From: "Chad McMahill" <chadmcmahill-AT-hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: reality, memory / color, and b&w
Date: Sun, 09 Jan 2000 01:38:30 PST


i don't know if it's what you're looking for, but the recent movie american 
history x employed what i thought was a slightly clever contrast between its 
color and b&w scenes: while it does use the cliched idea of representing the 
past with b&w and the present with color, it also works through the 
narrative from different points in time and through these chronologically 
disconnected pieces reveals a point of intersection between the two. which 
happens to be edward norton's character's release from prison, or more 
thematically his transformation from a racist skinhead to a more 
compassionate person cured of his former hate.

pleasantville, released around the same time on video (they make a 
complimentary double feature), also used color in contrast to b&w as a 
symbolic kind of catharsis (sex mostly, but literature, too), but went 
another step by coloring only certain portions of the frame a la tati's 
restored version of jour de fete until finally a 'new world' opens up.

i suppose these examples relate only vaguely to memory, but possibly they 
can help anyway.

chad

______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com



     --- from list film-theory-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---