Chromatic Cinema: A History of Screen Color

by Richard Misek

Chromatic Cinema Color permeates film and its history, but study of its contribution to film has so far been fragmentary. Chromatic Cinema provides the first wide-ranging historical overview of screen color, exploring the changing uses and meanings of color in moving images, from hand painting in early skirt dance films to current trends in digital color manipulation. In this richly illustrated study, Richard Misek offers both a history and a theory of screen color. He argues that cinematic color emerged from, defined itself in response to, and has evolved in symbiosis with black and white. Exploring the technological, cultural, economic, and artistic factors that have defined this evolving symbiosis, Misek provides an in-depth yet accessible account of color’s spread through, and ultimate effacement of, black-and-white cinema.

Genres: Film, Nonfiction

240 pages, Hardcover

First published February 2, 2010

Reviews

[Michael Tesfaye · Rating 4 out of 5]

The element of the film we are actually supposed to watch is often evaded by the sheer amount of scream and words we consume in the experience of film-watching. This book, if you have already been interested in the visual elements of films, helps you elevate your overall experience. I loved the fact that I learned how the history progressed, the reception of colours in the 60s, the political and economic aspects, the challenges filmmakers face in producing black-and-white movies, how full of meaning surface colours can be, and the physics and techniques and many more. I absolutely recommend it, and look forward to reading more on the topic, as all serious cinéphiles should too.

[Dasha · Rating 3 out of 5]

I appreciated the author's thorough history of, largely, western cinematography and interaction with colour (or lack thereof). The book clearly lays out the history, responses to and those that formed in response to changes in film colour technology, from surface colour to optical colour to digital colour. Particularly interesting were the section on Soviet movies and the final chapter on digital colour. I certainly look at colour and its use within current and older movies with a different lens now.

[quasialidia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Misek gives a very focused historic account of the meanings of 'black-and-white' and color film as they co-develop into the present day. Insightful and engaging, this book is also well researched. Its major flaw though is Musek's dismissal of cartoons and musicals, as well as his overly generalized focus on the analogy of film being like painting.

[Chuck Kollars · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent (and virtually only) book on the uses of color in movies clear back to the invention of movies and throughout the world. Brisk coverage, yet with lots of detail ...and some bluntly honest statements on topics that are usually danced around.

Shows the conventional wisdom that "the ever-increasing quest for 'realism' brought us color" isn't true (or at best is such a vast oversimplification that it's practically useless). And promotes the idea that black and white are just a couple more colors, that the B&W<->color opposition that has occurred a few times in history didn't actually exist much of the time.

Describes in some detail how the use of "digital intermediate" editing and its concomitant ability to manipulate color has _vastly expanded the options available to filmmakers ...so much so that it could be argued that filmmakers haven't even figured out what to do with all the artistic freedom yet.

Only covers up to 2010 though. A lot has happened since then, and I would very much like to see similar coverage of more recent filmmaking ...but I don't know of any such book.

And as an aside mentions that the process of filmmaking has changed dramatically in the past few decades, with the post-processing phase being much much more important than it used to be. Not so long ago post-processing was just a minor step in finishing the film. Nowadays some films are actually first fleshed out during post-processing and the shooting phase has become just a preliminary step that produces the raw material used to construct a film.

Unfortunately the book is somewhat obscure and remarkably expensive. But given that the only alternative is to obtain a whole bunch of journal articles (and sort out the conflicts between them), and that the book covers some things that aren't covered anywhere else, it may be worth foregoing one's usual "no highlighting" policy to obtain a used copy at a reasonable price.