Thursday, February 5, 2009

Silence of the Lambs analysis - part 9: The movie's use of colors

CATEGORY: MOVIES




Top left: Starling wears red at the autopsy. Here, red represents fire and so symbolizes the 'presence' of God.[a] Top right: Starling talks with Chilton in the prison basement. In this scene, the red 'glow' represents Hell rather than the presence of God. Above left: Starling prefers green for the showdown in Gumb's house. The color green is sometimes considered to represent the Holy Spirit. As worn by Clarice here, green symbolizes the 'presence' of the Holy Spirit. Above right: A view through Gumb's night vision goggles. Here, green is being used to represent evil. The human eye can differentiate more shades of green than any other color, allowing for greater differentiation of objects.[b]




Above left: A simulated example of subtractive color mixing.[c] Subtractive color mixing is used in paints, pigments, and dyes. The primary colors are yellow, magenta, and cyan. The overlap regions are red, green, blue, and black where all three are overlapped. Above right: A simulated example of additive color mixing.[d] Additive color mixing is used in lighting applications. The primary colors are red, green, and blue. Note that in the four screen captures from the movie shown earlier above, colored lighting represents the presence of evil, while colors such as those used to make dyes (e.g., those in clothing) represent the forces of good. We will soon see how color mixing is used as a 'metaphor' in the movie.


a. Wikipedia, 'Red'. Web, n.d. URL = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red.
b. Wikipedia, 'Green'. Web, n.d. URL = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green.
c. Image from the Wikipedia 'Color mixing' page; A simulated example of subtractive color mixing, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commmons.
d. Image from the Wikipedia 'Color mixing' page, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.


      

Posted at 7:32 PM
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