this is long

Sometimes, I teach college classes. When I can. This past fall, I taught an Introduction to Feminist Theory course. It was great. I make my own syllabi, so the students really have to endure my own interests in some of the course material.

This past fall, I did a section on theorizing violence, because, well ... I love studying violence. Especially visually. Especially in film. So, I chose to show the film Hard Candy in class.

Patrick Wilson and pre-Juno Ellen Page play the two main (well, only, really) characters in this movie. It's a fantastic, suspenseful thriller. It actually touched a lot on the theories my class had been discussing throughout the course of the semester, and it brought up a lot of interesting questions on retributive violence, vigilante justice, and gender roles.

BUT, this is all a digression, really.

I was talking about this movie recently with a couple who had attempted to watch it. The man couldn't get through it - there's a rather intense scene (that I won't get into right now, for the sake of avoiding "spoilers" and because that scene is a whole other discussion I'd like to have at a later date ... maybe tomorrow) that made him stop watching.

Naturally, I made fun of him, but I asked him what he thought of the rest of the movie. He wasn't that impressed, it seemed, so I kept trying to find out more. "What about the colors," I asked. "Didn't you think the movie was beautiful?"

Again, he wasn't impressed. He said it wasn't anything special.

Now, maybe it was the screen he was watching on (television sets, especially older ones, are funny with their colors sometimes), or maybe he just doesn't give a shit about the color of a movie. I told him the color palette of this movie was one of the best I've ever seen - and he said he didn't really know what I was talking about, but I didn't want to go on and on about it, because it seems snobby in a friendly conversation about movies. But I'll go on and and on about it, here.

Cause that's what this is for.

SO! The color palette of this movie is incredible. Most of this movie takes place in one location, a house, and the rooms of the house evoke different feelings depending on the color. Action takes place primarily in sets that have more rich colors, colors that lend themselves to movement.

This is the first, and only film I've seen, to credit their digital colorist (Jean Clement-Soret, also the digital colorist for Snatch) in the opening credits. Digital coloring is a different process than the way most films are made, and the technique really comes through in this movie. The colors match the mood of the characters. When Hayley gets angry, the colors are more dark, intense, often with red or deep undertones. When things are more calm, it's reflected in the lighting and the coloring of the scene.

I watched the commentary to the movie, and the extras, and apparently a lot was also done with density shifts, in regard to the coloring of the movie. They would light the scenes differently, so that in production, Clement-Soret could manipulate the light to bring out hightlights, contrasts, and colors in different ways. So, despite often dark lighting in scenes, you can make out the facial expressions and the very faces of the characters themselves, where this wouldn't be possible in other movies. This use of density shifts, lighting, and digital coloring is the first of its kind in a movie.

So. As someone who always pays attention to the coloring of a movie, I was delighted by the use of color in this movie. Though it's subtle, and not many people would even give a shit about the fact that a digital colorist is mentioned in the opening credits, it's (seemingly) small things like this that ensures a movie is both aesthetically pleasing and riveting enough to keep watching. As with anything, it's not only about what's being said, or read, or watched - it's about the little things that go unnoticed, whether it's the quiet between the lines, outside of a camera frame, or beyond the characters.