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Color at the center: Minnelli's Technicolor style in 'Meet Me in St. Louis.' - Style in Cinema - filmmaker Vincente Minnelli
Style, Fall, 1998 by Scott Higgins
At regular intervals in the film, Minnelli's removal and reintroduction of hue renews our recognition of color as a mark of difference from standard monochrome filmmaking. Similarly, he organizes transitions between scenes to generate momentary surges of color. In the final moments of Esther's rendition of "The Boy Next Door," for instance, she releases a translucent white curtain from the window frame where she sings. The veil of white falls before her face, lowering the saturation of an already very soft, predominantly blue and white composition. From this muted image, the film dissolves to a shot of the intense red vat of catsup in the kitchen. The juxtaposition of shots briefly reduces and then reveals color, reasserting it as the focus of attention.
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At other times, Minnelli uses camera movement or staging to unveil color within a scene. The most spectacular instance occurs after an ellipsis during Lon Jr.'s going-away party. The image dissolves from an interior shot of Lon in his black coat against a brown background to the porch outside the Smith's living room. Cold blue evening light contrasts with warm yellow illumination being emitted from the house windows. Partygoers provide red, blue and some yellow accents within the relatively low-key environment. Seizing on a passing extra in a soft pink dress, the camera pans left and dollies forward to discover a large window into the living room [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 4 OMITTED]. Color temperature shifts from cool to warm as the room light engulfs the frame. In the center of the living room, a young woman in a lavender and blue outfit with brilliant pink and blue stripes stands playing a trumpet. She is encircled by listeners who contribute more intense points of color. One woman with a bright red bow in her hair sits before the trumpet player, another with a red and white plaid skirt is revealed to the right of the window. Guests on the staircase in the far background generate vivid blue and red touches [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 5 OMITTED]. Rather than simply dissolve to this composition, the camera elegantly unveils a lavish display of hue, emphasized by the shift in lighting.
This survey of color effects should indicate the importance Minnelli gives to color as an element of style in Meet Me in St. Louis. The film offers a constant play of color, muting and revealing it for spectacular effect, arranging hue to guide attention within the frame, and modulating the palette to underscore dramatic developments. In doing so, color is made an important actor, taking on functions usually assigned to camerawork, music, lighting, and editing. Even so, color rarely dominates the system to the exclusion of other variables. Minnelli's forcefully mobile camera is central to enhancing the spectacular flourishes of many transitional moments. Conventional lighting codes (the shift from low to high-key)and music cues (the swelling "Meet Me in St. Louis" theme) augment the emotional tone during Lon Sr.'s change of heart. But since this survey is necessarily general, it can tell us little about the fine grained interactions of color with other stylistic registers. In order to grasp the intricacies of color's moment by moment development, therefore, we can take a closer look at a single sequence, one that relies on hue to perform a large share of stylistic work.
