type 5251 are the same as those stated in a previous paper when working from Type 5250 negatives.⁸ In general, the individual operations are carried out in such a way as to utilize the linear portions of the curves of the color duplicating material used for preparing the color master positive and duplicate negative. Very briefly, this consists of first measuring the densities of the significant highlight and shadow areas of the scene and correlating these with reference steps of a gray scale. These steps are plotted on the control curves for the original negative.

Secondly, the color master positive is exposed in such manner as to position the significant scene information on the linear portions of the blue, green and red curves of the duplicating film.

Thirdly, the color duplicate negative is exposed so that the important scene information is again positioned on the linear portions of the curves of the duplicating film.

If the operations are carried out in this manner, the duplicate negative will have a higher overall density level than the original negative and will require different exposure and color balance adjustments in printing. Our experience in making duplicate negatives which can intercut with original footage with no intensity and color timing indicates that an undesirable loss in contrast and color quality occurs. Irrespective of whether the duplicating procedures used depart from these ideal conditions, duplicate negatives made from Type 5251 should yield a final print quality at least equal to or, in most cases, better than that derived from Type 5250 negatives because of the better linearity and lower granularity characteristics of the new negative film.

Note: At the conclusion of the paper, a demonstration film was projected showing the quality of prints made directly from the Type 5250 and Type 5251 negatives, alternately with the same subjects, and also using split-frame projection. Prints were also shown which were prepared from duplicate negatives derived from the old and new type negatives. Finally, a 16mm reduction print prepared from the new-type negative was projected.

^* U.S. Patent 2,944,895, July 12, 1960, assigned to Eastman Kodak Co.

^** The equivalent dyes represent the contribution of the individual layers to the observed variations in spectral density obtained by varying exposures on normally manufactured and processed film. For a further explanation, see “Equivalent dyes for color films with incorporated couplers” by A. J. Sant, Phot. Sci. & Eng., 5, No. 3, May–June 1961.

References

¹ W. T. Hanson, Jr., “Color negative and color positive film for motion-picture use,” Jour. SMPTE, 58: 223–238, Mar. 1952.

² W. T. Hanson, Jr., and W. I. Kisner, “Improved color films for color motion-picture production,” Jour. SMPTE, 61: 667–701, Dec. 1953.

³ M. L. Dundon and D. M. Zwick, “A high-speed color negative film,” Jour. SMPTE, 68: 735–738, Nov. 1959.

⁴ “Production of motion pictures in color using Eastman color films,” Motion Picture Film Dept., Eastman Kodak Co., Rochester 4, N.Y. Available upon request.

⁵ H. J. Bello and D. M. Zwick, “An edge effect in color films caused by distortion of the developed image when a hardening bleach is used,” Phot. Sci. & Eng., 3: No. 5, 221–224, Sept.–Oct. 1959.

⁶ D. M. Zwick, “How color negative film surface characteristics affect picture quality,” Jour. SMPTE, 71: 15–20, Jan. 1962.

⁷ W. I. Kisner, “A higher speed color print film,” Jour. SMPTE, 71: 779–781, Oct. 1962.

⁸ R. O. Gale and W. I. Kisner, “Techniques in color duplication,” Jour. SMPTE, 68: 874–881, Dec. 1960.”

(Kisner, W. I. (1962): A New Color Negative Film for Better Picture Quality. In: Journal of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, 71,10, pp. 776–779.)

“Goskino began to import a limited amount of Eastman Kodak negative. Bought with western currency through European intermediaries, it was strictly rationed and highly prized (Tarkovskaya 1990). The choice of which projects were allocated imported stock was inevitably political. Kodak was a mark of favour, reserved for Goskino’s preferred projects. The films that used it were, most often, those granted ‘highest category’ and ‘first category’ status, flagship films including Tretya molodos/Nights of Farewell (Jean Dreville and Isaak Menaker, 1966) and Voyna i mir/War and Peace (Sergei Bondarchuk, 1968).² Less privileged directors had two options: black-and-white or Sovcolor.

² There were five categories: highest, first, second, third, and fourth (Golovskoy 1986: 47).

References

Golovskoy, V. (1986), Behind the Soviet Screen: The Motion-Picture Industry in the USSR 1972-1982, Ann Arbor: Ardis.”

(Misek, Richard (2007): “Last of the Kodak”. Andrei Tarkovsky’s Struggle with Colour. In: Everett, Wendy (ed.): Questions of Colour in Cinema. From Paintbrush to Pixel. Oxford: Peter Lang, pp. 161–176, on p. 163.)

“Tarkovsky’s response to the limited availability of colour was to attempt to obtain as much Eastman Kodak as he could.”

(Misek, Richard (2007): “Last of the Kodak”. Andrei Tarkovsky’s Struggle with Colour. In: Everett, Wendy (ed.): Questions of Colour in Cinema. From Paintbrush to Pixel. Oxford: Peter Lang, pp. 161–176, on p. 164.)

“Unfortunately, even when a film was granted imported stock, the amount allocated was often inadequate. Part-way through filming Solaris, the Kodak ran out (Tarkovsky 1994: 39).³ Such shortfalls were routine at the time, and the most common solution was to mix Kodak and Sovcolor. Tarkovsky’s response was more unusual. He initially decided to film the remaining scenes in black-and-white (Tarkovsky 1994: 42).⁴ In the event, some of the scenes towards the end of the project’s shooting schedule were indeed filmed in black-and-white, but others were filmed in colour. Was Tarkovsky able to negotiate more Kodak? It is impossible to be sure. However, what the available evidence does make apparent is the fact that the inclusion of black-and-white sequences in Solaris was at least partially dependent on supply-side economics.

Supply-side economics played an equally important role in Tarkovsky’s next film. In Mirror, he was again faced with the problem of inadequate colour stock, as is highlighted in the following diary entry:

On Monday 9th, I went to see Pavlyohok. He’s an unpleasant, coarse, louche character. He was bawling at Erica M. and Karayev and trying to drive a wedge between them. He and Yermash (or rather, Yermash) had been given a direction. The result, we heard yesterday, is that we are being given both money – 622,000 roubles – and 7,500 metres of Kodak film. That means up to three takes. We shall have to get the other 3,000 metres x 4 from Konoplyov (Tarkovsky 1994: 77).

Tarkovsky’s terse writing style, combined with his casual insider’s references to the Soviet film industry, often make his diaries difficult to decipher. Who are all these people? What role does each of them play? What is the significance of the parenthesis (it seems to suggest a discrepancy between the official and actual responsibilities of Boris Pavlyonok, Deputy Chairman of Goskino, 1973-1985)? Despite these uncertainties, the above entry provides a crucial piece of information. It suggests that the ratio of Kodak to ‘other’ film stock available for the production was about 2.5:1. Given a final running time of 104 minutes, and assuming an editing strategy in which the initial ratio of Kodak to ‘other’ stock was maintained, the final film should comprise about 74 minutes of Kodak and 30 minutes of ‘other’ stock. In fact, 71 minutes of Mirror are in colour and 33 minutes are in black-and-white. This startlingly close correlation strongly suggests that the ‘other’ stock that Tarkovsky used was black-and-white.⁵ In other words, as in Solaris, the extent to which Tarkovsky mixed black-and-white and colour was closely related to the simple logistical question of what film stock was available.

In Stalker, Tarkovsky again secured the use of Kodak, but this time he was given a poisoned chalice. Something went badly wrong when the stock was processed. Accounts of what precisely happened at the Mosfilm laboratories and why, and of precisely how much footage was destroyed, differ. Regardless of the details, the problem was serious enough to halt production. Amazingly, Tarkovsky was able to resurrect the project and start filming the following year with a new script, a new cinematographer, and a new art director (Johnson and Petrie 1994: 138). By this time, however, ‘the last of the Kodak’ was exhausted and no more was forthcoming (Tarkovsky 1994: 146). One might imagine that at this point Tarkovsky would have reshot the film entirely in black-and-white, as Goskino wanted him to do, or entirely in Sovcolor. In fact, even though he was no longer faced with the dilemma of how to make optimal use of a limited supply of Kodak, he again chose to mix colour and black-and-white. In the absence of an obvious economic motivation for this mixture, one must conclude that the choice was made for reasons internal to the film. In other words, in Stalker, Tarkovsky used black-and-white not because he had to but because he wanted to.

³ The shortfall in colour stock is confirmed by Mikhail Romadin, Solarises Art Director, in a recent DVD interview (Solaris Special Edition DVD, The Criterion Collection, 2002).

⁴ Though Tarkovsky’s mixture of colour and black-and-white was unusual, it was not unique. Examples of contemporaneous Soviet films that mixed the two formats – presumably also for reasons influenced by supply-side economics – include Dyadya Vanya (Andrei Konchalovsky, 1970), The Dawns Here are Quiet (Stanislav Rostotsky, 1972), and Only Old Men are Going to Battle (Leonid Bykov, 1973).

⁵ The small discrepancy between these statistics can be explained by the fact that no production goes entirely according to plan. It is inconceivable that there were not occasional divergences from Tarkovsky’s anticipated 3:1/4:1 shooting ratios: It is also inconceivable that decisions made during the editing process did not also influence the film’s final ratio of colour to black-and-white.

References

Johnson, V. and G. Petrie (1994), The Films of Andrei Tarkovsky: A Visual Fugue, Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Tarkovsky, A. (1994), Time Within Time, The Diaries 1970-1986, London: Faber and Faber.”

(Misek, Richard (2007): “Last of the Kodak”. Andrei Tarkovsky’s Struggle with Colour. In: Everett, Wendy (ed.): Questions of Colour in Cinema. From Paintbrush to Pixel. Oxford: Peter Lang, pp. 161–176, on pp. 165–167.)

“L’Eastmancolor a été la première pellicule couleur monopack à conquérir le marché: elle apparaît en 1950 avec une sensibilité de 16 ASA, passe à 25 ASA en 1952, à 50 ASA en 1959, et à 100 ASA seulement en 1968. Il faudra attendre 1981 pour que Fuji mette sur le marché européen la révolutionnaire Fuji 250 qui titre 250 ASA en usage normal et permettra de tourner enfin en 35 mm couleur dans les conditions qui étaient celles du noir-et-blanc au cours des années soixante⁹. Kodak suivra de très près en commercialisant dès 1982 un négatif Eastman à 250 ASA.

Notes

⁹ Grâce à cette pellicule, Neige, de Juliet Berto et Jean-Henri Roger, a été tourné en grande partie la nuit, à Pigalle, pratiquement sans éclairage, comme avait pu le faire Godard en noir-et-blanc au cours des années soixante.”

(Bergala, Alain (1995): La couleur, la Nouvelle Vague et ses maîtres des années cinquante. In: Jacques Aumont (ed.): La Couleur en cinéma. Milan: Mazzotta, pp. 126–136, on p. 129.) (in French)

“Il peut sembler étrange, aujourd’hui, que l’on rassemble ainsi, dans une commune esthétique de la couleur, au cours des années cinquante, des films et des cinéastes européens et américains. C’est sans doute lié au fait d’une certaine homogénéité du rendu des couleurs au cours de ces années cinquante. Même si c’est la décennie où le déclinant Technicolor cède en douceur la place à l’Eastmancolor – lequel n’a pas encore la transparence qui sera son apanage au cours des années soixante-dix, mais un rendu des couleurs assez proche du Technicolor au point qu’il est parfois difficile de distinguer si certains de ces films sont tournés avec l’une ou l’autre de ces pellicules¹⁷ – les lourdes contraintes d’éclairages (nécessitant des arcs puissants) sont presque les mêmes, en intérieur, pour tous les films en couleur, à Hollywood ou en Europe, ce qui a tendance à homogénéiser le traitement de la couleur de ces films, quelles que soient les différences d’esprit et de production qui les distinguent par ailleurs – même si l’Eastmancolor est déjà deux fois plus sensible que le Technicolor (50 contre 20 ASA). Autre facteur d’homogénéisation, il semble qu’au cours des années cinquante, les chefs opérateurs n’aient jamais pris le risque d’une prise de vues avec un diaphragme inférieur à 4,5, pour ne pas mettre le point en péril. Jean Rouch prétend que, en 16 mm et à 25 ASA, il tournait dès la fin des années cinquante à pleine ouverture (avec un objectif ouvrant à 0,95), ce qui équivalait à utiliser une pellicule de 200 ASA à l’ouverture maximale de l’époque en 35 mm.

Notes

¹⁷ Renoir, par exemple, tourne Le Fleuve (1951), Le Carrosse d’or (1952), French Cancan (1955), Elena et les hommes (1956) en Technicolor, et Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe (1959) en Eastmancolor.”

(Bergala, Alain (1995): La couleur, la Nouvelle Vague et ses maîtres des années cinquante. In: Jacques Aumont (ed.): La Couleur en cinéma. Milan: Mazzotta, pp. 126–136, on p. 131.) (in French)

“In May ’47 the US Government filed an anti-trust suit against Technicolor and Eastman Kodak, charging restraint of trade and monopolization of professional color cinematography. The court proceedings, as to Eastman, ended in ’48 with a consent decree, and, as to Technicolor, in the same way in ’50.

The Government’s decrees, and the background of the proceedings, can be found in two papers and an appendix written by George S. Frost and S. Chesterfield Oppenheim for the 1960 spring and summer issues of The Patent, Trademark and Copyright Journal of Research and Education, which is published by George Washington University. I quote from their summary: “It is concluded in the present report that none of the compulsory licensing decree provisions has had substantial effect on the professional color motion picture industry, that the key development since the decrees (Eastmancolor) occurred without regard to the decrees, and that research and development in the industry has a much greater effect on market competition than the anti-trust decree provisions.”

In ’49 Eastman Color single-strip negative and printing film stock were introduced for professional motion pictures. It was the most far-reaching breakthrough since Technicolor’s three-strip process in ’32. Within five years the Technicolor camera was a thing of the past. Eastman Color negative, in a standard black-&-white camera, was the universal tool. The WarnerColor, MetroColor, De Luxe Color, Pathe Color, etc., that appeared in film ads and on credit titles are all Eastman Color stock. The different “names” refer only to the studio and/or processing plant that did the developing and printing.

The perfection of Eastman Color, and the advent of CinemaScope (’53), radically altered Technicolor’s entire modus operandi. It began to do color negative processing and color positive printing, and to “diversify”. It also promoted such wide-screen developments as Technirama and Technivision-70.”

(Behlmer, Rudy (1964): Technicolor. In: Films in Review, 15,6, pp. 333–351, on pp. 350–351.)

“When first introduced in 1950,¹ Eastman Color Print Film, Type 5381 was intended to serve as a companion to Eastman Color Negative Film, Type 5247. Although it was recognized as a distinct accomplishment for its time, it was apparent that a product having better definition would be very desirable. Work was therefore continued with this aim in view.

In 1953, an improved product was described² which provided not only better definition but also better color reproduction because of certain changes made in the color couplers. As a matter of fact, the definition was sufficiently improved to permit furnishing the product in both 35mm and 16mm widths designated as Types 5382 and 7382, respectively.

During the period from 1953 to 1959, a gradual increase in the use of the 16mm product, Type 7382, was noted both for direct reduction printing from 35mm color negatives as well as for contact printing from 16mm color internegatives. For such work, it was evident that a print film of higher definition would be of distinct benefit. By 1959, it appeared feasible to in corporate modifications in the Type 7382 to give some increase in definition and it was therefore replaced by Type 7383. Research and development work continued with the aim of effecting still further improvements.

The road ahead looked favorable indeed, with all signs pointing to a bright horizon. It seemed feasible to make a product which would have the same granularity as the current materials, definition characteristics similar to those of Type 7383 and higher effective speed as well. In addition, it appeared possible to make use of two new couplers which would result in better color reproduction.

Structure of Film

The new film is designated as Eastman Color Print Film, Types 5385 and 7385. The 16mm product is cut from the same parent rolls as might also be used for the 35mm product. The structure is basically the same as that of the older material with the blue-sensitive emulsion located nearest to the support, the red-sensitive emulsion just above it, and the green-sensitive emulsion in the uppermost position. Colorless couplers which produce the appropriate dye images upon development are contained in each emulsion layer. A jet antihalation backing is located on the reverse side of the support.

New magenta and yellow couplers have been utilized for the new film to give improved color reproduction, as discussed later.

Spectral Sensitivity

The spectral sensitivity characteristics of the new film are very similar to those of the older product. However, it will be noted by reference to the separate ordinate scales for the solid and dotted curves of Fig. 1, that the overall sensitivity of Type 5385 is considerably higher than that of Type 5382. From a practical standpoint, this amounts to an effective printing speed increase of about four times. This speed increase should be of great value to laboratories in the way of providing faster printing speeds and greater production output or in giving greater flexibility in instances where printers may have limited intensity levels and printing range.

It is also of interest to note that the minimum sensitivity of Type 5385 occurs at a wavelength of about 588 mµ which is near the wavelength of the sodium lines (589 mµ). The minimum sensitivity of Type 5382 also occurs near this wavelength. These facts are important in relation to the selection of proper safelights for handling the new film, as mentioned later.

Spectral Density Curves

As shown in Fig. 2, the spectral density curves for the new film are slightly different from those for Type 5382 because of the new yellow and magenta couplers used for the former. The peak absorbance of the magenta dye is located further toward the short wavelength region by about 15 mµ. The peak absorbance for the yellow dye is also located slightly further toward the short wavelength region by about 5 mµ.

Color Reproduction

The practical significance of the modifications in the dye system can be seen by viewing actual samples of the processed films which have been exposed with suitable filters to give red, green, blue, yellow and neutral images. The Type 5385 film gives brighter and less magenta reds, more saturated greens, less cyan blues, and yellows which are less orange in hue than those given by the older film. A still better appreciation of these differences will be obtained in viewing actual pictures of various subjects. Better reproduction of blue skies and foliage, of natural fruits and vegetables, of flesh tones and certain paints and fabrics will be observed.

Sensitometric Curves

In exposing sensitometric strips for control purposes, it is usually most convenient to adjust the filter pack in the sensitometer in such a manner as to obtain a neutral scale. Since the speed relationships of the three emulsion layers for Type 5385 are slightly different from those of Type 5382, a different filter pack will be required. Also, since the overall speed of the Type 5385 is about four times that of Type 5382, some sensitometers may call for a reduction in the illumination level, such as by use of a suitable neutral density filter.

The integral densities of the control strips are measured in the same way as for Type 5382 strips. The D-log E curves for the new and old print films, shown in Fig. 3, are very similar with only slight differences seen in the toe portions. It should be noted that the curves shown in the illustration have been positioned in such a way as to illustrate only the relative curve shapes and do not, therefore, show the speed relationships for the separate emulsion layers or for the two products. These relationships will be apparent upon examination of the printer balance requirements for the new film as discussed in a subsequent paragraph.

Safelights

The fourfold increase in speed noted for the new film naturally calls for a reconsideration of the safelight conditions. For the older film, a Kodak Safelight Filter, Wratten Series 8 has been recommended. This same filter could also be used for the Type 5385 film if the intensity is reduced by at least four times. With the reduced level, the visibility is likewise reduced and some laboratories may therefore prefer to use a Wratten Series 3 instead of a Series 8 because of the higher sensitivity of the eye to green light. Consideration might also be given to the use of sodium vapor lamps with additional filters (Kodak Wratten Filters No. 23A and No. 57) to remove radiation of unwanted wavelengths and a neutral density filter to reduce the intensity to a safe level. In any case, each laboratory should make careful safelight tests before proceeding with production work. It is also worthwhile to consider installation of safelights along the floor paths or in locations where the safelight illumination cannot reach the film directly. It is surprising to find how much higher the safe illumination level can be in this kind of an arrangement.

Processing

The solutions, processing steps and treatment times are the same as those recommended for Type 5382.

Printing Requirements

Of particular interest to laboratories is the subject of printer speed and color balance conditions to be used with the new film. The higher effective speed of the new film will permit a reduction in overall printer light intensity or, alternatively, faster printer operation and greater production output. As mentioned earlier, the printers in use in some laboratories have had a marginal light-intensity level, and this condition has limited the printing range when using the old type of print film. The higher speed print film will, therefore, provide greater flexibility of operation in such cases.

It is expected that by the time commercial quantities of Types 5385 and 7385 are available a substantial percentage of negative footage received for printing will be on the new Type 5251 negative film, described in a companion paper.³ However, laboratories will be called upon to make prints on the new stock from Type 5250 negatives of some of the recent and also some of the older productions. It is likely too that some laboratories will have remaining stocks of the older type of print film which they will want to use. Thus, four different negative and print film combinations must be handled for some time in the future. The printer color balance conditions are somewhat different for each situation and suggested balance conditions for both subtractive and additive printers have been given in the companion paper referred to above.

In printing the soundtrack, the exposure should be confined to the top two emulsion layers as is now recommended for printing onto Type 5382. A suitable filter combination for this purpose consists of Kodak Wratten Filters No. 2B and No. 12. The optimum sound negative and print densities should be determined by making listening tests or, if equipment is available, by making cross-modulation or intermodulation tests. The following data determined under one set of laboratory conditions may be helpful as a guide.

Printing Color Internegatives Onto Color Print Film

The new print film will of course find immediate application in preparing prints from color internegatives derived from reversal color originals such as those made on Ektachrome Commercial Film, Type 7255. In this production system, the internegative is made on Color Internegative Film, Type 5270 or 7270.⁴ As in other duplication procedures, it is recommended that the essential scene information be transferred to the internegative material in such a way as to utilize the linear portions of the D-log E curves for the best color reproduction.

In printing the color internegative to the new print film, certain color balance and intensity adjustments will also be required relative to those used with the older type print material (Type 7383). The following data determined from tests made on a typical subtractive-type printer will serve as a guide in arriving at the correct balance conditions.

Storage of Raw Stock and Processed Film

The recommended conditions for storage of raw stock are the same as those previously given for the older print materials. For periods of time up to three months raw stock may be stored at temperatures not exceeding 50 F without significant changes in its sensitometric properties. If stocks are to be kept for longer periods of time it is advisable to store them at temperatures lower than 50 F to minimize any changes in sensitometric properties. Upon removal from storage, ample time should be allowed for the film to reach equilibrium with the workroom conditions before the tape is removed from the can in order to avoid condensation of moisture on the cold film from the atmosphere.

Note: At the conclusion of the paper, demonstration prints were projected to illustrate the results obtained with the new print film and also to show the overall improvement provided by the combined use of the new color negative and print films.

References

¹ W. T. Hanson, Jr., “Color negative and color positive film for motion picture use,” Jour. SMPTE, 58: 223–238, Mar. 1952.

² W. T. Hanson, Jr., and W. I. Kisner, “Improved color films for color motion picture production,” Jour. SMPTE, 61: 667–701, Dec. 1953.

³ W. I. Kisner, “A new color negative film for better picture quality,” Jour. SMPTE, 71: 776–779, Oct. 1962.

⁴ D. M. Zwick, H. J. Bello and C. E. Osborne, “A 16mm color internegative film for use in color motion-picture photography,” Jour. SMPTE, 65: 426–428, Aug. 1956.”

(Kisner, W. I. (1962): A Higher Speed Color Print Film. In: Journal of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, 71,10, pp. 779–781.)

Racconti romani (ITA 1955, Gianni Franciolini)

“Uno dei film che aprì la strada alla commedia bozzettistica a colori fu Racconti romani, girato in Eastmancolor. Il film propone un uso piuttosto distillato del colore, all’interno delle inquadrature espanse del Cinemascope. Le riprese in esterni reali vi assumono complessivamente un ruolo più importante rispetto ai generi fin qui presi in considerazione. Nella sequenza dei titoli di testa, ad esempio, le scritte scorrono su una serie di vedute di edifici e monumenti capitolini, che si configurano sul piano cromatico per la prevalenza di una gamma tra il verde scuro degli alberi, il colore plumbeo del cielo e le sfumature di grigio e marrone degli elementi urbanistici. La presenza di tinte neutre o smorzate veniva spesso considerata più consona alle rappresentazioni ascrivibili alle categorie del realismo e il film si conformava a questa stessa idea.

Questa sorta di compendio iconografico della città di Roma innestava la novità del colore su immagini molto note. Lo spettatore non doveva percepire uno scarto tra i luoghi rappresentati sullo schermo e i colori che lui stesso era portato ad attribuire a quegli stessi luoghi. Anzi, era proprio nella possibilità di vederli nei loro presunti colori naturali che il patto con lo spettatore poteva rinsaldarsi. Quest’ultimo veniva invitato alla visione cromatica di monumenti che altri film e immagini gli avevano presentato nella forma prevalente del bianco e nero. A garantire la continuità della clausola realistica contribuiva il gioco delle variazioni tonali, che, come nel bianco e nero, continuava a definire profondità e relazioni spaziali all’interno delle inquadrature.

In alcune sequenze, inoltre, il colore acquista il ruolo di moltiplicatore visivo delle relazioni comportamentali e dei moti desideranti che si attivano tra i personaggi. La giovane Ines, cameriera nel bar abitualmente frequentato dal gruppo di amici al centro del film, agisce in un ambiente caratterizzato da una più marcata presenza cromatica: a colorare l’interno sono infatti le vernici del bancone e degli scaffali, il registratore di cassa, le bottigliette multicolore, il calcio balilla. Alla prima apparizione nel bar, la ragazza indossa un abito bicolore, azzurro chiaro nella parte superiore e bianco a pois multicolori in quella inferiore; i quattro amici, per contrasto, non escono dalla gamma dei bianchi e dei blu-grigi. Circolando nelle inquadrature girate in questo ambiente, il colore contribuisce in maniera decisiva a erotizzare lo spazio, a partecipare visivamente dell’euforia dei personaggi maschili. Anche altre sequenze sono segnate dalla ricorrenza di colori portati da oggetti, manifesti pubblicitari e insegne commerciali: la disseminazione di questi elementi tra le immagini corrisponde alla domanda di eros, svago, consumo e spensieratezza che i giovani protagonisti sono ansiosi di formulare alle proprie vite.

Assieme ad altri film coevi, Racconti romani favorì il processo di normalizzazione del colore sugli schermi. La sua presenza veniva infine sottratta a investimenti puramente artificiali e spettacolari per essere inscritta in un orizzonte realistico. Per giustificare la scelta del colore, non era più necessario cercare soccorso nelle tavole di un palcoscenico, nella tela di un dipinto o in un libro di storia; era sufficiente volgere lo sguardo verso il mondo circostante, per cogliere gli indizi cromatici di cui appariva disseminato.”

(Pierotti, Federico (2012): La seduzione dello spettro. Storia e cultura del colore nel cinema. Genova: Le Mani-Microart, on pp. 210–212.) (in Italian)

Mon oncle (FRA/ITA 1958, Jacques Tati)

“Tati, ad esempio, nei suoi film a colori ripensò cromaticamente l’universo diegetico dei suoi personaggi, trasformandolo in un formidabile campionario di oggetti colorati²⁰. Mio zio (Mon oncle, 1958) fa dell’automobile uno dei tanti mezzi tecnologici presenti nel quotidiano del ricco industriale Arpel, ansioso di sperimentare tutto quanto si configuri come nuovo e funzionale, dall’automazione dei dispositivi alla conversione ai nuovi oggetti di design e ai più aggiornati criteri costruttivi. In una delle sequenze iniziali, il personaggio esce di casa con una elegante berlina grigia e bianca, mescolandosi visivamente con le altre automobili sulla strada, accomunate dagli stessi colori. Il montaggio compone una successione di immagini impostate sulla dominanza di tinte metalliche, metallizzate o cementificate, cui si conformano, oltre alle auto, i muri della casa, gli abiti, l’asfalto, l’esterno della scuola e dell’azienda. Già attraverso una simile ricorrenza del grigio il film riesce a marcare una distanza incolmabile rispetto alla visione in bianco e nero. Tutti questi grigi piatti e a campiture nette, attraversati da vari riflessi cromatici, con la loro brillantezza od opacità, levigatezza o granulosità, hanno ormai poco a che fare con i grigi delle immagini in bianco e nero. La relazione significante tra grigio e colore viene spostata su un piano più raffinato, meno scontato e banale rispetto a Racconti romani.

Il film apre al grigio una nuova visibilità, sottraendolo al dominio dell’incolore per riqualificarlo a dimensione cromatica costitutiva del mondo tecnologico. Il grigio non è solo diventato un colore tra i colori, ma quello che, più di ogni altro, sembra capace di riconfigurare la fisionomia degli spazi e degli ambienti moderni, industriali e urbani. Il film esprime la particolare consapevolezza che soltanto la pellicola a colori possa restituire visivamente le qualità specifiche di questa nuova serie di grigi cromatici portata da nuovi materiali, plastiche, smalti, lacche, vernici, tinture, cementi, bitumi e prodotti sintetici²¹. In bianco e nero, tutte queste varianti pigmentarie del grigio avrebbero perso la loro forza. Tanto i grigi quanto i moderni colori consumistici sembrano così accomunati dai medesimi valori di superficie e di contorno, dalla disposizione ordinata, quasi chirurgica, dei rispettivi materiali e vernici. In tutte le sequenze dedicate al côté ultramoderno il film fa coabitare sistematicamente questi grigi con i colori più accesi. La serie degli oggetti domestici dispiega un ricco campionario di tinte industriali, frutto di un’ironica rilettura delle più recenti proposte del design: i divani verdi e le sedie con imbottiture rosa, gialle, verdi, l’ombrellino blu, gli abiti sgargianti della vicina di casa, la sciarpa a quadri rossi e neri di Arpel e del cane, il tosaerba, l’idrante e la palla rossi, la sedia a dondolo gialla. Sul finire del film, la gamma dei moderni colori è completata da una sgargiante berlina verde, lilla e rosa, che aggiorna ai dettami della moda del tempo il precedente modello grigio e bianco.

Tati rivelava dunque come la costruzione del nuovo visibile potesse sostanziarsi tanto nelle più moderne cromie, spinte al massimo grado di saturazione, quanto nelle nuove zone di grigio che, paradossalmente, proprio l’immagine a colori sembrava poter aprire allo sguardo.

²⁰ Tati si era interessato al colore fin da Giorno di festa (Jour de fête, 1949) che aveva girato ricorrendo al sistema additivo lenticolare francese Thomsoncolor. Era però dovuto ricorrere alle riprese di sicurezza in bianco e nero per far approdare in sala il film: dai negativi del Thomsoncolor non si era stati capaci di tirare fuori alcunché di proiettabile e sarebbero occorsi oltre quarant’anni prima che l’operazione risultasse possibile. Giorno di festa sarebbe rimasto per decenni un film in bianco e nero (per approfondimenti, cfr. Ede 1995).

²¹ Il medesimo discorso può essere esteso al bianco: si pensi alle sequenze ambientate nella cucina.

Bibliografia

Ede, Francois (1995), “Jour de fête” ou la couleur retrouvée, Cahiers du cinéma, Paris.”

(Pierotti, Federico (2012): La seduzione dello spettro. Storia e cultura del colore nel cinema. Genova: Le Mani-Microart, on pp. 223–224.) (in Italian)

“Nel 1955, la necessità di operare lavorazioni compatibili con la nuova pellicola a supporto unico Eastmancolor (1951) spinse la società ad aggiornare il vecchio sistema, trasformandolo in un metodo di stampa di copie ad alta qualità, applicabile a qualsiasi negativo (Technicolor 5).”

(Pierotti, Federico (2012): La seduzione dello spettro. Storia e cultura del colore nel cinema. Genova: Le Mani-Microart, on p. 161.) (in Italian)

“L’introduzione del film a colori nelle cinematografie europee è infatti accelerata dalla progressiva disponibilità delle nuove tecnologie a supporto unico derivate dall’Agfacolor. Dopo la fine del conflitto, i brevetti del sistema tedesco diventano parte del bottino di guerra degli Alleati, e, nel giro di alcuni anni, tutte le principali industrie di materiali sensibili sono in grado di lanciare i propri marchi: Sovcolor e Anscocolor (1945), Gevacolor (1947), Ferraniacolor (1949), Eastmancolor (1951), Fujicolor (1955)³. Queste nuove pellicole impiegano un po’ di tempo prima di essere naturalizzate all’interno di contesti produttivi istituzionali, ma dopo alcuni anni di sperimentazioni, nella prima metà degli anni cinquanta esse sono in grado di dar corso a una produzione sempre meno occasionale di film a colori, come vedremo nella seconda parte del capitolo, esaminando le spinte progressive alla diffusione del colore nel cinema italiano.

³ Tutti questi sistemi sfruttano il principio della sintesi sottrattiva e la tecnologia del supporto unico a triplo strato di emulsione, introdotta con il Kodachrome e con l’Agfacolor risp. nel 1935 e nel 1936. Il negativo è composto da tre strati di emulsione, sensibili risp. al blu, al verde e al rosso. Ciascuno strato contiene elementi in grado di produrre, per sviluppo cromogeno, un colorante complementare a quello per cui lo strato stesso è sensibilizzato (risp. giallo, magenta e ciano). Il negativo così ottenuto presenta i colori complementari a quelli del soggetto. Una volta stampato su un positivo caratterizzato dalla medesima struttura, si ottiene un’immagine che riproduce i colori del soggetto. Nell’Eastmancolor (1951), questa stessa procedura viene resa più stabile grazie all’introduzione di un sistema di masking (che ottimizza le aree di assorbimento spettrale dei tre strati) e una diversa disposizione degli strati stessi (cfr. Limbacher 1969, pp. 53–72; Ryan 1977, pp. 113–212; Koshofer 1988, pp. 119–130).

Bibliografia

Koshofer, Gert (1988), Color. Die Farben des Films, Wissenschaftsverlag Volker Spiess, Berlin.

Limbacher, James L. (1969), Four Aspects of the Film, Brussel & Brussel, New York.

Ryan, Roderick T. (1977), A History of Motion Picture Color Technology, Focal Press, London-New York.”

(Pierotti, Federico (2012): La seduzione dello spettro. Storia e cultura del colore nel cinema. Genova: Le Mani-Microart, on pp. 191–192.) (in Italian)

“Nel frattempo, la domanda di pellicola a colori veniva soddisfatta in misura sempre crescente dal negativo Eastmancolor, divenuto disponibile per le lavorazioni nazionali nel 1954. Nel giro di pochi anni, il Ferraniacolor perse il suo primato a tutto vantaggio della pellicola statunitense, che, grazie a supporti sempre più sensibili e stabili, aumentò il divario tecnologico con la concorrenza, garantendo anche costi sempre più competitivi¹⁸.

¹⁸ Il negativo Eastmancolor tipo 5247, introdotto nel 1951, dichiarava una sensibilità di 16 ASA. Il successivo tipo 5248 la elevava nel 1953 a 25 ASA. Nel 1959, il tipo 5250 raggiungeva i 50 ASA (cfr. “American Cinematographer” 1950; Foster 1953; Id. 1959). Si tratta di sensibilità ancora lontane da quelle garantite dal bianco e nero: già nel 1954, il negativo Kodak tri-X garantiva una sensibilità di 250 ASA. Introdotto in Italia in ritardo rispetto alle pellicole concorrenti, l’Eastmancolor fu impiegato per una quota variabile tra un terzo e un quinto della produzione italiana a colori tra il 1956 e il 1958, dopodiché divenne la pellicola a colori più utilizzata.

Bibliografia

“American Cinematographer” (1950), New Eastman Color Film Tested by Hollywood Studios and Film Labs, in “American Cinematographer“, XXXI, n. 3, marzo 1950, pp. 95 e 102.

Foster, Frederick (1953), Eastman Negative-Positive Color Films for Motion Pictures, in “American Cinematographer“, XXXIV, n. 7, luglio 1953, p. 322.

Foster, Frederick (1959), A Faster Color Negative, in “American Cinematographer“, XL, n. 6, giugno 1959, pp. 364–365 e 368–370.”

(Pierotti, Federico (2012): La seduzione dello spettro. Storia e cultura del colore nel cinema. Genova: Le Mani-Microart, on p. 201.) (in Italian)

“In una direzione stilistica simile a quella evidenziata in Aida si mosse tra il 1953 e il 1954 la Lux, che assieme a Ponti e De Laurentiis elaborò una sorta di variante nazionale del prestige picture hollywoodiano in Technicolor. Alcune costose produzioni come Ulisse (1954), Attila (Francisci, 1954) e Teodora (Freda, 1953) rinvigorirono la tradizione nazionale del film storico-mitologico alla luce delle coeve strategie visionarie dei kolossal statunitensi, talvolta realizzati proprio a Cinecittà. I primi due furono girati con il vecchio Technicolor a tre negativi, il cui costo sarebbe risultato insostenibile per produzioni di piccolo o medio cabotaggio; il terzo con l’Eastmancolor, che richiedeva ancora di essere lavorato negli Stati Uniti. Dei kolossal di Hollywood questi film cercavano di imitare gli stili cromatici: l’assestarsi delle trame narrative su strutture relativamente più articolate imponeva anche in questo caso la ricerca di un bilanciamento tra spettacolo e colore.”

(Pierotti, Federico (2012): La seduzione dello spettro. Storia e cultura del colore nel cinema. Genova: Le Mani-Microart, on pp. 207–208.) (in Italian)

“Dalla contaminazione tra i modelli del genere storico mitologico e la formula produttiva del basso costo si originò sul finire del decennio il nuovo filone autoctono del peplum, che per qualche anno avrebbe consentito di massimizzare i profitti minimizzando i costi. L’avanzata del peplum corrispondeva all’inesorabile arretramento del Ferraniacolor sul fronte dei film a modesto impianto produttivo e alla parallela avanzata dell’Eastmancolor. A partire dal prototipo Le fatiche di Ercole (Francisci, 1958) l’appeal spettacolare del colore si abbinava con la visione espansa dei sistemi a schermo largo di recente introduzione³¹.

³¹ Cfr. Vitella 2007, p. 104.

Bibliografia

Mazzei, Luca; Vitella, Federico (2007), Geometrie dello sguardo. Contributi allo studio dei formati nel cinema italiano, Carocci, Roma.

Vitella, Federico (2007), Una questione di standard. Il passaggio dall’Academy ai formati panoramici, in Mazzei/Vitella 2007, pp. 65–130.”

(Pierotti, Federico (2012): La seduzione dello spettro. Storia e cultura del colore nel cinema. Genova: Le Mani-Microart, on p. 209.) (in Italian)

“L’introduzione del negativo Eastmancolor nel 1951 – come si è visto – aveva spezzato il quasi ventennale monopolio della Technicolor, rendendo possibile girare a colori con una normale macchina da presa, senza dover noleggiare quella speciale brevettata dagli ingegneri di Kalmus. La quota dei film a colori hollywoodiani crebbe rapidamente dal quindici al cinquanta per cento tra il 1950 e il 1955.

L’industria di Hollywood fu tentata dal film tridimensionale e da quello a schermo largo, entrambi pensati in necessaria congiunzione con la presenza del colore⁵. Nel 1953, anno di introduzione del Cinemascope, il presidente della Fox dichiarò di voler produrre solo ed esclusivamente film a colori e con il nuovo sistema a schermo largo.

[…]

Intanto, i sistemi e le pellicole in uso si avviavano a garantire una più elevata uniformità degli standard e a colmare progressivamente il gap tecnologico ed economico che in precedenza aveva scavato un solco profondo tra il colore e il bianco e nero. Nel 1959, la Eastman lanciò un negativo a colori che raddoppiava la sensibilità della precedente versione, portandola a 50 ASA; nel 1968, furono raggiunti i 100 ASA⁹. Benché i supporti in bianco e nero avessero superato da tempo questi stessi livelli, anche i valori tecnici delle nuove pellicole a colori garantirono ai direttori della fotografia più ampi margini di scelta nelle riprese, rendendo possibile girare in esterni con luce naturale e in interni con mezzi illuminanti più leggeri¹⁰.

⁵ Tra il 1952 e il 1953, il 3D si trasformò rapidamente da passatempo per amatori a oggetto d’interesse delle major. Il suo impatto fu tuttavia di corto respiro e già nel 1954 la moda del 3D era terminata. I produttori gli preferirono la soluzione dello schermo largo, sperimentando l’opzione di lusso del Cinerama o quella più semplice del Cinemascope o della lunga serie di imitazioni e varianti che ne derivarono (cfr. Lev 2003, pp. 107–125). In concomitanza con la diffusione dello schermo largo, si registrò anche una variazione del formato Academy, che dal tradizionale rapporto 1:1,33 passò ai due nuovi formati 1:1,66 e 1:1,85 (detti anche panoramici). Dopo diverse oscillazioni, invece, il formato wide screen si attestò sullo standard 1:2,35 (cfr. Vitella 2007).

⁹ Cfr. Foster 1959 e “American Cinematographer” 1968.

¹⁰ Una flessibilità ancora maggiore era garantita dalle pellicole a colori su supporto l6mm invertibile, che divennero funzionali alle esigenze della ripresa televisiva. Alcuni cineasti indipendenti ne fecero il mezzo privilegiato di un’estetica dell’immediatezza, utilizzandolo per effetti di elegante sciatteria in interi film o in sequenze improntate a una differenziazione del registro visivo.

Bibliografia

“American Cinematographer” (1968), Eastman Introduces Three Revolutionary New Films, in “American Cinematographer“, XLIX, n. 6, giugno 1968, pp. 424–426, 449 e 466–467.

Foster, Frederick (1959), A Faster Color Negative, in “American Cinematographer“, XL, n. 6, giugno 1959, pp. 364–365 e 368–370.

Lev, Peter (2003), Transforming the Screen. 1950-1959, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York.

Mazzei, Luca; Vitella, Federico (2007), Geometrie dello sguardo. Contributi allo studio dei formati nel cinema italiano, Carocci, Roma.

Vitella, Federico (2007), Una questione di standard. Il passaggio dall’Academy ai formati panoramici, in Mazzei/Vitella 2007, pp. 65–130.”

(Pierotti, Federico (2012): La seduzione dello spettro. Storia e cultura del colore nel cinema. Genova: Le Mani-Microart, on pp. 216–218.) (in Italian)

“For our comparisons, original photography was done on 35mm Eastman Color Negative Film, Type 5250, and 16mm Ektachrome Commercial Film, Type 7255. The original films, each edited to one-minute projection time, were printed in a number of ways. Duplication from Eastman Color Negative Film was done using Eastman Color Intermediate Film, Type 5253 or 7253, for the master positive and duplicate negative stages. Prints from Ektachrome Commercial originals were made using Eastman Color Internegative Film, Type 7270. All prints from internegatives were made on Eastman Color Print Film, Type 7383.

Printing

Since printers need to be of very high quality in 8mm work, some comments on our equipment are necessary. All contact printing was done on either a 35mm Bell & Howell subtractive printer or a 16mm Bell & Howell additive printer, each equipped with internal air jets. An Acme printer was used for optical printing with these lenses:

1:1 103mm Kodak Printing Ektar at f/4
2:1 90mm Kodak Printing Ektar at f/3.8
4:1 75mm Kodak Enlarging Ektar at f/5.6

Slightly sharper results would have been obtained at 4:1 reduction if the Acme printer could readily be modified to accept the 90mm Ektar lens at the proper conjugates. The 75mm Ektar lens needed only an adapting mount, however, so it was used for these tests. In choosing printer lenses, each lens should be tested for sharpness, and then used only at the optimum f/number. Printers must be in perfect condition to minimize weave, unsteadiness, poor contact, and all factors that hurt image quality and are especially apparent in 8mm work.

It is important that each printing stage be optimized if quality is to be preserved in duplicating. Losses are inherent in each transfer of the image, a fact pointing toward systems with the minimum number of printing operations. As a general rule, image reduction should be postponed to the last stages of printing for best quality; that is, the image should be kept as large as possible as long as possible. Logically, then, the best quality would be expected from a 35mm original that was release printed at 4:1 reduction. In practice however, a duplicate negative would usually be required, and with presently available equipment 4:1 release printing may not be economically feasible.

Since the projected area of the 8mm frame is only 20% of that of a 16mm frame, dirt on 8mm prints is extremely objectionable. The only defense against dirt and other physical defects is careful film handling and cleaning techniques. More than once, a stereo microscope was used to clear the printer gate of an apparently invisible wisp of dirt that had printed through an embarrassing number of times before detection.

Picture Comparisons

Enlargements from several of the 8mm films are shown in Fig. 1. These prints, made using 35mm panchromatic negative, are a poor substitute for viewing the actual color motion pictures, but some understanding of relative sharpness and graininess may be gained by comparing 8mm systems in these reproductions.

A rating of the prints compared in our study is given in Table I. Each system is ranked on both quality and practicality factors, and comments on the obvious features of each system are added.

On the basis of sharpness, 16mm original photography is nearly equal to 35mm original photography when their respective 8mm prints are viewed. A number of cross-comparisons are needed to substantiate this statement, but it should be remembered that one less printing cycle is required in 16mm duplicating than in 35mm duplicating. This, together with the limiting response of the print materials at 8mm image size, tends to offset the size advantage of the 35mm original.

Optical release printing is needed at present for satisfactory screen quality. It would be very desirable to use the faster contact-printing system in making release prints, but most viewers consider an optical print from 16mm a necessity for adequate sharpness. Cartoons or other material not containing fine detail might be suitable for 8mm contact release.

Kodachrome II film has been included in this study because it is a film against which customers can judge their purchases in the commercial market. In picture comparisons the color quality and sharpness of the original film are especially prominent; the long tone scale in the original and the differences in grain quality are also important.

Perhaps our experiences can be summarized in these four conclusions, some of which apply to printing in other than 8mm systems.

(1) Optical release printing from a 16mm or 35mm internegative is required for a satisfactory 8mm print.
(2) In 8mm printing a 16mm original gives nearly the same quality as a 35mm original.
(3) In printing through several stages, film size should be kept as large as possible as long as possible for best quality.
(4) An 8mm Kodachrome II original is sharper and of higher quality than any 8mm print from a 16mm Ektachrome Commercial original or a 35mm Eastman Color Negative original.

A number of printing systems were investigated that have not been mentioned. Shown below as print masters is the use of Ektachrome Reversal Print Film, Type 7386; Ektachrome Commercial; and Eastman Reversal Color Print Film, Type 5269:

Each of these films, in either 8mm or 16mm, has some advantage in grain, color quality, or sharpness, but the overall screen quality of the final print is not equal to that obtained in the Eastman Color system. Furthermore, the 8mm commercial market must be one of high volume, a condition requiring the use of lower-cost print materials.

Kodachrome II Originals

In 8mm prints the emphasis is on sharpness. This has led to many inquiries on the use of 16mm Kodachrome II as an original for release printing. While Kodachrome II is certainly sharper than ECO, it is a higher-contrast film designed for direct projection and not as an original for printing. Prints made from Kodachrome II onto 7270 or 5269 are very high in contrast, except for a low relative red contrast. The contrasts can be made nearly equal by use of special printing filters, but the prints, while sharp, still have high overall contrast.

In addition, our comparisons of prints from Kodachrome II and ECO show considerably less sharpness difference than does a direct comparison of the two originals. The sharpness of Kodachrome II has reached a level where the ability of the printers to transfer the finest detail is a significant factor. Ideally, further improvements in either original or print films should be accompanied by improvements in printing techniques.

Conclusions

After seeing these prints, most viewers agree that for acceptable quality an 8mm print must be prepared from a 16mm or 35mm prior stage in an optical reduction printer. This printing procedure is generally slow and expensive, although there are exceptions in some laboratories. In general, however, it would be advantageous to contact-print from an 8mm internegative, printing two or four rows of 8mm pictures at once. While we cannot yet do this and produce satisfactory quality, examination of contact-printing methods is an active program throughout the industry.

Interest in contact printing is further increased by the question of photographic vs. magnetic soundtracks. If equipment and films would permit four photographic soundtracks to be printed in a single-pass contact printer, considerable reduction in laboratory costs would be realized compared to the present striping and recording operation using magnetic materials. A one-pass picture and sound printer using 35/32mm film with four rows of 8mm pictures is an attractive goal for further development work. Many questions arise, however, when considering photographic sound – the kind of soundtrack, method of recording, equipment for playback, and wear characteristics. These problems, along with many others, must be solved before photographic sound for 8mm can be a practical reality.”

(Keene, G. T.; Clifford, J. D. (1962): Commercial Systems for Making 8mm Prints. In: Journal of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, 71,6, pp. 447–449.)

Track of the Cat (USA 1954, William A. Wellman)

“But directors were also foregrounding colors that did not provide clues to, or mirror, the psychological states of the character, or even reinforce in any obvious way the tone of a scene. William Wellman’s Track of the Cat provides the extreme example. Although shot in color, Track of the Cat was processed entirely without hue and saturation except for the pinprick of Robert Mitchum’s red woolen coat. The effect is to suggest an obscure allegory, putting into the spotlight an otherwise non-signifying garment worn by a supporting character, the protagonist’s brutish older brother. [Fig 60]. Although still operating within the context of a narrative film, Wellman’s red color spot challenges what Edward Branigan has called “the tyranny of the center of the frame” achieving a certain formal independence highly unusual in Hollywood films – competing for attention with the narrative focal point by wandering off to the margins. The red becomes a non-narrative element that neither enhances Barthes’ ‘reality effect’ nor makes any obvious psychological point. Self-conscious and mannered, Track of the Cat is the closest Hollywood gets, as best I can determine, in opening the gap between color and object.⁴²

⁴² Edward Branigan, “The Articulation of Color in a Filmic System,” Wide Angle 1/3 (1976), 28–29 shows how Godard transforms this strategy into a full-blown radical system. My analysis of Track of the Cat derives from Branigan’s study.”

(Merritt, Russell (2008): Crying in Color. How Hollywood Coped When Technicolor Died. In: Journal of the National Film and Sound Archive, Australia, 3,2/3, pp. 1–16, on p. 11.)

East of Eden (USA 1955, Elia Kazan)

“Meanwhile, Elia Kazan and his cinematographer Ted McCord devised a highly unorthodox color plot for Kazan’s first color film, East of Eden, built around principles of what may be called “psycho-chromatics,” the arresting idea that some colors, like human behavior, contain opposing and conflicting impulses, depending upon context. For Kazan, the Oedipal director par excellence, green became the master color, an integral part of the psychological texture of the film. [Fig 61]

Green is sometimes considered the great neutral, the color of repose, of pacifism. But it is also connected with envy. It combines associations of growth, with immaturity – the refusal to grow up. [Fig 62]

In our culture it is also the color of money and luck. But above all for Kazan, it contains the associations with both rebirth – freshness – and decay, sickness [“green around the gills”], weakness. And the final scene is keyed to absorb all those contradictions. Whereas the color plots of Technicolor musicals and swashbucklers tended to culminate in festive kaleidoscopic pageantry, East of Eden ends in monochrome – in a room, seen only at the end of the film, dominated by luminous green walls, unevenly lit and crossed with achromatic, graded shadows for an eerie, iridescent effect. Raymond Massey, James Dean’s father, is dying, disillusioned and alone, while Dean, as his son Cal, tries his best to tend to him. [Fig 63]

Kazan called the green room “death’s version of [the old man’s] valley,” the color of vegetation turned into sea-green sickness.⁴³ But the room is also the nacreous site of Cal’s reconciliation with his father, and Abra’s reconciliation with Cal.

With East of Eden we enter a phase of color development in Hollywood film where colors can be indexical, iconic, or simply tied to their symbolic function in a particular culture.

⁴³ Kazan to Michel Ciment in Ciment, Kazan on Kazan (New York: Viking Press, 1974), 123.”

(Merritt, Russell (2008): Crying in Color. How Hollywood Coped When Technicolor Died. In: Journal of the National Film and Sound Archive, Australia, 3,2/3, pp. 1–16, on pp. 11–12.)

Dial M for Murder (USA 1954, Alfred Hitchcock)

“This chapter deals with the construction of cinematic space in Hitchcock’s first experiments with color: Rope (1948), Under Capricorn (1949), and Dial M for Murder (1953). These films are characterized by a rather restrained palette contributing to the creation of a claustrophobic interior, which is central to the plot of these films. Unmistakably in line with the contemporaneous “low key” genres of the Gothic melodrama and film noir, Hitchcock’s earliest color films clearly differ from the glaring colors of his later films that established him as one of the great colorists of film history although only fifteen of his fifty-three films are in color.

[…]

In contrast with his films of the later 1950s, in which color is first and foremost invoked to construct exterior public spaces, Hitchcock’s earliest color films use color to create a specific atmosphere that is inherently linked to domestic interiors. In films such as Rope, Under Capricorn, Dial M for Murder, and Rear Window (1954), the narrative is largely or even exclusively situated in domestic spaces that become oppressive and claustrophobic (Jacobs 2007). This tallies with Hitchcock’s Gothic melodramas of the 1940s that present the house as a place of confinement (Doane 1987: 123–154; Waldman 1991). […] By turning the familiar domestic environment into a place of fear, Hitchcock developed into a master of the uncanny. The color films Rope, Under Capricorn, and Dial M for Murder are variations on this Gothic theme, which are set in domestic spaces: a Manhattan penthouse, a Georgian country house in New South Wales, and an apartment in a London Edwardian Mansion House respectively. What’s more, these houses are places where a murder takes place and/or where a character gets the impression that he or she will be killed by another inhabitant. Instead of a place of safety and domestic bliss, the house becomes a trap and an uncanny place of treason, suspicion, and danger. Light and color play an important part in this process.

[…]

dial m for murder

Hitchcock’s third color film was Dial M for Murder, which tells another story about somebody trying to kill another resident of his own house. This time, the story is situated in the ground floor apartment of a London mansion. Its interior is marked by sober and elegant classical decorations. The living room has eggshell colored walls and is richly furnished with seats, armchairs, side-tables, and a writing desk. In addition, the apartment is richly decorated and the sophistication of its residents is expressed by the presence of some artworks. A Warner Brothers press release states that “because he is a man of taste and culture, Hitchcock hand-picked many of the props, including an original Rosa Bonheur oil painting, long hidden in Warners’ property gallery, and a pair of valuable Wedgewood vases” (Jacobs 2007: 107). Some of these art works, such as the Bonheur painting, fauve paintings, and a postimpressionist flower piece, render touches of color to the restricted palette of the interior, which is beautifully rendered by Robert Burks’ Warnercolor photography.

Again, the subdued colors emphasize the feeling of an enclosed and confined space. Its boundaries are not only underlined by the motifs of the locked door and the latchkey but also by the closed large window curtain – its dark green called “oppressive” by Johnson (1966: 9–10). In addition, the boundaries of the confined space are marked by a series of high angle shots whereas the claustrophobic feeling is further elaborated by the 3-D process. Although Hitchcock refused to capitulate to the outrageous eccentricities of 3-D gimmickry (no objects are thrown in the face of the viewer), he favored compositions that place lamps, knickknacks, and pieces of furniture of diverging colors in the foreground, walls well in the background, and human subjects in a middle-ground. In addition, a subtle depth of field is created by the camera, favoring low positions and gliding fluently around the furniture. In so doing, Hitchcock used the 3-D process to create dramatic effects, emphasizing the ways in which the apartment serves as a trap for the characters.

Again, the contrast between light and darkness contributes to this effect. Crucial scenes such as the planning of the murder, the murder itself (actually an attempted murder that turns into the killing of the murderer), and the exposing of the criminal are shown in darkness – with the light of the fireplace, the light from an adjacent room coming under the door, or a flash light as dramatic elements. Against the quiet and almost monochrome background of harmonious colors of the interior, the changing colors of Margot’s dresses are remarkable. Wearing a color perfectly in harmony with the background in the company of her husband in the opening scene, Margot (Grace Kelly) is dressed in sparkling red in the subsequent scene with her American lover. As Laurent Fiévet (1995: 72–73) has noted, Hitchcockian red is often associated with the red theater curtain. Since Hitchcock heroines tend to appear late in the film, they are often surrounded by red indicating that the plot truly begins. According to Fiévet, in Hitchcock, red is also the color of fake appearances and of lies and he mentions Margot as an example. Later in the film, she is shown with a blue night gown during the murder scene as if she has merged into her domestic setting. The day after the murder, she is dressed in dark blue and she wears a brown coat in the final scene blending with the background again. Like Milly, the housemaid in Under Capricorn, she repeatedly becomes part of the interior. Referring to Scottie in the hospital room in Vertigo, Marnie disappearing in the urban gray, and Roger Thornhill in the vast wasteland of North by Northwest, Allen (2006: 134) noted that “loss of identity or emotional vacuity is evoked in precise moments in Hitchcock films through the loss of color.” Margot is also wearing dark clothes during the scene of the trial, which is in many ways remarkable in respect to color. Apart from some establishing shots of the apartment’s exterior, a shot in a cab, a view of an arriving ship, and some shots in a restaurant, the courtroom scene is the only scene that does not take place in the apartment itself. It is a scene, however, without spatial coordinates or in which space is exclusively constructed by color and light. Only a medium close-up of Margot and the judge are visible and they are shown against a monochrome background, which changes from blue to red. It is as if this red reverberates the blood that intruded and destroyed the home, which in Hitchcock is never a site of domestic bliss. Years before Marnie’s obsession with red, the blood stain on the carpet in this bourgeois apartment acts as an intriguingly strange object. It is not only a literal stain on the floor but also an uncanny detail in the mise-en scène, a stain in the visual field or what Zizek (1999) has called a “Hitchcockian blot.”

the restrained mode

In his three first color films (and, to a large extent, also in his next color film Rear Window), Hitchcock favored muted colors before he started to celebrate the exuberance of glorious Technicolor from the mid-1950s onwards. This line of approach was already announced by Hitchcock in 1937, ten years before his first color film:

I should never want to fill the screen with color: it ought to be used economically – to put new words into the screen’s visual language when there’s a need for them. You could start to color film with a boardroom scene: somber paneling and furniture, the director’s all in dark clothes and white collars. Then the chairman’s wife comes in wearing a red hat. She takes the attention of the audience at once, just because of that one note of color. (Hitchcock 1937: 258)

In so doing, Hitchcock’s early color experiments tally with what Higgins (2007: 76–136) terms the subdued or restrained mode of Technicolor filming which flourished in the late 1930s. […] Hitchcock’s first color films are characterized by narrow palettes and tight harmonies although this restrained mode allows for an occasionally overt display of color, dramatic punctuation, and elegant decoration. This predilection for muted colors can also be linked to the generic conventions of the somber domestic melodrama and the crime thriller, which both in the 1940s and early 1950s reached their apex in the “black-and-white” and “low key” genres of the Gothic romance film and film noir. Together with John Stahl’s Leave Her to Heaven (1946), Rope was one of the first crime thrillers shot in color. In addition, Hitchcock’s subdued palette contributes to the creation of a claustrophobic interior, which is central to the plot of these films. Consequently, color plays an important part in the integration of the characters in the surrounding interior. However, blending the characters with their environment entailed specific problems in color photography. On the set of his first color feature Rope, Hitchcock was surprised to see the extent to which actors were separated from the background through the use of backlights even though in color there was no need for this (unless the actor should be dressed in exactly the same color as the background). In his famous interview with François Truffaut (1984: 183), Hitchcock stated that he truly believed that “the problem of lighting in color film has not been solved. […]” Last but not least, in Rope, Under Capricorn, and Dial M for Murder, specific colors, color combinations, and pictorial light effects help to mark the difference between inside and outside, and hence often between on screen and off screen. In so doing, colors greatly add to the construction of the motif of intrusion.

references

Allen, R. (2006) “Hitchcock’s Color Designs”, in A. Dalle Vacche and B. Price (eds) Color: The Film Reader, New York: Routledge: 131–44.

Doane, M. A. (1987) The Desire to Desire: The Woman’s Film of the 1940s, Bloomington and Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press.

Fiévet, L. (1995) “Vertiges chromatiques, Alfred Hitchcock: Vertigo“, in J. Aumont (ed.) La Couleur en cinéma, Paris: Cinémathèque française: 72–73.

Higgins, S. (2007) Harnessing the Technicolor Rainbow: Color Design in the 1930s, Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.

Hitchcock, A. (1937) “Direction”, in S. Gottlieb (ed.) (1995) Hitchcock on Hitchcock: Selected Writings and Interviews, London: Faber & Faber: 253–261.

Jacobs, S. (2007) The Wrong House: The Architecture of Alfred Hitchcock, Rotterdam: 010 Publishers.

Johnson, W. (1966) “Coming to Terms with Color”, Film Quarterly 20,1 (Autumn): 2–22.

Truffaut, F. (1984) Hitchcock/Truffaut, New York: Simon & Schuster.

Waldman, D. (1991) “Architectural Metaphor in the Gothic Romance Film”, Iris 12: 55–70.

Zizek, S. (1999) “The Hitchcockian Blot”, in R. Allen and S. I. Gonzalès (eds.) Alfred Hitchcock: Centenary Essays, London: BFI: 123–140.”

(Jacobs, Steven (2013): Color and Containment. Domestic Spaces and Restrained Palettes in Hitchcock’s First Color Films. In: Simon Brown, Sarah Street and Liz Watkins (eds.): Color and the Moving Image. History, Theory, Aesthetics, Archive. New York, London: Routledge, pp. 179–188, on pp. 179–187.)

Lola Montès (FRA/BRD 1955, Max Ophüls)

“La couleur enveloppe le décor au point d’en brouiller les repères, d’en gommer les contours. Elle ne signale rien mais au contraire efface les traces de manière que seule sa présence fasse certitude.

La chorégraphie ne dispose pas du corps de Lola, seulement des couleurs qui l’entourent, et de ces couleurs jaillissent formes et mouvements, qui agencent, coordonnent et donnent l’illusion, presque parfaite, que ballet il y a. Que les couleurs provoquent du mouvement, la peinture l’a souvent démontré², mais ici les couleurs régissent le déroulement du film, le contraignant à s’agencer selon un rythme qui est le leur. Pour mouvoir la danseuse sous le chapiteau, les couleurs se font tour à tour sélectives, aériennes et musicales.

Sélectives: restreintes dans l’image, les couleurs restituent la sensation qu’elles provoquent en peinture. Cet effet, très fréquent dans les ballets des comédies musicales, consiste, à partir de strates de couleurs, à créer un nivellement à l’intérieur du plan, ainsi accusé dans sa profondeur. Les bi- ou tri-chromies transforment l’espace, qui semble s’ouvrir et se fermer au gré des gestes et figures des danseurs.

On relève principalement dans Lola Montés deux séries de couleurs:

– une opposition à trois termes, noir/rouge/blanc, évoquant de près ou de loin la danse. Ce sont les smokings et les hauts-de-forme bicolores des “hommes-monnaie”, qui prennent en charge la descente d’escalier faussement majestueuse de Lola, en absorbant son tutu lamé, lui aussi noir et blanc. Quelques plaques rouges, posées sur les sacs à main et les rideaux qui pendent de chaque côté du cadre, renforcent la symétrie provoquée par ce groupe qui coupe le plan en deux, pour mieux laisser régner Lola en son centre. Encore plus probant, le rouge, porté par la galipette d’un acrobate, qui s’agite devant le tableau d’Aracuse en ombres chinoises. Couleur-mouvement, le rouge s’oppose ici à la fixité de l’image en noir-et-blanc. Un rouge pour annoncer la mise en marche d’une image passée, le déclenchement d’un appareil, grâce à qui l’image soudain s’animera?

– l’orange et le bleu se déclinent différemment selon les séquences des flashes-back qui présentent toute une gamme de bleus, du bleu dur au bleu gris, et d’orange, assimilés le plus souvent aux couleurs de la terre (brun pour la rupture des époux, cuivre et ocre pour l’épisode avec Liszt). Ces couleurs se retrouvent sous le chapiteau, où la bichromie prend valeur d’opposition (elles sont complémentaires). À une opposition formelle entre le haut et le bas, répondent plusieurs contrastes relevant de ce qu’Ophuls considérait comme le “rôle psychologique des couleurs dans le spectacle, de l’expressivité dramatique des couleurs”³: contraste entre le sommet bleuté de la tente, vers lequel se hisse Lola, et le sol orangé duquel elle émerge⁴, entre les cieux, les ténèbres et la terre, le sable dans lequel elle s’enlise, ou la couleur du fauve auquel la danseuse est sans cesse comparée, contraste entre le froid (la fraîcheur de l’altitude) et le chaud (la chaleur de la terre), mais aussi l’envol et la chute.

Aériennes: les couleurs ont-elles un poids? Sont-elles lourdes, sont-elles légères?

Le jaune, absent des souvenirs, prend au cours du spectacle un statut particulier. Doré, il s’anime. Pour contrecarrer l’immobilité des jongleuses – autant de doubles de Lola, aux visages livides cerclés de noir – le jaune, déposé sur des quilles, s’allège, s’élève et parsème le cadre de touches étincelantes. De même, la couronne qui traverse le cadre d’un mouvement vertical, creuse un sillon doré et participe à la scénographie de l’ensemble. Ainsi suspendue, la couleur échappe à la pesanteur et voltige à la place des corps, vissés au sol.

Cette envolée colorée contraste avec l’intervention des faisceaux orange et bleu, qui ne cohabitent plus dans le cadre mais alternent dans la durée, si bien que la mobilité de la couleur n’est en aucun cas justifiée par un corps ou un objet. Les couleurs se détachent de leurs supports. Couleurs-matières, elles deviennent couleurs-lumières et, libérées des corps, se diffusent dans l’espace pour recouvrir les autres couleurs d’un faisceau monochrome. Mais, dotée d’un tel pouvoir, totalisant et totalitaire, la couleur, écrasante, semble s’affaisser d’avoir effacé les couleurs du monde; l’image s’aplatit, l’espace se resserre, alourdi par son uniformité. La couleur retombe à terre.

Musicales: du mouvement provoqué par une sélection de couleurs à la musique, il n’y a qu’un pas, car la couleur, en se déplaçant, crée un rythme qui lui est propre.

Chacun des faisceaux colorés est précédé d’un roulement de tambour, lui-même accompagné d’un plan sur l’imposant lustre qui pend sous la grande toile du chapiteau, comme si la musique, au même titre que la couleur, émergeait de cette source lumineuse. Parce qu’ils emportent les couleurs sur leur passage, les faisceaux lumineux s’apparentent à la tonalité musicale⁵.

Lors de la scène de la chanson, des faisceaux orange et bleus rythment le décalage des pistes sonores. En superposant son chant à celui d’une voix enregistrée, l’écuyer brouille les pistes sonores si bien que l’on ne distingue plus réellement de qui émane la voix qui chante. Activées par les couleurs, les deux voix s’élèvent et conduisent l’écuyer jusqu’au haut des marches.

Inversement, transformée en sirène, Lola feint de nager derrière des cadres rectangulaires, bandes achromes qui effacent jusqu’aux contours de son corps. La décoloration de cette traversée aquatique, projetant la danseuse dans l’image délavée d’une vieille carte postale – fantaisie ou image d’Épinal – va de pair avec les vers de mirliton de l’écuyer (“En Turquie, sur la demande du Sultan / elle se baigne presque nue, c’était passionnant / les invités furent contents, les poissons également …”). L’eau absorbe les couleurs, qui, effacées, ralentissent les gestes de la danseuse, et retient la musique. Les rimes et assonances qui racontent, à la manière d’une chanson de geste dérisoire, les exploits de Lola, insistant sur leur aspect picaresque, n’accèdent pas au chant, comme si l’achromie empêchait la musique de s’épanouir.

“Elle dansait – silence enveloppé de lumière / Brume dans une clarté de lune / Une musique qui charmait la vue / Mais à l’oreille étrangère.”⁶

La chorégraphie mise en œuvre sous le chapiteau n’est pas le résultat d’une instrumentation musicale mais celui d’une composition de couleurs. La couleur fait danser Lola, ce corps dont l’image s’effacerait sans doute sans les débordements colorés qui l’empêchent de sombrer tout à fait; car la couleur aspire le corps. Ce sont encore les faisceaux bleus et orange, dont la luminosité recouvre le corps de Lola au point de le transformer en ombre.

Emportée sur le cheval du diplomate, Lola voit son corps enlevé par un mouvement qui n’est pas sien. Le diplomate cache Lola dans son palais: seule une ombre colorée transparaît de l’épais rideau derrière lequel le couple s’embrasse. La couleur capte le corps de la danseuse; dénaturée, l’image est défigurée. Seule figuration possible pour un corps qui a perdu le contrôle de ses gestes, corps cadavérique qui gît dans l’arène d’un cirque: une ombre à la merci de la couleur, un corps dépourvu de matière au profit de la lumière qui l’éclaire.

De ce corps, plus tard, il ne restera qu’un nom. Vainqueur d’une bataille d’ombres chinoises, le garde du corps Bugakof troue la toile pour faire jaillir d’un écran noir et blanc les marques colorées des capitales où la danseuse a fait scandale. Inscrits à même la peau, les noms des villes sont traversés d’une large écharpe portant le nom de Lola. Le corps tatoué de bleu et d’orange s’est approprié les couleurs maîtresses de Lola Montés. Pour posséder le corps de la femme dont il est amoureux, le garde du corps s’arrache ses couleurs. Ce “garde des couleurs” dépossède le corps de Lola de son propre nom.

Le roi fait peindre Lola: “Un jour, il lui demande si elle ose apparaître pour lui tout en rose, elle ose. Et le roi, épris par sa pose, lui offre un palais. C’est déjà quelque chose”, explique l’écuyer. L’assonance immobilise encore une fois la danseuse et le rose la dénude. Pire, la couleur dépouille le corps, l’incarcère dans une toile et le fige en une image. Le rose dit la nudité; la couleur fait corps avec l’image. Comme dans le Nu rose de Matisse, le corps est couleur et rien d’autre.

La couleur mutile le corps, transformant la poupée de porcelaine en ombre évanescente; après son identité et sa peau, son corps est aussi déchiré dans sa chair. Quelle image possible pour ce corps décoloré, évidé? Sa propre représentation ne va plus de soi: au palais de Bavière, le roi ne trouve pas de murs pour accrocher sa toile.

Du corps, rien ne subsiste. Le visage, avec difficulté tente de résister.

Au début du spectacle, des hommes déposent devant Lola, juchée sur un piédestal, une couronne garnie de têtes à son image. Bientôt un autre groupe succède à ce premier cortège et détache les longues tiges au bout desquelles pendent les visages de céramique. À l’instar des bourreaux qui, pendant la Révolution, exhibaient devant la foule les têtes des guillotinés, ces hommes, tout de rouge vêtus, arborent fièrement devant eux les visages de la jeune femme, tandis que les roulements de tambours, qui accompagnent les allers et venues des personnages, rappellent la musique martiale des mises à mort.

Mais de quoi la danseuse est-elle coupable? Au XIXe siècle fleurissent les traités – vaguement inspirés des théories de Darwin – qui prétendent déceler la nature de la gent féminine, en comparant notamment la criminelle et la prostituée. L’une a la tête tranchée, l’autre est corps et rien d’autre⁷. Lola la courtisane doit faire don de son visage à ses bourreaux, eux-mêmes destitués de leurs figures par la couleur rouge qui s’élève jusqu’au haut de leurs crânes, effaçant les reliefs des traits. La couleur accuse le corps, elle le touche dans sa matière, l’atteint dans sa forme. Lola en perd la tête, qui accompagne, le temps d’une représentation, le corps des hommes, c’est-à-dire le corps de l’Autre par excellence. Elle est aliénée, étrangère à elle-même. En prostituant son corps, Lola a aussi vendu son âme.

Le premier souvenir est introduit par un long fondu, au cours duquel le buste de Lola, coloré d’un faisceau orange, traverse une forêt, glisse le long d’un chemin, remonte le cours d’une rivière avec une grâce aérienne, simulée par le bleu des arbres et de l’eau. Les couleurs du chapiteau résistent à l’envahissement des éléments naturels au point de se greffer sur l’image du passé. La couleur de la robe s’impose; lentement, elle s’immisce dans le véhicule. L’ombre colorée du corps ne s’effacera qu’une fois superposée à la roulotte: c’est la superposition de cette couleur sur elle-même qui clôt la surimpression. Puis, lentement, la caméra se rapproche de la petite fenêtre derrière laquelle Lola, étendue, fume. La caméra se fige alors de manière à placer le montant horizontal de la fenêtre sur l’encolure de la robe. Cette barre orange atteste de la vaine résistance des couleurs noire et blanche de l’habit de Lola face au débordement des teintes cuivrées qui ont envahi la berline. La couleur tranche le corps et lui coupe la tête.

À tête tranchée, la parole est coupée. Lola n’a plus son mot à dire. Sans cesse interrompue, elle n’est plus maître de ses souvenirs, investis par le récit de l’écuyer, si bien que la représentation déteint sur la réalité. “L’image actuelle et l’image virtuelle coexistent, elles entrent dans un circuit qui nous ramène constamment de l’une à l’autre, elles forment une seule et même “scène” où les personnages appartiennent au réel et pourtant jouent un rôle. Bref, c’est tout le réel, la vie toute entière, qui est devenue spectacle.”⁸ C’est l’invasion de la couleur orange dans la roulotte, qui s’étale grossièrement sur les moindres objets. Orange du chapiteau qui, dans sa vulgaire uniformité, enferme et étouffe la danseuse.

La violence du couperet est aussi radicale que l’opposition entre le noir et le blanc. La blancheur immaculée de la tenue de mariée du spectacle disparaît dans le souvenir sous le revers d’une robe noire de maison.

Mais, plus que tout autre, un tranquille glissement de regard signale le basculement intime dans la couleur, lors de la première rencontre de Lola et de l’écuyer. Du coup d’œil jeté au paysage blanchi par la neige, à l’escalier que l’on devine derrière les vitraux orange et bleus de la porte d’entrée, le regard qui surveille l’arrivée de l’écuyer est tronqué. Lola perd la parole et son regard, touché lui aussi par la couleur, ne distingue plus les couleurs du monde.

La chute ultime, une dernière fois unira le bleu à l’orange. Avant de sauter, Lola, éreintée, baisse ses paupières maquillées d’un filet de bleu pailleté. Le bleu aveuglant s’est incrusté dans le corps de la danseuse, à la source du regard. “Glissant vers le noir [le bleu] prend la consonance d’une tristesse inhumaine. Il devient un approfondissement infini dans des états graves qui n’ont pas de fin et qui ne peuvent en avoir.”⁹

Oppressée, exsangue, Lola abandonne le bleu et laisse tomber son corps jusqu’à la cage. Libératrice, sa chute procure aussi la jouissance de sentir, enfin, son corps chavirer dans les airs et échapper momentanément à l’emprise de la couleur. “On s’aperçoit que le sens même de la danse est sa chute et que ce sens demeure caché dans l’abandon du corps à sa pesanteur, dans l’oubli de soi en faveur d’un espace sans orientation […]. La chute entraîne le corps dans le renversement et la mine d’un monde perçu en descendance, pour le faire retrouver à l’instant, sous l’effet de son poids, la douleur même comme réalité corporelle.”¹⁰

La chute d’une couleur à l’autre marque l’aboutissement pour un soir du trajet de Lola vers la douleur. La douleur du bleu, Lola la connaît bien, qui, encore jeune fille, la rencontre à bord d’un bateau la conduisant vers l’Europe. Ce soir là, Lola accomplit son parcours initiatique, celui qui va de l’orangé au bleu et qu’elle répétera sa vie durant. Sur le bateau, une porte se referme derrière elle, laissant transparaître les grilles brunâtres d’une cage à venir. Lola longe le couloir puis s’arrête devant le cadre bleuté renvoyant l’image d’un spectacle: la mère qui valse avec son amant. La ressemblance entre les deux femmes est frappante. En se superposant, leurs robes, taillées dans le même tissu bleu clair présagent le mariage entre Lola et le prétendant de sa mère. Lors de ce clair-obscur coloré, Lola assiste au déroulement de sa vie. L’image de son corps s’évanouit et elle laisse échapper sa peine.

Au bout du couloir, le pont. Sous le bleu velouté de la nuit, Lola lève les yeux vers le ciel et la lueur qui éclaire un instant son visage révèle ses larmes. Les lumières de la nuit s’éteignent et le décor s’abaisse, qui dévoile un ciel de pacotille, d’un bleu beaucoup moins pur: le rideau d’une représentation qui s’achève.

Notes

² “Le statique ne fait pas obstacle au sentiment du mouvement. C’est un mouvement placé à un degré d’élévation qui n’entraîne pas les muscles des spectateurs, mais seulement leur esprit” (Henri Matisse, Écrits et propos sur l’art, Hermann, 1972, p. 63).

³ Ophuls ajoute: “Les unités de couleurs ne sont pas des unités de décor à décor, ce sont des unités d’atmosphère dramatique” (propos rapportés par Georges Annenkov, Max Ophuls, Le Terrain Vague, 1962, pp. 88–89).

⁴ Pour Kandinsky, le bleu est la couleur typiquement céleste, le jaune, la couleur typiquement terrestre.

⁵ “Ce qu’on appelait jusqu’ici le ton était le voile d’une coloration unique jetée sur l’ensemble du tableau. […] Ce ne serait pas faire erreur que de comparer un tableau d’un effet intense à un morceau de musique en majeur, et un autre d’un effet adouci à un morceau en mineur” (Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Traité des couleurs, Triades, 1973, p. 256).

⁶ Dylan Thomas, Vision et prière et autres poèmes, Poésie/Gallimard, pp. 101–102.

⁷ La représentation de la prostituée comme une femme sans tête est très fréquente dans les dessins de Magritte ou de Labisse.

⁸ Gilles Deleuze, L’image-temps, Éd. de Minuit, 1985, p. 112.

⁹ Wassily Kandinsky, Du Spirituel dans l’art et dans la peinture en particulier, Denoël-Gonthier, coll. “Médiations”, 1969–1976, pp. 148–149.

¹⁰ “La danse – entre fondation et ruine”, in Doina Maria Petresco, Danse et pensée. Une autre scène pour la danse, Sammeron, Germs, 1993, p. 306.”

(André, Emanuelle (1995): La couleur douloureuse. Max Ophuls. Lola Montès. In: Jacques Aumont (ed.): La Couleur en cinéma. Mailand: Mazzotta, pp. 120–122.) (in French)

“In a three-color process, the accuracy of reproduction is greatly increased and the freedom of choice is greatly restricted” (Ball 1935), but gives no further details. Similarly Henry Willhelm, doyen of photographic conservators, devotes a chapter to “The Extraordinarily Stable Technicolor Dye-Imbibition Process” in which he remarks that “the dyes in the Technicolor imbibition process have better spectral characteristics than dyes available for current negative-positive processes” (Willhelm 1993, 355). Technicolor prints that have had a tough road life can show some slight fading of the cyan dye, for example, but Eastmancolor’s cyans fade radically and quickly.

References

Ball, J. A. 1935. The Technicolor Process of Three-Color Cinematography. Journal of Motion Picture Engineers XXV (2): 127–138. http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/oldcolor/ball.htm.

Wilhelm, Henry. 1993. The Permanence and Care of Color Photographs: Traditional and Digital Color Prints, Color Negatives, Slides and Motion Pictures. Grinnell, IA: Preservation Publishing Company.”

(Cubitt, Sean (2014): The Practice of Light. A Genealogy of Technologies from Prints to Pixels. Cambridge, Massachusetts, London: MIT Press, on p. 135.)

“Entre-temps, Eastman en a profité pour annoncer son propre procédé de négatif couleur, l’Eastmancolor⁹, annulant ainsi l’utilité du décret signé par Technicolor. Dès 1949, une série de caméras standards plus petites et plus accessibles et chargées avec la pellicule couleur d’Eastman font leur apparition à Hollywood. En 1953, un accord signé entre Technicolor et DeLuxe (laboratoire de la Fox) vient remettre en question l’avancée de Eastman. Après plusieurs mois de négociation portant sur la mise en place des installations nécessaires pour le traitement de la couleur soustractive dans les laboratoires de DeLuxe, les deux sociétés concluent un accord. Un grand nombre de copies 35 mm Technicolor sont ainsi tirées pour la sortie de Comment se marier avec un millionnaire et Tempête sous la mer. Ces copies créditent conjointement les deux laboratoires (“Color by Technicolor-DeLuxe“). Or, DeLuxe reviendra sur sa décision et se tournera vers Eastmancolor (Haines, 52–53).

[…]

Il a fallu à peine trois ans à Eastman Kodak pour renverser un règne de vingt ans du Technicolor tripack sur le marché de couleur à Hollywood. Comme le souligne Gorham Kindem, le monopole sur trente ans de Technicolor sur le marché du cinéma en couleur a été financé par la société à perte. Eastman n’a jamais pris les mêmes risques que la société de Kalmus afin de protéger ses inventions et d’assurer sa domination. Grâce aux recherches menées après son consent decree et son contrôle sur des brevets qui n’étaient pas couverts par les décrets, Eastman a réussi à éliminer le monopole de Technicolor tout en créant un nouveau, cette fois sur la pellicule couleur et les produits chimiques relatifs à toute la chaîne de traitement du cinéma en couleur.

Il est probable que la couleur soit diffusée plus rapidement et plus massivement au sein du cinéma américain (dès les années 40), si Technicolor s’était souciée plus des besoins des studios mineurs et des producteurs indépendants. Plus de films auraient, certainement, pu être réalisés durant les années 40 (Kindem, 34). Les studios ont, toutefois, pu profiter du jeu concurrentiel entre Technicolor et Eastman Kodak, notamment par rapport au coût de la pellicule positive. En 1954, Technicolor prétendait que sa méthode de tirage par imbibition pouvait faire économiser aux distributeurs 15 millions de dollars par an¹⁷. Finalement, le démantèlement du monopole Technicolor sur le cinéma en couleur aura permis aux studios d’étendre davantage leur contrôle sur le processus de production et, par conséquent, de réaliser les économies d’échelle souhaitables pour l’intégration de la couleur, souvent au prix de certaines concessions au niveau de la qualité. Ces évolutions dans le rapport de forces entre Technicolor et Eastman ne sont pas sans intérêt pour l’analyse de l’esthétique même des films en couleur de cette période.

Notes

⁹ L’Eastmancolor est un procédé d’impression et de traitement photochimique. Les premiers films dans le procédé apparaissent en 1951 (ex. Sword of Monte Christo).

¹⁷ Variety, 17/3/1954, p. 4.

BIBLIOGRAPHIE

Ouvrages

Haines, Richard W., Technicolor Movies: The History of Dye Transfer Printing, Jefferson (North Carolina) & London: McFarland & Company, 1993.

Kindem, Gorham, “Hollywood’s Conversion to Color: The Technological, Economic and Aesthetic Factors” in Schatz, Thomas, dir. Critical Concepts in Media and Cultural Studies, vol. 3, London: Routledge, 2003.”

(Kitsopanidou, Kira (2009): “Glorious Technicolor”. La stratégie d’innovation de la couleur de Technicolor dans l’industrie cinématographique Américaine. In: Raphaëlle Costa de Beauregard (ed.): Cinéma et couleur. Paris: M. Houdiard, pp. 193–206, on pp. 200–203.) (in French)

“Douglas Slocombe was born on 10 February 1913, and entered the cinematography profession after working in photojournalism. His early work was with American documentarist Herbert Kline, then with the Ministry of Information and Ealing Studios. […] In the post-Ealing years of his career Slocombe worked for American studios and with many celebrated directors including Joseph Losey, Roman Polanski, Ken Russell, Jack Clayton, Fred Zinneman and Steven Spielberg.

INTERVIEW EXTRACT TRANSCRIPT

DATE OF INTERVIEW: 22 JANUARY 1992

INTERVIEWER: DUNCAN PETRIE

[…]

DUNCAN PETRIE: I noticed that Lease of Life (1954) was shot in Eastmancolor.

DOUGLAS SLOCOMBE: That was Eastmancolor and was very early days. That was also a bit of a tragedy because the rushes looked very nice, they had a lovely clear, clean quality, very unlike the sort of saturated colours of Technicolor and I used to like it. The film was cut together. Then it was sent off to get prints for release and, in those days, you had an experiment with the grading systems. To grade the shots together, they had a ghastly system where they would print with the negative a sandwich between the negative and relief positive an awful strip of celluloid, which had strips of colour and different densities of colour on a standard piece of celluloid, which may have sounded fine in theory but in fact it gave a horrible dirty quality to the final dissolves and all the clear quality was gone. And one was left with this awful messy colour which I found heartbreaking. Since then of course, colour grading techniques have improved, they are now superb.

DP: You get the feeling that the Eastmancolor system was rather rushed in too quickly?

DS: It was in a way. I think in this country they were slower in developing a printing process than they were in the States.”

(Petrie, Duncan (2013): Interview. Douglas Slocombe. In: Simon Brown, Sarah Street and Liz Watkins (eds.): British Colour Cinema. Practices and Theories. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 90–93, on pp. 91–93.)

“Guy Green (1913–2005) was born in Somerset. He first entered the film industry in 1929. He worked as a camera assistant at Sound City Studios before moving to Denham. He trained and then worked with many celebrated cinematographers and directors, including Gunther Krampf, Mutz Greenbaum, Ronald Neame, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, David Lean and Carol Reed. His black-and-white cinematography was celebrated in particular for Great Expectations (Green won an Academy Award for cinematography) and Oliver Twist (1948). Well established at Cineguild, the production company formed by David Lean, Ronald Neame and Anthony Havelock-Allan in 1944, Green was camera operator on This Happy Breed before shooting Blanche Fury, his first Technicolor film. He shot other colour films including The Story of Robin Hood (1952) and Decameron Nights (1952). From the mid-1950s he gravitated towards film direction.

SELECT FILMOGRAPHY

[…]

1954 Souls in Conflict (Leonard Reeve and Dick Ross, GB: Eastmancolor) Cinematographer; For Better, for Worse (J. Lee Thompson, GB: Eastmancolor) Cinematographer

[…]

INTERVIEW EXTRACT TRANSCRIPT

DATE OF INTERVIEW: 1 OCTOBER 1991

INTERVIEWER: DUNCAN PETRIE

[…]

DUNCAN PETRIE: Did you shoot any films in colour once the three-strip [Technicolor] process had finished? Did you use Eastmancolor?

GUY GREEN: Oh we all moved over fairly swiftly from the three-strip to the single film.

DP: How did you find it at the time? You were saying how these images have deteriorated. What different qualities did this other colour stock have?

GG: It looked pretty good at the time and it is only lately that some film that I shot twenty years ago has gone pink.

DP: Must be really annoying.

GG: I actually directed a film, Light in the Piazza (1962) in Metrocolor and it was photographed by Otto Heller and he did a great job, it looked beautiful. I ran it about a year ago in California and I was bitterly disappointed – it was all pink.

DP: Do they know why this has happened?

GG: I’m not sure whether it’s just the print that has gone pink or if they struck a new print from whatever there was – I don’t know – I haven’t found the answer to that.”

(Petrie, Duncan (2013): Interview. Guy Green. In: Simon Brown, Sarah Street and Liz Watkins (eds.): British Colour Cinema. Practices and Theories. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 83–87, on pp. 85–87.)

“Stan Sayer (1917–2000), after studying science and photography at the London Polytechnic, made some 16mm home movies with his father, including one in colour. He was soon employed at the Rock Studios at Elstree where he eventually worked as a focus puller. He was interested in early Technicolor and was a focus puller/general technician on The Thief of Bagdad (1940). In the war he joined the RAF Film Unit and worked alongside Chris Challis and Denys Coop. Sayer and Coop were sent to West Africa. After the war Technicolor applied for Sayer to have an early release from the Forces.

INTERVIEW EXTRACT TRANSCRIPT

DATE OF INTERVIEW: EARLY 1990s

INTERVIEW: DUNCAN PETRIE

[…]

STAN SAYER: When Eastmancolor came in, it was faster than Technicolor. This did mean that any camera was suitable, could use it, so Technicolor was phased out as a three-strip process. So to make use of our cameras we turned them into VistaVision cameras. The film goes through sideways and takes a picture which is eight perforations wide, as against the four normally. We went from VistaVision to Technirama which is a squeeze process – a 1.5 squeeze on the lens – and that would either be projected with the eight perforation projectors with a de-squeeze or the squeeze was taken out of it and put onto a 70mm. So the cameras were used right to the bitter end.

DUNCAN PETRIE: Were there still only the four or had more come over?

SS: We got fed up being the poor relation of Hollywood and so they could supply us with the camera movements themselves – the two gates which are at right angles to each other – the light went straight through to the green record and was diverted into the bipack for the red and the blue. And we got Newalls to copy exactly, from the blueprints from Hollywood, and at one time we had eighteen three-strip Technicolor cameras, which meant that other producers could use them other than the two tied up with Korda and Rank. The 1948 era we still only had the four cameras; that’s why we went over to the other two-colour process for the Games (XIV Olympiad: The Glory of Sport, 1948). But soon after that we began to build more. Agfacolor and Eastmancolor were coming up at that time. At Technicolor, the process itself – the imbibition printing – was very controllable and when it came to release printing, once everything was set up it was a case of catching the cans as they came off and we could release the films all over the world in a very short period of time, which you could never do with Eastmancolor positive. But the film business has shrunk so much now that we don’t have such enormous releases and so we flogged all our IB materials to the Russians and Peking.

[…]

DP: Did you use Technicolor monopack?

SS: Technicolor monopack was the forerunner of Eastmancolor and, although it was slower and the grain was not as fine, it did mean it could be used in normal cameras. The first time I used it was in that picture we started to make about the work of the RAF in the very early days of the war. It could only be processed [at Eastman Kodak] in Rochester at that particular time so we couldn’t see our rushes. As far as I know, no features were made in Britain entirely in Technicolor monopack. We also had TechniScope which divided the normal frame into two, which gave it CinemaScope proportions. That was used for sporting events, for instance. Agfacolor, Eastmancolor and Fujicolor all have their own characteristics. The Fujicolor is for softer, more pastel shades and the Agfacolor has more of a tinge of sepia about it, which some people like very much.”

(Petrie, Duncan (2013): Interview. Stan Sayer. In: Simon Brown, Sarah Street and Liz Watkins (eds.): British Colour Cinema. Practices and Theories. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 97–102, on pp. 99–102.)

“Fading. Fading. Faded.

THE COLOR FILM CRISIS

The colors in The Wizard of Oz are as glorious today as they were forty years ago. But those in Tom Jones, made in 1963, are already deteriorating. Why are recent films on the endangered list?

Paul C. Spehr

As recently as the early fifties, black-and-white movies were still the accepted aesthetic form of the medium. The first full-color film, Becky Sharp, had been made in 1935, but for serious moviegoers color was a fantasy device, appropriate for musicals, swashbucklers, Westerns, and cartoons. Black and white, in contrast, was the medium of reality. But in little more than a generation, color has come to replace black and white as the normal mode of film production. In fact, today a black-and-white film – like Manhattan – is praised for its daring.

Whatever the aesthetic importance of this basic change in moviemaking, potentially it is a tragedy.

Why? Because the color dyes used in today’s movies are so impermanent that there is little hope that the quality of color we are experiencing today will be passed on to the next generation. The hard, harsh fact is that most of the color films made since the mid-fifties will fade to indistinguishable – or at least undistinguished – shadows of their former glory.

The problem, stated simply, is that the dyes used in color photography are basically unstable and subject to fading. This is particularly true of the more modern dyes, which cannot be expected to last more than a few years under normal use.

Even the precious negatives from which the films are printed have a limited life expectancy. Under the storage conditions generally in use today, many of these negatives will have faded to uselessness within the lifetime of most of us.

This unpleasant fact remains true despite the ironic existence of Technicolor films made thirty or even forty years ago that are still beautiful – films such as The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Wizard of Oz, Pinocchio, Meet Me in St. Louis, An American in Paris, The African Queen, and The Quiet Man. Occasionally one sees old prints of these films and the color is true (although they are becoming more difficult to see all the time since many were made on the perishable nitrate base).

But the dyes used in the original Technicolor process were much more stable than those used today. Why did the industry change? A simple matter of economics, of course. The old Technicolor process was very expensive. It involved a bulky camera that made a record of each of the three primary colors used in motion picture printing on separate rolls of film. For each roll printed for projection, there were three rolls of negative for the picture and a fourth roll for the sound track. The Technicolor process also required complicated and expensive production facilities, like special lighting and costume design, and the postproduction editing and printing costs were particularly high.

Technicolor had a virtual monopoly on this process, and printing and developing could only be done in its laboratories. Frequently, the company even demanded control of the negative. Although competitive processes existed from the beginning, companies such as Magnacolor, Kellycolor, and Cinecolor failed to break Technicolor’s hold on the production of the major studios.

Then, in the fifties, Eastman Kodak introduced Eastman Color, a simpler, less expensive color process in which the three primary colors were contained on one roll of film and “coupled” during the developing process. Savings were immediate, and Kodak franchised the process to many laboratories under various trade names (Color by Deluxe, Warnercolor, for example); the moviemakers were in complete control of their negatives. Original sparkling prints of films were easily and successfully produced. Among the first to be printed with the new process were Hondo, The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, Dial M for Murder, and Three Coins in the Fountain.

By the seventies the acceptance of dye-coupler color printing was so widespread that even Technicolor converted to it and has gradually phased out its imbibition printing plants, closing its Hollywood plant first, then the ones in London and Rome. Now the only plant capable of printing by the original Technicolor process is the one that was sold to the People’s Republic of China.

The instability of Eastman Color and the related dye-coupler color processes has been a matter of little concern to Hollywood producers and distributors. The life expectancy of a print made for theatrical projection was one or two years, and a very popular film could wear out in a matter of months. At the end of a film’s run, one or two copies might be retained for an occasional rerelease or as the second part of a double feature. However, the life of the negative was seven to fifteen years, or twenty to twenty-five years if treated carefully.

As the color television market became more important to Hollywood, the exhibition life of even the most mediocre films began to grow longer. Films were shown over and over again on television, and a new generation began to display an unusual taste for repeated entertainment. Since film production was down and theaters were demanding more films, there was now a larger audience for repeated showings of single titles.

It would be nice to believe that audiences today are more conscious of the quality of prints they see, but I doubt it. Movie audiences have always been remarkably tolerant of digs, pits, scratches, missing sections, blips in the sound track, and numerous other damages that can bedevil the projected image. So color fading, which is a gradual, subtle loss in its early stages, has only recently become a matter of serious concern.

The first color elements to fade are usually the yellows and greens. Since these are frequently the softer, less intense colors, their absence is less obvious. A change in flesh tones occurs, and the outdoor scenes are less vital. This can become especially destructive. I recently saw a print of Tom Jones which had lost so much yellow and green that the romantic revels of Sophie and Tom had completely lost the intended effect of youthful, springtime joy. The roses in the garden were now tinged with a reddish brown that totally destroyed the playful spirit of the original production.

In the extreme stages of color fading, the picture images are gradually reduced to ugly pinkish purple shadows of the original. The color now looks something like overaged veal – a macabre abstraction never imagined by the film’s creator.

Prints of films made in the fifties display the most disastrous effects of color fading. I have seen badly faded prints of Carousel, East of Eden, Bus Stop, The King and I, Carmen Jones, Brigadoon, and Rebel Without a Cause. Not long ago I saw a print of A Star Is Born which had faded to the point where the background of every scene was pinkish purple, with flesh tones to match. The color is not Judy Garland’s most flattering makeup.

The print of The High and the Mighty that was recently shown on national television was carefully reproduced. But a close examination revealed that there was almost no background color. The neutral colors of the interior of the plane and the stormy exteriors masked the restricted color palette that has survived. If there had been exterior shots with trees or grass, the picture would have looked very strange, as there seemed to be no green color, only gray in the background.

Around the World in 80 Days, I am told, has also suffered serious fading. Since this picture was produced with no expense spared to take full advantage of the effects of color photography, the loss of color completely destroys the original value of the film. A similar loss would ruin many recent color films. Consider the effect on Lawrence of Arabia, Easy Rider, Help!, Bonnie and Clyde, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Taxi Driver, and Julia. These films are not ready for the scrap heap, but the threat to them is very real.

What are the possible solutions? At present, there are only two methods of preserving color movies: black-and-white separations and cold storage. Both methods are used, but not as widely as they should be.

Black-and-white separations are photographic copies of each of the primary colors stored on separate rolls of black-and-white film which can be combined to produce the original color image. It is similar to but not the same as the Technicolor process. Since there is no color in the film to be stored, there will be no fading. It is a system used regularly by at least three Hollywood companies and selectively by several others, but it is expensive. Costs run between $25,000 and $30,000 to copy a single feature film.

In addition, the process is not completely reliable. The loss of a single frame on one of the rolls must be duplicated in each of the others and in the accompanying roll of sound track. If not, the entire roll will be out of sync and unusable. More exasperating, minor differences of shrinkage between the separate rolls can cause major problems when trying to align the images. This will result in blurring around the edges of the images, or in an annoying halo effect. Because of this uncertainty, coupled with the cost of manufacturing and storing the resulting film, archivists and even prosperous film-manufacturing companies have been reluctant to invest too much in making black-and-white masters.

Cold storage is the second method of preserving color films. It has long been known that color fades more rapidly at warm temperatures; so by keeping the film cold, the rate of fading can be slowed. The relative humidity of the storage area must also be properly maintained. If the film is kept at about the freezing point or just below it, and at a relative humidity of thirty or forty percent, the life of the film can be extended. In theory, the film’s life could be prolonged thousands of years by the right kind of deep, subzero storage.

Film manufacturers such as Eastman Kodak store their newly manufactured film in cold vaults, but when it is sold to a dealer or a laboratory, the film returns to room temperature. Most film manufacturers also recommend cold storage as the most effective way to extend the life of film after it has been developed. A few film archives have such facilities – Cinémathèque Québecoise in Montreal, the Bundesarchiv in Koblenz, the Library of Congress, the National Anthropological Film Center at the Smithsonian Institution. And the Staatsliches Filmarchiv in East Berlin is constructing what will be the largest cold-storage facility. Yet many film archives are reluctant to open such vaults; and few Hollywood studios have storage areas that can keep the film below room temperature.

If cold storage is so effective, why is it not in more general use? Some archivists are reluctant to make a commitment to cold storage because there has been little practical experience to prove its reliability. Film archives have only used cold-storage vaults for a few years, and there is a nagging suspicion that some condition which might affect the film after years in cold storage may have been overlooked.

So far, all those that have used cold storage for long periods, mainly film manufacturers like Eastman Kodak, have used it for unexposed film, which is stored for a period of time and then removed permanently. There has been little experimentation with repeated removal and refreezing of the film. Archivists fear that such drastic changes of temperature and humidity could cause irreparable damage to the film.

They are also concerned about the effect freezing would have on any moisture remaining on the film’s surface or trapped in the base, binders, or emulsion. Despite assurances by the advocates of cold storage that expansion of moisture during freezing will not affect the film, skepticism persists.

In the long run, however, the most important factor discouraging the widespread use of cold-storage vaults is the expense. Construction costs are high, and operating costs can be enormous. It takes large amounts of electricity to operate the cooling units and dehumidification equipment. A representative of one Hollywood company recently told me that after the electric bills came in, they were told to go no lower than fifty-five degrees, even though they had a vault capable of colder temperatures. The energy crisis makes this a more serious consideration and will probably discourage more general use of cold storage, although it is at present probably the most effective method of preserving color films.

For several years there has been a worldwide search by the major U. S. film archives and the International Federation of Film Archives for a cheaper, more efficient way of preserving color. A number of solutions have been proposed, and some research is now under way.

Linwood Dunn, one of Hollywood’s special effects experts and the developer of the Acme optical printer, a mainstay of special effects work, has proposed a modification of a 70mm optical printer that would make it possible to record the three black-and-white separation images on a single strip of film. Each frame would be a little smaller than the 35mm original This modification of the optical printer would solve the differences in shrinkage on separate rolls, and the 70mm film would also have room for the sound track.

It was an intriguing possibility, but the cost of designing and building the printer was so high that no one could afford to have it built. (The cost of the film stock would also have been very high.) Dunn then proposed to modify his scheme and have images a little smaller than 16mm recorded on 35mm film. This scheme got very little support from the archivists because most of them felt that the loss of picture quality would be too great for copies made from 35mm originals. Dunn’s proposals, though potentially practical, remain in the planning stages because of lack of funding.

Another idea for saving color comes from Dr. Charles Ih, an electrical engineer at the University of Delaware. He proposed to record all of the separate color information in a black-and-white hologram. The information would be recorded by colored lasers of measurable intensity. All of the information necessary to make a color copy would be contained in a single frame. The film could be printed at any time by using lasers of matched color and intensity.

Dr. Ih’s proposal is attractive since no color dye is involved, the color is in the laser, and the material to be preserved is a black-and-white photographic record (the hologram). At present, Dr. Ih has been able to produce a still photograph from the hologram, but the pictures lack the quality necessary to meet archival requirements. He is confident, however, that the system can be perfected.

Once it is, though, it will still have to be adapted for the motion picture; it will be several years before we know if this is a practical solution to the color problem. But if Dr. Ih is successful in perfecting his method for still photographs, it nevertheless will be enormously important since still photographs hold their color only a little longer than motion pictures. Another researcher in laser holograms, Dr. Francis Yu of Wayne State University, is working on a system that uses a slightly different method of recording the hologram.

Those of us who have marveled at the transmission of color photographs from the Moon, Mars, and Jupiter are aware that the computer can record color in remarkable ways. There is hope that this technology can be adapted for film work, but currently it is too slow and too expensive a process to be practical. Technological breakthroughs have been coming at a remarkable pace in recent years, and it may be that the computer will be the answer. Today it is only a promise.

In the meantime, the videodisc offers a remarkable degree of permanence for the materials recorded. Since no dyes are involved, the color recorded on the videodisc will last as long as the disc. This is of great importance for the preservation of television. But since the system records only to the standards of television, feature films lose significant image quality on videodiscs. That quality cannot be restored for theater showings, and the images can only be viewed satisfactorily as television images.

At present, no videodisc system has been designed specifically for archival purposes, although the developers are confident that it can be done. Even image quality could be greatly improved by special research, but this research is very expensive.

So the future looks grim for color movies and for precious color photographs. The only solution is research, and thus far, only a small amount of money has been made available. […]

The motion picture industry, with an enormous investment in color film production, lacks the leadership to organize research that would benefit the entire industry. Perhaps this will change. A portion of the profits realized from the color images on the screens of the world might make major changes in this otherwise bleak picture. It would be very unfortunate if the funds to complete the research didn’t become available until after several important pictures fade beyond recognition.”

(Spehr, Paul C. (1979): Fading, Fading, Faded. The Colour Film in Crisis. In: American Film, Nov., pp. 56–61.)

Zerkalo/Mirror (SUN 1975, Andrei Tarkovsky)

“It suggests that the ratio of Kodak to ‘other’ film stock available for the production was about 2.5:1. Given a final running time of 104 minutes, and assuming an editing strategy in which the initial ratio of Kodak to ‘other’ stock was maintained, the final film should comprise about 74 minutes of Kodak and 30 minutes of ‘other’ stock. In fact, 71 minutes of Mirror are in colour and 33 minutes are in black-and-white. This startlingly close correlation strongly suggests that the ‘other’ stock that Tarkovsky used was black-and-white.⁵

[…]

In Tarkovsky’s subsequent films, multiple colours rarely co-exist in a single frame. Saturated colours are restricted to individual details. For example, one of the few prominent colours in Mirror is the red hair of a girl from the narrator’s childhood. The red of her hair is prominent because of the lack of surrounding colour; she walks through a snow-covered forest that is almost pure black and white. Against a colourless background, colour provides the salient detail by which the narrator is able to remember her.

From Mirror onwards, the chromatic norm of Tarkovsky’s films was that of desaturation. It was a norm that he often went to great lengths to maintain. Assistant Director Maria Chugunova recounts the following result of an unanticipated natural eruption of colour:

On Stalker I plucked out all the tiny yellow flowers which were in the camera view. Entire huge meadow – it was full of yellow flowers – and I tore it all out. The rest of the crew helped. Not a tiniest flower remained. Even though it was a very wide shot. Next year when we were shooting the second version, there were no more yellow flowers, we had done a really god job on those; but the blue ones grew instead. We plucked out these as well.⁶

The film’s lack of all natural colour except shades of green is complemented by its production and costume design. In contrast to the characters in Solaris, the three main characters in Stalker wear neutral colours: black, brown, beige, and white. These colours are typical of a production and costume design that, from Mirror onwards, was dominated by neutral colours, i.e. colours that did not draw attention to themselves.

⁵ The small discrepancy between these statistics can be explained by the fact that no production goes entirely according to plan. It is inconceivable that there were not occasional divergences from Tarkovsky’s anticipated 3:1/4:1 shooting ratios: It is also inconceivable that decisions made during the editing process did not also influence the film’s final ratio of colour to black-and-white.

⁶
Excerpted from Turovskaya (1994), and translated into English by Jan Bielawski. ‘Lyudmila Feiginova talks to Maya Turovskaya’, http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~tstronds/nostalghia.com/TheTopics/Stalker/chugunova.html (site accessed 21 April, 2006.)”

(Misek, Richard (2007): “Last of the Kodak”. Andrei Tarkovsky’s Struggle with Colour. In: Everett, Wendy (ed.): Questions of Colour in Cinema. From Paintbrush to Pixel. Oxford: Peter Lang, pp. 161–176, on pp. 166–170.)

Stalker (SUN 1979, Andrei Tarkovsky)

“In Stalker, Tarkovsky again secured the use of Kodak, but this time he was given a poisoned chalice. Something went badly wrong when the stock was processed. Accounts of what precisely happened at the Mosfilm laboratories and why, and of precisely how much footage was destroyed, differ. Regardless of the details, the problem was serious enough to halt production. Amazingly, Tarkovsky was able to resurrect the project and start filming the following year with a new script, a new cinematographer, and a new art director (Johnson and Petrie 1994: 138). By this time, however, ‘the last of the Kodak’ was exhausted and no more was forthcoming (Tarkovsky 1994: 146). One might imagine that at this point Tarkovsky would have reshot the film entirely in black-and-white, as Goskino wanted him to do, or entirely in Sovcolor. In fact, even though he was no longer faced with the dilemma of how to make optimal use of a limited supply of Kodak, he again chose to mix colour and black-and-white. In the absence of an obvious economic motivation for this mixture, one must conclude that the choice was made for reasons internal to the film. In other words, in Stalker, Tarkovsky used black-and-white not because he had to but because he wanted to.

[…]

On Stalker I plucked out all the tiny yellow flowers which were in the camera view. Entire huge meadow – it was full of yellow flowers – and I tore it all out. The rest of the crew helped. Not a tiniest flower remained. Even though it was a very wide shot. Next year when we were shooting the second version, there were no more yellow flowers, we had done a really god job on those; but the blue ones grew instead. We plucked out these as well.⁶

The film’s lack of all natural colour except shades of green is complemented by its production and costume design. In contrast to the characters in Solaris, the three main characters in Stalker wear neutral colours: black, brown, beige, and white. These colours are typical of a production and costume design that, from Mirror onwards, was dominated by neutral colours, i.e. colours that did not draw attention to themselves. In Nostalgia and The Sacrifice, colour was additionally suppressed chemically, reduced by approximately sixty per cent through laboratory processing. The extreme nature of Tarkovsky’s chromatic regime can be observed in A Film By Andrei Tarkovsky (Michal Leszczylowski, 1988), a documentary about the production of The Sacrifice. An inoffensive burgundy sofa is rejected, walls are painted grey, a tree is moved because its flowers are hot white. Once filming is complete, Tarkovsky sits in pyjamas in what may have been his deathbed and tells the Director of Photography, Sven Nykvyst, that he wants less colour.

Is there a kernel of consistency among these contradictions? I believe there is. I wish to suggest that Tarkovsky’s opposition was not to colour per se but to the way in which it tended to irrupt into films in a panchromatic chaos of verisimilitude. I wish also to suggest that Tarkovsky’s movements between black-and-white and colour, as well as his use of desaturation, can be seen as attempts to mitigate this irruption of verisimilitude. In response to his question of why a coloured shot should seem so ‘unbelievably, monstrously false’, Tarkovsky suggested the following: ‘The explanation must surely be that colour, reproduced mechanically, lacks the touch of the artist’s hand; in this area he loses his organising function, and has no means of selecting what he wants’ (Tarkovsky 1986: 138). The problem with the flowers in Stalker was not the colour itself – at other times in the film, there are vivid close-ups of yellow flames – but the fact that it had not been chosen by Tarkovsky himself. For Tarkovsky, colour needed to be expressive (of the artist’s personal aesthetic) rather than descriptive (of the chromatic chaos of the world). Removing colour through the use of black-and-white stock and desaturation was a means of reducing the number of external chromatic variables within a film and making the frame more amenable to the artist’s organizing function. In addition, by establishing a chromatic norm in which colour as absent, Tarkovsky was able precisely to control the occasions and the manner in which colours were allowed into his films. In this way, his goal of modulating ‘unawareness of colour’ with a sudden concentration of attention on ‘some specific detail’ was furthered (Tarkovsky 1994: 356).

⁶ Excerpted from Turovskaya (1994), and translated into English by Jan Bielawski. ‘Lyudmila Feiginova talks to Maya Turovskaya’, http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~tstronds/nostalghia.com/TheTopics/Stalker/chugunova.html (site
accessed 21 April, 2006.)

References

Johnson, V. and G. Petrie (1994), The Films of Andrei Tarkovsky: A Visual Fugue, Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Tarkovsky, A. (1986), Sculpting in Time, London: The Bodley Head.

Tarkovsky, A. (1994), Time Within Time, The Diaries 1970-1986, London: Faber and Faber.”

(Misek, Richard (2007): “Last of the Kodak”. Andrei Tarkovsky’s Struggle with Colour. In: Everett, Wendy (ed.): Questions of Colour in Cinema. From Paintbrush to Pixel. Oxford: Peter Lang, pp. 161–176, on pp. 166–171.)

Offret/The Sacrifice (SWE/FRA/GBR 1986, Andrei Tarkovsky)

“The conclusion that the above observations seem to indicate is that Tarkovsky initially mixed black-and-white and colour for reasons that were primarily economic and then, appreciative of the result, incorporated this mixture into his aesthetic modus operandi, even after the economic motivation receded. Further evidence to suggest this transformation of pragmatic necessity into personal aesthetic can be seen in his last two films, Nostalghia/Nostalgia (1983) and Offret/The Sacrifice (1986). Nostalgia was made in Italy and The Sacrifice was made in Sweden. Both were high profile co-productions and had more than adequate budgets. Yet both films again include sections filmed in black-and-white. The mixture of black-and-white and colour was, by the 1980s, a sufficiently important element of Tarkovsky’s aesthetic philosophy to merit discussion in his elliptical artistic manifesto, Sculpting in Time. Completed in 1983, the book can be read as the culmination of twenty five years of reflection on the subject of cinema. In it, Tarkovsky writes that ‘the effect of colour should be neutralized by alternating colour and monochrome sequences, so that the impression made by the complete spectrum is spaced out, toned down’ (Tarkovsky 1986: 138). Thus, it appears, praxis was transformed into theory.

[…]

The extreme nature of Tarkovsky’s chromatic regime can be observed in A Film By Andrei Tarkovsky (Michal Leszczylowski, 1988), a documentary about the production of The Sacrifice. An inoffensive burgundy sofa is rejected, walls are painted grey, a tree is moved because its flowers are hot white. Once filming is complete, Tarkovsky sits in pyjamas in what may have been his deathbed and tells the Director of Photography, Sven Nykvyst, that he wants less colour.

Is there a kernel of consistency among these contradictions? I believe there is. I wish to suggest that Tarkovsky’s opposition was not to colour per se but to the way in which it tended to irrupt into films in a panchromatic chaos of verisimilitude. I wish also to suggest that Tarkovsky’s movements between black-and-white and colour, as well as his use of desaturation, can be seen as attempts to mitigate this irruption of verisimilitude. In response to his question of why a coloured shot should seem so ‘unbelievably, monstrously false’, Tarkovsky suggested the following: ‘The explanation must surely be that colour, reproduced mechanically, lacks the touch of the artist’s hand; in this area he loses his organising function, and has no means of selecting what he wants’ (Tarkovsky 1986: 138). The problem with the flowers in Stalker was not the colour itself – at other times in the film, there are vivid close-ups of yellow flames – but the fact that it had not been chosen by Tarkovsky himself. For Tarkovsky, colour needed to be expressive (of the artist’s personal aesthetic) rather than descriptive (of the chromatic chaos of the world). Removing colour through the use of black-and-white stock and desaturation was a means of reducing the number of external chromatic variables within a film and making the frame more amenable to the artist’s organizing function. In addition, by establishing a chromatic norm in which colour as absent, Tarkovsky was able precisely to control the occasions and the manner in which colours were allowed into his films. In this way, his goal of modulating ‘unawareness of colour’ with a sudden concentration of attention on ‘some specific detail’ was furthered (Tarkovsky 1994: 356).

References

Tarkovsky, A. (1986), Sculpting in Time, London: The Bodley Head.

Tarkovsky, A. (1994), Time Within Time, The Diaries 1970-1986, London: Faber and Faber.”

(Misek, Richard (2007): “Last of the Kodak”. Andrei Tarkovsky’s Struggle with Colour. In: Everett, Wendy (ed.): Questions of Colour in Cinema. From Paintbrush to Pixel. Oxford: Peter Lang, pp. 161–176, on pp. 167–171.)

Offret/The Sacrifice (SWE/FRA/GBR 1986, Andrei Tarkovsky)

“In his last two films, Nostalgia and The Sacrifice, Tarkovsky takes the relationship between black-and-white and colour to a new level of intimacy. Colour, pure black-and-white, and toned black-and-white are complemented by chemically desaturated colour, as well as production and costume design so chromatically muted that even when a shot is in full colour, it often appears monochrome. The result is an overall desaturation so extreme that the line between colour and monochrome effectively dissolves. Tarkovsky’s last two films can almost be regarded as simultaneously colour and monochrome. Yet in his attempts to straddle cinema’s chromatic schism, Tarkovsky was held back by the technological limitations of having to colour grade chemically. The range of chromatic variations achievable through laboratory processing is relatively limited. On occasion, Tarkovsky attempted to achieve an effect that simply could not be achieved. For example, in The Sacrifice, the level of saturation occasionally changes within shots rather than between shots. The idea that colour can be a dynamic presence from moment to moment is a startling one, but the actual effect in the film is slightly clumsy – it looks like a fumbled reel change.”

(Misek, Richard (2007): “Last of the Kodak”. Andrei Tarkovsky’s Struggle with Colour. In: Everett, Wendy (ed.): Questions of Colour in Cinema. From Paintbrush to Pixel. Oxford: Peter Lang, pp. 161–176, on pp. 174–175.)

“Accounts of Hollywood color usually leave off with the ascension of 3‑strip Technicolor in 1932 and its near-monopoly over commercial feature color production that lasted for the next twenty years.¹ The 1950s in these histories is mourned as the decade when Technicolor was abandoned in favor of Eastman Color, yet another example of Hollywood’s decline. In this fallen age of shoddy, the original Eastman Color process is remembered as Technicolor’s cheap, unstable successor, notorious for its instability which became the mark of cut-rate quality.²

This is color’s own version of the 50s Red Scare, where prints over time were liable to turn pink [Fig 01]. Eastman Kodak’s cover-up of its color film’s instability – an evasion that continued well into the 1970s – has, justifiably, been labeled a disgrace.³ But as we’ll see, Eastman Color had much more to offer than corrosion.

I want to argue that this stress on the ersatz impermanence of early Eastman Color has created an important distortion, leaving the impression that when Eastman Color replaced Technicolor the use of color itself went into a qualitative decline. Far from providing the epilog for color, I will claim, the 1950s in fact became the decade when color movies suddenly matured. It was the decade in which the studios – and by extension, their directors, cinematographers, and art directors – gained control of the color process, enabling filmmakers to experiment as they seldom could during the Technicolor days. Directors debated how color was to be used in a decade that was becoming increasingly self-conscious about color.

Instead of a single monolithic concept of color, a healthy number of rival frameworks emerged to accommodate a significantly enlarged variety of color films.

[…] Long after it stopped providing three-strip cameras, Technicolor continued to offer its services as a lab to process and print a wide variety of color films made from negatives manufactured by its competitors and successors – notably Eastman, Ansco, Agfa, Ferraniacolor, Gaevert, and eventually Sovcolor and Fuji – film stocks that all used ordinary cameras. While Eastman and its competitors provided camera negatives, Technicolor after 1954 limited itself to the highly lucrative business of processing and making dye transfer prints. In that same year, Technicolor abandoned its distinctive photographic system based on its unique three-strip camera.⁴ But film companies, eager to capitalize on the prestige of the Technicolor name, did their best to blur the distinction between films shot with Technicolor cameras and those simply processed by Technicolor. They continued to advertise Technicolor prints as though they were Technicolor films.

Hitchcock’s Rear Window is a useful case in point. The credits read, “Color by Technicolor.” But in fact Rear Window was shot entirely on the new Eastman 5247 negative with ordinary 35mm cameras.⁵ And why did Hitchcock chose to shoot Rear Window in Eastman Color when he could just as easily have shot in “real” Technicolor, the way he had Rope and Under Capricorn five years earlier? The answer lies in the way that Eastman Color had improved on the more famous system in ways essential to Hitchcock’s requirements.

¹ The literature on Technicolor is large; for a fine scholarly introduction to Technicolor’s development in the 1930s that includes an extensive bibliography, Scott Higgins, Harnessing the Technicolor Rainbow: Color Design in the 1930s, University of Texas Press, 2007. For a popularized technical history, Richard W. Haines, Technicolor Movies, Jefferson, N.C., 1993. Martin Hart’s remarkable website, The American WideScreen Museum [http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/] contains much expert, detailed information about Technicolor, Eastman Color, and their rivals, and is especially valuable for the wealth of graphic illustration. Scott MacQueen’s, “Film Technology: Special Report,” The Perfect Vision 3/10 (Spring, 1991), 24–38, is the single article I know that challenges the orthodoxy about Technicolor and Eastman Color. With the technical expertise of a film restoration professional, MacQueen cuts through the usual cant with a fresh, provocative comparison.

² In his intellectual history of color reproduction, Neil Harris sees an analogous decline. For him, the early 1950s are stigmatized not by Eastman Color but by color television whose anticipated rise was accompanied by an intellectually impoverished level of discourse, limited to technical and commercial issues. Harris contrasts this with the lively multi-layered debates that accompanied the rise of Technicolor in the 1920s and 1930s. Harris, “Color and Media: Some Comparisons and Speculations,” Prospects 11 (1987) 7–28; reprinted in Harris, Cultural Excursions (University of Chicago Press, 1990), 318–336.

³ For Eastman’s problems with color instability and the corporate cover-up, Henry Wilhelm and Carol Brower, The Permanence and Care of Color Photographs: Traditional and Digital Color Prints, Color Negatives, Slides, and Motion Pictures (Preservation Publishing Co., Grinnell, Iowa, 1993), 305–328.

⁴ Technicolor’s biggest year was 1952, when no fewer than 85 Hollywood features used the 3-strip camera. It meant that in the following year audiences were flooded with Technicolor releases including The Band Wagon, Shane, 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, The Caine Mutiny, and Magnificent Obsession. The studios released almost one hundred Technicolor features in 1953 [95 by my count, including three shot overseas] and distributed another 23 foreign films shot in Technicolor.

But the tide quickly ebbed. In their rush to wide-screen in 1953, the biggest studios switched away from the 3-strip process, leaving the cameras to Columbia, Universal, and RKO for budget product. In early 1954 Paramount made Technicolor’s final Grade-A picture, The Bridges at Toko-Ri, but by then prestige Technicolor productions had become an anomaly. Paramount itself had already begun using VistaVision for its other color releases, a widescreen process that depended upon Eastman Color.

Three-strip was phased out on a schedule of low-cost westerns, sci-fi, and musicals. The last American Technicolor features were Seminole Uprising, Man Without a Star, Shotgun, and, finally, Universal’s Fox Fire, filmed July–Sept 1954 with Jane Russell and Jeff Chandler.

My statistics derive from an amended list of Technicolor films compiled in Haines, Technicolor Movies, pp. 37–47 which in turn derives from Fred Basten’s filmography in Glorious Technicolor (Cranbury, NJ: A.S. Barnes, 1980), 169–187. The difficulty with these lists is that they do not distinguish between films shot in 3-strip and those simply processed by Technicolor. Nor do they distinguish Hollywood product from foreign-made movies, nor Hollywood productions made abroad [which relied on Technicolor technicians in London and Rome] from those made at home. In my statistics, I have siphoned off the non-three strip productions and foreign films.

I have drawn production dates from the American Film Institute Catalog, 1951–1960, Chadwyck-Healey/American Film Institute, 2003–2008.

⁵ In this case, the Technicolor credit is doubly misleading. Although Rear Window was processed by Technicolor, Eastman Color film was used not only as the negative, but also for the prints. The Technicolor lab, still learning how to cope with the new Eastman monopack negative, discovered that Eastman’s own print film produced sharper results than Technicolor’s dye transfer process. So, while the lab took a crash course to improve its own system, it quietly used Eastman print film for features such as Rear Window, A Star is Born, and How to Marry a Millionaire. Robert Gitt, interview with author, Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, CA 20 Feb 2005.

Paramount’s advertizing also created the illusion that Rear Window was shot wide-screen. But cinematographer Robert Burks confirms that the film was shot standard aperture with standard lenses. Arthur Gavin, “Rear Window,” American Cinematographer (February, 1954), 76–78, 97. Following the practice Paramount started with Shane, the aperture plate was masked to simulate wide-screen in some [mostly first-run] theatres.”

(Merritt, Russell (2008): Crying in Color. How Hollywood Coped When Technicolor Died. In: Journal of the National Film and Sound Archive, Australia, 3,2/3, pp. 1–16, on p. 1.)

“At the start of the 50s, however, powerful new alternatives to the Technicolor aesthetic emerge that revitalize the debate, as studios and directors take direct control of the color processes.

This became possible because of the advent of Eastman Color single-strip negative and printing film stock. With practically no fanfare, but with meticulous planning and extraordinary discretion, Eastman commandeered the manufacture of color motion picture film negative. Its single domestic competitor, Ansco film, secured an exclusive contract with MGM, and with the release of The Wild North in March 1952 actually beat Eastman to the gate in exhibiting the first Hollywood monopack feature.²² But by the end of 1954, after the last stragglers had finally returned their Technicolor cameras, Ansco was out of the movie business, and through the rest of the decade Eastman provided the color negative to all the major studios and virtually all the independents.

Few comparable revolutions have gone so utterly unnoticed. Although studios were [secretly] signing contracts for Eastman Color film as early as winter 1949 [in secret so as not to jeopardize their relationship with Technicolor], the first features would not be released for another two-and-a-half years. Eastman was using the time to install equipment in studio labs and train studio technicians at Warner Brothers, Fox, and Columbia – the first studios to adopt Eastman color – on how to process and print the new negative.²³ Testing took the form of seminars and filming short subjects, released without ceremony. And when the Eastman system was finally introduced into the feature market – in April 1952 as a low budget Warner Brothers western called The Lion and the Horse – Eastman’s name was nowhere to be found.

Pursuant to the settlement of its 1948 anti-trust suit with the Justice Department, Eastman originally did no processing of its own film, and permitted the studios and labs to re-label the process as they saw fit. So, The Lion and the Horse was released “in WarnerColor,” just as Fox subsequently released color films in “Deluxe,” Columbia in Columbia Color, and M-G-M, after it gave up on Ansco, in “MetroColor.”²⁴ But all this meant was that studios and independent labs were developing Eastman film themselves rather than sending it out to Eastman or Technicolor for processing.

When the prints from Eastman negative were made by Technicolor [as with Warners’ A Star is Born and virtually all the Paramounts shot in VistaVision], only Technicolor’s name appeared as the color source – in the opening credits, in film trailers, and sometimes on theatre marquees. Audiences rarely saw Eastman’s name except on low budget productions when Eastman’s lab finally agreed to print films that the smaller studios could not afford to develop themselves.

Yet, if it sailed in under the radar, the Eastman revolution was real and its effects far reaching. Within two years of its debut, Hollywood crossed its color Rubicon and the dye was cast. By 1954, virtually all Hollywood color films were shot in Eastman Color negative. And as far as Eastman was concerned, studios could do with their stock whatever they wanted.

For the studios, the most conspicuous advantages were practical: color movies suddenly became significantly cheaper to produce and easier to make. The most conspicuous advantage of Eastman Color was that it eliminated the need for the bulky Technicolor camera. As a single strip of film, it could fit into any 35mm camera and did not even require Eastman processing. Eastman also had a considerably higher rating than Technicolor – by 1955, somewhere around 50, more than half-again the speed of the most up-to-date Technicolor film [and by the end of the decade a whopping 125 and 160 ratings for its two high speed stocks].²⁵ Deep focus in color had at last become possible. We may compare, for instance, the maximum focal length possible in Technicolor from Scaramouche where Charles Rosher has only five or six feet to play with, and the focal length Russell Metty can achieve a year or two later in Written on the Wind (Universal, 1957) so that Sirk can stage in depth. The shot in the Sirk film starts with Robert Stack coming out of a distant hallway door and ends with him sitting a few feet from the camera.

²² For Ansco Color Film and MGM, American Cinematographer (February, 1950), p. 42; Arthur Rowan, “‘The Wild North’ Introduces MGM’s New Ansco Color Process,” AC (March, 1952), 106–107, 122–124. Also Robert A. Mitchell, “The New Ansco Color Film and Process,” AC (April, 1953), 166, 177–183.

²³ “New Eastman Color Film Tested by Hollywood and Film Labs,” American Cinematographer (March 1950), 95, 102. Thomas Brady, “Big Color Rush On,” New York Times (17 June 1951), X 5. “New Color Deal,” American Cinematographer (May, 1952), 206, 215–216, and Frederick Foster, “Eastman Negative-Positive Color Films for Motion Pictures,” AC (July 1953), 322–323, 348–349. Time Magazine (2 June 1952), Production and release dates are provided by The American Film Institute Catalog, 1893–1972.

Barry Salt [Film Style, p. 310] claims that The Sword of Monte Cristo, filmed fall 1950, was in fact the first Eastman Color film, secretly shot and printed on Eastman Color positive and negative, but given a SuperCinecolor label. I have not been able to confirm this.

²⁴ Likewise, budget color films could be processed as TruColor, CineColor, or Pathé Color, depending upon the lab that was used. For an example of a technical journal treating Eastman Color as a studio creation, Edwin DuPar, “WarnerColor – Newest of Color Process,” AC (September, 1952), 384–385, 402–404.

²⁵ Barry Salt, 310. Leigh Allen, “New Technicolor Lighting System Tested by Top-Flight Cinematographers, International Projectionist (January, 1951), 20–21. Interview with Scott MacQueen, 28 March 2005.”

(Merritt, Russell (2008): Crying in Color. How Hollywood Coped When Technicolor Died. In: Journal of the National Film and Sound Archive, Australia, 3,2/3, pp. 1–16, on pp. 6–7.)

“But in the 50s, not only did color come to the modern world. Domestic melodrama – the quintessential black-and-white genre of the 40s – became the new cutting edge for color experimentation. Although the sudden surge in color westerns at the start of the decade meant that, numerically, Eastman Color westerns far outnumbered so-called women pictures in color, by the time the studios hit their stride in developing their own color aesthetic, the new lords of color were the melodramatists: Sirk, Minnelli, John Huston, Otto Preminger, George Cukor, and Fritz Lang – directors who quickly created signature styles, while dramatically broadening the range of color applications to narrative.²⁸ At the same time younger Turks [Elia Kazan and Nicholas Ray in particular] collaborated with their cinematographers to create color experiments of their own. Minnelli is an especially interesting case because he had been the leading director of Technicolor musicals in the 40s, and then with Ansco and Eastman Color created a brand new color style for his 50s melodramas – notably Lust for Life, Tea and Sympathy, and above all in his masterpiece Some Came Running.²⁹

The Technicolor codes did not suddenly evaporate. Particularly in the early transitional years, expensive CinemaScope and VistaVision spectacles faithfully followed the Technicolor formulas, making their color designs all but indistinguishable from the Kalmus model [the widescreen illustrations I have used from The Robe, Knights of the Round Table, and How To Marry a Millionaire, all shot on Eastman Color or Ansco, are classic examples of Technicolor practice being used verbatim during the new regime].³⁰ But, by the mid-1950s, conspicuous shifts appear.

Color plots become noticeably more Expressionistic, while color associations are now built not just with the fantastical, but with the drab, the commonplace, or simply non-heroic. What are the most appropriate colors for ordinary, non-glamorous people? How do you represent colorless or harsh environments in color – oil fields, factories, brothels, steel mills – without making them pretty, picturesque, or contrived? [Fig 37; Fig 38; Fig 39]

The color palettes themselves become noticeably less saturated, dispensing with those vivid accents and the large blocks of solids. Brilliant ruby reds – Technicolor’s signature – become virtually taboo. In their place, contemporary films – even musicals – tended to be dominated by pale color schemes, either neutrals such as taupe, gray, or beige; pastels; or lightened primaries like peach, glacier blues, pinks, and chartreuse. [Fig 40]

As illustrated in this scene from East of Eden, when there were accents, the pinpricks were seldom bold or brilliant. At best they might be pastels; but more often they were diluted dirty colors – pale yellows, oranges, and browns, or mottled green. It’s tempting to see Goya, Corot, and Murillo, the masters of muted color schemes, as the new color gods. [Fig 41]

²⁸ Eastman Color western and melodrama counts derive from The American Film Institute Catalog, 1951–1960, Chadwyck-Healey/American Film Institute, 2003–2008. The rise of the color western in the early 1950s was particularly dramatic. By my count, a total of twenty westerns filmed in color were released from 1940 to 1949, none during America’s war years. At the end of the decade, the number shot up from three in 1949 to 11 in 1950, then to 23 in 1951, 21 in 1952, 21 in 1953, and 20 in 1954. In short, as many color westerns were shot each year in the early 1950s as were shot in the entire preceding decade.

²⁹ For Minnelli and Technicolor, Scott Higgins, “Color at the Center: Minnelli’s Technicolor Style in Meet Me in St. Louis [1944],” Style (Fall, 1998). For Minnelli and his color 1950s melodrama, Minnelli with Hector Acre, I Remember It Well (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1974), 288–290.

³⁰ Minnelli, in fact, resisted Eastman color for Lust for Life because in its first years the Eastman color style so closely resembled Technicolor’s that Minnelli assumed Eastman could not reproduce subdued tones. Its palette, he claimed, came “straight from the candy box, a brilliant mixture of blues, reds, and yellows” [I Remember, 288–89]. So he used Ansco Color along with the single color consultant with no Technicolor background, Ansco’s Charles Hagedon.”

(Merritt, Russell (2008): Crying in Color. How Hollywood Coped When Technicolor Died. In: Journal of the National Film and Sound Archive, Australia, 3,2/3, pp. 1–16, on pp. 7–8.)

“Eastmancolor (1951). Presentato nel 1951 dopo lunghe ricerche condotte negli anni precedenti, risulta di qualità superiore rispetto al gruppo delle pellicole monopack di derivazione Agfa; la principale novità introdotta riguarda l’adozione di un particolare procedimento (masking), consistente nell’aggiunta di strati colorati filtranti sulle emulsioni del negativo, al fine di correggere l’inesatto assorbimento cromatico delle stesse. Nel positivo, i tre strati sensibili sono disposti in un ordine diverso rispetto a quella che era stata la norma fino all’epoca, con l’effetto di accrescere la nitidezza dell’immagine a colori; la stessa modifica è apportata anche all’internegativo, una pellicola impiegata per la realizzazione di negativi utilizzabili per le copie da distribuire in sala. Le ricerche per accrescere la qualità dei negativi, dei positivi e delle altre pellicole intermedie continuano lungo il corso del decennio: nel 1953 è introdotto il primo pacchetto in grado di accompagnare l’intero iter produttivo e distributivo sia in interni che in esterni, mentre sul finire del decennio sono commercializzati nuovi prodotti migliorati sia per sensibilità che per qualità di resa cromatica. Nel corso degli anni Cinquanta, sono commercializzati i seguenti negativi Eastmancolor per uso professionale: Negative Safety Film Type 5247 (1951; 16 ASA, bilanciato per illuminazione diurna); Negative Film Type 5248 (1953; 24 ASA bilanciato per illuminazione artificiale al tungsteno a 3200°K, per riprese a luce diurna richiede l’impiego di un filtro); Negative Film Type 5250 (1959; 50 ASA, bilanciato per illuminazione artificiale al tungsteno a 32OO°K, per riprese a luce diurna richiede l’impiego di un filtro). La commercializzazione dei negativi è accompagnata da quella dei corrispondenti positivi (Print Safety Film Type 5281, 1951; Print Safety Film Type 5382, 1953), pellicole per selezioni cromatiche (Eastman Panchromatic Separation Film Type 5216, 1951; Eastman Panchromatic Separation Film Type 5235, 1956, due pellicole pancromatiche utilizzate per ottenere tre selezioni cromatiche positive in bianco e nero dal negativo a colori, utili ad esempio per la stampa dye transfer Technicolor) e internegativi (Internegative Safety Film Type 5243, 1951; Internegative Film Type 5245; Intermediate Type 5253, 1956; Internegative Film Type 5270, 1956, pellicole utilizzate per ottenere copie del negativo, caratterizzate da una relazione di non complementarietà tra la sensibilità degli strati e i coloranti sviluppati, scelta dettata dalla volontà di ottenere la massima nitidezza dell’immagine). Tutte le pellicole Eastmancolor sono prodotte fin dall’inizio su supporto ininfiammabile⁷⁶.

⁷⁶ Cfr. T.H. Miller, “Masking: A Technique for Improving the Quality of Color Reproductions”, in SMPE Journal, 1949, 2, pp. 133–155; “New Eastmancolor Film Tested by Hollywood Studios and Film Labs”, in American Cinematographer, 1960, 3, p. 95 e 102; W.T. Hanson, “Color Negative and Color Positive Film for Motion Picture Use”, in SMPE Journal, 1952, 3, pp. 223–225; F. Foster, “Eastman Negative-Positive Color Films for Motion Pictures”, in American Cinematographer, 1953, 7, p. 322; W.T. Hanson, W.I. Kisner, “Improved Color Films for Color Motion-Picture Production”, in SMPE Journal, 1953, 6, pp. 667–701; L. Didiée, “Le film Eastmancolor dans l’industrie cinématographique”, in Actes du colloque international. Les techniques nouvelles appliquées au cinéma, Paris, Commission Supérieure Technique du Cinéma Français, 1955, pp. 119–121; J. Weck, “Communication”, ivi, pp. 121–122; J. Bello, “A New Color Intermediate Positive-Intermediate Negative Film System for Color Motion-Picture Photography”, in SMPTE Journal, 1957, 4, pp. 205–209; P. Horowitz, W.R. Weller, “Some Considerations of Eastmancolor Print Dye Stability”, in SMPTE Journal, 1958, 6, pp. 401–403; F. Foster, “A Faster Color Negative”, in American Cinematographer, 1959, 6, pp. 364–365, 368 e 370; M.L. Dundon, D.M. Zwick, “A High-Speed Color Negative Film”, in SMPTE Journal, 1959, 5, pp. 735–737. Cfr. anche R.T. Ryan, A History of Motion Picture Color Technology, London-New York, Focal Press, 1977, pp. 148–180.”

(Pierotti, Federico (2016): Un’archeologia del colore nel cinema italiano. Dal Technicolor ad Antonioni. Pisa: Edizioni ETS, on pp. 166–167.) (in Italian)

Racconti romani (Gianni Franciolini, ITA 1955)

“Una volta che i film a colori di produzione nazionale cessano di far riferimento agli universi spettacolari della rivista, dell’avanspettacolo o del repertorio operistico, comincia a porsi in termini peculiari il problema di un maggiore bilanciamento narrativo del colore. Tra i filoni della produzione popolare che più contribuiscono a promuovere una normalizzazione stilistica del colore possiamo includere la commedia bozzettistica³⁴. Nel medio periodo, la ricerca di uno stile normalizzato crea le condizioni per la progressiva sostituzione del colore con il bianco e nero, che si realizzerà più tardi. Con il passare degli anni, la commedia a colori, assieme alla circolazione crescente di immagini a colori negli altri media, finisce per allentare il nesso tra bianco e nero e realtà sociale contemporanea, aprendo nuovi spazi di legittimazione culturale per il colore. In questo modo, sfondi e personaggi dei film a colori entrano a far parte delle rappresentazioni dei cambiamenti socioculturali che attraversano l’Italia alle soglie del boom economico. Come esempio di stile normalizzato si può considerare Racconti romani (Gianni Franciolini, 1955, Eastmancolor, tavole a colori 20-22) uno dei film che apre la strada al colore nella commedia.

Il film propone un uso piuttosto distillato del colore, riservando alle tinte sature uno spazio più ridotto all’interno delle inquadrature espanse del Cinemascope. Anche in questo caso, la sequenza dei titoli di testa offre utili indicazioni sull’impiego del colore: le scritte scorrono su una serie di vedute di edifici e monumenti capitolini, che si configurano sul piano cromatico per la prevalenza di una gamma tra il verde scuro degli alberi, il colore plumbeo del cielo e le sfumature di grigio e marrone degli elementi urbanistici. La prevalenza di tinte neutre e smorzate contiene le manifestazioni del colore: la definizione della profondità e delle relazioni spaziali è affidata soprattutto alle variazioni tonali.

La forte riconoscibilità delle location romane impone una più forte referenza realistica. Lo spettatore è invitato a leggerle come una sorta di compendio iconografico della città di Roma. L’utilizzo di un repertorio stereotipato assicura un’impressione di familiarità, poggiata su precedenti esperienze visive, cinematografiche e non, cui il pubblico può riallacciare quelle immagini, con particolare riferimento a Vacanze romane (Roman Holiday, William Wyler, 1954). L’attivazione di questa competenza intertestuale permette di porre il film sulla scia di un genere piacevole e coinvolgente dal punto di vista narrativo ed emotivo, rafforzando così la fiducia che lo spettatore è disposto ad accordargli fin dall’inizio. Inoltre, attraverso i luoghi mostrati, si delinea uno spazio diegetico potenzialmente coerente e unitario (la città di Roma) all’interno del quale il film svilupperà una serie di episodi narrativi.

La prima sequenza narrativa permette di attivare i meccanismi finzionali promessi nell’incipit. Ora l’uso del colore contribuisce a orientare l’attenzione dello spettatore e a rafforzare le relazioni all’interno della diegesi. Le peripezie dei quattro ragazzi protagonisti, Alvaro, Mario, Otello e Spartaco, sono inaugurate dall’arrivo di un camioncino di colore giallo e blu carico di bottiglie contenute in cassettine gialle e rosse. La comparsa del veicolo suggerisce ad Alvaro l’idea di fondare una cooperativa di trasporti: la ricerca del denaro necessario costituisce il movente narrativo dei diversi bozzetti. Più avanti, quando i quattro decidono di andare a provare il camioncino, indispensabile per coronare il loro sogno di indipendenza lavorativa, la scelta cade su uno sgargiante veicolo rosso, che si contrappone a un altro, di colore grigio, che solo il più imbranato del gruppo, Spartaco, dice di preferire.

La seconda linea narrativa è costruita attorno alle vicende sentimentali dei quattro giovani, e in particolare di Spartaco, fortemente attratto dalla giovane Ines, cameriera in un bar frequentato abitualmente dal gruppo. La scenografia del bar si lascia notare per una più marcata presenza di colori primari: alla sua prima apparizione la ragazza indossa una maglietta azzurro chiaro e una gonna bianca a pois rossi, gialli e blu, un abbigliamento decisamente più vivace rispetto alla gamma di bianchi, grigi e blu sfoggiata dagli uomini. Le mogli e le fidanzate degli altri tre personaggi maschili descrivono una gamma cromatica meno appariscente, formata da colori neutri o da tonalità più spente di azzurro, rosa e giallo; la presenza ricorrente di motivi a quadretti o a righe nei loro vestiti denota l’appartenenza a una dimensione domestica, al cui grigiore i protagonisti fanno di tutto per sottrarsi.

Negli anni che preludono al miracolo economico, il colore diviene anche un indicatore dei tempi nuovi. Le sequenze che implicano un più diretto riferimento allo svago o al consumo di beni sono caratterizzate da una più marcata presenza cromatica: dagli arredi del bar alle bibite colorate che è possibile acquistarvi, dai manifesti pubblicitari alle insegne degli esercizi commerciali, dal trampolino di una piscina alle giostre del luna park. Gli elementi di attrazione cromatica sono generalmente inglobati nel tessuto narrativo e giustificati sul piano diegetico. In questo modo il colore diviene un mezzo per esprimere la piena realizzazione di un ideale di vita consumistico e spensierato. Esso concorre a individuare gli oggetti del desiderio dei protagonisti (il furgoncino, la cassiera del bar, i luoghi di svago) e a definire le forze e le relazioni che guidano l’intreccio: il colore supporta il palinsesto narrativo ed emozionale del film.

Anche uno stile normalizzato comporta ovviamente il recupero delle tecniche di definizione spaziale del bianco e nero, ripensate alla luce dei vincoli e delle risorse del nuovo supporto. Un peculiare elemento di interesse del film è costituito dal recupero di una certa profondità di campo negli esterni, resa probabilmente meno complicata dalla più sensibile pellicola Eastmancolor. Alla profondità di campo visiva, tuttavia, non corrisponde mai una vera e propria composizione in profondità; anche se le figure tendono a rimanere distinte e separate dallo sfondo, quest’ultimo acquista una certa importanza, anche in ragione della necessità di sfruttare il maggiore spazio messo a disposizione dal Cinemascope³⁵.

Il film propone così una serie di scelte che vanno nella direzione di comporre uno stile più omogeneo. In questo modo, l’uso del colore si libera dagli investimenti puramente attrazionali e spettacolari, che sono confinati a momenti puntuali della narrazione. Allo stesso tempo, la rappresentazione a colori inizia ad appropriarsi di elementi realistici che in precedenza sono stati ritenuti più adatti al bianco e nero. Si mette così in moto un lento ma ininterrotto processo di espansione del visibile, che nel giro di una decina di anni fa del colore la forma più adeguata a esprimere le istanze di trasformazione sociale e culturale che investono il paese negli anni del boom economico. Vedute, oggetti, comportamenti e usi sociali costituiscono la materia prima narrativa di molto cinema popolare, che attraverso i generi di maggiore successo (come la commedia bozzettistica o il filone turistico e vacanziero) finisce per generare una saldatura sempre più forte tra colore e tempo presente.

³⁴ Sulla commedia degli anni Cinquanta, cfr. M. Grande, “Bozzetti e opere”, in G. Tinazzi (a cura di), Il cinema italiano degli anni Cinquanta, pp. 148–177 e il più recente P. Noto, Dal bozzetto ai generi. Il cinema italiano dei primi anni Cinquanta,, Torino, Kaplan, 2011.

³⁵ Tutte le spinte in direzione attrazionale sono convogliate ora verso la valorizzazione dello schermo largo, cfr. F. Vitella, “The critical style of early widescreen Italian cinema: attractional strategies and symbolic forms”, in E. Biasin, G. Bursi, L. Quaresima (a cura di), Lo stile cinematografico. Film Style, Udine, Forum, 2007, pp. 227–234.”

(Pierotti, Federico (2016): Un’archeologia del colore nel cinema italiano. Dal Technicolor ad Antonioni. Pisa: Edizioni ETS, on pp. 189–192.) (in Italian)

La risaia (ITA 1955, Raffaello Matarazzo)

“Un secondo esempio di stile normalizzato è rappresentato da La risaia (1955, negativo Eastmancolor stampato su Ferraniacolor, tavole a colori 23-25) con il quale Matarazzo dà continuità alla scelta del colore, già praticata con Vortice e La nave delle donne maledette (1953, Gevacolor), Giuseppe Verdi (1953, Ferraniacolor stampato Technicolor) e Torna! (1954, Ferraniacolor). Matarazzo sottopone il colore a un disciplinamento narrativo e semantico su cui vale la pena spendere alcune parole. Il personaggio al centro della narrazione è Elena, le cui virtù morali positive sono sottolineate da tinte chiare e tenui come il bianco, il lavanda chiaro o il rosa chiaro. In Gianni, invece, è la tuta blu da meccanico a denotare lo status di onesto lavoratore, in contrapposizione allo spendaccione e irresponsabile nipote del padrone, Mario, che fa il suo ingresso nel film a bordo di una fiammante cabriolet rossa. Anche in questo caso, il rosso ha evidenti legami semantici con edonismo, benessere e seduzione. Quando, in una delle sequenze iniziali, Mario offre un passaggio a Novara a Elena e ad altre ragazze, lo scenario urbano è connotato da pubblicità e manifesti vivacemente colorati. Al rosso della macchina sportiva si contrappone programmaticamente il grigio del lento ma efficiente auto rimorchio con cui Gianni va a recuperare i veicoli in panne, in una chiara figurazione di due stili di vita alternativi. In una logica narrativa che sembra rifarsi ai valori morali e religiosi della cromofobia³⁶, il colore si associa a situazioni in cui è offerto un appagamento subitaneo ma inautentico, come la velocità dell’auto di Mario, mentre l’incolore è chiamato a incarnare le istanze positive del lavoro e della famiglia.

L’articolazione dell’intreccio narrativo, basata sull’accumulo di situazioni drammatiche e di picchi emozionali, si traduce in una differenziazione stilistica maggiore di quella proposta in Racconti romani, caratterizzato da una maggiore omogeneità fotografica. E’attenzione al taglio delle inquadrature, ai movimenti di macchina e alla fotografia mostra che il punto di riferimento del film è costituito dal lavoro di Otello Martelli per Riso amaro (Giuseppe De Santis, 1949), ma il colore pone a Euciano Trasatti il problema di adeguare le tecniche del bianco e nero, in modo da ricreare quelle ridondanze formali di cui un melodramma popolare non può assolutamente fare a meno. È soprattutto attraverso questo processo di adeguamento che La risaia promuove la sua normalizzazione stilistica.

Il lavoro di Trasatti si può ricondurre a quattro modelli luministici: luce naturale per gli esterni della risaia e gli spazi contigui, eventualmente accompagnata da lampade di rinforzo per i piani ravvicinati; luce artificiale neutra diurna, ottenuta con fasci omogenei che colpiscono l’intero spazio del set, come nelle sequenze girate nella casa di Pietro; luce artificiale notturna, ottenuta sia in interni che in esterni con una minore intensità luminosa; luce artificiale drammatizzata, quando un basso livello di illuminazione è impiegato in momenti di particolare intensità drammatica.

Quest’ultima soluzione mostra un desiderio sempre più manifesto di assimilare le tecniche del bianco e nero. Trasatti e Matarazzo vi ricorrono nei momenti di agnizione, quando la madre di Elena rivela a Pietro che la ragazza vista nella risaia è sua figlia e nella sequenza risolutiva della morte di Mario, al termine della quale la ragazza scopre la verità sul conto del suo datore di lavoro. La presenza del colore è qui subordinata alla definizione tonale: il retrobottega del ristorante milanese presso cui è impiegata la donna a lungo cercata da Pietro sembra illuminato con poche lampade laterali e senza luci di riempimento; la stessa tecnica è utilizzata per illuminare il dormitorio in cui ha luogo l’accidentale uccisione di Mario, episodio caratterizzato da tagli di luce quasi espressionistici.

La disciplina dei colori primari e la drammatizzazione della luce sembrano asserire per il melodramma popolare italiano o almeno per la variante qui presa in esame – una via peculiare, sganciata dal modello hollywoodiano (Douglas Sirk) e in continuità con la tradizione del bianco e nero che aveva sancito le fortune del genere a partire da Catene. Nondimeno, La risaia fa emergere lo sforzo di arricchire il bagaglio tecnico e stilistico del colore con nuove soluzioni, per controbattere – con le parole di Giuseppe Rotunno – a “chi sentenziava che soltanto con le sfumature del bianco e nero si potevano girare film drammatici, mentre il colore era tutt’al più decorativo”³⁷.

³⁶ Cfr. D. Batchelor, Chromophobia, London, Reaktion, 2000 [trad. it. Cromofobia. Storia della paura del colore, Milano, Bruno Mondadori, 2001].

³⁷ Testimonianza di Giuseppe Rotunno riportata in G. Barlozzetti, S. Parigi, A. Prudenzi, C. Salizzato, Modi di produzione del cinema italiano. La Titanus, Roma, Di Giacomo, 1986, p. 45. Rotunno si riferisce qui a tutt’altro tipo di film, Cronaca familiare (Valerio Zurlini, 1962).”

(Pierotti, Federico (2016): Un’archeologia del colore nel cinema italiano. Dal Technicolor ad Antonioni. Pisa: Edizioni ETS, on pp. 192–194.) (in Italian)

Jigokumon/Gate of Hell (JPN 1953, Teinosuke Kinugasa)

“During the next years the proportion of color films gradually in-creased; language and technology of color steadily improved. With the widespread competition between movies and television in the early fifties and the invention of the wide screen, color was propelled into greater importance than ever before, resulting in a preponderance of color movies over black and white. Few filmmakers, however, made any imaginative use of color other than as an additive or for decorative value. Jones’s sharp break with “tradition” and his special emphasis on the mobility of color – sequences keyed to dominant harmonies and discords in a chromatic flow – were generally overlooked.

The single exception was a Japanese picture, Gate of Hell (1955). Responding chromatically to the heroic atmosphere of ancient Japan, Kinugasa designed dominant but subtle tonal patterns to model the mood of the scenes and underscore the character of the action. The color was not supplementary but an essential element of the structure, flowing smoothly and gracefully with a special kind of élan and radiance from part to part in contrapuntal relationships. From the opening red-orange harmonies depicting the chaos in the Imperial palace to the steely blues of the assassination scene – the story’s climax – the picture was a seamless tissue of color music with delicate psychological stresses and elegant harmonic rhythms.”

(Jacobs, Lewis (1970): The Mobility of Color. In: Lewis Jacobs (ed.): The Movies as Medium. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, pp. 189–196, on pp. 192–193.)

Les Parapluies de Cherbourg/The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (FRA 1964, Jacques Demy)

“Recent color films, styled from the painter’s palette, emphasize the sensual qualities of color to serve the foundation of film. The aim is to keep the spectator at a high pitch of involvement by an exuberant variety and richness of color, whose emotional effect springs from the intrinsic quality of color, independent of other film constituents. Here the specific sensation of color itself, pitched directly at the senses of the viewer, gives the image an ambience that has as much to do with the film’s appeal as the story, actors, or direction.

The brash, sugar-sweet musical The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) demonstrates an artful stylization of bright, bold, flat colors that suggests billboard posters, comic strips, and pop art. Its hard-edge, vivid, and often garish color patterns bluntly attack the senses in a way that is more visceral than intellectual, lending vivacity to a picture that is essentially a simplistic adolescent fantasy.”

(Jacobs, Lewis (1970): The Mobility of Color. In: Lewis Jacobs (ed.): The Movies as Medium. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, pp. 189–196, on pp. 193–194.)

A Man and a Woman (FRA 1966, Claude Lelouch)

“Recent color films, styled from the painter’s palette, emphasize the sensual qualities of color to serve the foundation of film. The aim is to keep the spectator at a high pitch of involvement by an exuberant variety and richness of color, whose emotional effect springs from the intrinsic quality of color, independent of other film constituents. Here the specific sensation of color itself, pitched directly at the senses of the viewer, gives the image an ambience that has as much to do with the film’s appeal as the story, actors, or direction.

The brash, sugar-sweet musical The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) demonstrates an artful stylization of bright, bold, flat colors that suggests billboard posters, comic strips, and pop art. Its hard-edge, vivid, and often garish color patterns bluntly attack the senses in a way that is more visceral than intellectual, lending vivacity to a picture that is essentially a simplistic adolescent fantasy.

A Man and a Woman (1966), frankly romantic, employs another kind of stylization. Its striking color progression is keyed to switching from scenes in full realistic color to monochrome scenes in sepia, blue, green, and other shades intended to reflect and deepen the currents of feeling between the two main characters and to heighten the viewer’s reaction by the multiplicity of hues and tints.”

(Jacobs, Lewis (1970): The Mobility of Color. In: Lewis Jacobs (ed.): The Movies as Medium. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, pp. 189–196, on pp. 193–194.)

Le Bonheur (FRA 1965, Agnès Varda)

“Recent color films, styled from the painter’s palette, emphasize the sensual qualities of color to serve the foundation of film. The aim is to keep the spectator at a high pitch of involvement by an exuberant variety and richness of color, whose emotional effect springs from the intrinsic quality of color, independent of other film constituents. Here the specific sensation of color itself, pitched directly at the senses of the viewer, gives the image an ambience that has as much to do with the film’s appeal as the story, actors, or direction.

The brash, sugar-sweet musical The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) demonstrates an artful stylization of bright, bold, flat colors that suggests billboard posters, comic strips, and pop art. Its hard-edge, vivid, and often garish color patterns bluntly attack the senses in a way that is more visceral than intellectual, lending vivacity to a picture that is essentially a simplistic adolescent fantasy.

A Man and a Woman (1966), frankly romantic, employs another kind of stylization. Its striking color progression is keyed to switching from scenes in full realistic color to monochrome scenes in sepia, blue, green, and other shades intended to reflect and deepen the currents of feeling between the two main characters and to heighten the viewer’s reaction by the multiplicity of hues and tints.

More lyrical in style are the sensuous color explorations of Le Bonheur (1965) and Elvira Madigan (1967), both bittersweet romantic stories of love. Virtually every shot in these films – one French, the other Swedish – pays homage to the French school of Impressionist painters, who employ colors intrinsically pleasing and harmonized to yield effects of light and simple physical charm. The use of delicate pastel shades to render the shimmering atmosphere of parks, fields, and flower-blown meadows, tenderly blurred out of focus to accentuate the unity of man and nature, emotionalizes for the viewer the romantic dreams and reveries of unhappy lovers. Ethereal and delicate tonalities of imagery in great measure intensify the poignancy of the sentimental situations but give little recognition to color progression from scene to scene.”

(Jacobs, Lewis (1970): The Mobility of Color. In: Lewis Jacobs (ed.): The Movies as Medium. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, pp. 189–196, on pp. 193–194.)

Elvira Madigan (SWE 1967, Bo Widerberg)

“Recent color films, styled from the painter’s palette, emphasize the sensual qualities of color to serve the foundation of film. The aim is to keep the spectator at a high pitch of involvement by an exuberant variety and richness of color, whose emotional effect springs from the intrinsic quality of color, independent of other film constituents. Here the specific sensation of color itself, pitched directly at the senses of the viewer, gives the image an ambience that has as much to do with the film’s appeal as the story, actors, or direction.

The brash, sugar-sweet musical The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) demonstrates an artful stylization of bright, bold, flat colors that suggests billboard posters, comic strips, and pop art. Its hard-edge, vivid, and often garish color patterns bluntly attack the senses in a way that is more visceral than intellectual, lending vivacity to a picture that is essentially a simplistic adolescent fantasy.

A Man and a Woman (1966), frankly romantic, employs another kind of stylization. Its striking color progression is keyed to switching from scenes in full realistic color to monochrome scenes in sepia, blue, green, and other shades intended to reflect and deepen the currents of feeling between the two main characters and to heighten the viewer’s reaction by the multiplicity of hues and tints.

More lyrical in style are the sensuous color explorations of Le Bonheur (1965) and Elvira Madigan (1967), both bittersweet romantic stories of love. Virtually every shot in these films – one French, the other Swedish – pays homage to the French school of Impressionist painters, who employ colors intrinsically pleasing and harmonized to yield effects of light and simple physical charm. The use of delicate pastel shades to render the shimmering atmosphere of parks, fields, and flower-blown meadows, tenderly blurred out of focus to accentuate the unity of man and nature, emotionalizes for the viewer the romantic dreams and reveries of unhappy lovers. Ethereal and delicate tonalities of imagery in great measure intensify the poignancy of the sentimental situations but give little recognition to color progression from scene to scene.”

(Jacobs, Lewis (1970): The Mobility of Color. In: Lewis Jacobs (ed.): The Movies as Medium. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, pp. 189–196, on pp. 193–194.)

“Les Problèmes du cinéma en couleurs français

par Maurice Déribéré

Chef du Centre d’Eclairagisme de la Compagnie des Lampes, Secrétaire Général du Centre d’Information de la Couleur.

[…]

Il existe en effet actuellement une évolution rapide du cinéma en couleurs en France, et cette évolution ne va pas sans poser un certain nombre de problèmes d’une actualité et d’une importance sans doute différentes, mais qui méritent assurément examen et ce d’autant plus qu’une réorganisation et une réadaptation entrent dans le cadre des appels lancés de divers côtés, pour lutter contre les dangers qui menacent cette industrie.

DU CHOIX D’UN PROCEDE

Ce problème est le premier qui se pose nu producteur venant de décider de tourner un film en couleurs. Le nombre croissant des procédés proposés n’est pas fait pour le simplifier et, ce qui n’arrange rien, ces procédés se classent dans des séries fort différentes en leurs principes.

Sans doute existe-t-il des partisans convaincus des procédés en couleurs qui utilisent le film, noir et blanc, d’où l’utilisation a la prise de vue d’un matériel de grande sensibilité facile à manier, économique… mais sujétion de procédés de tirages ou de projection, selon les cas, très particuliers. En fait si le Technicolor a pris la place que l’on connait dans la pratique, d’autres procédés comme le Rouxcolor, le Thomascolor, le Pinchart, le Dick Nicollian, l’Opticolor, le Thomsoncolor, n’ont pu à ce jour se développer davantage que de plus anciens procédés comme le Gaumont.

D’autres sont des partisans non moins convaincus de la prise de vue directe en couleurs, et le Gevacolor, l’Agfacolor, le Ferraniacolor et, plus récemment, l’Eastman Color qui apporte à ces procédés des modalités de détail d’un intérêt tout particulier, ont en fait pris de leur côté une place des plus intéressantes.

Cette simple énumération n’est certes pas complète, et ne le sera pas davantage, lorsque nous aurons ajouté le Gasparcolor, le Réalcolor, le Radiocolor, le Mondialcolor, le Chimicolor et quelques autres encore.

En fait, d’une manière assez paradoxale, on peut dire que c’est le procédé type utilisant le film noir et blanc, c’est-à-dire le Technicolor, qui apparaît le plus complexe, les films Gevacolor et Eastman color étant d’utilisation et de traitement plus souple et plus simple.

Expliquons-nous: Le Technicolor, utilisé depuis 1925 et qui bénéficie donc d’une solide pratique, utilise à la prise de vues trois bandes de film négatif noir et blanc. Un système sélecteur utilisant trois filtres rouge, vert et bleu, permet d’enregistrer une couleur primaire sur chacun des films. De ceux-ci on tire trois positifs sur un film matrice qui donnera, après développement, un mince relief de gélatine que l’on colore. Ce sont ces reliefs matrices colorés qui vont “décharger” leur colorant successivement, au tirage, sur un film gélatiné qui “prend” ainsi la copie positive trichrome pour la projection. Il s’agit d’une véritable technique d’imprimerie avec la délicatesse des transferts et des repérages. Pourtant c’est dans le travail des matrices que reposent surtout les secrets de fabrication, et c’est une des raisons pour laquelle Technicolor impose que tous les travaux de développement des films et de copies soient effectués par ses laboratoires selon des règles très strictes et qui impliquent, à toutes les phases du travail, en commençant par la prise de vue, des cahiers des charges précis et même rigoureux.

Le travail direct par contre est surtout un travail chimique de développement.

Faire un positif direct comme en Kodachrome reste du domaine de l’amateur, et il n’apparait pas pour le moment, malgré les progrès constants dans la réalisation de copies positives de telles bandes, qu’il puisse s’imposer dans le domaine professionnel.

On préfère en effet réaliser un négatif qui servira de matrice au tirage de copies positives.

Alors que le négatif Gevacolor est transposé en positif par simule copie sur une bande analogue, l’Eastman Color utilise également des films distincts mais des coupleurs colorés, ce qui facilite les corrections à la reproduction et assure déjà par la simple copie un rendu des couleurs bien supérieures. Le développement chromogène de films en couleurs à colorants incorpores est compliqué par des phénomènes d’absorption de ces colorants, ce qui nuit au rendu correct des couleurs lors de la copie d’un négatif sur un positif couleur. C’est ainsi que l’image bleu-vert qui est supposée absorber totalement le rouge et lui seulement, absorbe cependant en fait un peu de bleu et de vert. Il en est de même pour le magenta qui ne devrait absorber que le vert. Pour éviter ou réduire les effets de ces absorptions chevauchantes, on peut recourir à des “masques”. Le procédé Eastman Color consiste précisément à incorporer au négatif des coupleurs colorés qui constituent des “masques” automatiques et qui corrigent les absorptions indésirables.

Un négatif ainsi corrigé montre une coloration générale jaune-orangé, qui est la somme des absorptions indésirables. Au moment du tirage une correction appropriée élimine cette dominante systématique. Par ailleurs, de très faible granulation et de définition élevée, l’Eastman Color marque bien semble-t-il un nouvel échelon vers la perfection dans la reproduction cinématographique des couleurs.

Le négatif matrice Eastman Color peut, bien entendu, être reproduit dans les divers procédés comme ce fut le cas pour le Sacre d’Elisabeth qui fut recopié en Gevacolor.

L’ECLAIRAGE

Avec l’éclairage, nous touchons un problème technique d’une importance non moins fondamentale que celui de l’émulsion. La photographie est l’art de dessiner avec la lumière; lorsque les photographies se succèdent, il en va de même mais, lorsque l’on passe du noir et blanc qui implique le dosage en quantité, à la couleur, il faut aussi obtenir une qualité de lumière appropriée à l’émulsion.

Tout photographe sait aujourd’hui manier le film “lumière du jour” ou le film “lumière artificielle” selon qu’il opère dans la lumière naturelle du soleil ou celle de lampes à incandescence. Par les rendus plus ou moins chauds aux heures avancées du jour ou par les teintes lumineuses différentes de lampes plus ou moins poussées, il a acquis la notion de température de couleur qui devient ici essentielle.

En studio l’on utilise des émulsions du type “lumière artificielle” qui possèdent l’intérêt d’une sensibilité plus grande et d’un équilibre plus proche des sources. Encore convient-il que celles-ci soient telles que leur courbe spectrale de répartition lumineuse s’adapte exactement à la sensibilité spectrale du film. Cette exigence a conduit à la récente mise au point, en France, de nouvelles lampes à température de couleur 3.200° K spécialement équilibrées. Ces lampes ont été utilisées d’abord pour les prises de vues de Lucrèce Borgia en Technicolor et d’Alerte au Sud, en Gevacolor, aux Studios de Billancourt, puis des Trois Mousquetaires à Saint-Maurice. Enfin de la quasi totalité des films en couleurs qui furent tournés depuis, dans les divers procédés. Elles prennent place dès à présent dans l’équipement moderne des studios, aussi bien du reste pour la photographie en couleurs que pour le cinéma.

C’est là un événement notable car, en s’engageant dans la voie de la couleur, les producteurs et les réalisateurs français de films ne font que suivre un mouvement impératif provoqué par le désir du public. Mais le public français est difficile sur ce point et il fallait à la fois du courage et une technique très sûre pour assurer cette adaptation.

Le film du metteur en scène Christian Jaque Lucrèce Borgia, deuxième grand Technicolor français, fut en fait le premier tourné avec du matériel uniquement français. Il marqua à ce titre une véritable étape dans l’histoire du cinéma et, avant tout, une victoire technique fort remarquable.

Lorsque la production en débuta, le problème de la couleur était un très gros souci pour les studios français. En effet, tel qu’il se présentait, il exigeait des investissements élevés, nécessités par trois conditions impératives:

1° L’augmentation de la puissance des centrales électriques;

2° L’achat important de projecteurs;

3° La location de lampes spéciales existant seulement aux U.S.A. ou en Angleterre.

Dans ces conditions, les producteurs réalisant des films en couleurs se voyaient non seulement contraints de travailler dans les rares studios ayant la puissance électrique désirée, mais de surcroît ils devaient faire venir un important matériel ‘d’éclairage de l’étranger, ce qui entraînait des frais élevés, voire prohibitifs.

Lorsque fut décidée la réalisation du film Lucrèce Borgia avec le procédé Technicolor, le directeur de la photographie, Christian Matras, communiqua à la direction des Studios de Billancourt les conditions techniques d’éclairage imposées par la Société Technicolor. La principale consistait à obtenir de toutes les lampes à incandescence une température de couleur égale ou jamais inférieure à 3.200° K.

Après un certain nombre d’essais, les studios firent appel sur les instigations de la “Lumière Electrique” qui assurait la fourniture des lampes incluses dans les projecteurs Crémer spéciaux, aux services techniques de la Compagnie des Lampes, dont les ingénieurs, comprenant l’intérêt national du problème qui leur était posé, se mirent immédiatement au travail.

Ils réussirent à mettre au point, dans des délais rapides, une lampe répondant en tous ponts aux désidérata de Technicolor, cependant fort précis et répondant à des cahiers des charges particulièrement difficiles, dont nous avons indiqué plus haut les raisons.

Dans le rapport moral présenté fin 1953 à la Commission Supérieure technique du Cinéma par notre ami Fred Orain, Président de la Commission et qui a bien voulu présider aujourd’hui cette séance, celui-ci écrivait:

Le problème du matériel d’éclairage pour les films en couleurs préoccupait beaucoup les techniciens français qui ne disposaient dans nos studios ni d’arcs automatiques, ni de lampes à incandescence à température de couleur suffisante pour les nouveaux procédés.

La situation s’aggravait du fait qu’il fallait envisager l’importation, non seulement de lampes, mais de projecteurs complets, les lampes étrangères ayant d’autres dispositifs de fixation que les nôtres.

Les caractéristiques des lampes nécessaires purent ainsi être établies avec accord du Contrôle Technique de la C.S.T. et des Studios de Billancourt dont l’effort mérite d’être signalé.

La Compagnie des Lampes réalisa le tour de force d’en entreprendre immédiatement la fabrication.

Et le 20 janvier 1953, la Commission Prise de vues pouvait organiser une réunion particulièrement importante à laquelle participaient plus d’une centaine de techniciens notamment les principaux chefs opérateurs intéressés par la couleur. La Commission Prise de vues put faire une démonstration du nouveau matériel d’éclairage en service, comportant uniquement de nouvelles lampes françaises, type couleur 3.200° Kelvin.

Quelques jours plus tard, les rapports des laboratoires prônaient la qualité des prises de vues effectuées avec ce matériel, marquant ainsi l’importance d’une réussite industrielle française propre à assurer le prestige des techniciens français dans le monde.

Ces nouvelles lampes sont dotées des caractéristiques nécessaires aux prises de vues, en couleurs, quel que soit le procédé employé.

La Commission Prises de vues peut ainsi assurer que, grâce à ces lampes, les opérateurs disposent d’un matériel entièrement français convenant à tous les procédés de prises de vues en couleurs, même et surtout les plus modernes.

Et un peu plus loin, il ajoutait:

Au cours de plusieurs séances, un programme fut adopté pour améliorer le matériel existant en fonction de la couleur, ce matériel devant aussi servir éventuellement pour le noir et blanc.

[…]

C’est ainsi que devant la Commission Supérieure Technique fut présenté un nouveau matériel léger spécial de haute qualité, le Cinéflash Dimaphot utilisant des lampes spéciales de 24 volts et assurant, avec une batterie légère à l’argent, une autonomie de 40 minutes de prise de vue.

Ce matériel fort remarquable constitue un gros progrès, non seulement sur le plan national, mais aussi international. Les Actualités Françaises l’utilisant, il servit à Jackie Ertaud à la Pierre-Saint-Martin et c’est un auxiliaire précieux des spéléologues, des explorateurs (l’expédition Marquette vient d’en emporter un dans les pays Incas ou elle séjourne présentement). Mais c’est aussi un appoint fort utile pour bien des prises de vues et qui servit de la sorte dans le film Eastman Color de Sacha Guitry Si Versailles m’était conté.

Pour en revenir aux lamps 3.200° type cinéma qui marquent assurément le plus gros progrès dans le domaine éclairage, précisons qu’à l’usage, il s’avéra que ces lampes donnaient toute satisfaction mais que, de surcroît, leur consommation était inférieure à celle du matériel étranger, tout en dépassant naturellement celle des lampes utilisées pour le film blanc et noir. Grâce à un conditionnement judicieux des éclairages et à l’excellente technique du Directeur de la photographie, Christian Matras, la consommation de lumière pour l’ensemble de Lucrèce Borgia fut sensiblement égale à celle d’un film ordinaire monochrome.

Cette victoire technique groupant en fait les bonnes volontés et les efforts conjugués des producteurs, du metteur en scène, des opérateurs et des fabricants de lampes, constituera dans l’histoire du cinéma en couleurs français, un tournant essentiel que nous avons cru bon de préciser par quelques interviews des principaux intéressés. Nous donnons ci-dessous ces divers points de vue:

M. Gérardot, Directeur des Studios de Billancourt et Président des Directeurs de Studios:

Quand le problème de celle réalisation s’est posé, j’étais très anxieux, car iI fallait, dans un délai très bref, mettre au point tout un matériel nouveau. Le but poursuivi a été largement atteint en un temps record.

Je suis, quant à moi, particulièrement sensible aux résultats obtenus grâce à la haute compétence des techniciens de la Compagnie des Lampes Mazda, car, sans aucune surcharge de ma centrale électrique, ce film a pu être exécuté dans des conditions économiques remarquables. Désormais, la difficulté qu’était pour nous l’utilisation des lampes à arc est définitivement écartée, et nous avons, à la portée de la main, des lampes idéales pour les prises de vues en couleurs.

Je suis heureux que le premier film en Technicolor, tourné en France avec du matériel entièrement français, l’ait été dans nos studios.

M. Cosne, co-producteur, membre de la Commission Supérieure Technique du Cinéma:

C’est grâce aux Lampes Mazda que nous avons pu tourner Lucrèce Borgia avec du matériel français. A cette satisfaction d’amour-propre national, se joint pour nous la suppression des aléas et des frais qui étaient une sujétion du matériel étranger jusqu’ici imposé par le procédé Technicolor.

Ce procédé doit prendre désormais une place importante dans la production nationale. Une usine Technicolor française est en projet et le fait que la Compagnie des Lampes nous ait aidés aussi rapidement à assurer la réussite technique, a étonné les Anglais et facilitera considérablement cet établissement et par suite, l’essor du film français en couleur.

M. Christian Jaque, metteur en scène:

Je remercie la Compagnie des Lampes d’avoir, avec tant de diligence et de perfection, réalisé les lampes spéciales qui nous ont permis de tourner Lucrèce Borgia et d’établir une technique de travail très sûre.

De Martine Carol enfin, le point de vue de l’artiste:

Notre grand souci, c’est la sauvegarde de nos yeux. Les projecteurs sont bien éblouissants, mais quel changement avec les lampes à arc. Il est bien plus agréable de travailler sous les nouvelles lampes à incandescence.

M. Christian Matras, chef opérateur, membre de la Commission Supérieure Technique du Cinéma, président de la Commission de Prises de vues a déclaré de son côté et c’est le point de vue essentiel de l’utilisateur le plus direct:

Pour les prises de vues en couleurs au studio, j’ai toujours été partisan du travail avec les lampes à incandescence de maniement plus souple que les lampes à arc, mais il nous fallait des lampes spécialement adaptées à nos projecteurs et de température de couleur équilibrée pour le film Technicolor. Ayant remarqué lors des essais que j’ai effectués à Londres, qu’une faible marge de transposition serait sans doute nécessaire, pourvu que de surcroît les lampes répondent à des conditions de robustesse et de tolérance convenables, le problème soumis à la Commission Supérieure Technique, et à la direction des Studios de Billancourt fut étudié par la Compagnie des Lampes Mazda à qui nous avons fait part de nos désirs et de nos nécessités. J’ai trouvé la meilleure compréhension de ses services techniques et les lampes réalisées nous permettent aujourd’hui d’équiper tous les projecteurs de nos studios, tant pour le Technicolor, du reste, que pour les autres procédés couleur.

Ce véritable tour de force, étant donné les délais d’étude et de réalisation joints aux difficultés techniques posées nous a été très sensible, car c’était un problème capital. Pour faire agréer le nouvel éclairage par Technicolor, il fallait d’emblée présenter à ses services techniques de Londres des résultats convenables. Ceux-ci ont été si probants qu’ils ont surpris agréablement et ont été aussitôt acceptés et intégrés dans les normes du procédé.

A la suite de ce premier succès, et presque simultanément, c’est au moyen des mêmes lampes spéciales, dites 3.200° que furent tournées les scènes en studio du film Alerte au Sud, par M. Joulin, chef opérateur, qui nous en dit également sa satisfaction.

Il s’agissait cette fois du procédé Gevacolor. La température des lampes se montra cette fois encore parfaitement adaptée à ce film, tout comme au Kodachrome “lumière artificielle” qui nous a servi à prendre les vues que nous projetterons en annexe à cette conférence. Ces vues ont été réalisées sur Kodachrome type A et sont parfaitement indicatives à cet égard. Mais alors que le Technicolor nécessitait des éclairements faibles de 2.700 à 3.500 lux sur les plateaux, c’est à environ 9.000 lux que furent tournées les scènes d’Alerte au Sud. Le travail du photographe de plateau s’en trouvait singulièrement facilité. Alors que pour Lucrèce Borgia, il fallait travailler aux grandes ouvertures (f : 2,8 à f : 3) à 1/25 à 1/10 de seconde, ce qui rendaient malaisées les prises de vues de mouvement, les plus intéressantes, pourtant, des opérations, f : 4 à f : 5,6 à 1/25 ou 1/50 de seconde, devinrent possibles lors des prises de vues d’ Alerte au Sud et des Trois Mousquetaires, où Marcel Grignon utilisa des éclairements parfois plus élevés encore et atteignant souvent 12.000 lux.

Si nous avons retrouvé ces éclairements dans d’autres films Gevacolor, tels Le Comte de Monte-Cristo, tourné aux Studios de Billancourt par Robert Vernay qui, il y a déjà quelques années, en avait donné une première version en noir et blanc, par contre, l’Eastman Color est tourné avec des éclairements un peu plus discrets: 6 à 7.000 lux pour Si Versailles m’était conté, The Thrill of your Life, Les Révoltés de Lomanach…

Tous ces films et d’autres encore comme Le Grand Jeu, Sang et Lumière ont utilisé les lampes Mazda 3.200° K dont les types actuels sont les suivants:

• 2 types sphériques de forte puissance 115 V – 2.000 et 5.000 W, utilisés dans des projecteurs ampoule claire, comportant un culot “à broches type bipost”, permettant le remplacement de la lampe sans nouveau réglage du projecteur, évitant toute perte de temps (diamètre des broches: 11 mm, hauteur: 28 mm, écartement: 38 mm).

• 1 type sphérique 115 V – 1.000 W – épiscope avec miroir interne, utilisé dans des projecteurs.

• 1 type forme série standard Mazdastudio en ampoule dépolie intérieurement 115 V – 500 W, utilisé dans des portants.

Leurs dimensions sont les suivantes:

Les caractéristiques de fabrication sont les suivantes:

• La construction et la disposition des différentes parties du montage interne ont été conçues spécialement pour que ces lampes puissent résister aux nombreuses manipulations plus ou moins brutales auxquelles elles sont inévitablement soumises sur les plateaux de prises de vues; les entrées de courant, servant de supports à l’ensemble de la monture interne, ont une grande robustesse qui en assure l’indéformabilité.

• La qualité du filament a fait l’objet de travaux spéciaux; grâce à des traitements thermiques appropriés, ils n’accusent aucune déformation en cours d’utilisation bien que les projecteurs de studios fonctionnent dans des positions très diverses et le plus souvent défavorables au maintien d’une source lumineuse bien plane.

• Le mode de fixation du culot sur l’ampoule offre toutes garanties malgré la température élevée à laquelle sont soumises les lampes dans les projecteurs, les chocs fréquents qu’elles ont à supporter et les changements de lampes d’un projecteur à l’autre.

• Enfin, les caractéristiques des filaments ont été spécialement calculées pour que, à la tension nominale de fabrication, ils fonctionnent toujours au moins à la température de couleur de 3.200° K qu’il est absolument nécessaire de respecter pour obtenir un rendu correct des couleurs; il est d’ailleurs à remarquer que cette température de couleur diminue peu pendant la vie de la lampe, ce qui constitue un avantage très appréciable.

A cette température de couleur correspond la courbe spectrale ci-après.

Malgré la température élevée de fonctionnement des filaments, il a été possible, grâce à des perfectionnements de fabrication, d’atteindre des durées pratiques suffisantes, même pour les positions de fonctionnement très variées auxquelles doivent satisfaire les lampes dans les studios de cinéma. D’ailleurs, si l’on s’efforce autant que possible d’effectuer les réglages à une tension inférieure à la tension normale et si l’on prend soin de ne les faire fonctionner à leur tension nominale qu’au moment du tournage, on économise ainsi sur la consommation d’électricité et on prolonge la durée des lampes.

Grâce à leur rendement élevé, ces lampes, pour une même consommation, donnent plus de lumière et cette lumière est, en outre, plus actinique; la quantité de lumière nécessaire pour obtenir un résultat donné peut dont être nettement réduite. Utilisées pour la réalisation de films noir et blanc, elles permettent donc des économies substantielles de courant.

LA LIAISON RELIEF, SON COULEUR

Le cinéma complet de demain assurera sans doute aux spectateurs, n’en déplaise aux esprits chagrins qui déniaient, hier, l’intérêt de la couleur et, quelques années auparavant celui du son, une impression de réalité aussi complète que possible.

A ce titre, la couleur devra s’évader de l’impression de fenêtre par le grand écran panoramique et se compléter à la projection par le relief et par un accompagnement parlé et musical en stéréophonie.

[…]

La stéréophonie, innovée en France par Abel Gance, a fait des progrès que les spectacles lumineux et sonores de Versailles et, surtout, de Chambord et de Villandry, ont par ailleurs bien mis en évidence. Son adaptation au cinéma sous une forme maintenant perfectionnée semble aisée.

Le relief, par contre, pose d’autre problèmes plus complexes et assez éloignés encore d’une solution parfaite. Sans doute le 3-D est particulièrement à l’ordre du jour.

Le découpage par tranches d’un couple stéréoscopique par anaglyphes bleu-jaune, que concevait Lumière pour le noir et blanc, a été tenté en forme plus complexe: bleu-jaune pour une image, rouge-vert pour une autre. Une telle technique est aussi largement dépassée que l’ancien Technicolor… bicolore. La projection en deux images polarisées à 90° avec lunettes polaroïds pour les spectateurs, inflige à ceux-ci le port des lunettes. Beaucoup de ceux qui ont assisté en France aux projections de L’Homme au masque de cire ont pourtant fort bien accepté cette sujétion. Le procédé s’applique parfaitement bien, en effet, à la couleur. Les démonstrations de couleur-relief avec stéréophonie faites au Festival de Londres avaient déjà été, elles aussi, parfaitement concluantes.

Le procédé à trame Savoye, qui s’apparente fort au procédé russe dont on parle tant… périodiquement, et mieux encore le procédé de relief intégral de Maurice Bonnet, nous apporteront peut-être enfin une solution de choix.

Ceci ne doit pas nous faire oublier le complément ou, si l’on veut, l’autre condition, non unique mais elle-même indispensable à l’impression réelle du relief qui est l’écran panoramique.

Le triple écran de Gance et Debrie date de 1927; l’hypergonar du Professeur Chrétien avait été présenté publiquement à Paris dans le cadre de l’Exposition de 1937. Et c’est d’Amérique que nous viennent le Cinémascope qui n’est autre que l’adaptation pratique de l’hypergonar et le Cinérama aux trois optiques couvrant un champ de 146°.

Nous savons que le Cinémascope, qui impose bien entendu une technique de prise de vue assez particulière et un choix des sujets qui tienne compte du procédé, a été, d’emblée, compris et supérieurement adapté et utilisé par un cinéaste français, Marcel Ichac.

Quant au Cinérama, s’il n’a pas, à notre connaissance, été tenté, et pour cause, par des techniciens français, ceux-ci viennent pourtant d’apprendre à le connaître grâce au film américain The Thrill of your Life qui est la dernière production de Louis de Rochemont en cours de tournage en Europe et aux Etats-Unis par deux équipes différentes. Il s’agit d’un film réalisé selon le procédé Cinérama, et qui fut inspiré par un numéro spécial de la revue “Réalités”, consacré aux Etats-Unis. Il s’agit du numéro d’août 1953, intitulé “Des yeux neufs découvrent les Etats-Unis”, reportage de Pierre et Renée Gosset.

Louis de Rochemont est un des deux fondateurs et le producteur de March of Time. Son film The Fighting Lady qui fut réalisé pendant la guerre, a reçu un “Academy Award”. Depuis la guerre, il a produit The House on 92nd Street, Lost Boundaries et Boomerang qui connurent un grand succès aux Etats-Unis. Son dernier film Martin Luther qui passe actuellement aux Etats-Unis a été reconnu par le “National Board of Motion Picture Review” comme l’un des meilleurs films de l’année. […]

Il n’existe actuellement que trois caméras Cinérama à triple objectif; deux d’entre elles ont été utilisées à Paris.

L’équipe de The Thrill of Your Life, qui est venue en Europe, est munie d’un convoi de trois camions spécialement aménagés pour le transport du matériel stéréophonique et de prises de vue, lesquelles s’effectuent en Eastman Color. Nous eûmes l’occasion de voir, lors du travail de cette équipe, que les Américains ont souvent des conceptions tout autres que les Français en ce qui concerne la rigueur des contrôles et la discipline dans le tournage proprement dit.

Le metteur en scène du film The Thrill of Your Life est Robert Bendick, un des co-producteurs du premier film Cinérama This is Cinerama, qui connaît tant de succès aux Etats-Unis; l’équipe américaine, dont le chef opérateur est Joe Brun et l’ingénieur du son Richard Pietschman, est secondée par un groupe de techniciens français. En particulier, c’est la Société “Son et Lumière”, conduite avec dynamisme par M. Bérard, qui a assuré l’éclairage avec des projecteurs Mole, Cremer, Dimaphot, équipés des nouvelles lampes spéciales françaises Mazda 3200° dont nous avons précédemment parlé. Ce sont les groupes spéciaux “Son et Lumière” à régulation automatique qui assuraient l’alimentation.

[…]

Il n’existe encore en Europe aucune salle équipée pour la projection des films Cinerama, mais il est prévu que trois capitales européennes disposeront chacune d’une salle Cinerama pour la projection de The Thrill of Your Life d’ici la fin de l’année.

LES ACCESSOIRES DE CONTROLE A LA PRISE DE VUES

Nous avons dit plus haut avoir constaté, lors des prises de vues effectuées par l’équipe américaine de The Thrill of Your Life, une rigueur dans les contrôles que certains metteurs en scène et opérateurs pourraient méditer. Nous nous hâtons, du reste, de préciser qu’il s’agit seulement de certains et que d’autres, au contraire, tels Christian Matras et ceux qui, à la suite de cet excellent président de la Commission de Prises de vue, à la Commission Supérieure Technique du Cinéma, ont compris l’importance du contrôle, participent pleinement à la belle qualité actuelle du film français.

Reste le matériel mis à leur disposition.

La prise de vue en couleurs impose un contrôle rigoureux et constant, non seulement de la quantité de lumière distribuée, mais aussi de sa qualité. Pour la quantité, il existe d’excellents luxmètres, mais pour la qualité, il convient de reconnaître que l’on attend encore un thermocolorimètre simple, à la fois précis et sûr, dont les indications ne dépendent pas de l’utilisateur. Il existe actuellement trop de thermocolimètres et trop d’interprétations possibles de leurs lectures.

LE MATERIEL

Il est encourageant de constater que le matériel de prise de vue comme celui de tirage et de copie a magnifiquement suivi l’effort qui lui était demandé et que là, en fait, le problème a été, pour ainsi dire, résolu aussitôt que posé. Il n’est pas douteux qu’une initiative comme celle de la création chez Debrie d’un Centre d’Etude de la Couleur et celle d’un Laboratoire de recherches pour la couleur, où se tinrent, en octobre dernier, trois importantes journées d’études, sont symptomatiques à cet égard. Sur le plan de la pratique, il en est résulté, du reste, un matériel couleur bien conçu, bien adapté et mieux connu par ceux qui ont ou qui auront à l’utiliser.

Des procédés de développement à turbulence ou a jet selon une technique bien précisée en France par Lovichi, des Laboratoires Kodak, sont à mettre également au bilan de ce chapitre très satisfaisant.

LE DECOR

Le problème de la couleur du décor, des costumes, n’est plus un problème technique à proprement parler. C’est plutôt un problème artistique. Il a pourtant son importance dans le cadre d’une manifestation du Centre d’Information de la Couleur qui se préoccupe, et c’est son rôle, de tout ce qui concerne la couleur.

En fait, c’est un problème essentiel vis-à-vis du public.

Pourtant, celui-ci, qui a souvent et longuement critiqué les couleurs un peu brutales du Technicolor américain, s’est-il bien aperçu de la discrétion de celles que Christian Jaque a adoptées dans Lucrèce Borgia? Goûtera-t-il la valeur artistique des nuances pastel de Si Versailles m’était conté? Ceci n’empêchant nullement de profiter de certains sujets colorés qui s’imposent comme dans Les Trois Mousquetaires.

Peu à peu, le public s’est fait aux, couleurs conçues pour le public américain. Qu’on le veuille ou non, il faudra le réadapter à plus de finesse et à un goût typiquement français.

Et nous en arrivons ainsi à une conclusion générale qui ne peut manquer de nous apparaître fort sympathique: c’est que le cinéma en couleur français est bien armé et peut tenir une place de premier rang. Nos techniciens et nos artistes sont, en effet, parfaitement capables d’une réussite.

[…] Dans le pays de la mesure et du goût, dans le pays de Descartes et de Chevreul, le cinéma en couleur et, un peu plus avant, le cinéma intégral, auront leur place et celle-ci sera de qualité.”

(Déribéré, Maurice (1954): Les problèmes du cinéma en couleurs français. In: Technique Cinématographique, 25,145, pp. 185–189.) (in French)

“The new thinking is that color, particularly as it is applied to family and social melodrama, must be re-conceptualized. The consistent note struck in interviews with Sirk, Preminger, George Cukor, and – overseas – with Renoir and Max Ophüls, is that color must be expressive. These directors grow interested in deliberately discordant or arbitrary color combinations, taking colors out of familiar contexts in order to draw attention to them.

Sirk in particular, had great ambitions for color in melodrama. When properly applied, he claimed, color had therapeutic, healing power. It could be used to manipulate the emotions as effectively as music – help generate tears, soothe, and exhilarate.³² And in a genre often synonymous with emotional duress, it’s unsurprising that the leading directors would suddenly want to search for color’s melodramatic possibilities.

The idea that colors have emotional values that an artist may manipulate is a very old one that extends at least to Goethe, the German Romantics, and the Theosophists. Kalmus herself intertwined color’s emotional power with its symbolic associations [i.e., “Yellow and gold symbolize wisdom, light, fruition… but also deceit, jealousy, [and] inconstancy in its darker shades, particularly when tinged with green… Magenta is very distinctly materialistic. It is showy, arrogant, and vain.”]³³

But by the start of the 1950s the psychological claims for color had grown even more extravagant. Among psychologists themselves there was [and remains] common agreement that color has neither an absolute perceptual base nor an absolute emotional meaning.³⁴ But professional skepticism notwithstanding, fascination with color psychology reached across a broad range of technical, and popular journals. It can be argued, in fact, that the 50s became the last decade in which the public shared a widespread interest in color theory, color therapy and color ideology. In the sciences, the medical profession acted directly on many such claims. For the first time, color was installed in hospital rooms to speed recovery: red chambers for depressives, yellow for hysterical paralytics, blue for the violent.³⁵ Doctors experimented with prescribing green or blue eyeglasses for patients suffering certain nervous disorders. [Fig 42]

Hospital clinics replaced white with bluish green surgical smocks and theatre walls on the grounds that it helped improve the concentration of doctors. In the medicine cabinet, pills and capsules were color coded to improve identification. Children’s medicine was being colored to help create emotional associations with candy.

Working along similar lines, school boards experimented with yellow chalk on green blackboards, while in factories engineers were painting colors onto moving machine parts to diminish fatigue and improve industrial safety.³⁶

And where science and psychology led, could business enterprise not follow, seeing in color a hidden persuader with mysterious psychic power? A new profession emerged: the color engineer who could be hired to show department stores, magazine publishers, retail manufacturers, the appliance industry, and supermarkets how to increase sales.³⁷ [Fig 43]

Detroit hired color designers too, on the same theory that color made cars more alluring and more sensuous. By the mid-50s the all-black car was all but dead, according to Business Week, with sales down from 25% in 1950 to less than 5% in 1955. The country had entered the era of the two-tone, cherry red, and angel white.³⁸ [Fig 44]

Perhaps inevitably, color entered the realm of clinical psychology where, it was claimed, personalities could be categorized according to color preferences. This notion had already penetrated the popular press by the end of the First World War, but by the 1950s had been incorporated into various psychology tests.³⁹ [Fig 45]

It was in this atmosphere that film directors, assuming that color would soon be as pervasive as it was inevitable, cast about for new color applications in their films.

In Ivan the Terrible‘s color sequences, Eisenstein had already experimented with Expressionist colors to hint at inner states of mind, drawing directly on Disney’s early color experiments in his Silly Symphonies series.⁴⁰ In the 50s Hollywood started creating color mood swings of its own. When Captain Queeg panics during a typhoon in The Caine Mutiny (Columbia, 1954), red/blue color shifts indicate danger/fear. [Fig 46; Fig 47]

When playboy Robert Stack tells Lauren Bacall about the psychic damage his sister has caused him in Written on the Wind; the light on his face turns reddish. [Fig 48; Fig 49]

By the mid-50s, Expressionist color effects were common enough that they became subject to parody. Norman McLeod acknowledged the convention’s cartoon origins in a Bob Hope comedy called Casanova’s Big Night (Paramount, 1954), turning the fake Casanova’s face red and then purple as he is being strangled. [Fig 50; Fig 51]

In Bell, Book, and Candle (Columbia, 1958) we learn that Kim Novak is a witch when with the help of color filters her face turns frost blue. [Figs 52; Fig 53]

But it is John Huston who develops this line the furthest in Moulin Rouge (Romulus, 1952) when Toulouse-Lautrec returns to his garret with the idea of killing himself. The scene calls for the painter to climb out of his depression without uttering a word as he wanders around his room, turns on a gas lamp, and then sits in a chair waiting to die. He gazes up at an unfinished painting (La Goulu) and, distracted from his suicide attempt, reaches for his paints to color in the final details. [Fig 54; Fig 58]

The gas lamp, a source of artificial light that he opens to poison himself, is connected to the clinically “unhealthy” color combinations of harsh blues, greens, and pinks. But as Toulouse-Lautrec starts to contemplate his painting, unnatural filter combinations give way to the brighter, sanative palette of the artist’s own work [bright yellows, vibrant reds, pure greens] which in turn seems to draw out the natural light of the sun. Morning sunlight falls on his paints and his easel, finally flooding his garret with natural, refreshing light.

In Lola Montes, Ophüls works out a similar scheme of clinically jarring color combinations in the phantasmagorical circus sequences to capture Lola’s response to her commercial objectification.

But this strain of expressive color was only one of several directions in which 50s color went. By the end of the decade, using colors to set the tone of a scene had become a commonplace. Huston and Oswald Morris famously muted the colors in Moby Dick by superimposing a black and white negative over a desaturated color master to create a somber scheme devoid of reds and yellows.⁴¹ The effect – highlighting steel greys and mud browns – was meant to externalize Ahab’s monomania by extending the bleak tone to the severity of nineteenth century whaling life. [Fig 59]

But directors were also foregrounding colors that did not provide clues to, or mirror, the psychological states of the character, or even reinforce in any obvious way the tone of a scene. William Wellman’s Track of the Cat provides the extreme example. Although shot in color, Track of the Cat was processed entirely without hue and saturation except for the pinprick of Robert Mitchum’s red woolen coat. The effect is to suggest an obscure allegory, putting into the spotlight an otherwise non-signifying garment worn by a supporting character, the protagonist’s brutish older brother. [Fig 60]. Although still operating within the context of a narrative film, Wellman’s red color spot challenges what Edward Branigan has called “the tyranny of the center of the frame” achieving a certain formal independence highly unusual in Hollywood films – competing for attention with the narrative focal point by wandering off to the margins. The red becomes a non-narrative element that neither enhances Barthes’ ‘reality effect’ nor makes any obvious psychological point. Self-conscious and mannered, Track of the Cat is the closest Hollywood gets, as best I can determine, in opening the gap between color and object.⁴²

Meanwhile, Elia Kazan and his cinematographer Ted McCord devised a highly unorthodox color plot for Kazan’s first color film, East of Eden, built around principles of what may be called “psycho-chromatics,” the arresting idea that some colors, like human behavior, contain opposing and conflicting impulses, depending upon context. For Kazan, the Oedipal director par excellence, green became the master color, an integral part of the psychological texture of the film. [Fig 61]

Green is sometimes considered the great neutral, the color of repose, of pacifism. But it is also connected with envy. It combines associations of growth, with immaturity – the refusal to grow up. [Fig 62]

In our culture it is also the color of money and luck. But above all for Kazan, it contains the associations with both rebirth – freshness – and decay, sickness [“green around the gills”], weakness. And the final scene is keyed to absorb all those contradictions. Whereas the color plots of Technicolor musicals and swashbucklers tended to culminate in festive kaleidoscopic pageantry, East of Eden ends in monochrome – in a room, seen only at the end of the film, dominated by luminous green walls, unevenly lit and crossed with achromatic, graded shadows for an eerie, iridescent effect. Raymond Massey, James Dean’s father, is dying, disillusioned and alone, while Dean, as his son Cal, tries his best to tend to him. [Fig 63]

Kazan called the green room “death’s version of [the old man’s] valley,” the color of vegetation turned into sea-green sickness.⁴³ But the room is also the nacreous site of Cal’s reconciliation with his father, and Abra’s reconciliation with Cal.

With East of Eden we enter a phase of color development in Hollywood film where colors can be indexical, iconic, or simply tied to their symbolic function in a particular culture. But I want to end on perhaps the most interesting colorist of all: Douglas Sirk who, along with his cinematographer, Russell Metty, created an utterly transgressive color system. The melodramatic style that has made him the favorite of directors ranging from Fassbinder and John Waters to Quentin Tarantino and Pedro Almodovar is grounded in his quirky relationship to his material. In a famous sequence from All That Heaven Allows (Universal, 1955) widow Jane Wyman is in her bedroom getting ready for a dinner date with a middle-age admirer when her two college age kids drop in to visit. [Fig 64]

The dialogue and blocking suggest a satiric scene saturated in irony. Wyman’s daughter Kay [Gloria Talbot] plops herself down on her mother’s queen size bed, solemnly lecturing her mother on Freud and the sexual anxieties that accompany aging, only to be startled when mom appears, prepared for a date, bare-shouldered in red. Kay recovers, mindful that modern society no longer buries widows with their dead husbands as they did in ancient Egypt. Mother, older and wiser, murmurs her doubts about the modern world’s acceptance of liberated widows.

But how to connect Russell Metty’s stylized blocks of color and all that odd back lighting to the conversation? The blue swatches feel entirely cut off from the referenced world, operating entirely within the framework of what Karla Oeler has called genre pastiche.⁴⁴ The scene starts with a close-up of a mirror, the most traditional trope for artistic mimesis. But as Oeler has argued in a much different context, genre pastiche does not believe in direct mimesis, and here the mirror introduces a scene defined by layer upon layer of self-reflexivity. [Fig 65]

The colors operate to create a self-contained Camp universe where, to use Sontag’s language, everything is now bracketed off in quotation marks. The room becomes “the room;” the self-important daughter “the daughter.” Most remarkably, light itself – especially the blue filtered light that streams from the window when Jane Wyman opens the shutters – is “light” only in an approximate sense – an approximation of sunlight and an approximation of reading light.

It would be one thing if this were black and white film and the back lighting that casts the two women into shadows and silhouettes created simply a sinister, noirish atmosphere, appropriate to the talk about tombs and suffocating social pressure. But the color adds a perversely playful aspect to the display. The unnatural blue, red, and gold filters turning this 50s home and garden suburban bedroom into something bizarre, vibrant, and strange.

³² Michael Stern, “Interview,” Bright Lights 6 (Winter, 1977–78), 33; Serge Daney and Jean-Louis Noames, “Entretien avec Douglas Sirk,” Cahiers du Cinema 189 (April 1967), 23, 25. Cf. Mike Prokosh, “Imitation of Life,” Douglas Sirk, eds. Laura Mulvey and Jon Halliday (Lancashire, England: Edinburgh Film Festival 72/ NFT/ John Players & Sons, 1972), 90.

³³ Natalie Kalmus, “Color Consciousness,” The Journal of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers [hereafter SMPE Journal] (August 1935), 144; revised as “Colour,” in Behind the Screen, ed. Stephen Watts (London: Arthur Barker, 1938). For a history of color psychology in modern painting, John Cage, Color and Meaning: Art, Science, and Symbolism. Berkeley, Calif: University of California Press, 1999.

³⁴ For scientific accounts of how the brain processes different frequencies of light in order to interpret color, Jacob Beck, “The Perception of Surface Color,” Scientific American (August, 1975), 64–75. Hans Wallach, “The Perception of Neutral Colors,” Scientific American (January, 1963), 107–116. Semir Zeki, Inner Vision: An Exploration of Art and the Brain, Oxford University Press, 2000.

³⁵ Neil Harris, “Color and Media: Some Comparisons and Speculations,” Prospects 11 (1987) 7–28; reprinted in Harris, Cultural Excursions (University of Chicago Press, 1990), 318–336.

³⁶ The attention paid to color in industry was widely reported. As early as 1941, Reader’s Digest reprinted “Meet the Color Engineer,” (June, 1941), 134–35, describing the work of Faber Birren, a color specialist living in New York. By the 1950s, Birren’s career had taken off, publishing books that encouraged innovations in color management in the factory, the restaurant, the hospital, and the schoolroom. He also described how color could be an effective marketing tool in self-service stores such as supermarkets, automobile dealerships, and liquor stores, where customers often made impulse decisions. Related articles include “Color in Industry,” Fortune, vol. 43 (June, 1951) 122–128. A.A. Goldsmith, “Putting Color To Work,” Photography, 34 (May 1954), 62–65. Mary Davis Gillies, “Our Color-Happy World,” McCall’s (Oct 1954), 38–43. “Getting Final Word on Color,” [on color and carpets], Business Week, 14 December 1957, 124–129.

³⁷ Faber Birren, Selling Color to People (University Books, 1956), 164. “Reading Minds Thru Color” Design, 54 (March, 1953), p. 132. “Shirts to Match Blue Mondays, Pink Fridays,” Science News Letter, 70 (8 Sept 1956), 152.

³⁸ “All-black Car is a Dying Breed,” Business Week (18 June 1955), 130. This was especially good news for teenagers, because police departments were the among the last holdouts against the color revolution, making their cars especially easy to identify in rear view mirrors. Teens in Greenwich Connecticut, where I spent my adolescence, were unusually blessed. There the cops used black and white Edsels for their unmarked cars.

³⁹ For popularized accounts of these studies: Clifford B. Hicks, “Your Color Type and How to Live With It,” Popular Mechanics, Vol. 93 (February, 1950), 97–106; “What Color Suits You Best,” House and Garden, vol. 108 (September, 1955), 78–87. Faber Birren works this line in Creative Color (Reinhold Publishing, 1961), 21ff.

For earlier writings on color psychology: “Emotions Due to Colors,” Literary Digest 85 (April 25, 1925), 25, a discussion by Matthew Luckiesh, then director the Lighting Research Lab of General Electric. “Making People Do Things by Wall Colors,” Everybody’s 34 (March, 1916): 398–99.

For a recent article making the similar assumptions, Kim Anderson, “The Power of Color,” (TC)₂ Bi-Weekly Technology Communicator (June 2005) http://www.techexchange.com/thelibrary/powerofcolor.html

⁴⁰ Eisenstein himself compared Vladimir’s famous “blue blush” in Ivan the Terrible Part II to Flower the Skunk’s turning red in Bambi; the debt is analyzed in Anne Nesbet, Savage Junctures (London: I.B. Tauris, 2003), 194–195. The convention’s origins can be found in Disney’s Three Little Pigs, Lullaby Land, The Flying Mouse and other Silly Symphonies. Cf. Russell Merritt and J.B. Kaufman, The Silly Symphonies (Gemona, Italy: Cineteca del Friuli Press, 2007), passim.

⁴¹ Derek Hill, “Moby Dick Sets New Style in Color Photography: On Oswald Morris’ Cinematography,” AC, 37/9 (Sept, 1956), 534 ff.

⁴² Edward Branigan, “The Articulation of Color in a Filmic System,” Wide Angle 1/3 (1976), 28–29 shows how Godard transforms this strategy into a full-blown radical system. My analysis of Track of the Cat derives from Branigan’s study.

⁴³ Kazan to Michel Ciment in Ciment, Kazan on Kazan (New York: Viking Press, 1974), 123.

⁴⁴ Karla Oeler, A Grammar of Murder University of Chicago Press, forthcoming. Cf. Sirk to Stern in Bright Lights, op. cit.: “Throughout my pictures I employ a lighting which is not naturalistic. Often the window will be here and the light from there. With color, too, I did this, to attain a lighting that is almost Surrealistic. As Brecht has said, never forget that this is not reality… The distanciation must be there… You have to shoot it through a dialectic.””

(Merritt, Russell (2008): Crying in Color. How Hollywood Coped When Technicolor Died. In: Journal of the National Film and Sound Archive, Australia, 3,2/3, pp. 1–16, on pp. 8–13.)

“In 1964, after a decade of close co-operation, German Agfa and Belgian Gevaert, the two largest manufacturers of photo-materials in Europe, joined forces. Gevaert had already been producing colour paper based on Agfa formulations, but after the union they began to concentrate on films for the motion picture industry. At first they produced Agfacolor CN5 negative film, but the success of Kodak’s masked Eastman Color film (see section on Eastman Color) compelled Gevaert to devise a masked product of their own in 1968. However, it was not until 1969/70 that Gevaert was able to produce a print film that required the same processing as Eastman Color positive. The first Gevacolor negative film to be compatible with Eastman Color negative was ready in 1974 – some 30 years after Kodak had patented the idea of coloured masking couplers.”

(Coote, Jack H. (1993): The Illustrated History of Colour Photography. Surbiton, Surrey: Fountain Press, on p. 156.)

“In an address to the Society of Photographic Scientists and Engineers in 1984, Hanson outlined some of the work that was carried out in the 1950s and 1960s by the Research Departments at Rochester to improve the performance and quality of Kodacolor film and prints, as well as allied colour products.

He explained that:

‘The quality of the photographic image results from dozens of interdependent qualities. One of the most intriguing is the simple issue of sharpness. One of the things that influences the sharpness of photographic images is the scatter of the light as it penetrates the emulsions. The thicker the emulsion, the more grains there are in it, the more light scatters, and the poorer the sharpness. Through the years sharpness has been increased tremendously by learning how to coat the layers more thinly. Not only did this involve the mechanics of coating but it also involved the structure of the couplers and their activity so that the smallest amount of coupler could be used. These advances and other developments made possible Eastman Color negative film and the Eastman Color motion picture system’”

(Coote, Jack H. (1993): The Illustrated History of Colour Photography. Surbiton, Surrey: Fountain Press, on p. 160.)

“ANTI-TRUST ACTIONS

Before the Instamatic landmark, an earlier event had changed the way in which people in the US had their Kodacolor films processed and printed. In 1954 the US Supreme Court ruled that Eastman Kodak could no longer sell any of their colour film with the cost of processing pre-paid. Prior to that time, most colour films had been sold together with a mailing bag in which the exposed spool was returned to one or other of Kodak’s laboratories.

The Anti-Trust ruling also required Kodak to make processing formulas and know-how available to any bona-fide photofinisher who wanted to undertake the processing of Kodachrome or Kodacolor films. It was difficult for Kodak to comply quickly with the Anti-Trust ruling and the transfer of colour processing to independent laboratories took some time, but eventually it happened and while Kodak continued to offer processing services in most countries, their share of the business became relatively small, although there were 10 Kodak processing laboratories still operating in the US during the 1960s.”

(Coote, Jack H. (1993): The Illustrated History of Colour Photography. Surbiton, Surrey: Fountain Press, on p. 161.)

“EASTMAN COLOR MOTION PICTURE FILMS

In ‘Journey: 75 Years of Kodak Research‘, the editors, writing about Dr. Wesley T. Hanson, say that ‘when he returned to Rochester in May 1945 (after being seconded by Dr. Mees to work on the Manhattan Project), he resumed research on color motion picture processes and, working closely with Nick Groet, he eventually saw his invention of the colored coupler masking process reach fruition in Eastman color negative film.’

Before he had left Rochester to work at Berkeley and Oak Ridge, Hanson thought it might be possible to use Kodachrome as a professional motion-picture process, but he had met serious problems. Although original Kodachrome camera film was excellent, the contrast and colour reproduction of first and second generation copies were poor. Yet such duplicates were necessary in order to produce special effects and to protect the original film from wear and tear.

Hanson therefore concluded that it would be more satisfactory to use a motion-picture version of Kodacolor negative together with a film-based version of Kodacolor (Ektacolor) paper, for making release prints. The earliest experiments along these lines were made by Nick Groet, who in 1948, persuaded the laboratory studio to expose a length of 35mm Kodacolor negative film, which he then printed onto an Ektacolor type print film.

In terms of colour and tone reproduction the result was better than anything previously achieved, but sharpness and graininess were quite unacceptable. It was found that the poor resolution resulted from light being reflected from the coarse grain yellow image-producing layer at the bottom of the tri-pack, exposing the two upper layers a second time, causing a fuzzy double image.

Groet, who then embarked on a single-minded crusade to solve this shortcoming, hit upon the idea of incorporating soluble magenta and cyan dyes in the two upper emulsion layers to absorb any reflected green or red light.

Another problem that Groet tackled and overcame, was the tendency of couplers to produce disproportionately large amounts of dye from a given amount of silver, thus making it impossible to use sufficiently high silver coating weights to produce fast films. To prevent the formation of excess dye, Groet introduced couplers that would compete for part of the available silver without producing dyes. This concept of ‘coupler starvation’, not only allowed the use of higher silver coating weights, but also made it possible to use pairs of fast and slow emulsions for each colour record, so improving speed and granularity still further.

There remained one other major problem – the cost of coating multi-layer films in the vast quantities required by the motion-picture industry. It was one thing to be able to make an adequate return on films sold to the professional or amateur photographer, but quite a different matter to produce millions of feet of both negative and positive colour films at prices that would be competitive with Technicolor. In fact, towards the end of the 1940s, one or two films were shot on Eastman Color negative and printed on Eastman Color positive stock; the first, entitled Royal Journey, was made by the National Film Board of Canada. Eastman Color negative film was also used by some production companies to produce camera records from which separation positives and then negatives could be made for subsequent printing by Technicolor’s dye-transfer process.

It was the discovery by Theodore Russell of a way to coat multiple layers of emulsion simultaneously that really made possible the commercial production of Eastman Color films. Russell’s invention is discussed in ‘Coating Techniques’ (p.173).

Eastman Color negative film began to be sold on a large scale in 1950, when it was designated Type 5247. Its speed was about ASA25 to tungsten light and ASA16 in daylight. That product was followed by a succession of improved versions until by 1972, Eastman Color Type 5257 had much improved sharpness, reduced graininess and a speed of ASA100 to tungsten light.

EASTMAN COLOR PRINT FILMS

From their inception, the print films intended for use with Eastman Color negatives had a layer arrangement that placed the green-sensitive (magenta image-forming) emulsion on top and the blue-sensitive (yellow image-forming) layer next to the film base. The original positive stock was known as Type 5281 and at that time Kodak claimed that better contrast and colour reproduction would be obtained if the film was exposed by additive red, green and blue light rather than filtered ‘white’ light. However, within three years an improved film (Type 5382) was introduced for printing with filtered tungsten light. Further improvements in speed, sharpness and colour rendering followed and, in 1974, Type 5383, with its greater emulsion hardness, allowed the introduction of higher processing temperatures and a shorter process.

INTERMEDIATE FILMS

The Eastman Color motion-picture system could not be said to be complete until an intermediate film was introduced in 1968. Only then did it become possible to produce a duplicate colour negative in a single printing and reversal processing operation.

From its introduction in 1950, the Eastman Color system of professional colour cinematography dominated the industry and, although several other manufacturers produced similar negative and positive motion picture films, they were all designed to be compatible with processes already established by Eastman Kodak.”

(Coote, Jack H. (1993): The Illustrated History of Colour Photography. Surbiton, Surrey: Fountain Press, on pp. 163–164.)

“SLOT COATING WITH SUCTION

Albert Bequin of Eastman Kodak obtained a patent in 1951 that went a long way towards removing the limitation of coating speed and the necessity to remove the coating head from the web to allow a splice to pass. His patent described a method of holding a coating bead constant at speeds as high as 500 feet per minute by using suction to reduce the pressure on the underside of the bead. This invention originally related to single layer coatings, but proved to be equally important a few years later when Russell discovered his method of multi-layer slide hopper, or cascade coating.

SLIDE HOPPER COATING

Hanson has told how:

‘A multi-layer (Eastmancolor) print film was going to be expensive to manufacture. So, we kept working on mono-layer film for motion picture prints. If we could get a color negative, then make a positive intermediate and then print on a monolayer, we thought that would be the ideal system. We were working very hard on that when another invention came along and, within a month, the whole programme was stopped.’”

(Coote, Jack H. (1993): The Illustrated History of Colour Photography. Surbiton, Surrey: Fountain Press, on pp. 175–176.)

Bonnie and Clyde (USA 1967, Arthur Penn)

“L’emploi du rouge est particulièrement caractérisé dans le cinéma du Nouvel Hollywood par celui du sang représenté à l’écran, d’où cette formulation de rouge sang, et ma volonté de m’attarder sur une cinématographie en couleurs bien particulière. C’est un cinéma plutôt violent qui va mettre en scène le sang, de manière inédite jusqu’alors, travaillant sur le choc visuel où le sang des blessures sera à la fois visible et en couleurs. Contrastant avec des scènes sanguinolentes en noir et blanc, le rouge sang participe amplement au choc esthétique que les réalisateurs du Nouvel Hollywood auront déclenché. C’est par son rouge sang que Bonnie and Clyde, plus que tout autre film de 1967, marque le début d’une nouvelle cinématographie. […]

Je considère ici le terme Nouvel Hollywood dans son acception la plus répandue, recouvrant une période allant de 1967 à 1980.

Ce Nouvel Hollywood correspond à une nouvelle façon de réaliser des films, économiquement, mais aussi sur un plan esthétique. Ce changement cinématographique s’explique dans un premier temps par l’arrivée d’une nouvelle génération de réalisateurs. C’est ce que remarque Jack Valenti en 1968 lors d’une allocution sur les causes et la prévention de la violence: “There is a new breed of filmmaker. [This filmmaker is] reaching for new dimensions of expression. And he is not bound by the conventions of a conformist past” (Valenti, 65). Selon le président de la MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America), il faut donc se préparer à une nouvelle vague de créativité qui s’accompagne du refus des conventions dans le cinéma hollywoodien. Sans appartenir totalement à ce sang neuf, deux réalisateurs marqueront le début d’un Nouvel Hollywood, en particulier à travers deux œuvres qui introduiront une nouvelle esthétique de la violence dans le cinéma américain, Arthur Penn et Sam Peckinpah, auteurs respectifs de Bonnie and Clyde et de The Wild Bunch, sont tous deux issus du théâtre et de la télévision. Ils appartiennent à une génération intermédiaire, avant celle des ‘movie brats’, surnom donné aux réalisateurs cinéphiles des années 70, mais qui constitue néanmoins une relève par rapport aux anciens réalisateurs de l’âge d’or.

[…]

Vers la fin des années 1960, le noir et blanc est fréquemment associé à la nostalgie d’un temps passé. Dans cette optique, la Warner Brothers a demandé aux auteurs de Bonnie and Clyde de tourner le film en noir et blanc, demande que rejetteront Arthur Penn et Warren Beatty – acteur et producteur du film. Ils tourneront en couleurs afin de faire un parallèle entre deux périodes de crise touchant la société américaine, les années 1930, et les années 1960. Le noir et blanc permet d’une certaine manière une distanciation avec le monde réel, alors que la couleur, dans ce qu’elle peut avoir de plus réaliste, confronte le spectateur à son quotidien.

[…]

La réception d’un film tel que Bonnie and Clyde donne lieu au questionnement de nombreux critiques. L’image la plus récurrente est celle du flot de sang. Dans Le coopérateur de France (12/02/1968), François Gault parle d’”une révolte noyée dans un flot irréversible de violence, d’hystérie et de sang”. Samuel Lachize, dans L’humanité dimanche (27/01/1968), poursuit la métaphore en déclarant avoir “traversé un fleuve de sang, une rivière de tendresse et un ruisseau d’amour”. D’autres soulignent le caractère chorégraphique de la violence, comme Jean de Baroncelli du Monde (26/01/1968) pour qui “le ballet sanglant filmé au ralenti […] ouvre les portes de la légende”, ou Pierre Billard de L’express (22/01/1968) qui voit le film “démarre[r] dans l’humour et la blague […] pour s’achever dans un ballet de mort et de sang.” Associé à des scènes de violence, le sang apparaît à l’écran comme une pure image de violence. De nombreux critiques avouent ainsi leur étonnement et leur surprise face à une telle représentation du sang à l’écran.

[…]

La simulation d’impact par ‘blood squib’ (explosion de sang) est une révolution technique majeure non seulement en tant qu’effet spécial, mais sur un plan esthétique. Dissimulé sous le costume de l’acteur et déclenché à distance le moment voulu, le sachet de faux sang simule l’impact des balles et les jets de sang. Son apport est considérable, car il va grandement participer à l’esthétique de la violence du Nouvel Hollywood – et bien au-delà. C’est probablement l’une des raisons du choc causé par Bonnie and Clyde. […]

On a vu que la technique des ‘blood squibs’ participe essentiellement à une nouvelle esthétique de la violence, sans coupe ni hors-champ. Comme le remarque Paul Monaco, l’impact de cette innovation est d’autant plus grand qu’il a lieu sur de la pellicule couleur. “The visual effects were impressive, of course, as these exploding squibs – essentially wired plastic bags filled with red dye – made for enormously powerful moments of visual impact color film” (Monaco, 180). Le sang change alors de statut à l’image. De simple tache, phénomène passif, le sang acquiert une nouvelle forme. Le rouge sang du Nouvel Hollywood devient en quelque sorte actif: par sa nouveauté, il concentre le regard du spectateur. Dans La quinzaine littéraire (1/02/1968), Patrick Loriot s’exprime sur cette fascination nouvelle du sang dans Bonnie and Clyde: “Et le sang cette fois-ci n’est pas la peinture rouge dont Godard a barbouillé les cadavres de Weekend. Une balle dans le cœur, c’est une petite tache d’hémoglobine. […] Défiguré mais l’œil ouvert, on regarde gicler le sang de son propre cerveau et ça dure une éternité.” La distance critique se voit en quelque sorte annihilée pour donner lieu à un rapport de frontalité directe à l’objet de la violence, le sang. La matière même du sang rouge et sa texture sont mises en avant. Ce ressenti physique est alors un ressenti de la matière où le sang est perçu comme phénomène “vivant”. Il reste sujet du cadre tout au long de l’action; en tant que matière-objet, il impressionne, en même temps que la pellicule, le spectateur. […]

Les films sans ‘blood squibs’ manquaient-ils de crédibilité? C’est du moins ce qu’avance Stephen Prince au sujet des films antérieurs à 1967, tels que Shane (L’homme des vallées perdues) ou The Left-Handed Gun (Le gaucher): “despite such striking details, these scenes lacked squib-work and the palpable physicality that it lent gun violence” (Prince, 10–11). Le rouge des blood squibs intervient alors comme valeur ajoutée dans une lecture réaliste des films. En effet, en comparaison, les blood squibs confèrent aux scènes de combats un réalisme qu’elles n’avaient jamais encore eu auparavant à l’écran. Ainsi, les critiques soulignent le réalisme des scènes d’action dans Bonnie and Clyde. À de Segonzac dans Paris Presse (8/12/1967) revient sur la scène finale: “les scènes de violence sont incroyablement réalistes. […] On voit par exemple le sang gicler. [Le] corps [de Bonnie] tressaute à chaque balle qui pénètre ses chairs, donnant une extraordinaire impression de réalité.”

La réussite formelle de ces effets spéciaux donne lieu à une nouvelle lecture spectatorielle. Le spectateur, voyant le sang gicler du corps de l’acteur, peut enfin se laisser porter à croire au réalisme de ce qu’il voit. Cette nouvelle esthétique implique le spectateur dans un univers de croyance auquel il peut adhérer, tel un St Thomas qui ne peut croire que ce qu’il voit, et où le sang tient lieu de preuve visuelle. Ainsi, lorsque Jean-Louis Bory dans Le Nouvel Observateur, remarque dans Bonnie and Clyde ces “rafales de balles dont chaque impact est visible, et surtout le sang, d’un éclat dérangeant, obscène, rouge et verni.”, il souligne le caractère visible de ces marques. […]

Néanmoins, l’excès de rouge sang ferait-il basculer le film dans l’irréalisme? C’est le reproche que formule Jean-Luc Pouillaude de la Tribune socialiste (8/01/1968) au sujet de Bonnie and Clyde: “C’est dans la mesure où le sang est trop rouge, éclaboussant en larges taches imprudentes les chemises blanches, où les coups de feu claquent trop fort, le film s’incurve vers un irréalisme accentué par l’étrangeté d’une photo souvent bleutée.” […]

Dans Preuves, Roger Dadoun (08/1968) revient sur la réception critique de Bonnie and Clyde quelques mois après sa sortie: “On a moqué cet étalage du sang – révélant ainsi que le sang, comme dirait Lorca, on ne veut pas le voir, on n’a pas l’habitude de le voir, on n’a pas appris à le voir. Même dans les films les plus violents, les plus sadiques, les plus agressifs, le sang n’est jamais vraiment montré.” Ainsi, l’impact visuel du rouge sang à l’écran diffère fortement dans le regard d’un spectateur du XXIe siècle, qui, au contraire, aura eu l’occasion de “tout voir” du sang au cinéma. Selon Dadoun, toujours, “En nous mettant brutalement sous nos yeux, sous le nez, les images du sang, Arthur Penn nous oblige à le “sentir” – à moins de refouler par le ricanement – comme support nauséeux, écœurant, de la souffrance et de la haine.” L’intérêt de cette critique est d’autant plus grand qu’elle est marquée par son contexte de réception spectatorielle.

[…]

Ce qu’incarne le Nouvel Hollywood, d’une certaine manière, c’est l’étonnement de Lady Macbeth qu’Arthur Penn cite lors d’un entretien, “Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him” (Macbeth, V, I). Le Nouvel Hollywood épuise le concept, qu’il transcende bientôt puisque le sang ne jaillit bientôt plus des corps, des chairs, mais provient d’ailleurs.

BIBLIOGRAPHIE

Ouvrages

Monaco, Paul, The Sixties, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003.

Articles

Prince, Stephen, “Graphic violence in the cinema”, in Stephen Prince ed., Screening violence, New Brunswick (N. J.): Rutgers University Press, 2000.

Valenti Jack, “The National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of violence,” in Stephen Prince (ed.), Screening violence (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2000), p. 65.”

(Al Salti, Nadia (2009): Le rouge sang du nouvel Hollywood. Bonnie and Clyde, The Wild Bunch, The Big Save. In: Raphaëlle Costa de Beauregard (ed.): Cinéma et couleur. Paris: M. Houdiard, pp. 417–425, on pp. 417–425.) (in French)

Blood Feast (USA 1963, Herschell Gordon Lewis)

“La réception du sang à l’écran diffère selon qu’il est noir ou en couleurs. Rouge, le sang peut être perçu comme un effet du registre du grand-guignol, surtout lorsque les effets spéciaux ne sont pas réussis. C’est souvent le cas dans les films de séries B ou Z ou “gore”. Figure majeure du genre, H. G. Lewis aura usé d’hémoglobine à l’envi. Le sang en couleurs de ses films est certes marquant, et cela dès le début des années 1960, avec Blood Feast (1963) et 2000 Maniacs! (1964). Toutefois, ce rouge sang reste lié au genre du grand-guignol en raison de ses moyens-réduits, des limites de son propre réseau d’exploitation, et de la qualité des “effets spéciaux” qui s’en ressent…

Afin d’éviter de verser à son tour dans le grand-guignol, Alfred Hitchcock décide de tourner Psycho (1960) en noir et blanc. A François Truffaut qui lui demande s’il regrette le cinéma en noir et blanc, Alfred Hitchcock précise qu’il a “filmé Psycho en noir et blanc pour ne pas montrer le sang rouge dans le meurtre de Janet Leigh sous la douche” (Truffaut, 286). Il est possible de le comparer a posteriori avec le film en couleurs de Gus Van Sant qui a effectué un travail de reprise sur l’original.

BIBLIOGRAPHIE

Ouvrages

Truffaut, François, Hitchcock-Truffaut, Paris: Gallimard, 1993.”

(Al Salti, Nadia (2009): Le rouge sang du nouvel Hollywood. Bonnie and Clyde, The Wild Bunch, The Big Save. In: Raphaëlle Costa de Beauregard (ed.): Cinéma et couleur. Paris: M. Houdiard, pp. 417–425, on pp. 419–420.) (in French)

Two Thousand Maniacs! (USA 1964, Herschell Gordon Lewis)

“La réception du sang à l’écran diffère selon qu’il est noir ou en couleurs. Rouge, le sang peut être perçu comme un effet du registre du grand-guignol, surtout lorsque les effets spéciaux ne sont pas réussis. C’est souvent le cas dans les films de séries B ou Z ou “gore”. Figure majeure du genre, H. G. Lewis aura usé d’hémoglobine à l’envi. Le sang en couleurs de ses films est certes marquant, et cela dès le début des années 1960, avec Blood Feast (1963) et 2000 Maniacs! (1964). Toutefois, ce rouge sang reste lié au genre du grand-guignol en raison de ses moyens-réduits, des limites de son propre réseau d’exploitation, et de la qualité des “effets spéciaux” qui s’en ressent…

Afin d’éviter de verser à son tour dans le grand-guignol, Alfred Hitchcock décide de tourner Psycho (1960) en noir et blanc. A François Truffaut qui lui demande s’il regrette le cinéma en noir et blanc, Alfred Hitchcock précise qu’il a “filmé Psycho en noir et blanc pour ne pas montrer le sang rouge dans le meurtre de Janet Leigh sous la douche” (Truffaut, 286). Il est possible de le comparer a posteriori avec le film en couleurs de Gus Van Sant qui a effectué un travail de reprise sur l’original.

BIBLIOGRAPHIE

Ouvrages

Truffaut, François, Hitchcock-Truffaut, Paris: Gallimard, 1993.”

(Al Salti, Nadia (2009): Le rouge sang du nouvel Hollywood. Bonnie and Clyde, The Wild Bunch, The Big Save. In: Raphaëlle Costa de Beauregard (ed.): Cinéma et couleur. Paris: M. Houdiard, pp. 417–425, on pp. 419–420.) (in French)

Dial M for Murder (USA 1954, Alfred Hitchcock)

“Earth tones in Hitchcock’s films signify both redemptive femininity and redemptive nature that provides safe haven and emotional sustenance. Thus, when Grace Kelly in Dial M for Murder (1954) is exonerated from her false accusation of murder, she appears in a brown coat framed by trees outside the garden window.”

(Allen, Richard (2006): Hitchcock’s Color Designs. In: Angela Dalle Vacche and Brian Price (eds.): Color. The Film Reader. New York: Routledge, pp. 131–144, on p. 135.)

Shin Heike monogatari (JPN 1955, Kenji Mizoguchi)

“C’est ainsi que Mizoguchi tourna ses deux seuls films en couleurs en 1955 (il mourut en 1956), l’un pour des raisons de coproduction avec Hong Kong (L’Impératrice Yang Kwei Fei, photographié en Eastmancolor par Kohei Sugiyama, et qui est considéré au Japon comme une estampe sans intérêt alors que la critique française le plaça au rang des autres chefs-d’œuvre de l’auteur), et l’autre parce qu’il était un épisode d’une trilogie historique planifiée par la Daiei, Le Héros sacrilège (Shin Heike monogatari)¹. Aucun des deux ne lui parut satisfaisant en tant qu’expérience en couleurs, même si Kazuo Miyagawa réussit à conférer une splendeur esthétique certaine à plusieurs scènes du Héros sacrilège, comme l’ouverture ou la traversée de la forêt par les moines soldats armés de flambeaux: “Le Héros sacrilège était le premier film en couleurs que Mizoguchi et moi faisions ensemble, et pour moi, c’était même mon premier film en couleurs en tant que chef opérateur (…). Au tournage, Mizoguchi se servait de la couleur comme élément de mise en scène. Par exemple Kiyomori, avant de partir au combat, est très en colère: à ce moment, la porte derrière lui est d’un rouge féroce. Les grands bûchers aussi sont d’un rouge intense. Le rouge était la couleur de la colère. Le bleu [celle] de la tristesse, ainsi que le noir.²”

¹ Les deux autres parties, également en couleurs, adaptées du roman d’Eiji Yoshikawa, Heike monogatari, étaient: Trois Femmes autour de Yoshinaka (T. Kinugasa, 1956), et Shizuka et Yoshitsune (Koji Shima, 1956).

² Extrait de l’entretien avec Y. Yoda et K. Miyagawa paru dans les Cahiers du cinéma n° 158 (1964), et repris dans le numéro spécial, “Le dossier Mizoguchi” (hors-série).”

(Tessier, Max (1992): De la couleur dans les films japonais. In: Yann Tobin: Dossier. La couleur du cinéma. In: Positif, 375–376, May, pp. 121–158, on pp. 152–153.) (in French)

“Max Tessier

Séductions

De la couleur dans les films japonais

Lorsque Jean Cocteau, alors président du jury de Cannes, vit la superbe estampe qu’était La Porte de l’enfer de Kinugasa en 1954, il cria aux “plus belles couleurs du monde”, et le film remporta la première Palme d’or japonaise à Cannes (ce qui semble abusif aujourd’hui). Les chatoiements des kimonos violets et l’embrasement rougeoyant de la célèbre ouverture du film l’avaient ensorcelé, ainsi qu’un public qui découvrait un certain raffinement exotique, destiné à l’exportation autant qu’au marché intérieur. Il est vrai qu’il s’agissait pratiquement du premier film japonais en couleurs que voyaient les Occidentaux, séduits par les suaves tonalités “naturelles” de l’Eastmancolor, préféré alors par les cinéastes japonais à l’imparfait Fujicolor: les temps ont bien changé!

Le véritable enjeu du film, concocté par la Daiei, était de concurrencer les Américains sur un terrain qu’ils dominaient largement et depuis longtemps, celui de la couleur. Lorsque Teinosuke Kinugasa entreprit le tournage de La Porte de l’enfer (Jigoku-mon) en 1953, il engagea deux des meilleurs opérateurs japonais: son cameraman attitré, Kohei Sugiyama, qui photographia surtout les intérieurs, et le prestigieux Kazuo Miyagawa (dont le nom était célèbre depuis Rashômon et Les Contes de la lune vague) qui fut conseiller pour les extérieurs – même si Sugiyama est seul crédité au générique. D’où, peut-être, une légère différence de tonalités entre les scènes de studio et les séquences tournées en extérieurs réels comme le très beau combat sur la plage. Se référant sciemment au monde de l’estampe, dans un souci constant de perfection artistique et d’exotisme haut de gamme, la photographie du film en est à la fois le moyen et la fin, sacrifiant à la banalité d’un scénario mélo-historique standard pour le cinéma nippon de l’époque (la critique japonaise ne s’y trompa d’ailleurs point, qui ne le cita même pas dans ses dix meilleurs films de 1953).

Cet effort esthétique, pourtant méritoire, se manifestait seulement deux ans après la première expérience en couleurs officielle du cinéma japonais (si l’on excepte les épisodiques expérimentations du Muet, vers 1914): Le Retour de Carmen (Karumen kokyo ni kaeru, 1951), de Keisuke Kinoshita, où les robes pimpantes des deux strip-teaseuses prodigues tranchaient sur les dominantes vertes du Fujicolor et des paysages bucoliques naturels. Pourtant le film, revu aujourd’hui en copie neuve, garde encore tout son charme de “pionnier” du cinéma japonais en couleurs, produit pour célébrer le trentième anniversaire de la compagnie Shochiku.

Si la couleur (Fuji, Eastman, Ektachrome ou autres procédés locaux ou importés) s’était généralisée dans les superproductions des années cinquante, notamment dans les “jidai-geki” en cinémascope (dès 1956), plusieurs cinéastes de premier plan la considéraient encore comme un élément décoratif à n’utiliser que dans un certain type de film spectaculaire, précisément les films historiques ou adaptés du kabuki. C’était les producteurs qui décidaient d’ailleurs de son emploi, et non les metteurs en scène. C’est ainsi que Mizoguchi tourna ses deux seuls films en couleurs en 1955 (il mourut en 1956), l’un pour des raisons de coproduction avec Hong Kong (L’Impératrice Yang Kwei Fei, photographié en Eastmancolor par Kohei Sugiyama, et qui est considéré au Japon comme une estampe sans intérêt alors que la critique française le plaça au rang des autres chefs-d’œuvre de l’auteur), et l’autre parce qu’il était un épisode d’une trilogie historique planifiée par la Daiei, Le Héros sacrilège (Shin Heike monogatari)¹. Aucun des deux ne lui parut satisfaisant en tant qu’expérience en couleurs, même si Kazuo Miyagawa réussit à conférer une splendeur esthétique certaine à plusieurs scènes du Héros sacrilège, comme l’ouverture ou la traversée de la forêt par les moines soldats armés de flambeaux: “Le Héros sacrilège était le premier film en couleurs que Mizoguchi et moi faisions ensemble, et pour moi, c’était même mon premier film en couleurs en tant que chef opérateur (…). Au tournage, Mizoguchi se servait de la couleur comme élément de mise en scène. Par exemple Kiyomori, avant de partir au combat, est très en colère: à ce moment, la porte derrière lui est d’un rouge féroce. Les grands bûchers aussi sont d’un rouge intense. Le rouge était la couleur de la colère. Le bleu [celle] de la tristesse, ainsi que le noir.²”

De même pour Ozu, ce fut la Shochiku qui lui conseilla d’utiliser la couleur (Agfacolor) dans Fleurs d’équinoxe (Higanbana, 1958) et dans tous ses derniers films. Il adopta alors une stylisation chromatique accordée à la composition de ses plans fixes. Cependant, les célèbres plans de rues nocturnes piquées de néons multicolores sont probablement plus la création de son opérateur Yuharu Atsuta que la sienne propre. On note d’ailleurs une intrusion beaucoup plus décisive de la couleur dans le seul film d’Ozu photographié par Kazuo Miyagawa (en “Daieicolor”), Herbes flottantes (Ukigusa, 1959), et produit par la Daiei: le chromatisme a ici beaucoup plus de relief qu’ailleurs, de même que la profondeur de champ. Cité par Donald Richie³, Ozu déclarait que “Miyagawa a eu beaucoup de problèmes et a fait toutes sortes d’expériences pour ce film. J’ai commencé à comprendre avec lui ce qu’était un film en couleurs. Par exemple, il faut que vous éclairiez de telle façon une certaine couleur pour que, sur la pellicule, elle ressemble à ce que voit l’œil. Si vous filmez deux couleurs différentes sous le même éclairage, une d’entre elles ne ressortira pas, vous devez donc choisir“. On retrouvera ce souci de la composition plastique et de la couleur, avec une tonalité différente, dans Dernier Caprice (Kohayagawa-ke no aki, 1961, Toho), photographié en Agfacolor par un autre maître, Asaichi Nakai, l’un des opérateurs de Kurosawa.

Des trois grands maîtres du cinéma japonais classique, Akira Kurosawa fut longtemps le plus réfractaire, sans doute par son souci chronique de perfectionnisme. Sa première tentative (inaboutie) date de 1962, pour Sanjuro (Tsubaki Sanjuro), et encore en abandonna-t-il l’idée: “J’ai essayé de tourner en couleurs la scène des camélias rouges et blancs, mais j’ai fini par y renoncer, n’ayant pas obtenu l’effet voulu.” Après un nouvel essai où il fit colorier en rose la fumée sortant de la cheminée d’Entre le ciel et l’enfer, effet naïf qui prêtait à sourire, le réalisateur de Yojimbo renonça à la couleur jusqu’en 1970, où, pour tourner Dodes’kaden, il se souvint enfin qu’il avait connu ses premières amours avec la peinture. Dessinant et peignant lui-même des décors stylisés, il conduisit son jeune héros handicapé sur les rails d’un bidonville mi-réel, mi-imaginaire, dans une débauche de tableaux “naïfs” et très peu réalistes (les ciels, les taches de couleurs omiprésentes) qui surprit plus d’un de ses admirateurs: lui-même rappelle qu’il s’agissait d’une expérience encore imparfaite, même si le travail de son opérateur Takao Saito (en Eastmancolor) était assez étonnant. Hormis cet essai de peinture appliquée, Kurosawa a traité la couleur de façon plutôt réaliste, que ce soit le Sovcolor (insatisfaisant) de Dersou Ouzala (1975), ou l’Eastmancolor de Kagemusha ou Ran. Pourtant, dans ces deux derniers films photographiés par Takao Saito et Masaharu Ueda⁴, certaines scènes de bataille se réfèrent explicitement à la peinture occidentale, en particulier italienne⁵, notamment lors de la saisissante bataille nocturne où les deux s’embrasent de rouge sanglant, dessinant l’ombre du guerrier en oiseau de nuit. Bien entendu, Kurosawa joue aussi de la symbolique chromatique des étendards plantés au dos des samouraïs (vert, bleu, rouge), et filme certains éléments décoratifs ou de costumes en violet (“murasaki”), sans doute la couleur la plus japonaise. Et l’on peut rêver en pensant à l’adaptation qu’il voulait faire du Masque de la mort rouge, d’Edgar A. Poe, projet abandonné au profit de Kagemusha. Mais en dépit de fortes inégalités dans les épisodes, deux ou trois de ses Rêves (1990) nous ont rappelé sa maîtrise chromatique, qu’il s’agisse du rêve du jardin de pêchers où explosent les rouges du Hina Matsuri, ou du blanc laiteux et obsédant de l’épisode de “La Femme des neiges”⁶. On pense parfois aux décors peints de la même histoire dans le Kwaidan de Kobayashi (1965), où de grands yeux fixaient les personnages, dans un surréalisme naïf. A la grande époque du cinéma de studios, le décor peint était très à la mode, et plusieurs cinéastes de premier plan y ont fait des expériences fascinantes encore aujourd’hui: citons seulement l’extraordinaire Ballade de Narayama de Kinoshita (1958), où il adapta les techniques de scène du kabuki et du jôruri, transposées au cinéma dans une débauche de rouges, de verts et de jaunes, et l’éblouissant exercice de style d’Ichikawa, La Vengeance d’un acteur (1963), dans un registre proche mais plus humoristique et distancié.

Plus récemment, le véritable emploi de la couleur (non réaliste) s’est réfugié dans des films plus expérimentaux, où elle joue un révélateur des passions, comme chez Terayama pour qui la couleur, omniprésente, est l’expression vive de son art cinématographique, formulée par son opérateur fétiche Tatsuo Suzuki (Cache-cache pastoral, Le Labyrinthe d’herbes, Adieu l’arche), ou chez Seijun Suzuki, qui joue aussi très habilement de la poétique symbolique des couleurs dans certains films de la Nikkatsu (La Barrière de chair, 1964, et Le Vagabond de Tokyo, 1966) ou sa récente trilogie très personnelle (Zigeunerweisen, Kagero-za, Yumeji), encore méconnue en France. De même chez Oshima, dans la période des années soixante et soixante-dix, la couleur devient une métaphore poétique ou politique lorsqu’il filme les symboles japonais comme l’incontournable “Hinomaru” (le cercle du soleil, symbole du drapeau japonais) dans Le Petit Garçon (1970) ou La Cérémonie (1973)⁷.

Aujourd’hui, même au Japon, la couleur s’est fortement banalisée, à de rares exceptions près (Suzuki, certains films de Kei Kumai comme La Mort d’un maître de thé), et, comme Woody Allen ou Scorsese, d’autres cinéastes, peut-être écœurés par cette banalisation quotidienne, rêvent parfois de retourner à la poésie réaliste du noir et blanc. Kohei Oguri a filmé ainsi ses souvenirs d’enfance dans La Rivière de boue, et Kaizo Hayashi ses fantasmes du cinéma muet dans Dormir comme on rêve, tandis qu’Imamura, maître de la couleur dans Profonds Désirs des dieux, adaptait récemment, dans une palette de gris raffinée, l’œuvre d’Ibuse, Pluie noire (1989). Lorsque l’excès de couleur lasse, on revient au noir et blanc de base: le “sumi-e” (lavis à l’encre de Chine) est une discipline artistique aussi appréciée des Japonais que l’”ukiyo-e” (estampe).

M.T.

¹ Les deux autres parties, également en couleurs, adaptées du roman d’Eiji Yoshikawa, Heike monogatari, étaient: Trois Femmes autour de Yoshinaka (T. Kinugasa, 1956), et Shizuka et Yoshitsune (Koji Shima, 1956).

² Extrait de l’entretien avec Y. Yoda et K. Miyagawa paru dans les Cahiers du cinéma n° 158 (1964), et repris dans le numéro spécial, “Le dossier Mizoguchi” (hors-série).

³ Ozu, p. 264. (traduction française de Pierre Naillard), éditions Lettre du Blanc (Genève, 1980).

⁴ Après la défection de Kazuo Miyagawa sur le tournage de Kagemusha, pour raisons de santé.

⁵ Cf. le Kurosawa d’Aldo Tassone (Flammarion, 1990), où il cite Paolo Uccello (La battaglia di San Romano) et note que “presque toutes les scènes sont tournées à l’aube ou au crépuscule”, sans parler de l’extraordinaire bataille nocturne, très rare au cinéma.

⁶ On sait d’ailleurs que Kurosawa dessine lui-même les story-boards de ses films, dont certains ont fait ou feront l’objet d’expositions. La revue japonaise PIA (12.2.1992) vient de publier certains dessins pour le tournage de son nouveau film, Madadayo.

⁷ Benoît Noël nous rappelle cette citation d’Oshima: “Quand j’ai tourné pour la première fois un film en couleurs, Contes cruels de la jeunesse, je me suis donné intérieurement un interdit: ne jamais, absolument jamais filmer le vert… Si l’on filme deux personnages dans un conflit sévère, la seule apparition de la couleur verte, même pendant un court instant, affadit la violence du propos. Je ne sais pas comment réagissent les étrangers, mais je sais que le vert édulcore les sentiments des Japonais.“”

(Tessier, Max (1992): De la couleur dans les films japonais. In: Yann Tobin: Dossier. La couleur du cinéma. In: Positif, 375–376, May, pp. 121–158, on pp. 152–154.) (in French)

La Collectionneuse (FRA 1967, Éric Rohmer)

“color and/as monochrome in eric rohmer’s films

The ordering role of color in Eric Rohmer’s films is signaled to us by its decisive use in the Contes moraux/Moral Tales (1962–1972). The first three Contes moraux were released in black-and-white, the last three in color. However, this order is out of sequence in their production as La Collectionneuse (1967), which is in color, was filmed third but is placed fourth in the series. The decision to respect choice of film stock rather than production order in the numbering of his Contes moraux demonstrates that Rohmer regards color as key to his developing style and themes. Notably, La Collectionneuse takes place in the summer, on the Côte d’Azur, linking its predominant hues of rich, warm brown and pink tones to sunburned flesh and its limpid blues to the sea and sky. Almendros pushed his Eastman film stock to its limits during night for night shooting, and shot in the shade during the day to avoid the harshest effects of the light, establishing the color cinematography for which both he and Rohmer would become recognized.”

(Handyside, Fiona (2013): Color and Meaning in the Films of Eric Rohmer. In: Simon Brown, Sarah Street, Liz Watkins (eds.) Color and the Moving Image. History, Theory, Aesthetics, Archive. New York, London: Routledge, pp. 150–159, on p. 151.)

“Chris Challis was born on 18 March 1919 in Kensington, London and attended school in Wimbledon. He entered the film industry, working as a camera assistant on Gaumont-British newsreels before working at Denham Studios when three-strip Technicolor was introduced to Britain. Challis was an assistant on the World Windows travelogues shot by Jack Cardiff in the late 1930s and on other productions, including location work in India for The Drum (1938). He worked as a cameraman for the RAF Film Production Unit during World War II. In the post-war years he was camera operator on Powell and Pressburger’s Black Narcissus and The Red Shoes before photographing The Tales of Hoffmann, Gone to Earth (1950), The Elusive Pimpernel (1950), Oh … Rosalinda!! (1955) and The Battle of the River Plate (1956). During his long career he photographed many popular British films including Genevieve (1953) and Footsteps in the Fog (1955), and worked with British and American directors, most notably Stanley Donen, Billy Wilder, Joseph Losey, J. Lee Thompson and Ken Annakin. He became known for his ingenuity, reliability and expertise and is credited as cinematographer on major box-office successes including Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965), Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968) and Evil under the Sun (1981). He won a BAFTA for Best Cinematography for Arabesque (1966). He retired in 1985 after working on Steaming (1984), Joseph Losey’s last film. He died in May 2012.

[…]

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Anon, ‘A Feature Cinematographer Photographs the Olympics’, American Cinematographer vol. 57 no. 4, April 1976, pp. 406–7, 458–9.

Brett, Anwar, interview with Chris Challis, ‘Reflections on a Golden Age’, Exposure, October 1998, pp. 16–17.

Challis, Christopher, ‘Hoffmann sets new pattern in film making technique’, American Cinematographer vol. 32 no. 5, May 1951, pp. 176–7, 194–6.

Challis, Christopher, Are They Really So Awful? A Cameraman’s Chronicles (London: Janus Publishing, 1995).

Film Dope entry on Challis, no. 6, November 1974, pp. 41–3.

Petrie, Duncan, The British Cinematographer (London: BFI, 1996), pp. 80–2.

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

DATE OF INTERVIEW: 17 OCTOBER 2008

INTERVIEWERS: SARAH STREET AND LIZ WATKINS

[…]

LIZ WATKINS: Were there any problems with colour resolution using the widescreen processes and those different lenses when they first came in?

CHRISTOPHER CHALLIS: No, not really when we went over to Kodak.

LW: Eastmancolor?

CC: Although it was a multilayer emulsion the definition on that was pretty well as good as black and white and of course the best Eastmancolor was printed by Technicolor. Instead of having a contact print they printed up and made separation negatives and then they printed on the imbibition system, so they’d got that under control you see? With Eastmancolor you have no control in the printing other than how dense you make it and you can only do corrections with colour filters. So it’s pretty crude, whereas if they printed with Technicolor they could reduce it all to the Technicolor and it was very good. Eastmancolor got better and better.

LW: So did it improve or change Eastmancolor?

CC: They improved the emulsion – it got faster and less contrasty and it became very, very good.

LW: Were there problems with colour fading with Eastmancolor at this time? At what point did this occur? I wonder because there’s a lot that has been written on colour preservation – at what point did that become an issue? Were people immediately aware of that?

CC: I don’t obviously know the answer to that but I would think it’s fairly long term. Technicolor negatives were black and white anyway so you could go on ad infinitum. I don’t think they faded all that quickly; it’s like ordinary colour photography. Some Kodacolor prints fade and others don’t. It’s extraordinary. If they’re in direct sunlight they do. That’s why I think they can do so much with remastering; it’s absolutely uncanny. I had a wonderful experience of that because in quite the early days of Cinemascope I made a film with Micky and Emeric called Oh … Rosalinda!!, which did all sorts of things with Cinemascope. You know that Cinemascope was an additional lens, was put on the front of the conventional camera. We had a duff one and definition was not terribly good. Also, it was in the very early days of Eastmancolor and the colour rushes were just dreadful. I could never get anything right and I was getting more and more depressed about it and I don’t think I ever saw it on release – I absolutely hated it! Many years later I was living in Scotland and I got involved with the Edinburgh Film Festival. I did some things for them and as a ‘thank you’ on about the second or third year they held a party for me and got all sorts of people who had worked with me. It was a great surprise and they got Micky’s widow, Thelma [Schoonmaker] and one or two other people and they said ‘Well, we’ve got another surprise for you.’ After we’d finished our drinks they screened Oh … Rosalinda!! It had been remastered and looked wonderful – much better than it ever did when we made it.”

(Street, Sarah; Watkins, Liz (2013): Interview. Christopher Challis. In: Simon Brown, Sarah Street and Liz Watkins (eds.): British Colour Cinema. Practices and Theories. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 10–30, on pp. 11–26.)

Blade Runner (USA 1982, Ridley Scott)

“One of the design concepts for Blade Runner was bright neon against a drab background of buildings. As this concept involved both lighting and set construction, Cronenweth came in for the meetings. Pauli wanted to have a “harsh, murky look” with “additive architecture” that created a “sculptured appearance with a lot of texture.” Vacuum-formed pipes were applied all over the exteriors of the buildings and everything was painted in “elephant colors with pastel highlights.” Since the Director, Ridley Scott, had also had experience in art direction and camera, he had definite ideas of what he wanted. Both Pauli and Cronenweth felt that the collaboration was a good experience. As Pauli put it, “it posed opportunities” for expansion of concepts and “contributed to the visualization of the film.” For example one of the design motifs of the film was shafts of light. (See July 1982 issue American Cinematographer) According to Cronenweth, “Ridley liked the feeling of shafts of light in Citizen Kane, so we used them for the first time in the Tyrel Corporation scene. Ridley loved it but how could we justify it in other scenes? The next scene where we wanted to use this motif was in the Blade Runner’s apartment. It was decided to justify it by establishing the light sources as advertising on the side of the dirigibles floating around outside.” Thus some of the most stunning images in the film evolved from this creative process of problem solving.”

(Carmichael, Jae (1982): Lighting and Production Design. In: American Cinematographer, 63,11, pp. 1156–1161, on p. 1157.)

Blade Runner (USA 1982, Ridley Scott)

“Another technique which Douglas likes to use is the Smoke Room. He has found out by experimenting that one of the mistakes a lot of effects people make is to shoot a miniature in a clear room. Without smoke you don’t get the aerial perspective that you get in atmosphere. Even the purest of atmospheres creates an aerial perspective. Colors become less distinct; there is a blending and a softening of resolution the further and further away you get. Smoke is a microcosm. It creates the illusion of distance and can make a miniature which is 12 feet away seem much further away. So in addition to matching the smoke effects used in the live action photography, we used smoke for almost all the major city-scapes or industrial landscapes. Even the flying machines were often shot in smoke to add depth and create a sense of aerial perspective.

In addition to the Smoke Room, another technique we used to enhance the aerial perspective with a flying object which was being optically composited with a background was to systematically subtract exposure and actually start to drop the matte away as the object receded into the distance. This caused it to become contaminated by the background as it got further and further away from camera and to become less and less bright. It tended to give the feeling of going off into the smoke or haze. Otherwise if the object retains its brightness and resolution as it recedes, it tends to look like a postage stamp stuck on top of the background and doesn’t seem really to belong in the scene.”

(Dryer, David (1982): Blade Runner. Special Photographic Effects. In: American Cinematographer, 63,7, pp. 692–693, 725–732, on pp. 692–693.)

Blade Runner (USA 1982, Ridley Scott)

“CRONENWETH’S PHOTOGRAPHY

Jordan Cronenweth’s photography for Blade Runner with its strong shafts of light and use of backlighting immediately evokes images from classic black-and-white movies, and it is no accident that it does. As Cronenweth explains, “Ridley felt the style of photography in Citizen Kane most closely approached the look he wanted for Blade Runner. This included among other things high contrast, unusual camera angles and the use of shafts of light.”

David Dryer, one of the special effects supervisors, worked with black-and-white prints of most scenes in the film for one reason or another, and he almost wishes the film could be released in black-and-white. He thinks it seems to have even more depth and style in black-and-white. Needless to say this would not do justice to Cronenweth’s work, but it is an indication of the way in which the photographic style of the film harks back to classic movies. Like every other aspect of the film Cronenweth’s photography takes the classic conventions one step further, and not the least of his tools in doing this is the use of color or even the absence of color where it might normally be expected. “We used contrast, backlight, smoke, rain and lightning to give the film its personality and moods. The streets were depicted as terribly overcrowded, giving the audience a future time frame to relate to. We had street scenes just packed with people… like ants. So we made them look like ants – all the same. They were all the same in the sense that they were all part of the flow. It was like going in circles… like going nowhere. Photographically we kept them rather colorless.”

If the people on the streets were colorless, the New York Street set was anything but: “The character and consequently the lighting of the New York Street was achieved through the use of dozens of neon signs. We rented a number of them from One from the Heart. In order to achieve a photographic reality, the on-camera neons were often on dimmers set at a level just above where they would start to flicker. At the same time the off-camera neons were used as the primary source of light whenever possible by leaving them at their brightest level. When the existing neons weren’t sufficient for either illumination or dressing, we would simply create new ones on the spot and place them wherever we wanted. An example of this was placing letters on the side and strips on the interior of a bus that Harrison runs through in one scene. At one point we had a seven-man crew doing nothing but overseeing the neon signs. There were many more neons than there were dimmers, so we had to rob Peter to pay Paul at various times.”

Cronenweth would supplement the neons on occasion: “What you needed was some accent lighting to make the range stand out, to glisten the street if necessary and to highlight objects or people. Lighting the set was a simple matter of using backlight in conjunction with the ambient light.”

The neon lights were bright enough in one instance to enable Cronenweth to do some high speed photography: “In the sequence in which Harrison Ford is chasing Joanna Cassidy’s ‘Snake Lady,’ the script calls for her to run through the plate glass windows of a store. The art director built a storefront situation appropriate to the action, but when it came to dressing it Ridley was very unhappy with the first attempt. They tore all the dressing out and a week later presented a new interpretation, but he still hated it. Ridley himself finally had the wonderful idea of taking the neon signs off the New York Street set and placing them in the windows of the stores. What developed was something that really worked. We then photographed the chase with multiple cameras running at various frame rates – normal and above normal. We had to deal with a pulsing effect which doesn’t occur when photographing neons at normal camera speeds, but definitely occurs at higher frame rates. We lived with it by using the pulsing as an element of the chase.”

Another striking use of colored light is the scene in the toy room where Deckard encounters Pris, one of the replicants. She is made up with white make-up, and the scene is lit with rose colored light. Colored lights were also used occasionally for the light effect in the replicants’ eyes: “One of the identifying characteristics of replicants is a strange glowing quality of the eyes. To achieve this effect, we’d use a two-way mirror – 50% transmission, 50% transmission, 50% reflection – placed in front of the lens at a 45 degree angle. Then we’d project a light into the mirror so that it would be reflected into the eyes of the subject along the optical axis of the lens. Sometimes we’d use very subtle colored gels to add color to the eyes. Often we’d photograph a scene with and without this effect, for Ridley to have the option of when he’d use it.”

In discussing the photography of Blade Runner, however, Cronenweth emphasizes that technique per se is not the most important consideration. “The thing that was unique was not the equipment or the gels or the intensity or the hard or soft light. It was the concepts behind each situation telling the story. Since the film is set in the future, unusual sources of light could be used where one would not accept them in a contemporary setting. For example many umbrellas carried had fluorescent tubes incorporated in their shafts providing a light source which could create a glow in the faces of the carriers.”

[…]

In addition to using soft frontlight Cronenweth often lit faces from below. In addition to the glowing umbrella handles he made use of water or reflective surfaces to provide uplight in several scenes. The combination of warm soft uplight in the foreground with hard backlight and smoke in the background is probably the most characteristic feature of the lighting style for Blade Runner.

The other key ingredient in the photography of Blade Runner is the use of shafts of light. “The shafts of light was an idea that both Ridley and I had happened upon independently and had talked about. We shared that concept, and it became one of the major themes of the film photographically. We used it over and over again in different applications. One way we justified the constant presence of shafts of light was to invent airships floating through the night with enormously powerful beams emerging from their undersides. In the futuristic environment they bathe the city in constantly swinging lights. They were supposedly used for both advertising and crime control, much the way a prison is monitored by moving search lights. The shafts of light represent invasion of privacy by a supervising force, a form of control. You are never sure who it is; but even in the darkened seclusion of your home, unless you pull your shades down, you are going to be disturbed at one time or another.

“After many tests with various units, gaffer Dick Hart came up with the most effective light to do the job. That was a Xenon spotlight commonly used for night advertising and sports events. This concept gave us some wonderful opportunities. For example there’s a late night scene in Harrison Ford’s apartment kitchen, played with the lights out. Harrison has just had a hell of a struggle with one of the replicants. Having barely survived, he is now standing near the refrigerator which has a clear plastic door. The only light in the room is from the refrigerator. Sean Young is standing by the sink, which has a window above it. She is illuminated by a soft backlight through the window and by the last traces of light filtering across the room from the refrigerator. Occasionally one of the beams of light cuts through the sink windows and glows the room just enough to read Sean’s face.

“Naturally,” Cronenweth continues, “to get shafts of light one must have some medium, which necessitated the use of smoke. The story lent itself very well to it, in the context of a highly polluted environment. It was very interesting to work with this constant atmosphere. Smoke is wonderful photographically, but not without its problems. Its hard to control, mainly due to drafts; and a lot of people find it objectionable to work in. Beyond this, it’s important to keep the smoke level density constant, as a very subtle change in this density can result in dramatic changes in contrast. The only practical way to judge smoke density is by eye. I find that a good density is just before I lose consciousness.”

[…]

All of the sets for Blade Runner had ceilings in them, and some were built very low to enhance the feeling of containment, a motif particularly well suited to the anamorphic format. “We had to light from the floor or through the windows. There’s a lot of night photography lit through windows. The sources would vary. They could be anything including searchlights, signs, direct light, indirect light, colored light, or lightning. In Harrison Ford’s apartment, we created zones of light that illuminated automatically when one walked in at different levels – an energy saving device of the future perhaps. As the depths of the apartment were penetrated, more lights went on until finally the entire place was illuminated. This effect was mostly lost, however, in the final cut.”

Perhaps the most interesting set was Tyrell’s office. According to Cronenweth, “Tyrell’s office was one of the most exciting to work in. It was very large – approximately sixty feet long by thirty feet wide – with three huge windows along one side and structural ceiling supports rising from a shiny black marble floor. The walls were gray cement and the room was virtually colorless.

“The scene called for the room to be illuminated by sunrise. Outside the windows we had a front projection screen upon which was projected an 8 by 10 plate of the futuristic city at sunrise that Doug Trumbull had created. This enabled us to photograph the players walking in front of the lower part of the screen and gave Doug an opportunity to later create a background with movement in it for the upper portions of the screen area. We had to coordinate the color of the set to match the color of Doug’s sunrise. Sunlight was created through the use of arcs outside the windows and amber gels.

“At a certain point in the scene, Tyrell, in order to reduce the light level in the room for a test, presses a button causing enormous tinted shades to descend over the windows. The ‘shades’ were actually put in later optically; however the effect of the shades being lowered had to be created while photographing the scene. To accomplish this, Carey Griffith, the key grip, built a rig that would allow a very large sixty neutral density filter to slide down over the six arcs being used to simulate sunlight.”

The set for Tyrell’s office was also redressed to serve as two other sets. It was used for Tyrell’s bedroom, which was photographed in flickering firelight; and it was used as the Tyrell Corporation interview room, which was photographed in bright white shafts of daylight. According to Cronenweth, “It looks totally different in each situation, and yet it’s the same set. The flickering for the firelight was created by arcs through torn strips of silk and dubotine – torn strips of silk for transmission and torn strips of dubotine for shadows.””

(Lightman, Herb A.; Patterson, Richard (1982): Blade Runner. Production Design and Photography. In: American Cinematographer, 63,7, pp. 684–687, 715–725, on pp. 720–723.)

Alien (USA 1979, Ridley Scott)

“The governing factor in establishing a lighting style for Alien was the requirement that there be three levels of light – the ship before people came out of deep sleep, a working level of light for the ship while the people were active, and then when the ship goes bananas and all of the conventional light sources are going out, one had to create the impression that the illumination was coming from explosions, panic lights and things like that.

I’m a reasonably low-light photographer under normal conditions, but I had to work at even lower levels for the neonlit scenes. In addition, there were the low ceilings, close walls and high percentage of camera movement to be taken into consideration.

[…]

One had to be able to sort of cheat lights through grids and use practicals that actually existed in the shots, but most of the time there was the necessity of overriding the fluorescents, because of the problems we all experience with mixing fluorescent and normal incandescent light.

I found a reasonable balance level between the ordinary warm-glow fluorescents and putting something like a halfblue on the incandescent lights and using a very gentle gelatine, like an 81B, to knock out a little of the blue. But dimmers and things like that helped tremendously on the incandescent lights. The flames from flamethrowers held close to faces were, I suppose, a bit unpleasant for the artists, but they were very, very good about it.”

(Vanlint, Derek (1979): “Alien” and its photographic Challenges. In: American Cinematographer, 60,8, pp. 768–771, 806, 812–813, on pp. 768–769.)

Alien (USA 1979, Ridley Scott)

“Photographically, the final look of Alien, especially in terms of light direction, bears no relationship to my kind of advertising show reel, where I use a great deal of diffusion and really go pretty heavily into putting tracing paper and plexiglas in front of my lights. As far as possible, when everything was alright aboard the spaceship, I tried to make the lighting look as though it was coming from natural sources. But when the ship was ready to blow up, the low level and extreme movements made it necessary for me to use more hard light than I normally use. But this was the effect that was required for the mood of the picture, and it was vastly different from anything I had done before. I was quite pleased with the finished result.

In the communications room of the spaceship, where Tom Skerritt talks to Mother, there were I forget how many thousands of little bulbs covering the walls, and the actual color tone was governed by the bulbs we were using in there. They were well down in color temperature – somewhere around 2000°K. I came in through the ceiling with something like a 1000-watt lamp diffused through tracing paper and with a half- MTA gelatine to keep it kind of yellow, so that it looked like the room was lit by the actual small bulbs. I put very little additional light in there, but we did put the image from a 16mm projector onto the faces of Skerritt and Sigourney Weaver while they were in there, in order to simulate the reflection from a television monitor. It was a piece of film with a few numbers on it and a lot of black and splashes of varnish.”

(Vanlint, Derek (1979): “Alien” and its photographic Challenges. In: American Cinematographer, 60,8, pp. 768–771, 806, 812–813, on pp. 806, 812.)

Fantastic Voyage (USA 1966, Richard Fleischer)

“The now-microscopic Proteus is injected into Benes’ arterial system. As the sub speeds down the length of the needle into the vertebral artery, it suddenly enters a dazzling world of color and beauty, a floating wonderland of huge red corpuscles, whirling globules, platelets and other particles in the straw-colored stream.

To save time, the voyagers decide to take the Proteus through the heart. Because the normal beating of the heart would cause a turbulence that would severly buffet and finally crush the sub, the surgical team tending Benes’ still body in the Operating Theatre has to “turn off” Benes’ heart for 60 seconds, to allow the sub to race through. As the Proteus enters the vena cava, the deafening beat of Benes’ heart sounds like artillery fire. On the last beat before the 60-second cut-off, the Proteus speeds through the parachute-like tendrils of the tricuspid valve into the bluish stream of the right ventricle. Now all is silent as the Proteus glides through a forest of tendrils and chordae tendinae, huge roots extending into the heart walls. As the precious seconds tick by, the sub, bathed in weird St. Elmo’s fire, streams toward the semi-lunar valve and is finally swept through the aperture into the pulmonary artery by the first thundering surge of Benes’ reactivated heart.”

(Lightman, Herb A. (1966): The Cameraman becomes the Star of Fantastic Voyage. In: American Cinematographer, 47,2, pp. 98–101, 121–123, on p. 99.)

Fantastic Voyage (USA 1966, Richard Fleischer)

“In its constant movement through the various organs of the body, the submarine had to be lighted for various moods depending upon what was happening outside. If the exterior glow was green or red or blue, the same effect had to be extended to the interior. A glass bubble and several large ports in the undersea craft gave a clear view of the outside background. However, very few rear-projection process shots were used to simulate this effect. Instead, the submarine was photographed against a blue backing so that traveling matte shots could be printed in later.

[…]

The Capillary: Inner-body shooting was begun by Director Richard Fleischer in the Capillary, a 100×50-foot tube made of specially invented and welded combinations of flexible resin and fiberglass with hand-painted scenic effects to simulate the cellular walls of the capillary. The tube was made, as were all the inner-body sets, large enough to hold the 42×22-foot “Proteus,” submarine in which the scientists make their strange voyage. The 100- foot length of the capillary, extended with the addition of a scenic backing, gives the illusion of infinite depth. Cinematographer Laszlo and his lighting experts bathed the scene in golden amber color to give the illusion of plasma, adding pinks and violet specks from rotating color wheels outside the tube, but reflecting into it, to simulate the movement of cells on the outside of the capillary walls.

By means of the huge color wheels with openings covered by various colored gelatins, Laszlo was able to project onto the translucent walls of the set blue-violet specks which turn to a glowing hot-pink as they move down the capillary receiving oxygen from the breath of the scientist.

The Lung: The second inner-body set, the Alveolus, one of the billions of balloon-like sacs which make up the lung, is made of specifically treated flexible resin, fibreglass, and a secret mixture. It was cast in many irregularly curved and scrolled segments rather than in tube form. It is 300,000 cubic feet in surface area. These walls were specially rigged to breathe in rhythm. The set is realistic to the point of including sharp, craggy, rock-like gray formations representing the smog, dirt and smoke inhaled.

[…]

The Brain or Cranial Set: The brain set is 100 by 200 by 35 feet high – and, like the proportions of other inner. body sets, is roughly five million times the size of the real human brain. It is based on anatomical drawings by Frank Armitage, from which Art Director Hennesy painted the abstract design. The cobweb effect of rope-like bridges is of spun fibreglass and had to be handsprayed, but with geometric precision to conform to the abstract painting versions of the anatomical drawings.

[…]

Painting With Light

In view of the fact that Fantastic Voyage involved subject matter, never before presented on the screen, it was anticipated that new and different approaches to set design and photographic technique would have to be developed in order to do it full justice. With this in mind, eight months were spent in testing various visual effects before actual filming got underway.

At first the inner-body sets, scaled to precise anatomical proportions, were surfaced with conventional paints in varying authentic colors. However, to Cinematographer Laszlo’s trained artist’s eye they appeared opaque and lifeless.

In a daring experiment, he decided to have the sets constructed of colorless translucent fibreglass, cellulose, acetate, plastic and lucite – and to “paint” these forms with colored light. The result was an effect of internal organs glowing with luminous light, beautiful as abstract paintings but authentically “alive” in appearance. The spectacular success of this experiment led to the adoption of the “painting with light” technique for photographing all of the inner-body sequences.

“I’ve painted with light before in brief sequences, as have many other cinematographers,” comments Laszlo, “but I’m sure that Fantastic Voyage marks the first time that fully two thirds of an entire feature has been colored exclusively with light.”

The technique involved literally thousands of gelatin filters ranging the entire spectrum which had to be changed very frequently as they faded before the heat of the high intensity lamps used to light the giant sets.”

(Lightman, Herb A. (1966): The Cameraman becomes the Star of Fantastic Voyage. In: American Cinematographer, 47,2, pp. 98–101, 122–123, on pp. 101, 122.)

“Some Considerations of Eastman Color Print Film Dye Stability

The dyes in Eastman Color Print Film are quite satisfactory for stability when the film is processed according to recommended procedures. Their stability under conditions of high temperature and high humidity can, however, be seriously affected by retained hypo and/or abnormal pH of the processed emulsion. These conditions can be prevented by following recommended processing procedures, particularly the final wash. A simple method of measuring the emulsion pH directly on the processed film, and emulsion pH control parameters are described.

The problem of maintaining the stability of dyes in color films is one that has received considerable attention from those employed in the design of films and processes. The dyes in color films have been selected for maximum stability consistent with the requirements for their hue and their formation in a photographic emulsion.

Image stability is not a new problem. For a long time, it has been recognized that black-and-white films have required special washing and keeping procedures to maintain their quality for archival purposes.

The stability of dyes used in color films is a much more complicated problem because of the complex nature of the organic materials used as couplers and developers. Since most organic dyes are fugitive, at least to some extent, it should be realized that the excellent stability of the dyes used in color films is indeed somewhat miraculous, and not accidental. The processing procedures recommended by the manufacturer are not devised by happenstance. Each processing step is carefully considered so that the final result will be the best possible dye system for the color film.

When Eastman Color films are processed according to recommendations, they have proved satisfactory to the motion-picture industry under widely varying conditions of use. Several recent cases in which insufficient attention to processing details led to dye fading difficulties prompted this report.

Effect of Film pH and Hypo Retention on Dye Stability

One extremely important detail of a film process that is occasionally overlooked is the final washing. Using a shorter than recommended final wash for Eastman Color Print Film can result in serious dye fading, particularly if the processed film is stored under conditions of high temperature and high humidity. A thorough investigation of these fading phenomena has shown that an inadequate wash can result in a high level of retained hypo and low pH of the emulsion of the processed film (which will be referred to as “film pH”). A relationship has been established between dye fading and the two control parameters, hypo retention and film pH. It has been generally known for some time that a level of retained hypo greater than 0.02 mg/sq in. of film could be detrimental to the stability of the cyan dye. In the Kodak Research Laboratories it was noted that a sample of customer-processed Eastman Color Print Film that showed very serious yellow-dye fading was characterized by low film pH. It was recently established that film pH below a value of 4.2 can be detrimental to the stability of the yellow dye, and pH above a value of 6.0 detrimental to the stability of the cyan dye, when the film is kept under conditions of high temperature and high humidity such as can occur in tropical areas. The keeping conditions of all tests described in this paper were 140 F at 75% relative humidity. These conditions are extremely severe and are intentionally so in order to accelerate the dye changes. Studies have shown that with proper processing, Eastman Color Print Film is quite stable, even under these extreme conditions. Figure 1 demonstrates the results from two frames of the same film, where A was incubated for six days and shows practically no dye change when compared to B, the unincubated frame. Figure 2B illustrates an extreme case of yellow dye fading following six days’ incubation. The pH of this frame was intentionally lowered to demonstrate the effect. Comparing it with the normally processed print 2A illustrates this effect. Figure 2C illustrates cyan dye loss resulting from high film pH. This frame was also incubated for six days at 140 F, 75% R.H. This type of fading situation would not normally occur as a result of a short wash, but it could result from treatment of the film in highly alkaline baths which are not followed by acidifying baths to adjust the film pH to the recommended level. Such a situation would be abnormal, but it can occur. The addition of compounds other than Formalin and Photo-Flo to the S-1A stabilizing bath may also affect the film pH adversely.

Figure 2D illustrates a case of cyan dye loss from high hypo retention, which is an effect of insufficient final wash time and/or flow rate. This frame was also incubated for six days.

Hypo Retention and Film pH Control Limits

The control limit for the hypo retention level is a maximum of 0.02 mg/sq in. as determined by Method M.P. 1701C described in the manual entitled “Production of Motion Pictures in Color Using Eastman Color Films.” This manual is available from Eastman Kodak Co. through the Motion Picture Film Dept. offices. Control limits for the pH of processed film are 4.2 to 6.0, which is a broad range. The method for measurement of film pH is quite simple and will be published in the near future. Briefly, it consists of the following:

Method of Measuring Film pH: Apparatus consists of a Beckman Model G pH Meter equipped with Beckman electrodes: #1190-80 glass electrode and #1170 calomel electrode. The meter is first zeroed with a 4.01 pH buffer solution, then checked with a 9.18 pH buffer solution. A rubber band is placed around the necks of the electrodes just above the bulb to hold the electrodes close together in order to be able to take the pH measurement on a small area of film; about one-half of a motion-picture frame is the area required. A cardboard strip-holder is used to hold the film. Two drops of distilled water are then applied to the emulsion side of the film with a pipet and the electrode tips are lowered into the pool of water on the film, as shown in Fig. 3. The electrodes need not touch the film directly, although doing so will not affect the result. At the end of 2 1/2 minutes, during which time pH equilibrium is established, the meter is read and pH noted. This method offers adequate precision – a 95% confidence limit of 0.08 pH units under rigorously controlled testing conditions. Because the solutions measured on the film are not highly buffered, the atmosphere must be free of such volatile compounds as ammonium hydroxide, hydrochloric acid, acetic acid, or other compounds that may dissolve in the water droplet and produce erroneous results.

D-Min and D-Max pH Differential

There may be a pH differential of about 0.2 to 0.4 pH units between areas of minimum and maximum density with the maximum density area being the lower. However, in taking film pH measurements of a given scene, the water droplets will normally cover a varied density range, which will effectively minimize or eliminate the pH differential. If the pH measurements are taken on gray scales or other areas of uniform density, it should be realized that this differential in film pH exists. The preferred method would be to take the measurement on a picture area.

Wash Time and Temperature vs. Hypo Retention and Film pH

Our investigation included a study of the effects on film pH and hypo retention levels resulting from variations in the time and temperature of the final wash. Additional washing of dried processed film was also studied.

The graph shown in Fig. 4 illustrates the effect of variations in time and temperature of the final wash. Spray washing was used in the test at a rate known to give efficient washing. Spray washing is usually more efficient than deep-tank immersion washing for a given wash time and temperature. A temperature range from 39 F to 90 F was investigated so that the effects of temperature variations could be firmly established. It is readily evident that the hypo retention level decreases as wash time increases for a given wash temperature, and that the hypo level decreases as wash temperature increases for a given wash time. Although from these data a higher wash temperature appears more effective, it should be emphasized that with the present product, the optimum temperature is still 70 F ± 5°, since higher temperatures are likely to cause reticulation or other undesirable physical effects. Lower temperatures are less efficient, requiring more time for attainment of a satisfactory hypo retention level, and also may lead to undesirable physical effects. The wash water temperatures of some processing laboratories are dependent on the season of the year, with the water temperature varying between 35 F and 90 F from winter to summer. It might be necessary for the wash time in some of these laboratories to be increased in the winter in order to maintain the desired low hypo retention level if it is not possible to heat the water to the recommended 70 F. The Kodak recommendation of an 8-min, 70 F final wash will normally result in a hypo retention level well below the safe tolerance limit.

The graph shown in Fig. 5 illustrates the effect of wash time and temperature on film pH and was run on the same test samples as used for the hypo retention comparison just illustrated. It can be seen that the film pH increases with longer wash time and higher wash temperatures.

Rewashing of Processed Film

Tests run on processed film found to have abnormally low pH and/or high hypo retention levels showed that additional washing could raise the film pH and lower hypo retention to satisfactory levels. This indicates that under emergency conditions, processed film can be rewashed to raise the film pH in order to prevent yellow dye fading and to lower the hypo retention in order to prevent cyan dye fading. Test runs should be made to determine the optimum rewash time which will be dependent upon the past history of the film and the characteristics of the wash system.

Necessity for Adequate Final Washing

A summary of the findings relating dye stability to film pH shows that as the film pH decreased below 4.2, the yellow dye fading was more severe for a given incubation period, and as the film pH increased above 6.0, the cyan dye fading became more severe for a given period. The extremes for both cases are demonstrated in Fig. 2. This illustrates the stability of properly washed film as compared to film that was inadequately washed. Dangerous levels of hypo retention and abnormal film pH have been found in films processed by some commercial laboratories. Accelerated keeping of some of these samples (140 F, 75% R.H.) has resulted in severe dye fading in short periods of time. Although most of these samples have not yet shown dye fading after short-term temperate keeping, experience indicates that long-term keeping of these films at moderate conditions of temperature and humidity could result in dye fading. This fact necessitates serious consideration where processed film will be subjected to long-term keeping for re-release or archival purposes.

Conclusion and Recommendations

Certain types of dye fading on Eastman Color films have been described that were caused by inadequate attention to certain details of the recommended processing conditions, principally washing. Failure to follow other parts of the recommended procedure may also produce undesirable results, including dye fading. Experience indicates that adherence to recommended processing procedures is the greatest single factor in the prevention of dye fading.

Acknowledgments

P. W. Vittum and D. B. Julian of the Kodak Research Laboratories discovered the effects of film pH on yellow dye stability and developed the analytical method for measurement of film pH in processed film.

Discussion

Herbert Stein (Technicolor of New York Corporation): Could you explain in more detail what you meant by “incubation period,” that is, how long, at what temperature and what relative humidity?

Mr. Weller: We kept these at 140 F with a relative humidity, at that temperature, of 75%. These film samples were kept for six days, which is adequate to give us the results we were looking for.

Ralph P. Fernandez (Consolidated Film Industries, Fort Lee, N. J.): Is the effect on negative film the same as you show on positive?

Mr. Weller: No, it is not. We have not studied this completely yet, but it’s somewhat different.

Mr. Fernandez: Will this type of dye fading occur in negative and internegative films?

Mr. Weller: The importance of good dye stability characteristics for the valuable negative films is well recognized. We know that the dye stability of Eastman Color Negative and Internegative films is quite satisfactory when the films are processed according to published recommendations. It is obvious that greater attention to all of the processing details is necessary for the production of stable negative films. Storage under conditions of moderate temperatures and humidities is an important factor in maintaining the quality of all processed films.

The dye systems of Eastman Color Negative and Internegative films are somewhat different from that of Eastman Color Print film, so the results of improper processing may be quite different with respect to dye fading. An important processing step in the negative process is the use of the S-3 Stabilizing Bath, which helps maintain proper emulsion pH and assists in the removal of residual hypo. When this bath is used as recommended, excellent dye stability characteristics are obtained in the negative film systems.

Presented on May 1, 1957, at the Society’s Convention at Washington, D.C., by Paul Horowitz and William R. Weller (who read the paper), Color Technology Div., Eastman Kodak Co., Kodak Park Works, Rochester 4, N.Y.

(This paper was received on October 28, 1957.)”

(Horowitz, Paul; Weller, William R. (1958): Some Considerations of Eastman Color Print Film Dye Stability. In: Journal of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, 67,6, pp. 401–404.)

“La scelta di ancorare il film a colori agli immaginari figurativi dello spettacolo teatrale e della pittura divenne la regola quasi unanimemente seguita, negli anni cinquanta, dai pochi autori europei che scelsero di misurarsi con il medium cromatico. Cornici o parentesi metarappresentative furono utilizzate come riferimento diretto o mediato alle narrazioni: il balletto classico in Scarpette rosse (1948) e I racconti di Hoffmann (The Tales of Hoffmann, Powell/Pressburger, 1951), la commedia dell’arte in La carrozza d’oro (Renoir, 1952), il melodramma verdiano in Senso (Visconti, 1954), l’oratorio drammatico in Giovanna d’Arco al rogo (Rossellini, 1954), il circo in Lola Montès (Ophüls, 1955). L’altro importante mediatore fu offerto dalla pittura, che venne spesso citata, ripresa o ricreata come chiave d’accesso all’atmosfera figurativa di particolari ambientazioni.”

(Pierotti, Federico (2012): La seduzione dello spettro. Storia e cultura del colore nel cinema. Genova: Le Mani-Microart, on p. 199.) (in Italian)

Blow-up (GBR 1966, Michelangelo Antonioni)

“THE PASSIVE PHOTOGRAPHER AND THE AIRPLANE PROPELLER

No matter what anyone tells you, this is not just a movie about swinging London in the sixties. It’s about the inability to make choices and connections, between reality and illusion, between art and life, between people. It’s about the inability to act. It’s script just waiting for blue.

The film begins with a noisy crowd of young people in whiteface racing around on a jeep, collecting money from passersby. It is a gray London morning and Thomas (David Hemmings), disheveled and unshaven, is just leaving a shelter for homeless men. A wrinkled paper bag of belongings in hand, he furtively looks around, runs to a black Rolls-Royce convertible, gets in, and drives away. Along the way he drives by two black nuns in white habits and gives the yelling whitefaced kids money. Noisy mimes, an indigent who drives a Rolls-Royce, and black nuns in white habits give us clues to the film’s recurring theme: things are sometimes the reverse of what they seem, or what we expect them to be. Especially in Antonioni movies.

Still in his clothes from the “doss house,” Thomas, in a shirt that is a cross between blue and purple, walks into his studio and begins to work. Work for Thomas is photographing things that capture his interest, and obviously, from looking at his surroundings, pay very well. His subject is Verushka (in reality, a top international model at the time). Pale and mannequin-like, she looks spent and he is exhausted. But, as Thomas gets into what he sees through the camera, he becomes more and more excited, and the scene ends with a hysterical pseudo-sex scene. Trouble is, Thomas treats Verushka (or any other model, for that matter) the same as he treats shooting at the shelter. He’s out for a “look.” He’s not whatsoever involved with his subjects as people.

Thomas’s space is very cool – literally. It’s done in white and blue-grays. He puts on a pale blue shirt, which is actually a small blue and white gingham check similar to Dorothy’s in The Wizard of Oz. It’s the pale blue of inertia, which is very interesting because on the surface he’s compulsive, kicking his heels together in the park or maniacally photographing Verushka. Hemmings has an indolence about him, and the pale blue captures that. He comes alive only through his camera. Outdoors, along with the blue shirt and white pants, Thomas wears a black jacket – an interesting combination since black and white together is often associated with facts, and indeed one of the things Thomas is a photojournalist. But black and white is also associated with the nuns and the mimes, and this is, after all, an Antonioni movie in which meanings keep morphing into other meanings…and “facts” keep changing into other facts.

Because he “can’t live without it,” Thomas compulsively buys a large wooden airplane propeller from an antique shop that he may (or may not) buy. The unattached propeller tells us a lot about Thomas. A propeller’s purpose is to drive forward. Unattached, its purpose becomes unclear. No wonder Thomas chooses it. That, and the pale blue shirt: indeed, the common denominator between wearing a pale blue shirt and buying an airplane propeller when you don’t have an airplane is the key to Thomas’s passive character. He’s unconnected and his actions are often ambiguous. Participants in our investigations into the effects of blue often became lethargic. They even brought pillows with them for Blue Day. Blue is also the color that inspires the intellect. Thomas lives in the world of his mind.

In a park near the shop, Thomas sees a couple laughing and embracing in the distance and becomes fascinated with them. Without their seeing him, he photographs them. The woman (Vanessa Redgrave) suddenly sees him and desperately pleads with him to give her the film. He refuses. She comes to his studio to try to persuade him. Ignoring her plea, he immediately pulls down a roll of purple seamless paper behind her. “You’ve got it.” He tells her. ‘Show me how you sit.” One thing you can say about this guy is he’s consistent. Everything he sees is fair game for his lens. If it has “the look,” he wants it.

PURPLE: THE CLUE TO WHAT DOESN’T HAPPEN

The woman (Redgrave’s character has no name) takes off her shirt. He tells her to put it back on, that he’ll cut out the negatives she wants. (See the photo on page 195.) As he slides closed his darkroom door, the color purple takes over the screen. Surrounded by this purple, she kisses him. He intentionally gives her the wrong negatives. They head for the bedroom. His doorbell rings. His propeller has arrived. She leaves. But before she goes, she intentionally gives him her wrong phone number. Choices made and not made . . . connections made and missed. Purple, the mystical color that signals non-substantiality, is also associated with ambivalence. Blue, because of its passive nature, is associated with ambivalence. Both colors play significant roles in this movie.

The woman’s desperation fuels Thomas’ interest in developing the photos. He begins to enlarge the images of the two lovers. Through the blow-up, he becomes aware that the woman is staring at something in the bushes off camera and eventually realizes he has photographed what might be a murder. In the yellow light of his darkroom, he becomes obsessed (see Obsessive Yellows on page 52) with blowing up the area of her stare. He pins up print after print of his blow-ups on his studio wall and discovers what may be a face and what is definitely a gun. There may also be, half- hidden, a body lying on the ground. Two giggling groupies with whom he has a roll in the purple paper interrupt his activity. This is an interesting use of the color. Our experiments showed purple to be mystical and not sexual. It’s the color of the nonphysical. Remember the pseudo-sex scene with Verushka? It is also interesting that purple is the color of the sliding doors to his darkroom. It is only through his lens and in the darkroom that Thomas connects with the murder. When he does connect with it physically, it’s too late.

Under the guise of a lot of activity, Thomas proves over and over he is essentially a passive being. When the reality card is played, he opts for his camera. No matter how obsessed he becomes with “blowing up” his accidental photos of a murder, the closer he gets, the less he sees. Even his action results in inaction. When finally he goes back to the park and does indeed discover a body, he goes to the house next door and stares voyeuristically at his neighbors making love. Thomas is a voyeur with or without his camera. He doesn’t get involved. The neighbor (Sarah Miles) comes over and he tells her,

“I saw a man killed this morning.”

“Who was he?”

“Someone.”

“How did it happen?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t see.”

“You didn’t see?”

“No.”

“Shouldn’t you call the police?”

“That’s the body.”

Thomas, ignoring her call to action, shows her the blow-up.

At the film’s beginning, Thomas drives past us, parallel to the strong bright energies of buildings and buses painted in the primary reds, yellows, and blues. He doesn’t connect with them. He is detached, living in a world of shallow space – the world of the photograph.

His black blazer and white pants are like the “facts” of the murder he’s trying so desperately to see, but can’t see without his camera. Pale blue, the color of the shirt he wears throughout the film, is a color that effects introspection. Thomas is introspective to the point that his very introspection prevents him from achieving that which he is obsessed with finding out. By the time Thomas gets back to the park the next morning, the body is gone.

The last scene is a film classic. Thomas, the propeller buyer with nothing to propel, watches the raucous whiteface revelers play “mime tennis.” Thomas’ head joins the others, turning from court to court as the virtual ball is hit across the net. The imaginary ball goes out of bounds, and a mime points and looks pleadingly at Thomas to retrieve it and throw it back into play. To pick it up or not to pick it up becomes a major metaphor. When at last he makes his decision, some of the audience cheers. The others sigh. As Thomas watches the phantom match, his expression subtly alters from bemusement to something approaching profound sadness. The camera zooms high overhead. Thomas is alone with his camera.”

(Bellantoni, Patti (2005): If It’s Purple, Someone’s Gonna Die. The Power of Color in Visual Storytelling. Taylor & Francis, on pp. 92–95.)

Das Boot (GER 1981, Wolfgang Petersen)

“In order to explore the problems of bringing the script to the screen in a visual manner, I have broken the story down into four basic sections. The approximate time length of each section is noted in parentheses.

Section 1 (15 min.)

a. The farewell party
b. The shipyard arrival
c. The sub’s departure

Section 2 (70 min.)

a. Diving drill and test
b. Crew activity and introduction
c. Boredom sets in
d. First depth charge attack
e. Man overboard mishap
f. Crew eats, relaxes and sleeps
g. Convoy exchange of fire
h. Sub dives to 220 meters

Section 3 (45 min.)

a. Crew watches burning ship
b. Port of Vigo encounter
c. Gibralter approach
d. Attack and sub sinks
e. Sub floods
f. Sub is repaired and resurfaces

Section 4 (15 min.)

a. Sub returns to port
b. Port is bombed, sub sinks

The Port of Vigo sequence acts like an intermission break in the film. Both dramatically and visually it separates the two encounters and gives the audience a ‘rest’ before the second assault begins on the submarine. Peterson used the alternating pattern of fast and slow visual rhythms as suggested by the structure of the script to slowly build towards a series of intensifying visual climaxes.

The film’s first shot, the opening tile, sets the visual mood. The viewer not only receives the narrative exposition but also the visual exposition. This opening shot reveals a dark, gloomy, blue-green color. Slowly, a darker grey ghost-like submarine looms into the foreground, passing over the camera. This grey, blue-green color will be the predominant color of the film with a deep red as the secondary color scheme.

Following the title shot, the beer hall party establishes the other visual motifs of the film. The lighting quality is softer and the ever increasing smokey atmosphere is similar to the smoke filled cabins on the submarine. The walls of the bar room are the same cool grey color as in the opening shot reinforcing the color motif. The singer in the red dress accents the concept of the secondary red color scheme. The general style of camera movement for the film is established in the sequence as the actors run, jump and fall over the party room set and the adjoining lavatory. Throughout the party scene the camera makes wide sweeping moves; closeups are kept moving with slow zooms or dollies. Each new movement of the camera is paralleled by a movement of the actors or other objects in the scene. Camera pauses to allow doors to open or physical business to be completed are choreographed so that the actors and camera move as a single unit.

The overall sense of space in the film grows continuously more claustrophobic and ambiguous. This very wild and free party scene which starts the visual structure of the film allows Peterson and Vacano to slowly ‘close down’ the visual spaces of the film while building towards a climax.

The party ends and the key crew members are shown walking through the marine yard towards the submarine, boarding and finally departing. The general color motif of cool grey is maintained throughout in the vast cement walls and still water around the ships. An additional element has been added, however.

Peterson has staged ship welding operations in various areas of the frame and Vacano has exposed them to render hellish red glows and spark showers that again underscore the red color motif and transforms the shipyard into a bizarre, almost nightmarish location. It becomes the foundries of war and the ominously glowing red walls and artifically crimson faces of the men foreshadow the grim events to follow. The camera dollies through much of this sequence looking down deep cavernous tunnels as the welding work flashes and spews sparks across the frame. The visual rhythm of this sequence is slower than the party scene. The camera move speed, the actors and the pace of the dialoge is sharp and well defined, but slow. The crew boards and the submarine slowly launches out to sea.

This marks the end of the first cycle of alternating rhythm in the film. The party scene was essentially fast paced; the walk through the shipyard was slower. The visual rhythm speeds up in the second section when the general alarm drill is called.

This opening sequence not only introduces the captain, his crew and the basic plot situation, it also introduces the basic visual elements of the film: the color of objects and light is grey, blue or red; the highly mobile camera remains tightly linked to the Physical actions of the sailors and the visual rhythm patterns alternate from activity to stasis.

The second sequence begins with more exposition. Immediately the crew is tested with a complete alarm drill and then the dive capabilities of the sub are tested. The drama of the next two hours revolves around the crew’s ability to react to emergency situations and the sub diving too deep or sinking. At this point in the film, the crew has a lot of energy and personality. The color, lighting and camera angles reflect this attitude and feeling. The white lights are on in the cabins during the drill. The camera makes short dollies and then is cut away to static camera positions. There is a wide variety in the types of camera positions and moves used in this drill sequence. The great variety helps to reflect the energy and attitude of the men. The visual dynamics of this sequence are kept lower by holding the camera dolly shots short or static while the actors move. Other later sequences will move both the camera and the actors giving the viewer a much more intense sense of visual dynamics and intensity.

As the sequence concludes, the visual rhythm slows and the second cycle of alternating rhythm draws to a close. Sequence 2-c has very little physical action. The pace is slow and for the most part the lighting is white. The actors and the camera remain in relatively fixed positions around tables, charts or cots. As the visual dynamics of the scenes decrease the viewer’s attention focuses on the characters and personality detail is revealed.

The rhythm and tempo begin to change as the weather turns bad and the captain decides to attempt sinking an enemy destroyer. A visual lighting change occurs, the sub goes to red lights and the camera placement and cutting speed begins to accelerate. The camera becomes mobile again, moving camera shorts are cut against static camera shots as the crew and camera jump through hatch doors, throw themselves into corners and run for their posts. The visual change from the preceding sequence is great. This change in lighting color, lighting angle, camera and actor movement and directorial pace helps to show a change in attitude of the crew and given the viewer a complete change in the visual quality. The sub is then hit with its first depth charges for a very brief period whereupon all the lighting changes to blue and small hand held flashlights. The depth charges rock the sub and the quick cuts of the charges flash a bright yellow in the dark blue ocean but the attack is brief and the intensity is quickly reduced. The camera and actors move slowly or stand motionless and another alternating cycle of rhythm ends.

The rough seas continue and the cool grey color predominates the next sequence (section 2-e). The grey colors begin to correlate closely with the boredom of the ship’s crew. In long shot, the ship appears to be lost in an endless, tragic grey sea. The rhythm remains slow as the sailors are seen eating, resting and sleeping. Again this is a visual ‘rest’ sequence before the long, violent convoy attack begins.

In section 2-g the convoy is sighted and an exchange of fire occurs. This sequence begins with a three-way intercutting of the blue bridge, the red control room and the white torpedo room. The contrast in lighting colors and positions helps to build the intensity of the action. The sub must dive quickly and again the depth charges begin to explode. This attack is longer than the first and the ship and crew movement becomes more violent. Offaxis camera angles are used and the intercutting with the exploding yellow depth charges increases. The ship interior switches from red to blue as it submerges to avoid enemy radar. The small hand-held flash lights are used to illuminate the actors’ faces and direct the audience’s attention to them rather than the blue background. As the depth charges continue and the ship sustains damage, the camera angles fall further off axis and the ship movement becomes more violent. Finally sparks and flames break out on board and the blue lights go out. The tiny flash lights provide the only apparent illumination, making the space of the submarine interior more nebulous and frightening. The final depth charges are the most devastating. The lighting becomes almost stroboscopic as the contrast of light and dark, movement and non-movement and color and grey become most intense. In the final explosions, the camera is vibrated violently along with the actors and the ship interior adding to the extremely intense experience. The visual picture is one of erratically changing, ambiguous images. In the midst of this frightening attack, the camera slows down and holds on the correspondent as he retreats to his cot and hides.

When the correspondent awakes, the white lights have been restored, the crew is moving slowly and the camera holds on longer takes. The red lights illuminate the control room and the bridge, the key crew members watch an English-speaking ship crew abandon their sinking craft. This entire sequence is red only. The night sky is filled with red smoke, the burning ship is red and the water, reflecting the flames, appears like red lava. The choice and effect of this all-red color scheme is extraordinary. The tragic situation of the war and the spectre of death is made visually clear without dialogue. The crew now embarks upon a course for Vigo for new supplies.

The Vigo merchant marine ship is the ‘visual intermission’ of the film. This ship is painted a creamy white and is brightly lighted, something that occurs in no other section of the film. The camera moves slowly and continuously in great contrast to the earlier sequences during the depth charge attack. Soon the colors will become grey and cool, the spaces more cramped, the cutting more rapid and the movement rhythm faster as the submarine encounters the Straits of Gibraltar.

The submarine is attacked for the third time attempting to pass through the British at Gibraltar. This attack comes from the air and the sea making it visually different and more dynamic than the other attacks.

Flares and rockets illuminate the sky in new patterns, helping to increase the visual variety and intensity. As the attack increases, the sub dives. The insert shots of the depth indicator become increasingly more macro and when the sub hits bottom, a close up of the needle point fills the frame. The tightening view of the indicator needle, done mainly in cuts, not a zoom in, increases the intensity of the sequence. On the ocean bottom, the exterior view of the ship is almost totally black, a very faint outline of the ship’s hull paints an even bleaker portrait of the conditions. The additional visual element of this attack is the suddenly bursting water seals. The erratic, angular, non-linear patterns created by the water sprays are edited together to form an intense sequence. A shaken, but enthusiastic crew attempts to bail out the ship and make repairs but the effort dwindles to the engineering chief working solo as the oxygen in the ship diminishes. As the crew becomes exhausted, the camera movement decreases, the takes become longer and the lighting dims.

The camera continues its static, long take pattern as the principal crew members discuss their predicament and decide to try resurfacing. This sequence concludes the last ‘visual rest’ in the film. The visual dynamics now build continuously until the film’s end. The crew assembles in the main control room, the lights are switched to red and a successful ascent begins. The simple act of switching to red lights adds additional tension and drama to the action. During the film, the use of white, red or blue lights is usually motivated by actual maritime practices. Peterson and Vacano have taken the basic concept and exploited it in the film for dramatic purposes as well.

Peterson shifts gears here, suddenly, and does not spend time on the ship’s actual rising. Spending a lot of time on the action might make it the visual climax and the final confrontation has not yet occurred. Instead the ship rising and the travel back to La Rochelle is really only a visual transition.

Naturally, it is a bright, sunny day as the submarine returns to port. It is the first clear day in the picture in over an hour. The light, color and mood change is a welcome relief. The camera dollies along the vast open spaces of the dock as the boat pulls into its moored position. Suddenly attack planes appear, dropping bombs and the clear sky is filled with grey smoke and orange and red explosions. The camera becomes static again and the color, rhythm and mood of the earlier sequences of the film return. The sailors watch as their boat sinks for the last time.

The film remains interesting throughout because Peterson and his crews were attentive to detail, visual change and structure. The audience does not become tired of looking at the sub because it is presented in so many different ways. These changes keep the picture interesting, separate each sequence visually and become a correlate for the sailor’s condition. What begins as brightly lighted, but cramped workspace in a submarine becomes a dark nightmare of explosions, twisted pipes and water.”

(Block, Bruce A. (1983): Oscar Nominees for Cinematography Das Boot. In: American Cinematographer, 64,4, pp. 64–66, on pp. 64–66.)

Days of Heaven (USA 1978, Terrence Malick)

“To develop a design and style for this particular film, my first consideration upon arriving on location in Canada was the character of the natural sunlight.

The light in France is very soft and subtle because of a mattress-like layer of clouds that covers the sky, making work in exteriors very easy, shots matching each other from any angle without modification.

In North America, however, the air seems more transparent and the light more harsh. When a person is backlit, his face appears to be in dark shadows to the eye of the film.

In filming day exteriors, the normal procedure is to use reflected or artificial light (such as an arc) to fill the shadowed areas and thereby reduce the photographic contrast.

In this film, however, Malick and I felt it would be better not to follow convention, to use no lights, and to expose instead more for the shadowed areas. The effect of this was that the sky would come out over-exposed (“burned”), thereby losing its blue hue. This was an effect that pleased Terry.

[…]

I decided to forego the use of any artificial or reflected light, and to split the difference between my reading for the sky and my reading for the shadow, resulting in faces being slightly under exposed, and the sky slightly over exposed, taking away thereby the intensity of blue, yet not letting it burn white.

[…]

Between the set decorator, props, and wardrobe, we selected combinations of colors which were muted because historically colors then were not as bright and aggressive as colors today.

Patricia Norris created old clothing and dresses that didn’t have that synthetic look or quality that is recognizable in the finely machined clothing of today.

The mansion was built solid in the middle of rolling wheat fields. It was a real house – both inside and outside – not just a facade, as is typically done for a film. Even the colors and selection of the wood were period, all dark and realistic.”

(Almendros, Nestor (1979): Photographing Days of Heaven. In: American Cinematographer, 60,6, pp. 562–565, 592–594, 626–632, on pp. 564–565.)

Days of Heaven (USA 1978, Terrence Malick)

“When we prepared for the bonfire sequences when the workers celebrated the end of the harvest, I saw the special effect of controlled fire was made by regulating the flow of natural gas through a pipe or tube with several openings. It was from these openings the flames would generate, regulated by the valve on the propane bottle. With this valve the height (and therefore illumination) of the flames was controlled.

We held one of these pipes next to the camera and created the only supplemental illumination in the bonfire sequences. We lit fire with fire – with its own color, its own movement. My exposure was between T/1.4 and T/2, pushing the film one stop, to ASA 200. I think that not only did we capture authenticity, but also beauty.

Similarly, the huge vistas of the burning wheat fields were shot with practically no artificial enhancement. For if you illuminate fire artificially, you diminish the power of its visual effect.

In super-productions with huge fire scenes a mistake often made is over lighting, and thereby spoiling the effect. Principally I think this is done because the Director of Photography feels almost obliged to justify his salary and his presence by using all his electrical paraphernalia that supposedly impresses everyone.

Our large fire sequences of burning wheat fields took two weeks of night work. Each night we would burn a new field. The excitement and drama on the screen was nearly outweighed by the tension of the actual situation.

[…]

Like the fire scenes, the night lantern scenes needed to appear as though the light actually came from the lanterns, rather than using the lanterns merely as props as is traditionally done in films.

To create the effect of such realism the lanterns were electrified, the wires running up the actors’ wrists to a belt battery they wore under their clothes. For color, the lantern crystals were painted a deep orange. For these scenes I usually used a very soft frontal fill colored with a doubled 85 orange gel. This supplementary light was only to add a little exposure and color to the shadow areas.”

(Almendros, Nestor (1979): Photographing Days of Heaven. In: American Cinematographer, 60,6, pp. 562–565, 592–594, 626–632, on pp. 627–628.)

Days of Heaven (USA 1978, Terrence Malick)

“Other than the sequences mentioned, the film was shot without artificial or supplemental light. When light was needed, we made every effort to make it appear natural and to justify its source.

To this extent even our night interiors in the house were “illuminated” by the small electric table lamps of the time.

These lamps were on dimmers that reduced the color temperature of the light bulbs from their modern brilliance to a more appropriate warm, low-wattage apperance of original tungsten filaments. Softlights were the only supplemental lights used for these scenes.

Our day interiors were photographed without any supplemental or fill lighting. We shot only with the natural light that was coming through the window. It was like photographing a Vermeer.

[…]

For Days of Heaven, we simply avoided the sky by elevating the camera and shooting down, or by choosing spots where the horizon was not visible – such as at the foot of a mountain.

To accentuate the night effect, besides the standard underexposure and printing down, we also pulled the 85 filter and placed the actors so that they were back lit.

The result was an intense cold, blueish moonlight — a supplementary advantage of shooting in color.”

(Almendros, Nestor (1979): Photographing Days of Heaven. In: American Cinematographer, 60,6, pp. 562–565, 592–594, 626–632, on pp. 630–631.)

Days of Heaven (USA 1978, Terrence Malick)

“Basically my job was to simplify the photography, to purify it of all the artificial effects of the recent past. Our model was the photography of the silent films (Griffith, Chaplin, etc.), which often used natural light. And in the nighttime interiors we often used just a single light. Thus, Days of Heaven was a homage to the creators of the silent films, whom I admire for their blessed simplicity and their lack of refinement. From the thirties on, the cinema had become much too sophisticated.

In this as in my other films, there were a number of influences from painting. In the daytime interiors we used light that came sideways through the windows as in a Vermeer. There were also references to Wyeth, Hopper, and other American artists. But as the credits indicate, we were particularly inspired by the great photo-reporters of the turn of the century (like Hine), whose books Malick had a plentiful supply of. Thanks to Bill Weber’s editing, our images took on an almost musical rhythm, like a symphony, with andantes, maestosos, staccatos, tremolos, etc.

In France the light is very gentle, because it is almost always filtered through banks of clouds; this makes working with exteriors easy, since the shots are matched together with no difficulty when they are edited. On the other hand, in North America the air is more transparent and the light more violent. A figure standing against the sun appears as a silhouette. Traditionally, cinematographers solve this problem by filling up the shaded area with arc lights. Rather than compensating, Malick and I thought it would be better to expose for the shade, which would make the sky come out overexposed, burned-out, and not at all blue. Like Truffaut, Malick follows the current trend of eliminating colors. Blue sky bothers him, which is understandable when it makes landscapes look like picture postcards or vulgar travel brochures. Exposing against the sun for the shade produces a burned-out sky, white and colorless. If we had used arc lights or reflectors, the result would have been flatter and less interesting. As measured on my exposure, I set the lens stop halfway between the luminosity of the sky and that of the faces. In this way the features of the actors were delicately visible and a little underexposed, and the sky was a bit, but not totally, overexposed.

[…]

The crew in charge of the set, props, and costumes worked together to choose blended, rather subdued colors. Patricia Norris got used fabrics and old clothes to avoid the synthetic look of studio-made costumes. Fisk built a real mansion, outside and inside, not just a façade, as is customary. The interiors were period colors – brown, mahogany, dark wood. The white cloth of the curtains and sheets was washed in tea to give it the tonality of unbleached cotton, not the overbright whiteness of modern fabrics.”

(Almendros, Nestor (2000): Days of Heaven. Terrence Malick. 1976. In: John Orr and Olga Taxidou (eds.): Post-War Cinema and Modernity. A Film Reader. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 234–246, on pp. 235–236.)

Days of Heaven (USA 1978, Terrence Malick)

“In some scenes withdrawing the 85 filter made possible combinations of color temperatures that were beyond the norm but had pictorial quality. I remember a moment when Richard Gere and Linda Manz are roasting a turkey outside an open fire. There was almost no daylight and the image took on a deep blue tone, except for the crackling fire that intermittently cast a red-hued glow on the actors.

In another scene, the oil lamps the farmhands carry to light their way and catch the locusts were props not used as decoration but as real light sources. As in Adèle H., we hid tiny electric quartz bulbs inside the lamps. Under their clothes all the actors wore belt batteries, and fine electric cables hidden under their shirts led to the bulbs inside the lamps. For greater authenticity we tinted the glass of the lanterns orange, so the white light of the quartz bulbs took on the warm-toned temperature of oil lamps. Outside the frame we used soft lights with a double dose of orange gelatine, which barely filled up the shaded areas. And that was all.

[…]

Since the film was set during the early days of electricity, I put low-watt household bulbs in the lamps to obtain a warm-toned color temperature for the night scenes inside the mansion. If I had used photofloods, which were then the usual solution, the light would have been too white, too modern. The lamps were mounted on dimmers so that we could vary their intensity in relation to the other lights – mostly soft lights – which were of course out of the frame. Dimmers were often used for black-and-white films. With the arrival of color, however, it was noticed that putting lights on a rheostat shifted the color temperature toward warm tones. But what was considered a defect of the early color films now gave me the more subdued effect of the tungsten lamps that characterized the early days of electricity. Toward the end of Days of Heaven, when the jealous husband (Sam Shepard) goes upstairs at night and finds his wife (Brooke Adams) in the bedroom, there are period lamps in the room. These justified the lighting outside the frame, which came from the same direction as the light of the lamps, reinforcing it. In the images of the mansion seen from outside, at night as well as during the “magic hour,” the light coming from the windows was the electric light of ordinary household bulbs.

Apart from these scenes, we used hardly any artificial illumination in the film. For the few interior day scenes we followed Vermeer’s example and used the light coming in through the windows.

[…]

We used day for night for some scenes. Since the days of black and white, night scenes have been produced by shooting during the day and underexposing the negative (I discuss this in the chapter on The Wild Child). The procedure still works for color films, but now a polarizing filter is used which darkens the sky somewhat, though not enough. In my opinion, this method produces unsatisfactory results. In Days of Heaven we solved the problem by trying to avoid the sky. We would raise the camera and shoot downward, or we would choose places from which the horizon was out of sight, like the foot of a hill. To heighten the nocturnal effect we underexposed and also eliminated the orange-colored 85 corrective filter that we used for daylight, so the images took on a bluish, lunar quality. This is yet another advantage of working in color.”

(Almendros, Nestor (2000): Days of Heaven. Terrence Malick. 1976. In: John Orr and Olga Taxidou (eds.): Post-War Cinema and Modernity. A Film Reader. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 234–246, on pp. 242–246.)

Days of Heaven (USA 1978, Terrence Malick)

“Exemplary of New Hollywood’s natural light aesthetic is Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven (1978), set in the wheat fields of Texas. Shot by Nestor Almendros, whose work with Eric Rohmer in the 1960s had – together with that of Sven Nykvist and Ingmar Bergman – set a new standard for the use of natural light, the film documents the various light conditions that predominate throughout the day. Regardless of whether Almendros filmed at dawn, in full daylight, at twilight, or at night, he used little or no artificial light (Almendros 1979: 562). When shooting in the hard light of a sunny afternoon, he discarded the Hollywood convention of using fill light, allowing faces to remain in partial shade. In daylight interiors, inspired by the light that floods through Vermeer’s paintings but in fact – due to limitations in the sensitivity of the film stock he used – achieving a result closer to the directional spotlighting of Rembrandt, he allowed location interiors to remain illuminated only by the daylight shining through their windows (Almendros 1979: 630). Even in the film’s climactic nighttime sequence, in which a fire rages out of control across the wheat fields, Almendros did not follow the convention of using colored light to augment the light of the flames. Instead, he lit fire with fire, using flames from a gas pipe laid next to the camera to provide additional illumination (Almendros 1979: 627).

New Hollywood directors’ and cinematographers’ interest in natural light was often accompanied by a tendency toward desaturation. Though the conflagration sequence and the famous “magic hour” shots in Days of Heaven allow for spectacular natural eruptions of color, for most of the film Almendros and Malick actively suppressed color. For example, Almendros exposed daytime exteriors for halfway between highlight and shadows areas, so that brighter areas including the sky would be over-exposed, and would lose some of their color, as seen in Plate 4.8 (Almendros 1979: 564).”

(Misek, Richard (2010): Chromatic Cinema. A History of Screen Color. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, on pp. 133–134.)

The Last Emperor (FRA, ITA, GBR 1987, Bernardo Bertolucci)

“Before shooting a film, Storaro prepares a written treatment of a cinematographic approach that details the lighting and color scheme in relation to the script. In the case of The Last Emperor “the idea is the color spectrum. When I visualized the film, I was trying to represent life with visible light. I took each color in the spectrum as one portion of life.”

Storaro states that there is a physiological basis to the feelings created by colors. He cites research that shows that the color red, for example, raises the viewer’s blood pressure. Storaro explains that he is not using colors as symbols in this film but as representations or images of a man’s life. “The audience doesn’t have to interpret the colors. No matter how intelligent or sensitive the audience, they will go by feeling.” Storaro’s approach in The Last Emperor is to use the feelings evoked by different colors to highlight the evolution of Pu Yi’s life as an emperor.

The film opens in post-war China. At a train station in Manchuria, former Emperor Pu Yi is on his way to a “reeducation” prison run by the Maoist regime. The narrative will intercut between Pu Yi’s time in prison and flash-backs that trace his earlier life as an Emperor. Storaro renders the post-war station and prison sequences in gray desaturated tones, dominated by washed-out greens. It is from this achromatic world that Pu Yi will remember one by one the vivid colors of his life as an Emperor.

In the gray-green bathroom of the station, Pu Yi slashes his wrists. As he looks at the red blood flowing in the wash basin, he flashes back to a crimson scene from his childhood, when horsemen erupted into his family’s courtyard and whisked him away from his parents to become Emperor of China. Storaro uses this dramatic red sequence to represent Pu Yi’s “birth as an Emperor. Red is the color of I, of the single person.’ This first step of the color spectrum stands for the first few years of life. Storaro reiterates that the viewer “doesn’t have to think” about the meaning of the red image, but merely feel “that there is something very strong, very emotional” going on, and he poses a rhetorical question “If I tell you that you have one of seven colors to represent birth, which one would you chose?”

The young Pu Yi is taken to the Forbidden City, and presented to the dying Empress Dowager in a scene awash with orange tones. Storaro explains that “orange means us. lt represents the feeling of warmth of the family.’ Orange also marks the subsequent scene where the infant is bathed by the eunuchs that inhabit the Forbidden City. Of course there is a perverted irony to Pu Yi’s new family composed of a dying Empress and kowtowing eunuchs. Later on in the film, orange will reappear on Pu Yi’s wedding night, when there is the promise of a new imperial family.

In the Chinese tradition, yellow is the imperial color. Pu Yi encounters his emblematic color during his coronation, when he playfully jumps through a yellow banner to discover a crowd of hundreds of his assembled subjects. For Storaro “yellow is the color of the sun, it carries the meaning of light. Yellow represents the third stage of our life, adolescence, when consciousness appears.” Storaro points out the intended irony of the premature coronation: “they called on him to be conscious, but he was not conscious yet. He was ruling China, but didn’t know how to rule.”

For Storaro, “green is the rebirth Of nature, the color of spring” and represents young adulthood, when one starts to become knowledgeable. Storaro tinged the prison period of the film with green to indicate that Pu Yi’s captivity marks a new and truer beginning of his adult life. In the flashback sequence, the color makes its appearance when Reginald Johnston, the Scottish tutor, gives Pu Yi a green bicycle. Johnston’s bicycle, spectacles and lessons are the catalysts for Pu Yi’s awakening: he realizes that the Forbidden City is his prison.

Pu Yi sings “Am I Blue?” like a real crooner, and drives through a blue city to his new residence in Tien-Tsin. He has been expelled from his imperial prison, and lives like a dilettante under the supervision of Japanese guards. Storaro explains that “blue is the color of freedom, because it means intelligence. You can’t put intelligence in prison. Blue represents the moment in our lives when we reach knowledge”: the thirties and forties. But Pu Yi’s freedom is illusory, the Japanese control him.

The Japanese offer Pu Yi a new chance to be an Emperor, by ruling Manchuria. In spite of the advice of his wife and counsellor, Pu Yi decides to accept, framed by indigo-colored windows. Storaro used indigo to represent the fifties, “when we reach the maximum power of our life. Indigo is the color of power”. Pu Yi soon discovers that the power he sought was yet another illusion.

Storaro’s representational use of color permeates not only the entire movie, but also individual scenes. For example, when Pu Yi announces his wife’s pregnancy to the Japanese in the dining room in Manchuria, the windows are lit by an imperial- colored sunset. The Japanese leader responds by informing Pu Yi that the chauffeur is the father of the child. By the end of the scene, the windows have turned blue to underscore Pu Yi’s realization of his dashed hopes.

The final color in Storaro’s spectrum is violet. “Violet is the last stage of life, the teaching moment, when you transfer your knowledge to someone else. It’s the passageway to death.” Pu Yi’s world has crumbled, his wife is mad, he has been captured by the Chinese. In prison, he watches a documentary of Manchurian war atrocities, bathed in a violet light. Suddenly, he realizes the enormity of what he has done. This moment marks his death as an emperor, he will confess everything to his jailers. Storaro summarizes: “the son of heaven can now be the son of earth.”

Pu Yi’s life as an emperor, and as a prisoner, is coming to an end. In the snow-covered prison courtyard, Pu Yi receives his “diploma”. Storaro explains that “he has finished his journey within himself he combines all his emotions, all his knowledge. The combination of all the colors is white.”

Pu Yi leaves the prison to become a gardener. He witnesses the cultural revolution of the 1960s, and sees his former prison warden humiliated. The movie ends with Pu Yi’s magical return visit to the Forbidden City. This final portion of the film has a vibrant naturalistic look that includes all the colors of the spectrum.

Storaro also created an evolution of light and shadow for The Last Emperor Pu Yi; in parallel with Pu Yi’s spectral progression. “I started once again with the image of life visualized as light” As a child in the Forbidden City, Pu Yi was protected from the outside world by his entourage of eunuchs. To indicate this penumbra, Storaro avoided direct hard light on Pu Yi, “keeping a kind of umbrella, or shield to prevent sunlight from ever hitting him”

When Reginald Johnston arrives, he brings with him a glimpse of knowledge and a host of accompanying questions. In a hilarious scene Pu Yi asks his new tutor a series of questions about among other things, kilts, gentlemen, Washington and Lenin. Storaro lit this first encounter with hard sunlight, and its accompanying shadow. These shadows will be Pu Yi’s constant companion as he evolves. When Pu Yi nurtures false dreams of regaining his empire in Manchuria, Stararo used low lighting to create large looming shadows “that overpower the light.”

In the prison scenes, Storaro represented Pu Yi’s internal conflict with varying shadows, that sometimes alternate rapidly within a scene, as when Pu Yi argues with his cell mates. Finally Pu Yi re-enters the world lit “by a harmony of light and shadow”. Thus Storaro used light and shadow as well as color to write his story of the last Chinese Emperor.”

(Bergery, Benjamin (1989): Reflections 10. Storaro, ASC. In: American Cinematographer, 70,8, pp. 70–74, on pp. 70–73.)

“Bernard Happé (1912-90) was born in Carlisle. He studied physics and chemistry at the University of Birmingham and then, after a year of postgraduate study, he started work as a geophysicist. In 1936 he responded to an advert for posts at the Technicolor Labs, where he was taken on at £350 pa, eventually becoming senior technician and, in 1953, technical manager. In 1972 he went to China to advise on the setting up of a new Technicolor plant.

EXTRACTS PERTAINING TO COLOUR FROM BECTU INTERVIEW NO. 92

DATE OF INTERVIEW: 13 JUNE 1989

INTERVIEWERS: ALF COOPER, ALAN LAWSON AND FRANK LITTLEJOHN

[…]

FRANK LITTLEJOHN: Originally, Eastmancolor was a very soft material and very easily damaged, and we spent a great deal of time, all laboratories did, lacquering and taking the lacquers off and relacquering negatives trying to cover up scratches and minimise them and so on. Liquid printing was developed as an alternative to adding and removing lacquer, which involved coating the negative with a film of liquid just prior to printing. This formed the equivalent of lacquer on both sides of the film and evaporated off immediately after.

BERNARD HAPPÉ: The very thin uniform layer of liquid not only filled up the scratches and abrasions on both sides, but also it reduced the effective grain seen by the matrix printer. Eastmancolor negative in those days, and possibly still, had a sort of orange-peel surface that was optically reproduced in the matrix printing and appeared as a kind of lightweight grain. The wet printing had the advantage of evening out that surface effect. In the later 1950s, around 1956 onwards, enormously complex demands were being made on the matrix printing process as a result of all these different negative formats. So VistaVision and Technirama, and the squeezes and unsqueezes were making use of colour negative, and all of them on optical printers of varying degrees of complexity. Wet printing was extremely valuable for this.

We were an important contribution to the finance but we weren’t supposed to have technical thoughts, these were all supposed to come from the centre. And in fact there used to be a rather cynical phrase, which I don’t want to make too much of, that the American reaction to an English invention was threefold, it had three stages. The first reaction is that it won’t work. The second reaction was it can be made to work, but it isn’t worth doing. The third reaction was: ‘We’ve got a wonderful idea, why don’t you do this’?”

(Cooper, Alf; Lawson, Alan; Littlejohn, Frank (2013): Interview. Bernard Happé. In: Simon Brown, Sarah Street and Liz Watkins (eds.): British Colour Cinema. Practices and Theories. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 131–138, on pp. 133–136.)

“Jean-Pierre Berthomé

Nestor Almendros

(1930-1992)

Nestor Almendros est mort en mars 1992, à soixante et un ans. L’âge, ici, n’est pas innocent, qui en fait le contemporain de réalisateurs comme Demy (né en 1931) ou Truffaut (né en 1932), d’une “nouvelle vague”, donc, à laquelle son nom demeure attaché aussi indissolublement que celui de ses aînés Henri Decae ou Raoul Coutard.

Il était arrivé en France au début des années soixante, déçu par le manque d’imagination d’un cinéma cubain mobilisé par la révolution castriste. Nouvelle étape dans l’errance d’un éternel exilé, qui quitte à dix-huit ans son Espagne natale pour rejoindre à Cuba son républicain de père, apprend le cinéma au Centro sperimentale de Rome aussi bien qu’au cœur de l’underground new-yorkais, et rentre en 1959 à Cuba, que vient de reconquérir Castro, pour prêter son enthousiasme et sa maigre expérience à la création d’un cinéma résolument nouveau.

Durant les années de purgatoire qui vont suivre, la rencontre décisive pour lui est celle d’Eric Rohmer, qui lui fait éclairer son sketch de Paris vu par… et obtenir quelques commandes de la télévision scolaire, et de son producteur Barbet Schroeder qui l’associeront, en 1967 et 1968, à leurs premiers longs métrages significatifs: La Collectionneuse et Ma nuit chez Maud de Rohmer, More de Barbet Schroeder.

Faisant de pauvreté vertu, Almendros y tire superbement parti de son expérience d’opérateur documentaliste et invente une image qui réalise la synthèse entre les deux grandes tendances qui se partagent le jeune cinéma de l’époque: celle de Raoul Coutard, qui privilégie la vérité brute de la lumière pour atteindre, dans les surexpositions violentes d’A bout de souffle ou de Lola, à l’authenticité du reportage, celle d’Henri Decae qui reconstruit totalement la lumière pour parvenir, même dans des films aussi peu esthétisants que Les Quatre Cents Coups ou Les Bonnes Femmes, à une image, techniquement parfaite, qui se fait oublier au profit d’une autre vérité, plus psychologique.

Confirmant la rupture avec une tradition bien établie, Almendros rejette presque totalement l’éclairage artificiel au profit des sources naturelles de lumière, discrètement complétées de la lumière réfléchie de quelques photo-floods. Mais il ne renonce pas pour autant à en revendiquer le contrôle et l’aborde en plasticien, dont le rôle serait moins de créer la beauté des images que de révéler celle qui existe aux regards qui ne savent pas la voir. Double démarche, tendue à la fois vers le respect de l’identité d’un lieu que la lumière anime d’une vie sans cesse mouvante et le souci d’une jouissance proprement esthétique qui exige qu’intervienne le chef opérateur pour sélectionner, éliminer, architecturer, construire, pour tout dire, l’image à partir de ce que lui offre la nature. En considérant le cadre, donc, non pas comme l’encadrement à l’intérieur duquel on invente une image, mais comme la frontière arbitraire qui permet d’éliminer de ce qu’offre le réel ce qui pourrait compromettre le travail de composition.

C’est une démarche du même ordre qui le conduira à repenser en termes de choix tout un rapport plastique à la couleur hérité d’une esthétique originellement liée aux propriétés techniques de l’ancien Technicolor. Pour lui, la couleur doit être composée, dans le respect de celles qu’offre l’espace naturel filmé, par une opération de sélection qui élimine tout ce qui pourrait distraire l’œil de l’essentiel ou compromettre la rigueur du projet plastique. Son plus bel achèvement, en ce domaine, sera celui de La Marquise d’O, où la seule lumière solaire suffit à animer un monde si subtilement construit sur une gamme de gris et de blancs écrus que la moindre tache de couleur en menacerait l’équilibre.

On comprend dès lors que se soit, mieux qu’avec tout autre, épanoui son talent avec des cinéastes comme Truffaut (neuf films) et surtout Rohmer (sept films), qui répugnent au studio et lui préfèrent ce que le réel, réorganisé par leur vision peut néanmoins leur apporter d’imprévisible. Pour eux, comme pour aussi Terence Malick dont Les Moissons du ciel devait lui apporter la consécration de l’Oscar, il fut celui qui savait comme nul autre capter la fin de l’été dans l’adoucissement des ombres, réinventer la lumière des impressionnistes dans un pays de Galles reconstitué en Normandie, explorer surtout à l’infini la magie de cette heure entre chien et loup, où la lumière se fait indécidable et où meurent les ombres.”

(Berthomé, Jean-Pierre (1992): Nestor Almendros. In: Yann Tobin: Dossier. La couleur du cinéma. In: Positif, 375–376, May, pp. 121–158, on p. 158.) (in French)

Lola Montès (FRA, BRD 1955, Max Ophüls)

“We can see this potential in a final example of the cinematic arabesque: Max Ophüls’s famously sinuous camera work in Lola Montes. Even more than Moulin Rouge, Lola Montes has had an awkward relationship to critical and popular success. Made at tremendous expense in three different language versions, the film was, in Susan White’s words, “both a terrific flop and a critical bone of contention when it came out in 1955.”⁷⁶ Most critics viewed it as a failure, and Ophüls died soon after its completion. Its running time cut drastically in response to negative reactions, Lola has circulated in truncated versions for decades and was fully restored only in 2008. For all its failures, however, Lola was also named by Andrew Sarris as the best film ever made,⁷⁷ and if that judgment has not really sustained over the years, the film is nonetheless widely understood as a flawed classic. In other words, Lola Montes follows the reception pattern of many pretty films, which, no matter how feted their directors, seem to find it hard to fit into their supposed place in the film canon.

In another parallel to Baz Luhrmann, Max Ophüls is often characterized as a decorative director, an auteur whose films might be beautiful but are suspected of overprivileging visual style. Mary Ann Doane says that “accusations against the emptiness of technique abound in Ophuls criticism,” and this sense of faint praise resonates with the criticism of Moulin Rouge.⁷⁸ For example, Virginia Wright-Wexman says that Ophüls’s style “combines lyrical movements of incandescent emotion with endlessly repetitive patterns that only signify within the private space of memory, never as part of a larger historical reality.”⁷⁹ According to this clearly anti-pretty logic, Ophüls’s decorative qualities – note the endless pattern of the arabesque – signify a loss of history and a rejection of real meaning. But for critics who take Ophüls’s pretty style seriously, meaning is to be found precisely in the arabesque form of his camera movements. For Chris Wisniewski, “his is a cinema of elegant, precise camera movement, where tracking shots reveal and negotiate complex chronologies and social hierarchies, particularly as they relate to questions of gender and femininity.”⁸⁰ In Riegl’s terms, these camera movements are “tendril lines,” the curves that circle around in the arabesque, supporting and connecting the motifs.⁸¹ It is this articulation of the camera’s tendril lines to both visible objects and social relations that I want to consider in the context of Moulin Rouge.

Lola Montes is a key intertext for Moulin Rouge: both tell stories of fallen women whose ambitions extend beyond the limited freedoms of their historical situation and who end up as courtesans and showgirls, objects of specular and sexual exchange. Both films are set in debased theatrical spaces – the circus and the club – and both begin with a shot of a theater proscenium. Lola’s curtains are not red, but they are decorated with rows of subframes, rectangular depictions of events from the story that redouble in mise-en-abyme to form an excess of scenographic space. And, most strikingly, Moulin Rouge‘s opening crane shot echoes a yet more excessive use of the mobile camera in Lola. After the opening of the proscenium curtains in Lola, a smooth camera movement slides first upward and then back and around to the left, drawing the spectator past the stage, its lights, and then through a gauntlet of jugglers in red dresses. Once it reaches a new “view” with the lines of performers centered, it begins to move back and forth, tracking the compere as he weaves between them. The camera’s excessive movement (this is all one long take) plays against a similarly spectacular movement of people and objects in the frame. Once all the girls start juggling, a suspended crown rises and falls into the frame in the foreground, while in the background plates are being spun and snowflakes and other prop objects are rising and falling. As the ringmaster promises “the most sensational act of the century,” the sensory space of the mise-en-scene is being overloaded with spectacular stuff. Finally, on the introduction of Lola’s name, we cut.

The object supported by these tendril lines is Lola, who is brought on stage in a sparkly, shiny costume and then circled in a full 360-degree track by the camera. Feminist critics have tied this formal mechanism to the structures of the gaze, whereby, as Kaja Silverman puts it, the film “quite literally circles around Lola-asspectacle.”⁸² Lola is the object of all gazes, and for Silverman the film is a self-conscious deployment of Mulveyan modes of investigation and display. Lola is trapped in the circus as a public spectacle, and she is likewise pinned down by the camera that circles and exposes, forcing the spectator’s reluctant complicity in her humiliation. On stage, Silverman argues, Lola “does not so much move as submit to movement,” as we contrast her stillness with the huge apparatus of performance and camera movement that circles her.⁸³ The camera arabesque works to articulate Lola’s imprisonment in the image with a structure quite as richly ambiguous as the deconstructive arabesque in Thriller. Just as in Potter’s film, Lola Montes presents a female performer, onstage, who turns her place as spectacular object into an occasion for feminist revision. For Doane, the him interrogates the relationship of woman, image, and spectacle, whereas for White the impassive and reviled Lola is “the queerest of all Ophuls’ characters – a veritable cipher of possible gendered and sexual identifications.”⁸⁴ The arabesque tendril form, as Riegl points out, tends to work against nature.

Much of Lola Montes takes place in flashback, tracing the romantic adventures that have led to Lola’s present-day display in the circus. Throughout the narrative, however, we see Lola trapped in the mise-en-scene, caught between the moving camera and her settings. There is a recurrence of complex architectural spaces with columns, caryatids, archways, and staircases, in relation to which Lola is often dwarfed. She is frequently filmed through screens – lace curtains or cast-iron grillwork placed between the camera and its supposed subject. Objects constantly protrude into the frame, demanding to be looked at – whether a cupid detail on a wall close to the camera, a chandelier hanging into the frame, or a rope swinging back and forth, crossing the frame in a theater set. In some shots, Lola is completely surrounded by decorative objects that threaten to overwhelm the frame. In an arabesque logic, there is no real distinction between ground and figure, tendril and blossom. Meaning happens through the movement of objects in the frame, and it is by no means certain that Lola is the most significant of these objects. As Wisniewski says, “These camera movements give Ophuls an opportunity to show off the extraordinary production design by Jean d’Eaubonne and to subvert the human element of his story. Given the flatness of her characterization and the loveliness of her physical presence, [actress Martine] Carol herself becomes another aspect of this spectacular mise-en-scene, and the camera, by ceaselessly following her in her movement through these elaborate spaces, comes to confine her within them, as much as it traces a literal and figurative rise and fall.”⁸⁵ In other words, the film deemphasizes the human qualities of its protagonist, rejects classical psychologization, and instead constructs meaning out of space and things. We return to the world of the orientalist object, and Lola, like Satine, becomes an object among objects.

Both Lola and Satine perform on a trapeze, creating arabesques in the air, and when each woman falls, it signifies the fatality of the spectacular exchange in which she is trapped. Satine faints from consumption, the disease that will kill her by the end of the film, and Lola lives to continue falling, her death only deferred in the cruel logic of the circus. She ends the film literally caged, exchanging kisses for money in a scene that strips bare the logic of sexual commerce that has structured the narrative. In these harsh conclusions, we find that the arabesque movement and the orientalist object are not purely decorative, but the form in which these films articulate the troubling intersections of gender, consumer culture, and capitalism. If the arabesque encodes female suffering, it does so from the perspective of a pattern that speaks from outside the dominant modes of patriarchal and Western aesthetics.

Notes

⁷⁶ Susan M. White, The Cinema of Max Ophuls: Magisterial Vision and the Figure of Woman (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995), 277.

⁷⁷ Andrew Sarris, “Films in Focus,” Village Voice, September 5,1963.

⁷⁸ Mary Ann Doane, Femmes Fatales: Feminism, Film Theory, Psychoanalysis (New York: Routledge, 1991), 66.

⁷⁹ Virginia Wright-Wexman, “The Transfiguration of History: Ophuls, Vienna, and Letter from an Unknown Woman,” in Letter from an Unknown Woman, ed. Virginia Wright-Wexman (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1986), 11.

⁸⁰ Chris Wisniewski, “The Main Attraction,” Reverse Shot 23 (2008), available at http://www.reverseshot.com/article/lola_montes (accessed January 5, 2009).

⁸¹ Riegl, Problems of Style, 234.

⁸² Kaja Silverman, The Subject of Semiotics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), 226.

⁸³ Ibid., 227.

⁸⁴ Doane, Femmes Fatales, 75; White, Cinema of Max Ophuls, 284. We can connect this childless, queer Lola with Benjamin’s perverse woman as well as with a refusal of “life” in Kracauer’s or Loos’s terms. The decorative always
hints at a queer refusal of “life.”

⁸⁵ Wisniewski, “Main Attraction.”

(Galt, Rosalind (2011): Pretty. Film and the Decorative Image. New York: Columbia University Press, on pp. 172–176.)

Taxi Driver (USA 1976, Martin Scorsese)

“A CAR THAT DEFINED AN OBSESSION

In the first thirty seconds of this film, we find ourselves visually choking on fumes from unknown but menacing exhausts. The camera places us on the ground. Literally, our eye level is at the bumper. We have the visual alertness that comes from being physically vulnerable. The cab looms like a warning, nearly grazing us, and leaves. We know only that it is a threatening, ominous yellow that curves into a blackness, leaving us in the wake of its contempt.

This is a long way from the California of both Chinatown and American Graffiti. This yellow lives in the shadow of black and sends a different signal. In nature, yellow and black are companions in venomous insects, reptiles, and amphibians who attack to kill or at least incapacitate. With this title sequence, Martin Scorsese creates the perfect fusion of color and character. Underexposed so that the blacks are darker and the yellow of the cab is more saturated, the yellow combined with black signals there’s poison lurking about.

Watch how all color drains from the cab as it moves out of frame. It’s as if it’s been a hallucination sent from the underbelly of the delusions Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) pursues. The yellow resurrects itself again as the sequence ends, in the title itself, proclaiming its dominance as a theme. There will always be a Travis out there. And Scorsese knows this.”

(Bellantoni, Patti (2005): If It’s Purple, Someone’s Gonna Die. The Power of Color in Visual Storytelling. Taylor & Francis, on pp. 52–53.)

Blade Runner (USA 1982, Ridley Scott)

“A WORLD PUT TOGETHER BY SCAVENGERS

Toward a glowing blood-red horizon, we zoom slowly in from the air. It is a dark city, punctuated by thin black turrets belching yellow gas flames into a wet and steamy sky. Red lights from flying cars whoosh by, headed for two huge buildings that rise up out of the dank urban core. These are structures of power, temple-like, echoing the sacrificial pyramid tombs that rose out of the Mayan jungles. This is the Tyrell Corporation. Its director, Dr. Tyrell, is the creator of replicants. Replicants, used as slave labor on “Off World” colonies, are virtually identical to human beings, with one exception: they have a four-year life expectancy. And they don’t like it. Four of them are here to meet their “Maker” and to see what they can do about that.

Production designer Larry Paull explains how the visual concept for the film was born:

Ridley felt Blade Runner was a futuristic version of film noir. The city had to be very dark and dank. We lit it with neon, not only because it was an artificial color, but because it was a visual throwback to the thirties. One of the major concepts was that we had to visually figure out how the city functions. Then we asked ourselves, “Who would inhabit this inner-city?”

We wanted the look to be of a city that was improperly maintained because the people who could maintain the city had left for “Off World” colonies, and the people who lived there were trying to subsist on a minimal level. They didn’t have the skills to repair things like vehicles or air-conditioning systems. What they had to do basically, instead of going internally and repairing something, was to “retro-fit” or apply elements to the surfaces of existing structures. So what they would do is go to a utility company and get a huge compressor or some piece of machinery that worked and put it on the side of a building or in the street and attach it to a building. Consequently you’d have all these hoses and pipes connecting and going into the buildings.

Powerful beams of light shoot up into the smog, visually announcing these monuments to arrogance. Revealing an acid orange haze behind them, the camera approaches from below, making them appear even more intimidating. As we get closer, a pattern to the design of the city emerges. The exterior of the Tyrell corporation building looks as if a deco designer had a head-on collision with a great pyramid outside of Mexico City. This is urban design at its swap-meet best. The movie is a monument to urban archeology. Throughout the film, in terms of time and place, we never quite know where we are. It is a polluted world put together by scavengers.

We zoom closer still and we’re in a blue smoke-filled room with a ceiling fan turning slowly, noir-like, as an examiner interrogates a suspected replicant in custody. The examiner asks a suspect a question about his mother. “Let me tell you about my mother,” the man replies. He stands up and shoots the examiner dead. Welcome to Los Angeles in 2019, the City from Hell. We were warned in the opening shot by that blood-red horizon. Red and black registers deep in our unconscious as evil. Think of all those devils on Halloween.

We cut to the street. The city is tall and densely packed. In a downpour, people with umbrellas push their way through the cramped and steamy canyons. Digital images hawking “Off World” adventures glide by on cables above the street. A blue neon Chinese dragon leers from the roof of a low building, its red tongue flicking out as if to catch something below. The only saturated colors in this place are neon. Everything else is damp and dark. None of the imagery is natural. If nature is there at all, it’s in rats running around in the darkness. This is an alien place.

Across the street, a man sits solemnly, smoking, reading a newspaper. This is Deckard (Harrison Ford), the policeman Blade Runner: the killer of replicants. His job is to “retire” the four fugitives who are suspected of trying to infiltrate the Tyrell Corporation. Deckard does not want this job, and as his Captain (E. Emmet Walsh) puts the pressure on, we see his sidekick, Lieutenant Gaff (Edward James Olmos), who speaks in a mélange of Chinese, Spanish, and English, pick up a gum wrapper, make an origami chicken, and leave it on a desk where we see it in close-up. This is not an insignificant gesture. We will see Gaff’s origami again. Through these tiny figures, Gaff reveals vital clues to Deckard. Clues to who he really is (or might be).

Production designer Larry Paull continues:

Tyrell is a man who is manipulating mankind on earth as we know it. One reason why we put him inside a pyramid is he’s like a pharaoh. Once we got inside, the design had to do with a futuristic influence of neo-Nazi architecture. We created that huge monolithic room that said who Tyrell was. The crest in the interior is derived from the imagery used by both Caesar and Hitler. These same images re-made were visually saying the same thing about who’s in power.

Suddenly, we’re inside the Tyrell Corporation. Like Gaff’s language, it is a mixture of styles: late Romanesque, early Gothic, with a touch of Byzantine and deco (even a little Gaudi) on the side. It’s like a sepia translation of a 1940s film-noir. Deckard is greeted by Rachael (Sean Young), a Joan Crawford-straight-out-of-Mildred Pierce look-alike. From inside this vaulted interior, the smog-filtered sun glows a romantic orange-gold, backlighting Deckard and Rachel as they meet. From the exterior, this same color reads as an acrid atmosphere – interesting as a visual underpinning for their love story. When you know orange has this mutant ability to alter its meaning depending on the context, you can, as Scott does here, use it to psychologically layer a story.

In talking of Rachael’s character, Paull explains:

Rachael’s whole look was basically a throwback to the late 30s, early 40s. Part of it had to do with the fact that wardrobe also recycles itself just as the buildings are recycled.

Rachael asks Deckard if he has ever “retired” a human by mistake. Deckard answers, “No.” It seems Deckard has a machine that can test and recognize a replicant. The great Dr. Tyrell enters and asks Deckard to test his machine on Rachael. After the test is complete, Deckard is convinced that Rachael is a replicant but doesn’t know it. The great Dr. Tyrell explains that in order to “cushion” emotions that accumulate in their short four-year life span, they have “gifted” replicants with a past. They provide them with memories that take the form of family photos and memorabilia. We cut to Deckard searching drawers in a suspect’s apartment and finding family photos. Lieutenant Gaff appears and leaves an origami man on a table. Clue number two.

Paull continues:

The orange sky from outside is acid, from the inside with Deckard and Rachael [it] is much softer and romantic. For Deckard’s apartment, I got permission to cast decorative blocks from Frank Lloyd Wright’s Ennis-Brown house here in Los Angles. The set, metaphorically, was a cave, because he was one of the few, even though he wanted to get out, who is still living on earth. His whole backstory is that his wife and child had left him to live in “Off World” colonies. So, for the cave-like feel I took the concrete castings, staggered them, and made vaulting out of them. It gave this very low, claustrophobic kind of look. Everything in Deckard’s apartment had all warm tones, while the Tyrell Corporation was done in cold tones. It’s as simplistic as the bad guys have cool colors and the good guys all have warm tones. The warm tones influence us to have empathy for Deckard. That was one of the big problems with the character. He didn’t evoke a lot of sympathy. He came off as a real cold person. Deckard had that sullen, detached attitude Bogart always had whether he was playing Sam Spade or Philip Marlow.

Deckard, clearly, is not a warm and cuddly man. His personal space is covered with cast concrete designs that echo early Greek and Mexican Olmec glyphs. But there’s a hint of warmth in their deep sepia color. Rachael follows him there and shows him her childhood photos to prove to him she’s not a replicant. He tells her that they are implants and not her memories, then tries to recant. But it’s too late. She leaves. As Deckard stands on his balcony, the warm brown concrete is lit by a cold neon blue, amplifying his emotional state. He is, most definitely, a man in conflict: out of place and out of time, like his apartment.

Later, in the darkness, Deckard, hunched over, plays his piano with one finger. Family photos along with sheet music are on the piano. As he plays, the camera dissolves to a soft, dream-like image of a unicorn galloping slowly in a circular path through a warm, misty woods. Its path brings it toward us, curving at the last moment, twisting its head so its mane waves gracefully in the air just as it dissolves back to Deckard’s finger on the piano. The camera cuts to the family photos on the piano. It’s a visual nonsequitur and a huge clue simultaneously.

Deckard resumes his hunt for the four fugitives. Through them, we see the cruelty of Tyrell in gifting them with emotions and memories and then giving them only four years to live. We see the rage of those rendered powerless by arrogance. In the end, there are none of the four left. And yet, there are, maybe, two. The unicorn is the key.

Deckard calls Rachael to come meet him for a drink. She hangs up but goes to where he is and inevitably, in a high-collared coat of Persian lamb, looking very noir, saves his life. They go to Deckard’s apartment, which has a searchlight casting long blue shadows through the requisite noir Venetian blinds. Rachael asks Deckard if he has ever taken the diagnostic replicant test himself. She finally undoes the Joan Crawford hairdo and her hair, freed, is wavy and natural. Her identity, visually, is no longer as a noir-clone conceived by Tyrell.

In the meantime, Roy (Rutger Hauer), a violent and strangely sympathetic character and the leader of the fugitives, meets his Maker, his adversary, and his fate. With the blood of his lover, drawn like warpaint on his face, he howls a primal howl that resonates in our very core. When he talks about the wonderful things he has seen, he’s in a pale blue light, and rain streaming down his face he says, “all those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.” We understand the rage of a man who is powerless over of his destiny. Pale blue is the quintessential color for powerlessness.

THE UNICORN’S CLUE

In the end, Gaff appears and says, “Too bad she won’t live. But, then again, who does?” Exhausted from the struggle with Roy, Deckard desperately looks for and finds Rachael. As they walk toward the elevator in his apartment and her heel steps on something on the floor, we see a tiny silver object. Deckard picks it up and holds it toward us so we see it clearly. It’s an origami unicorn. He almost smiles, nods, and puts it in his pocket. Gaff’s voice echoes, “Too bad she won’t live. But then again, who does?” It is Deckard’s final clue. The elevator door closes to his earth-toned concrete apartment and the screen goes to black.

Well, what do you think? Is he a replicant or isn’t he?

In thinking back to 1975, production designer Paull concludes:

I’ve never been on a production before or since that has had that much creative energy brought to a film from every department, both in front of and behind the camera. In many ways, this film was way, way ahead of its time.”

(Bellantoni, Patti (2005): If It’s Purple, Someone’s Gonna Die. The Power of Color in Visual Storytelling. Taylor & Francis, on pp. 141–146.)

Cabaret (USA 1972, Bob Fosse)

“PURPLE AS AN OMEN

It’s Berlin in the early 1930s and Sally Bowles (Liza Minnelli), a tacky cabaret star wannabe, beckons us to “Come hear the music play.” All around her, in plain sight, “unacceptable” people are dragged on the streets and beaten by men in brown shirts. But Sally, with green-painted fingernails and dressed in a just-this-side-of-slutty purple halter-dress, tries to sell us on the idea that “Life Is a Cabaret.”

“Come taste the wine… Come hear the band,” she teases. Sally even fantasizes herself looking great in a coffin. Like her old friend Elsie, the hooker from Chelsea, Sally has made up her mind that she will be a happy corpse.

It’s brilliantly ironic to have Sally dressed in purple for the final scene. The world is about to collapse around her and she invites us to follow her. Don’t underestimate the role purple subliminally plays in this scenario. It is the color that supplies the irony to all of this phony enthusiasm. It’s the color of mourning. “Come to the Cabaret… Come with me and play,” Sally beckons. Come with me and die.

The bizarre-looking audience is straight out of a George Grosz caricature. The performers are even more grotesque; buxom banjo players and voluptuous mud wrestlers provide the backdrop for the bizarre character of the Master of Ceremonies (Joel Grey), who prophetically tells us “goodbye” in many languages.

Through a mottled glass partition, the camera pans across the audience. We see everything in distortion. It becomes a mirror of the horrors that have only just begun. There are elements, however, that stand out in repetition. They are insignias of a black on white twisted cross on a red ground.

GREEN AS DECADENT

Sally, as she holds up her green-painted fingernails, says it herself: “Divine decadence darling!” The green fingernails are an archetypal cliché. Green as mold. Green as decay. It’s brilliant in its minimalism. There is nothing alive about this green. It is dark and ominous. With Sally’s manic hand gestures and long cigarette holder, the camera sees to it that we see green long enough for it to register and affect us. It’s a brilliant tactic. What could be more mundane than nail polish? It signals an acceptance of a decadent color by the middle-class patrons of the cabaret who are the cornerstone of the new social order. The color of Sally’s “divinely decadent” nails mirrors her audience back to itself.”

(Bellantoni, Patti (2005): If It’s Purple, Someone’s Gonna Die. The Power of Color in Visual Storytelling. Taylor & Francis, on pp. 197–198.)

“The two major claims which are made for Vista-Vision are improved sharpness and detail, due to the reduction in graininess, and improved depth of field. The two reels of film which were shown at the demonstration certainly showed that for a large screen picture (a screen width of 45 ft. was used), the double frame negative gives an improved quality and the beautiful crispness of the screen image left nothing to be desired on this score. Since it is generally agreed that there is a trend toward larger screens in all cinemas, and a moderate increase in screen size would seem to be a good thing, any system which gives an improved quality picture, especially if it will do so at minimum expense to the exhibitor, is a thing to be welcomed. This is precisely what VistaVision will do.

VistaVision release prints are intended for projection on screens with an aspect ratio of 1.85 to 1, and generally speaking the only extra equipment needed in the theatre will be a projection lens of shorter than normal focal length. A normal optical sound track is used, though directional sound equipment may be installed if the exhibitor so desires since the track carries subsonic switching signals.

Speaking about the process, Loren Ryder, head of engineering at Paramount Studios, suggested that the photographic process as used for motion picture work with screens which have hitherto been regarded as standard size was well balanced; however, with the trend toward larger screens it became obvious that the balance was being upset in that the negative definition was no longer good enough. The double frame VistaVision negative is simply a logical way of carrying more information in the original negative.

The question which immediately occurs to one is whether this extra information can be conveyed through the process chain to the prints shown in the theatre. The demonstration films would appear to show that it can, but before making this decision it is necessary to look a little more closely into the films which were shown. These comprised a mixture of shots from White Christmas, Three Ring Circus and Strategic Air Command, some of which were regular Technicolor imbibition prints (not the new process which is claimed to give better resolution) and Eastman Color positive prints. As we have already said, all of these excerpts showed excellent sharpness with perhaps a slight advantage on the side of the monopack material. But the Eastman Color positive prints were made by direct optical printing with no intermediate stages (an optical printer must be used in order to turn the image through 90 degs. and reduce it). Now whilst this procedure will undoubtedly be used for the daily rushes it is quite out of the question for making the normal quantities of release prints required for showing in the cinemas throughout the world. In order to make these it would be necessary to make first a set of double frame separation master positives and then a reduction colour internegative from these in an optical printer. The release prints would then be made in the usual way in a continuous printer. It seems reasonable to suppose that the addition of all these extra stages would seriously reduce the quality of the final print and it would certainly not be of the quality shown at the demonstration. In addition it means duplication of the whole of the footage of the feature, an expensive matter.

Thus, as we have already stated in the earlier article, the VistaVision system is logically committed to release printing by the Technicolor imbibition system which always includes optical printing of the matrix from which the release prints are made and can thus easily include a reduction in size and a turn through 90 degs. of the image.

It is interesting to speculate on the methods whereby the much-talked-about but so far unseen improvement in the definition of imbibition prints may be attained. From Mr. Ryder’s discussion it would seem to be a matter of new matrix material. But the definition of the matrix image is not by any means the last point at which definition can be lost in an imbibition process, the registration of the three images and the lateral diffusion of the three dyes in transferring from the relief image to the blank are also of great importance. Register is a matter of tight mechanical control in the transfer operation, and dye spread is controlled by the degree of hardening given to the plain gelatin coated blank on to which the dyes are transferred. A well hardened blank will give a print of good definition, and a relatively soft blank will give a print of poor definition. But unfortunately if the blank is hardened a great deal the dyes will not transfer in a satisfactory fashion and the print will tend to show areas where no dye has transferred, especially in areas adjacent to the line of a steep density gradient or in scenes which are darker than average such as night shots. Thus the production of satisfactory release prints is a matter of very careful control of the hardening of the blank to keep the definition up whilst at the same time producing a print free from areas in which no dye transfers at all.

So it will remain to be seen when the first VistaVision releases are shown whether or not the excellent definition and good register of the demonstration films can be maintained in practice.

The claim for greater depth of field for the larger negative is demonstrably not well founded. It would be agreed that many of the shots shown did have great depth of field but that was purely incidental and solely a function of the small stop used in photographing. In order to cover the same picture area the VistaVision negative uses a somewhat longer focal length lens than does the standard motion picture negative, thus the depth of field with the VistaVision camera, at equal aperture, focused on the same distance, and including the same angular field, will be less than that of a standard camera, not more.”

(Ashton, George (1954): Colour at the Cinema. In: The British Journal of Photography, 101, 25 June 1954, pp. 324–325, on p. 324.)

“Knights of the Travelling Matte

Any travelling matte process, whether in black and white or colour, places very severe demands on the optical and mechanical precision of the various pieces of equipment used to handle the multiplicity of strips of film which carry the part images.

In colour the number of separate strips of film verges on the astronomical (see B. J., September 18, 1953), and holding registration to limits which are measured in tenths of thousandths of an inch through the process is no mean feat. In view of these stringent requirements of registration in normal film-making one would imagine that to attempt travelling matte shots on material photographed with the CinemaScope anamorphic lens would be taking things a little too far, since the 2 to 1 compression ratio of the CinemaScope system means that the register tolerance in the horizontal direction will be only half of what it normally is.

Nevertheless the very first shots in Knights of the Round Table, the first CinemaScope production to be made in England, are travelling matte shots and very adequate they are too. There seems to be a generally held belief at the present time, in this country at least, that such special effects are only possible using a beam-splitter camera; in fact this is not so and these shots in this film prove that the simple system of Tom Howard of Metro-Goldwyn Mayer, who was responsible for this work, works just as well with a monopack process such as Eastman Color negative as it does with a Technicolor beam-splitter camera.

Photographing the foreground action against an evenly illuminated blue backing enables a high contrast matte film to be made from separation positives extracted from the monopack in just the same way as it can be made from a separation negative made in a Technicolor camera.

The only snag in such a system, and it is a very minor one, is that the foreground scene must contain no areas of blue of comparable brightness to the blue backing, since such areas would be recorded on the high contrast matte and the background which is printed in at a later stage would show through in such areas.

Matte Complexity

The obvious way to prevent such an occurrence is to see that no blue materials are used in the foreground action. However, a recent patent granted to Denham Laboratories (B.P. 708,113) avoids this problem in a much more complex fashion. The process is particularly applicable to the beam-splitter camera travelling matte system developed by the Rank Organisation for black-and-white work. For black and white the foreground action is lit with yellow light to give the maximum colour separation between it and the blue backing. When a monopack colour film is used in one of the gates of such a camera in place of the panchromatic film used for black and white, the foreground can obviously no longer be lit with yellow light. Instead the foreground is lit with light which is substantially white but which has had one or more narrow bands of wavelengths subtracted by filters over the light source and, if necessary, in the camera gate carrying the colour stock. The narrow bands of wavelengths removed by the filters are those which correspond to one or both of the two points of minimum sensitivity in the spectral sensitivity curve of the colour material in use.

The background is lit with lamps, such as mercury vapour lamps, which are screened by filters so that the light reaching the backing is limited to wavelength bands to which the colour film is not recording, the patent specification gives spectral lines at 365, 404.6, 577 and 579.1 mμ as examples. In this case the filters for the foreground lighting would have an absorption band for the region 577 to 579.1 mμ. The camera gate in which the matte film runs is screened with filters which together transmit only light in the band 577 to 579.1 mμ and a panchromatic film is used.

By this method the colour film “sees” only the foreground action and gives an undistorted colour record of it with the backing appearing as clear film. The panchromatic film in the second gate does not record the foreground action since the filters before it exclude all the light except for the wavelengths which are filtered out by the screens on the lamps. The plain backing, however, is recorded as a heavy density since it is illuminated by the narrow band of wavelengths which the camera filters pass. The high contrast matte made on the panchromatic film is then handled in the usual way and the foreground combined with any separately photographed background desired.

It is difficult to see what merit this extremely complicated procedure has; in addition to the added complexity of the filtration a beam-splitter camera is essential. But since the Rank Organisation have a number of such cameras this may well be the reason for the use of this system in preference to much simpler single film method used by M.G.M.”

(Ashton, George (1954): Colour at the Cinema. In: The British Journal of Photography, 101, 25 June 1954, pp. 324–325, on pp. 324–325.)

“Colour from Japan

One might be forgiven for imagining that the first colour film to come from Japan would have been made in one of the three colour systems which are native to that country. However, The Gate of Hell, which is currently showing in the West End of London, turns out to be on the ubiquitous Kodak material Eastman Color negative, with the print on the Eastman positive stock. It seems unlikely that this film will be generally released in view of the limited appeal which films in a foreign language as esoteric as Japanese are thought to have by those who decide such things; unhappily by the time this review appears it will probably no longer be on show even in London.

This is unfortunate, for aside from its intrinsic interest as the first film in colour to come from Japan it is a delight in its colour both aesthetically and technically. The photography, by Kohei Sugiyama, is outstanding both in composition to suit the mood of the individual sequences and in colour composition. The studio sets, like the Japanese interiors they show, are extremely simple in conception, yet they have a feeling of great elegance and reality. There is a beautiful rendering of the characteristic textures of fine wood and fabrics and the exotic costumes are extremely rich in appearance.

Real locations of great natural beauty are freely used where the action demands and the few studio “exteriors” are finely done and well matched. In fact their simplicity aids greatly in maintaining the illusion and it is extremely difficult to decide whether some of the scenes are real or studio exteriors, which is as it should be. Many of the scenes at the end of the film are simulated moonlight shots with some areas showing artificial lighting and these, too, are well handled, certainly the best we have seen in some long time.

The high artistic and technical quality of this Japanese feature argues a great willingness to learn the requirements and limitations of a new medium; to carry through the high qualities which the critics have already noted favourably in Japanese black-and-white films to the first attempt at a colour film is a real achievement. We look forward with pleasurable anticipation to further films by this photographer, art director Kisaku Itoh and colour consultant Sanzo Wada. The processing of the colour material by Far East Laboratories Ltd. also deserves a mention; for the most part this is straightforward work, there is one dissolve (which may well have been made in the camera) and a number of fades of excellent quality.”

(Ashton, George (1954): Colour at the Cinema. In: The British Journal of Photography, 101, 25 June 1954, pp. 324–325, on p. 325.)

“Miscellaneous Items

With the enormous increase in the number of films which are nowadays being made in colour and the multiplicity of materials which are now available it is a little difficult to keep track of which film is made with which process. The situation is further complicated by the fact that in many cases no full process credit is given. The policy of the Technicolor organisation would seem to be as follows; if a film is credited “Colour by Technicolor” it has either been photographed with a beam-splitter camera and printed by imbibition or photographed on Eastman Color negative the processing of which has been done by Technicolor. The prints from the monopack negative may then be made either on Eastman Color positive by Technicolor (as in the case of CinemaScope releases) or by the imbibition system.

In those cases where materials such as Eastman Color negative or Ansco or Agfa colour negative is processed by another laboratory and the prints are made by Technicolor then the process is credited simply as “Print by Technicolor.” This credit is also used for some short subject presentations, such as those made by Warners, which are photographed on 16-mm. Kodachrome and released as 35-mm. Technicolor prints.

Two films which are currently on general release as a double­ feature programme provide a good example of process name complications; one, Beachhead, is credited as a Technicolor print with no process given for the original negative, which was almost undoubtedly Eastman. The companion film Riders to the Stars is in colour by the Color Corporation of America. This is in fact the process which was formerly known as Supercinecolor (B.J., September 12, 1952). The Color Corporation of America has now been acquired by two of the directors of Houston Color Film Laboratories and the Houston-Fearless Corporation, manufacturers of processing equipment.

Trucolor is the name given by Consolidated Film Industries, a division of Republic Pictures, to Eastman Color negative and positive; films processed by this laboratory are credited “Trucolor by Consolidated.” However, Republic Pictures are now making films in Britain and in this case the Eastman stock is processed by George Humphries Laboratories in London. The first of these films, Trouble in the Glen, is now being shown in London and is credited simply “Colour by Trucolor.” ”

(Ashton, George (1954): Colour at the Cinema. In: The British Journal of Photography, 101, 25 June 1954, pp. 324–325, on p. 325.)

“Une période privilégiée (1950-1955)

L’explosion à retardement du cinéma en couleurs se produisit au début des années cinquante, avec un pic en 1953-1954. L’affranchissement des tournages hors des studios hollywoodiens était devenus monnaie courante, et de nombreux films étaient faits à l’étranger pour tirer avantage de coûts de production plus bas (en plus d’extérieurs photogéniques…). Des procédés couleur bon marché gagnaient leur part de marché, comme Cinecolor (devenu SuperCinecolor) puis Anscocolor au début des années cinquante. Et à partir de 1952, le monopole du Technicolor fut pour la première fois sérieusement menacé par l’Eastmancolor à une seule bande (monopack) qui pouvait être utilisé dans une caméra 35 mm standard: en 1954, la compagnie Technicolor elle-même devait abandonner sa grosse caméra tripack en faveur d’un procédé monopack.

En fait, le cinéma en couleurs était en pleine mutation, et le démarrage de “l’ère moderne” remonte à cette époque. Non seulement le nouvel Eastman était considéré comme plus “naturaliste” et “proche du vivant”, mais le Technicolor lui-même améliora son piqué et sa définition pour répondre aux nouvelles exigences de l’écran large; les trois matrices de séparation chromatique utilisées pour le tirage de ses fameuses copies par “imbibition”, le dye transfer bien connu des imprimeurs, sont désormais tirées d’un unique négatif de type Eastman, plutôt que de trois négatifs impressionnés dans la caméra tripack.”

(Finler, Joel (1992): De Becky Sharp à Lola Montès. Comment la couleur vint au cinéma, entre 1935 et 1955. In: Yann Tobin (1992): Dossier. La couleur du cinéma. In: Positif, 375–376, May, pp. 121–158, on p. 132.) (in French)

Days of Heaven (USA 1978, Terrence Malick)

“In spinning a turn-of-the-century yarn about two itinerant farm workers (Brooke Adams and Richard Gere) who become enmeshed in a tragic love triangle involving their boss (Sam Shepherd), the picture offers some of the most stunning “magic-hour” vistas ever recorded on film. Writing for AC in June of 1979, Almendros offered the following reminiscence:

“In filming day exteriors, the normal procedure is to use reflected or artificial light to fill the shadowed areas and thereby reduce the photographic contrast. In this film, however, Terrence Malick and I felt it would be better to use no lights, and to expose for the shadow areas. The effect of this was that the sky would come out overexposed, thereby losing its blue hue. This was an effect that pleased Terry.

“I decided to forgo the use of any artificial of reflected light, and to split the difference between my reading for the sky and my reading for the shadows, resulting in faces being slightly underexposed, and the sky being slightly overexposed, thereby taking away the intensity of blue, yet not letting it burn white.

With very few exceptions, the crew was made up of the typical Hollywood old guard, [who] were accustomed to a very highly polished form of lighting and photography.

“Since we could see the rushes immediately and it was apparent that the results were adding to the visual presentation of the story, we became and less artificial light, preferring the raw, natural images.”

(Anonymous (1999): Days of Heaven. In: American Cinematographer, 80,3, p. 134, on p. 134.)

“Da es sich um ein Unikat handelt, liegt die Münchner Kopie seit Jahren unter Verschluss². Alle Bemühungen, sie umzukopieren und durch die Herstellung eines Dup-Negativs zu sichern, scheiterten an technischen Schwierigkeiten und fehlenden Finanzen.

Im Frühjahr 2001 wurde im Rahmen einer vollständigen Max-Ophüls-Werkschau die Kopie von Lola Montez ausnahmsweise noch einmal im Filmmuseum aufgeführt, in Anwesenheit von Marcel Ophüls, der seinem Vater bei den Dreharbeiten assistiert hatte, Darsteller Peter Ustinov, Drehbuchautor Franz Geiger und Filmhistorikerin Martina Müller. Marcel Ophüls beschrieb diesen Abend am nächsten Tag als eine schreckliche Erfahrung, weil die Farben der Kopie überhaupt nichts mehr mit der ursprünglichen Farbgestaltung zu tun hätten. Zuvor hatte er schon empfohlen, den Magnetton auf Mono abzuspielen, weil der Vier-Kanal-Magnetton auf der Kopie ebenfalls nichts mit der ursprünglichen Tongestaltung zu tun habe. Martina Müller konnte immerhin erklären, warum die Filmkopie keine gleich bleibende, durchgehende Rotstichigkeit besaß, sondern an mehreren Stellen einen fast vollständigen Farbverfall aufwies: In der Kopie waren einzelne Sequenzen noch vor der Magnettonbespurung herausgeschnitten und ersetzt worden. Es handelte sich dabei um fremdsprachige Passagen, die ursprünglich untertitelt waren. Sie waren durch neu gezogene, aber offensichtlich weniger farbechte Teile ohne Untertitel ersetzt worden, weil man den Film nachsynchronisiert hatte. Die Tonspur der Münchener Kopie war also nicht mehr der Ton der ursprünglichen Fassung des Films, sondern eine neue Synchronisation.

Anmerkungen

² “4x Lola Montez“, in: Off Kinomagazin (Hg. Filmmuseum München), Jan./Feb.1999, S. 62.”

(Drössler, Stefan (2004): Lola Montez. In neuem Licht. In: Christine Rüffert (ed.): ZeitSprünge. Wie Filme Geschichte(n) erzählen. Berlin: Bertz, pp. 170–185, on p. 171.) (in German)

“Um Geld zu sparen, werden die bereits in einem französischen Kopierwerk gezogenen Magnetton-Filmkopien der Premierenfassung bearbeitet, indem die untertitelten Sequenzen durch in einem deutschen Kopierwerk neu gezogene Klammerteile ohne Untertitel ausgewechselt und die vier erwähnten Schnitte in den Positivkopien vorgenommen werden. Dies geschieht, noch bevor der neue Ton auf die Magnettonspur überspielt wird. Dabei stellt man schon damals Probleme hinsichtlich der Farbe fest, wie in einem internen Bericht notiert wird: “Einige Schwierigkeiten hätten sich dadurch ergeben, dass bei Ausmerzung der Untertitel einige Passagen in Geyer-Kopien hätten eingeflickt werden müssen, wobei sich leider herausgestellt habe, dass die Farben von Geyer gegenüber den Farben in den französischen Kopien stark abfielen⁸.”

[…]

Bereits 1997 hatte das Filmmuseum in einem Schreiben an alle großen Filmarchive in Europa, Amerika und Australien nach erhaltenem Material von Lola Montez gefragt. Die meisten Archive verfügten über gar kein Material oder über eine nach 1968 gezogene Kopie von Braunbergers Dup-Negativ. Da seinerzeit ausschließlich nach Material der deutschen Version geforscht wurde, blieben viele Spuren und Hinweise in den Antwortschreiben unausgewertet. Bei neuerlicher Durchsicht der Antworten wurde konzentriert nach allen Magnettonkopien gesucht, und die Angaben der Filmarchive wurden nach den inzwischen gewonnenen Erkenntnissen über die Versionen und Fassungen des Filmes überprüft. Dabei traten erstaunliche Erkenntnisse zu Tage.

Die originalen Negative von Lola Montez wurden leider zerschnitten, und zwar auf die jeweilige chronologische Kurzfassung hin. Das französische Negativ befindet sich im Besitz von Les Films du Jeudi, der Firma von Pierre Braunbergers Tochter Laurence Braunberger, und ist bei GTC eingelagert. Das Originalnegativ der deutschen Version wurde 1988 vom Bavaria Kopierwerk München beim Bundesarchiv in Koblenz als Depositum eingelagert¹⁴, wobei bedauerlicherweise schon bei der Einlagerung eine Rolle Bild fehlte, die bis heute nicht aufgetaucht ist. Da die deutsche Kurzfassung die längste war, ist dieses Negativ dennoch am wertvollsten: Es besitzt die meisten ungeschnittenen Einstellungen. Vom englischen Originalnegativ verlieren sich die Spuren im November 1957, als die englische Version in London in den Kinos anlief.

Von der deutschen Version scheint die Münchener Kopie das vollständigste Material zu sein, auch wenn es von starkem Farbverfall gezeichnet ist. Eine weitere Kopie der überarbeiteten zweiten Fassung, in die die Klammerteile nicht eingesetzt wurden, sondern die direkt vom umgeschnittenen Negativ gezogen wurde, ist durchgehend so rotstichig, dass lediglich ihre Tonspur für die Rekonstruktion genutzt werden konnte, um kleinere, durch Klebestellen verursachte Tonlöcher der ersten Kopie auszugleichen.

Bei der französischen Version ist die Materiallage ungleich besser: Neben dem Dup-Negativ, das von einer Magnettonkopie gezogen wurde, die leider nicht mehr erhalten ist, gibt es noch eine zweite Magnettonkopie, die zwar wegen ihres Rotstiches und ihrer Laufstreifen im Bild für die Rekonstruktion nicht brauchbar ist, aber – anders als das Dup-Negativ, zu dem es nur noch ein Lichttonnegativ gibt – den Vier-Kanal-Magnetton der Synchronfassung enthält. Die eigentliche Entdeckung ist aber, dass Material von der französischen Premierenversion erhalten ist. Die Cinémathèque de Luxembourg besitzt eine Arbeitskopie von Lola Montez, die keine Tonspur hat, deshalb nicht vorgeführt werden konnte und dementsprechend gut erhalten ist. In ihr sind zwar einige wenige Einstellungen durch Schwarzfilm ersetzt, aber gerade die später geschnittenen Sequenzen sind allesamt erhalten und liegen nun in recht guter Bildqualität vor. Den Ton zur französischen Premierenfassung kann man einer Kopie der Cinémathèque Royale de Belgique entnehmen, die in ihrer Länge der Premierenfassung entspricht. Vom Bild her ist diese Kopie vollständig (auch wenn sie einige Klebestellen aufweist), aber für die Rekonstruktion nicht verwendbar, weil sie durchgehend flämische Untertitel besitzt und der Farbverfall sie durchgängig stark braunstichig erscheinen lässt.

Anmerkungen

⁸ Zitiert nach: Martina Müller / Werner Dütsch: Lola Montez – Eine Filmgeschichte. Trier 2002.

¹⁴ Brief des Bundesarchivs (Willi Weber) an das Filmmuseum München vom 23.6.1997.”

(Drössler, Stefan (2004): Lola Montez. In neuem Licht. In: Christine Rüffert (ed.): ZeitSprünge. Wie Filme Geschichte(n) erzählen. Berlin: Bertz, pp. 170–185, on pp. 173–176.) (in German)

“Die beiden Originalnegative weisen die Farbgestaltung auf, die Ophüls gewünscht hat, und konnten deshalb der Rekonstruktion als Maßstab dienen. Allerdings fand sich im deutschen Negativ ein leichter Blaustich, im französischen hingegen ein leichter Gelbstich. Mit digitaler Farbkorrektur ließen sich die Unterschiede aber leicht angleichen.

[…]

Bei der digitalen Restaurierung wurden die Bilder so restauriert, wie sie im Negativ vorgefunden wurden, und so auch wieder auf das Negativ ausbelichtet. Erst bei der Lichtbestimmung der Positivkopie wurden die Wünsche von Max Ophüls nachempfunden – genau so, wie es in den 50er Jahren auch gemacht wurde. Der Fernsehfassung des Filmes, die nicht von einer Positivkopie abgetastet, sondern direkt vom Masterband kopiert wurde, fehlen die Korrekturen der Lichtbestimmung.”

(Drössler, Stefan (2004): Lola Montez. In neuem Licht. In: Christine Rüffert (ed.): ZeitSprünge. Wie Filme Geschichte(n) erzählen. Berlin: Bertz, pp. 170–185, on pp. 182–183.) (in German)

Days of Heaven (USA 1978, Terrence Malick)

“But it is not enough to say that Days of Heaven strikes us, like The Golden Coach, Senso, Red Desert, or Muriel, as one of the most remarkable examples of color on the screen. The premeditated beauty found in each shot (which could have been shot with a handheld camera just as well as from a rigorous and quasi-geometric formal organization) should also be able to translate in depth the maker’s meaning. Malick, as we have already noted, is from many standpoints a romantic filmmaker. His relationship with nature and the function he assigns to his painting express themselves in many different and complex ways. There is the admirable shot in which a train carrying workers from the city to the countryside over a high bridge opposes the serenity of an azure sky to the weary and anxious faces of the passengers. Their arrival at the fields and the long-desired meeting with prolific nature are given to us by the filmmaker in a lyrical offering, an almost Whitmanesque exaltation of the beauty of th