Color on Developing Characters and Story - Kathy & Frank Whitaker - Far From Heaven 2002

Far From Heaven was created as a homage to 1950s Hollywood melodramas, cinematographer Edward Lachman was nominated for an Oscar for this film.

A still frame of bright red-orange leaves fills the screen as the title sequence begins. As the camera pans slowly over the block the leaves gradually turn brown. By the end of the block the leaves disappear completely and the trees are left bare. In less than sixty seconds, in pure visual language, we have just seen a perfect synopsis of the story.

Kathy's street is full of beautiful warm colours. A bit over saturated in fact, as if they were trying too hard to be perfect. Kathy's best friend arrives in a pastel pink two tone sedan. They have to discuss a party they are hosting soon. These are very busy women living in a perfect pastel world where everything is in its place. Or so it seems. Later that night the phone rings. It’s the police department, Kathy's husband Frank has been arrested. The way the director Todd Haynes introduces Frank says everything about his character. He is giving his back to the camera, facing a lime green wall.

Frank's world is represented as a distortion of nature's primary colours. His world is full of lime greens, magentas and secondary colours. When Kathy goes to the Police Station to pick up Frank you can see she doesn't belong there. Lime green is all over the place. Even his workplace has this lime green tint. It’s obvious now that he represents almost the opposite of what Kathy is. One night after work, he sees two men laughing on the street and decides to follow them. They walk through a dark alley. Frank hesitates but with caution decides to continue. This is a decisive moment for him, director Todd Haynes decides to use a tilt angle to reinforce this feeling. He is giving us a clue that something wrong is about to happen. Something is not right, something is crooked, like Frank.

In the 50s, homosexuality was considered an aberration. That’s the reason that Lachman uses colours that are not pleasant to the eye. When Kathy catches Frank one night with another man we see again the same tilt angle, only this time we see Kathy running away. They try hard to save the relationship but we can see more and more cold blue and purple entering Kathy's world. She can only find some glimpses of happiness in her sporadically chats with Raymond, the colour gardener that works for the family. Raymond is everything Frank is not in many ways. He's always represented by earthy colours. However we see a similar green atmosphere when Kathy goes with Raymond to a restaurant, indicating that a married white wife going with her black gardener to a restaurant isn't well seen either. 

"Far from Heaven takes place over different seasons, which are a metaphor for what’s happening to the characters emotionally. To suggest the emotional arc of the story, as the seasons changed, the night becomes an emotional texture for Frank and Kathy’s world coming apart. The fall night is more of purplish blue in transition to winter. As their relationship disintegrates and winter comes, it became more of a greenish blue, more of an acerbic night depicting the character’s isolation. As spring begins, the light becomes a purplish blue once more. It is a new beginning" Edward Lachman

So much to see and analyse on this film, so many different readings that is impossible to summarise. I'll finish it with another quote from Edward Lachman "The surface beauty of the characters’ world becomes its betrayal. It’s a beauty that they can never be part of. Ironically, they are seduced by what keeps them from their desire. The beauty points to something it denies. Kathy is always moving through all these different worlds in her picture-perfect environment, but somehow never obtaining the emotional stability of what middle class life is supposed to reward you with" 

Color on Developing Characters and Story - Jerome Morrow - Gattaca 1997

Colour affects our emotional perception of the world.  It speaks to us on such a primary level that we barely think of it. It is there not to be seen, it is there to be felt. To understand how green can be used to reveal a character’s state of mind and personality, we can use the example of Jerome (Jude Law’s character) in the film from 1997 Gattaca.

Jerome Morrow is a genetically improved man. He lives in a world were eugenics is common, and DNA plays a primary role in determining social class. His destiny is to always be the best. But after a car accident he is now just a cripple on a wheelchair. So this is the way that director Andrew Niccol chooses to introduce him. Smoking a cigarette, Jerome is backlit with this almost toxic green light.

With this shot you can read very clearly Jerome's state of mind. You can read it on his face, on the green mouldy walls of his apartment, on the empty bottles of alcohol on the floor, on the unhealthy yellow green colour of his skin, on the wheelchair, the cigarette... it’s a fantastic master piece of character exposition.

Green is a colour that presents a duality. In its plant manifestation, it signals life itself. However green in the atmosphere, water or skin can be read it as toxic or unhealthy. “Beware of the green water” is a sailor’s warning, "You look green,  you must be sick" is another common saying.

Now, if you haven't seen the movie stop reading right now, watch the movie first and come back because I'm about to give away key moments of the movie. Vincent (Ethan Hawke) narrates at the beginning of the film how he was conceived in the back seat of a car as "faith birth". The colour Green appears this time not as a toxic environment but as a metaphor of life. However, Vincent's father disappointment on his son’s natural abilities makes him decide to visit a genetic enhancing clinic and make sure he gives his second son the best genetics tools to succeed in life.

And that’s how Anton is born. You can see from now the green colour shifting and privileging one kid over the other. Anton's clothes are always using different shades of greens while Vincent is left with more brownish earthy tones in his wardrobe.

The drama that propels the story is Vincent’s life obsession to go to the space. This is a story about commitment to a dream. About how he doesn't have any other choice left but to take another man's identity to be accepted in Gattaca. “Each day I would dispose of as much loose skin, fingernails, and hair as possible to limit how much of my INVALID self I would leave in the VALID world. At the same time, Jerome would prepare samples of his own superior body matter so I might pass for him.” His voiceover explains.

When Gattaca’s Mission Director is murdered, and through a discovery of an INVALID eyelash, Vincent becomes a suspect. The lead detective is Anton Freeman. But despite his best efforts Anton can't unmask Vincent. Filled with anger that his own brother couldn't stand to lose to him Vincent shouts to Anton:

"You wanna know how I made it?  I never save anything for the way back" alluding to a swimming game they used to play when they were kids in which the first one to get scared or exhausted and swim back to shore would lose. At the end of the film we see how colours support the characters in a different ways. Jerome gains and changes so much helping Vincent that all the green has disappeared from his environment. He gives a letter to Vincent to be opened only when he is in space. Vincent says, “I don’t know how to thank you.” Jerome replies, “I got the better end of the deal. I only lent you my body. You lent me your dream.” Vincent will walk through a green tunnel that leads to a spaceship that would take him to the stars.