Lights!

In my first essay on the Duchess of Malfi, we have to consider how we would stage one of the scenes. In researching this it has turned my mind to lighting in tv, film and plays.

Drive was the first movie I watched where the lighting really struck me. I found it fascinating to learn about the deliberate use of lighting in film, how props and costumes are considered and used in telling the story, and the colors used in sets. In Drive is was very blue, red or yellow. I watched Only God Forgives on Thursday and was again struck by the use of color – the heavy red lighting used with the American family and how the retired Thai cop never entered that sphere of red light but remained in white light – occasionally cast in a pinkish red glow when coming into contact with Julian or his mother. Julian becomes less ‘red’ as the movie goes on and in the fight scene with the Thai cop ends up being lit the same. There was also pink in the movie and I’m still trying to work that out – is it being lit in pink or wearing pink signified the character could go either way, ambivalence?

Breaking Bad, Moonrise Kingdom, Utopia were other shows/films where the lighting or color significance struck me. There is a whole article about the color of Breaking Bad.

It’s interesting to find out about and has definitely made my essay more interesting to write and research.