How does shade achieve mental impact in the film 'The Cook the Thief, his Better half and her Fan' (1989) Aimed by Peter Greenaway.
The strong use of colour found in 'The Make the Thief, his wife and her Lover' (1989) directed by Peter Greenaway has a direct effect on the spectators thoughts and thoughts through the film. The links between your actions of the characters and the content of the storyplot mirror the choice of colour whenever we look at what different shades are associated with different thoughts in american culture. The bond to seventeenth century Dutch paintings is incredibly dominant throughout the film and fits in with the symbolic meanings that Dutch still life painting is so intrinsically connected too as well as the symbolism of coloring. In this essay I have analysed the links between colour and seventeenth century paintings and referenced Greenaway's experimentation and abstract use of colour to the first cinema movement Overall Film and 20th century performers such as Kandinsky and his theories of color in motion. I am hoping showing that colour can be an important part of the film that evokes feelings and thoughts on the spectator with impact of symbolism and Dutch paintings, and in its own right creates another persona generating the narrative onward and providing the film alongside one another.
Looking through the annals of early movie theater and the emergence of shade, it is interesting to note the reasons for bringing coloring in to film. Silent movie theater filmmakers were intrigued by color because they could see its remarkable potential, rather than considering its capability to portray a greater sense of actuality. At the beginning of the 20th Century, modernism was arriving to the foreground; skill moves such as cubism, expressionism and abstraction were impacting on mass culture in everyday activity. Colour used in advertising campaign, paintings and architecture were being encouraged to take up these activities for inspiration and this experimentation of color translated into film (Yumibe, 2007 p. 49). Colour featured in lots of the earliest films as a means of attracting viewers and enhancing cosmetic and remarkable impact of the narrative; the precise reason why we use colour in film today. One of the earliest types of using colour because of its dramatic probable is a Way Film 'Le Contremaitre Incendiaire/ The Incendiary Foreman' made in 1908. Inside the film they leap cut from the frigid color blue to wealthy hot reds in the anticipation it would impact and charm to the spectator's senses. In Joshua Yumibe article, 'Silent Cinema Coloring Appearance' (Yumibe, 2007) He argued that the utilization of coloring in these early cinema videos was 'being harnessed in a coded way to sort out the senses and, by connection, to influence the feelings and moods of the spectators. ' (Yumibe, 2007 p. 53) For an audience in the early 20th century who had not seen colour being used in such a way, they found this very efficient. More recently, although filmmakers follow the lines of using shade to create emotions or moods, it is now done in more refined ways to make a deeper more meaningful film portraying an authentic sense of the world. In early on cinema colour had not been used to create a sense of realism; it actually symbolized the unrealistic dream worlds, whilst dark and white film signifyed the realistic world.
Fig. 1 Composition VI (1913) Kandinsky
If we look back again to the artists who had been emerging at the beginning of the 20th century such as Kandinsky, Survage and Picasso, and their curiosity about coloring abstraction and theories on colour, especially Kandinsky, we can easily see it possessed some impact on early on film. Taking a look at Kandinsky's design of painting and his theories, for example, Kandinsky's Composition VI and his other compositions, his most important matter was to evoke a spiritual resonance with the audience and musician. Kandinsky wished to put the viewers in the problem of experiencing his paintings in the desire it could evoke senses of desperation, distress and urgency as well as creating the sense of it being dreamlike and the painters mind towards an 'epoch to great spiritual market leaders. (Kandinisky, 2004 p. 65) Corresponding to Kandinsky people who appeared and contemplated his paintings, can reach a meditative point out. He wanted to draw the audience directly into a meditative trance to encourage a higher state of awareness (Kandinsky, 2004 p. 65). Even the notion of shade representing the dream world, can be linked to wanting to generate a dreamlike world.
Fig 2. Three stills from 'Opus I' (1921) Directed by Walter Ruttman
This sense of 'meditative trance' and abstraction was something that film makers and artists wished to experiment using film. One of these of any film movement that took this idea from designers is the experimental film movement of Total film. It was formed in the 1920s by the German Walter Ruttmann, and his contemporaries Hans Richter, Oskar Fischinger and a Swede called Viking Eggeling, which were interested at considering the abstraction in motion. Ruttman studied painting and structures, and wished to test out film to show the manifestation and the meditative form of paintings injecting music and action to produce an abstract action that painting cannot achieve. To put this in practise the film motion focused on 'Rhythm, abstract, mathematical construction, shade repetition, and setting up colour in action' (Elder2008p. 82). Ruttmann's first two abstract videos were 'Opus I' (1921) and 'Opus II' (1923). 'Opus I' consist of shapes of color protruding the screen, creating rhythm. Ruttman then injects different colours whilst flashes of large and small designed colours explode across the screen, creating a sense of enthusiasm and anticipation. In 'Tranquility and Dissent' (2008) by Elder, he details of the music publisher who was simply considering the movement called Arnold Sch¶nburg and wanted to collaborate with Kandinsky when filming his second opera 'Pass away Glјckiche Palm' ('The Lucky Hand'). His reason for wanting to film the opera was because he sought 'The extreme unreality' (Sch¶nburg n. b, cited in Elder 2008 p. 82) Kandinsky's move was to create from Sch¶nburg's short as soon as it was filmed, Kandinsky would coloring and coloring the film. This connection with hoping Kandinsky to produce his unrealistic world and matching it to music shows how his work and other art actions where informing and shaping film. It illustrates that Kandinsky's dreamlike meditative talk about was reaching to people's awareness, and wanted to create a masterpiece of design using film. Elder argued that what Sch¶nburg required from film was 'to get away from from everything fixed, stable, and long lasting [film] could serve as hieroglyphs of the unknown, to elevate the mind and disclose something of the nature of higher fact (though holding permanently in the embrace of better unknown). ' (Elder 2008 p. 82)
Unfortunately the opera was never made, but Kandinsky himself acquired proposed a stage part called 'Die Gelbe Klang' ('The Yellow Sand') which he was also going to film according to Gabriele Munter another German Expressionist painter (Elder 2008 p. 83). But when Kandinsky has talked about film he has stated that between one quality to some other, for example music and personality, are actually 'exterior' from one another, it's is only by the audience being conditioned 'through relationship' and 'constantly repeated action' (Kandinsky, 2004 pp. 59, 92) that the audience have the ability to relate these two qualities mutually. Therefore Kandinsky argued that for an musician to combine different press and varieties including colour, they need to 'apprehend the spiritual truth contained in the inner natures' only then could the artist create a unity of 'true integration of these diverse elements' (Elder 2008 pp. 84-85) This idea of qualities unifying collectively and becoming included in order that they are obscured into one, is undeniably something that Greenaway has efficiently created in his film 'The Cook, the Thief his Wife and her Lover'. His use of color almost creates its character, combined with the levels of symbolic interpretation helps drive the narrative frontward. Much like early theatre, Greenaway's experimental use of color in fact takes the genuine out and imposes a surreal environment with part upon part of symbolic so this means. The repetition of colour and the figurative activity of coloring explore the ideas of Definite film making a film that exceeds any limitations of common film making and produces something getting close to a nightmare illusion world and integrates his own work to the reach the amount of art. In addition as well as using colour, Greenaway links back to you 17th century Dutch paintings and the intrinsic symbolic meanings transported with these paintings, and by merging shade with these icons help bring the film alongside one another.
Furthermore color is an instrument in film to emphasise personality, narrative, story and designs and Greenaway's film 'The Cook, the Thief his Better half and her fan' is a perfect exemplory case of the numerous means of using shade. He has not only used colour officially and for the intended purpose of making the film look beautiful, but has used color through motion and symbolism making explicit links to Dutch paintings of the 17th Century. Greenaway capitalises on associations with coloring and emotions, directing our emotions through the film. Louis Cheskin stated that we feel 'colour feelings' (Cheskin 1951 p. 12) but most of us don't realize the affect of shade. He noted that whenever individuals were in a blue environment it would have a calm sedative have an impact on on some whilst on others became stressed out if indeed they were met with a solid blue. The colour red would do the opposite and would make people feel agitated and in a few stronger reds emotions such as anger arose. Greenaway uses the psychology of colour to see feelings and thoughts throughout the film, particularly the colour red, building a richer more interactive sense of horrid torment Albert Spica requires control of. Nonetheless it is important to appreciate that our knowledge of such symbols is entirely established upon cultural consciousness. Which means that colour can't be relied after to enforce a given so this means, but must be read in the framework of the film, and in relation to cultural awareness and perhaps from the experiences of the spectator.
Peter Greenaway is well known as a filmmaker, yet he originally studied art to become a painter, later becoming enthusiastic about European cinema (EGS n. d. ). His early review of painting has seriously influenced his videos and when analysing his films, we must take into account not only the genre's of movie theater but ideas from the annals of traditional western painting beginning with the renaissance, right up to modern day art. A lot of Peter Greenaway's work are filled with icons and his use of imagery is amazing. He cleverly integrates art imagery from art work movements, mainly originating from European painting, attracting visual and symbolic motifs which create rousing and emotionally charged imagery that immediately intrigues the spectator as he brings this alive on display screen.
Greenaway's film 'The Make meals, the Thief, his Better half and her Enthusiast' is affected by Dutch paintings from the seventeenth century. He frequently depicts the lavish furniture of the restaurant, the diner's halloween costumes and the several components of foods are immediately recognisable to be that of still life and banqueting paintings of Dutch 17th Century paintings. Within these paintings, in particular still life, Dutch musicians and artists would contain metaphors and motifs linking back again to everyday life, and frequently could have an omen to the materials man like Albert Spica. From Dutch painting by Jan Caspar Luiken, Dutch, 1672-1708, 'The Painter's Art':
'The Painter. What the attention sees is not the most essential.
Art shows us an illusion.
What the substance of its subject is
Like the great painting
Of the ENTIRE visible world
[Having] received its form though wisdom, shows what its origins is. ' (NGA, n. d. p. 40)
This is just what Greenaway seems to have used and links to what Kandinsky thought in; it is not just what the truth is from first glimpse but what can be read in between the lines. Peter Greenaway's use of imagery of the rotten meat, pigs brain and bones left in the truck represents the passing of life and death and can be an omen to what may happen to Albert Spica. He ignores his better half, badly snacks her, so when she's the courage and anger, Georgina needs his life. This clear website link between Dutch paintings of the 17th century is taken throughout the whole film and is explicitly linked with colour symbology. With both these two elements unified collectively helps bring the metaphors and icons, creating rhythm and activity in the film.
In the start field of the film the spectator is met with the interesting use of colour and tones; the dark nighttime lit up by the luminous renewable and blue of the lamps of the restaurant and combined with the sickly yellow via inside the truck full of fresh meat and fish. The spectator instantly has a feeling of uncertainty due to his unusual choice of shades. Though it is not immediately obvious as the spectator is gradually presented to the this odd world, we observe that Greenaway has chosen to employ a particular colour for every single room; blue for the car parking lot beyond your restaurant (always during the night), renewable for your kitchen, red for the dining area and white for the bathroom. As the character types move from room to room their outfit will change shade according from what colour room they are really in in addition to the enthusiast and the make whose clothing does not change coloring. The figurative motion of these colorings helps the spectator to split up the creation of the film from that of the ordinary, but also to allow the spectator to engage with the movies content. We are able to see time pass through colour and it's really orientation as it generates rhythm that steps us in one sequence to some other. This surreal use of coloring and the rhythm it imposes provides spectator a feeling of routine, only later to become disillusioned by the violence and agitated by the intense red colour filling the screen. This idea of rhythm, regular and repetition of color ties in using what Total filmmakers produced, producing only flashes of other colorings. Music in Total film complimented what was being animated, and when we are released to your kitchen, we are usually greeted by the green germ look plaguing the kitchen and the melody of your kitchen choir boy performing the same melody each and every time Albert Spica gets into creating an eerie anxiety. The music of the choir boy, a sound familiar to dark gothic churches, compliments this surreal landscape we are confronted with and mirrors the bizarre odd feeling it gives out.
Fig. 3. Officials and Subalterns of the Saint George Civic Officer,
(1639), Frans Hals,
Fig 4. Banquet of the Officials of the St George Civic Shield Company, (1616), Frans Hals
If we look at Greenaway's use of the figurative use of the color red, it's meaning changes even as progress into the film. At the beginning of the film, we start to see the shade red as this rich, grand ostentatious colour and everything and everyone belongs compared to that room. Every character in the room is wearing the color red, and it feels as though they all belong or are associated with the primary personality Albert Spica in the restaurant. All apart from one man who's introduced just a little later in to the film as a calm mysterious figure who wears a brown suit who reads books and later becomes Georgina's (Albert Spica's partner) lover. All the women wear red dresses or dark-colored with ideas of red, whilst the men wear dark suits with a red tie or bow tie up, in addition to the associates of Spica's gang who all wear red sashes. This links back to Dutch Paintings of a typical Schutterijen group, who wear their company's color sashes, portraying to the general public powerful, abundant, self-possessed men (see fig 3). An extremely large Dutch 17th Century painting called the 'Banquet of the officials of the St Geroge Civic Officer Company (1616), hangs in the restaurant (fig 4). It really is an organization painting of men sitting down all wearing the same costume, which Albert Spica has designed himself and his gang to dress appropriately, overlooking and seeing everyone who sits at the restaurant (See fig 5). Lots of the Dutch paintings of the company of men used red sashes as it signifies richness and electricity which Greenaway has used to be able to portray and present the sense of ability and control Spica and his group have. By making the gang clothe themselves in a similar way it indicates unity and power. Furthermore this unifying of color between the painting and Spica's gang, strengthens the idea that everything in the room is associated with him, giving colour a more authoritative roll creating impact and a feeling of control. However although Greenaway has referenced this to 17th century Dutch painting, and has imitated this look with Albert, he has exaggerated the appearance making Spica's clothes more flamboyant when as opposed to the period in which the film is set in, 1980s. Douglas Keesey state governments 'the merry designers in the Hals painting seem to be to look down in ironic disdain at Spica's gang gorging themselves below. '(Keesey, 2006 p. 89) Nevertheless, this all adds to the rich overpowering sense of the restaurant, and like the Dutch men in the group painting who would often display the painting in a general population place, it could be seen as a metaphor for Albert's gang, showing their electricity.
Fig 5. Still from the Film 'The Make, the Thief, his Partner and her Fan' (1989) Aimed by Petergreenaway. Albert Spica and his gang in the restaurant dining area.
Van Manders, a Flemish blessed Dutch painter in the 17th Century, had written a biography of music artists from the Netherlands called the 'Schilder- Boeck' (1604). Over ten years of research, Vehicle manders had written the 'first completely argued theory of Netherlandish painting, drawing and printmaking. ' (Melion, 1992 p. xvii) In this particular book he talked about colour and its symbolism for understanding things when artists have used them. He composed that red 'equates to highness, courageous and boldness. ' (Wheelock, 2005 p. 101) This hyperlink that Spica's gang and the men in the Dutch 17th century portrait and the fact that they both wear the same red sash, makes this the even more wealthy because the symbolism of that which was recommended in the 17th century of highness, courageousness and bold pertains to the heroes in the film specifically Georgina, who like what Douglas Keesey said about Hals men looking down on Spica and his gang, she also seems to do the same, and in the long run has the courage to stand up to her husband. The color red in american culture associate this is of red as love and passion, but can also imply danger and assault, that your spectator can connect to the film as the film unravels.
When Georgina's clothes change colour it is just a another display of Spica's success and power a 'trophy better half displayed as an indicator of his [Albert Spica] wealth and stylishness' (Keesey, 2006 p. 87). Throughout the film, Albert Spica wears a black tail-coat suit with only the sash changing shade based on the room, the others of his suit remaining black like his personality. The rotten meats being dished up in the restaurant, coated in a dark brown gloss to make it look delectable, portrays an elaborate mark of Albert Spica's flamboyant clothing concealing a rotten old man, who's trying to cover up the assault and sense of despair in him, as Spica starts off to reduce control. This website link that can be made between shade and outfit and the relationship with character, illustrates the importance of colour and exactly how it can create a strong film filled up with intriguing character types which mirrors and elaborates on different personalities.
In addition to this point, Michael's costume, Georgina's enthusiast, remains the same coloring through out the complete film. His outfit, a darkish suit and white shirt which symbolises that he's different to others in the restaurant, he's the neutral party. He is designated because he has been found by both Georgina and Albert. For Georgina she's found somebody who adores her and treats her well, and Albert notices him because of his understanding of catalogs, which Albert bluntly ignores the thought of learned reserve reading by tossing the books over the floor, Michael dresses to "the colour of the books that earth him in the knowledge ignored by the insubstantial thief. " (Keesey, 2006 p. 87) When Georgina notices the inexplicable man in the dark brown suit and minds towards the toilet where then comes after her, the spectator is given some relief from the overpowering red room to a bright white bathroom (fig. 6). As the spectator watches Georgina walk into the bathroom her costume somewhat than red is currently white. This white room and the color white have a great relevance to the film; everything in white sometimes appears nearly as good, innocent or clean. For Georgina, when she strolls into the room it shows her vulnerability towards her evil husband and the person where she falls deeply in love with. The room has a divine heavenly feel and as Greenaway talks about this is because it's "the place where the buffs fuck for the very first time. " (Greenaway, cited in Keesey 2006 p. 86) When her fan Michael walks into the bathroom his outfit however does not change.
Fig 6 and 7. Stills from 'The Make, the Thief, his Wife and her Lover' ( 1989)Directed by Peter Greenaway, Fig 6 Bathroom scene. Fig 7 The corridor in the restaurant.
Furthermore the theme of the color white; virtue, kindness, the contrary of the red room, is carried through to the character of the make who helps Georgina and her fan, Michael, to flee and by the end of the film helps Georgina to revenge her partner Albert Spica. The cook's costume doesn't change coloring throughout the whole film, he's always seen wearing the white uniform of a cook symbolising the cooks good personality and faithfulness to Georgina. When Georgina and Michael go out of the bright white bathroom, they enter into the all consuming red corridor. The erotic charge that can be noticed now changes the motif of the color red, a now overpowering all taking romance, and even her cigarette is the fiery red (fig. 7).
The repetition of the two main rooms, the kitchen and dining area, and the schedule that appears through the week of horror in the film intensifies the anger and soreness we feel for the type Georgina. It really is heighten when we see the lover and Georgina collectively in the bookshop, realizing that Albert Spica is preparing to take his revenge and take back Georgina to his wicked controlling world. As the film advances the intense blood red colours get started to irritate and aggravate emotions that you eventually feel alleviation when the monstrous eye-sight ends.
Towards the end of the film the color red in the dining room becomes a deeper carnivorous red, once we see Albert Spica's handling cruelty becoming more savage and bad. Greenaways use of shade tones becomes increasingly more such as a Dutch painting, something out from Rembrandts fine art who used profound colours and strong contrasts of light and dark, portraying the dark figure of Albert and the kindness of those supporting Georgina. By the end of the film, the red in the dining room is now almost dark; it's an extremely dark profound red, the color of blood vessels. Yet now rather than it portraying Albert's anger, it is now a figurative metaphor for Georgina's anger at her spouse for getting rid of her fan. Georgina finally gets the courage and passion to stand up to her partner by serving Albert Michael's body for his evening meal (fig 8). Even now that Michael has been prepared, his body a darkish colour, shows that he's still the neutral, innocent party that is trodden on by Albert and Georgina and creates the metaphorical barrier between good and bad. Finally as the room has now converted almost black, Georgina kills her husband. I can be argued however, that the figurative change of the colour is a metaphor of Georgina's anger and taking control. Georgina's red passion of love is now turning into an unhealthy act of assault setting up a dark and sinister shade. That in truth this take action of revenge makes Georgina's actions just like bad as the thief. Although she has achieved to create out revenge and wipe out her husband, there's a cruel twist; she's used the same assault that Albert Spica used and changed it on him. His dark black identity as infiltrated her sense of humanity and like Raphael Bassan and Douglas Keesey explained 'in the finish, the "barbarity of the lady" surpasses that of the thief. ' (Keesey 2006. P. 89)
Fig 8. Last scene. 'The Cook, the thief his Better half and her Lover' (1989) Aimed by Greenaway. Michael is dished up to Albert for supper.
Greenaway's composition of a lot of the restaurant displays as stated before uses Dutch 17th century paintings to show mainly Albert Spica's greed. Greenaway follows the traditions of still life's portraying the hollowness and gluttony of the materials man by setting up a flamboyant banquet of food organized before Spica. The food and the way in which it is organized are visible to be styled like this of Dutch banquets but are exaggerated to help make the spectator feel uneasy as of this over indulgence. The food shown in Dutch paintings are meant to be mouth watering but provides us extreme care to such greed by usually revealing a fly next to the food, or the food overlooking ripe or over embellished to remind our increased moral things to consider (NGA, nb p. 90). The food shown in the film, looks over garnished, the meats coated in a solid brown glaze offering it a shiny sickly turn to it, covering the rotting meat observed in the van being served at the stand. This plainly shows Greenaway's idea portraying what will eventually the material man, an omen to Spica. The glazing of the beef is hiding the implications of what's underneath; the van full of meat and fish virtually rots before our sight, a metaphor for Albert burning off control and his devilish black serves are rotting his insides.
Many of the 17th Century Dutch paintings got the vanitas theme of Decay, which Greenaway has depicted with the rotting beef and fish in the truck, is then practically juxtaposed with the Georgina and Michaels naked body when fleeing from Albert Spice. This literal juxtaposition between decay and real human morality as their naked systems are encircled by rotting carcasses is horrifyingly impressive, and it could be linked to the banishment of Adam and Eve from the garden of Eden and are all of the sudden put through the corruption of flesh. While such cautionary clues maybe missed with a greedy man such as Albert Spica, Greenaway present the spectator with the last and last metaphor, 'we and Spica are met with a food tableau that is most practically a memento mroi (remind of morality): the grilled, glazed and garnished body of Michael. ' (Keesey 2006, p. 89) His destruction and obsession of the material things has led to Spica in the end eating death. The beautiful art works offered to us by Greenaway is only obstructed to find that 'the guidelines of consumption still reign. ' (Lawrence, 1997 p. 18) For the Spectator this world of extravagant beauty and material pleasure seems to intensify when compared to the terrifying cruelty and sorrowful desperation of Georgina, which inhabits the film throughout. Subsequently the by the finish of the film the cruelty and enthusiasm that runs through this film becomes overwhelming.
From this film, Greenaway shows that it's not simply a matter of finding a colour and complementing it to a particular figurative interpretation, the most interesting uses of figurative color are layering symbolic interpretation and mix referencing symbolic significance to enrich the film. Looking back to what Kandinsky stated how an musician/filmmaker should develop a film that is able to unify two elements together:
'The final goal (knowledgeis achieved by the human heart and soul through finer vibr-
ations of the same. These finer vibrations, however, that are identical in their
final goal, have in themselves different inner motions and are hereby distin-
guished in one another. ' [Kandinsky, cited in Elder 2008 p. 83]
Meaning the designer should understand the two elements in order to unify them effectively to make an underlying meaning but are in themselves still in a position to be determined. Greenaway has effectively united color and 17th century Dutch still life paintings to create a riches of imagery and symbolic connotations, but is also in a position to be seen as split elements that independently bring something to the film. It is clear that Greenaway evidently thought through what he wished to portray in this film and consequently required control of the thoughts and feelings he needed us to feel in both characters and our response to the setting up. The abstract use of colour and the repetition of coloring creates tempo which builds up the strain and anger noticed towards Albert Spica. In 'The cook, the Thief his Wife and her Lover' Colour will take the role of another identity increasing the narrative, enriching the spectators looking at, giving it a more vibrant and provocative methodology.
