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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
Upon recognizing the song "You and I," Lon joins Anna at the upright piano, setting up the sequence's most important composition. The camera is oriented toward a side-view of the piano in the right foreground, with Anna seated in medium shot just left of center frame. Lon stands just beyond her in medium long shot, facing toward the camera. Beyond them, the living room opens onto the front hall with the staircase at the rear left and a deep crimson window curtain at rear right.
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With the foreground dominated by neutrals (the deep brown piano, and figures clad in gray, black, and white) Minnelli concentrates the greatest area of color variation at the rear of the frame. The curtain and the rust-red (paprika) hall carpet draw attention from the foreground. It should be immediately obvious that the arrangement violates Natalie Kalmus's dictum that warm hues be associated with the key characters and backgrounds be based on cool, "receding" hues. Here, chromatic emphasis is placed on the background plane. The effect is accentuated by a lighting scheme that brings portions of the hall floor and rear wall just below key level. Rather than provide a inert backdrop to the foreground action, color helps underscore the depth of the shot. Nonetheless, Minnelli has taken steps to simplify the background by removing from view a group of ferns that had previously provided a green accent in front of the red curtain. The background has been fine-tuned to highlight a limited but distinct set of color accents.
Minnelli makes this arrangement of hue crucial for guiding attention as the action unfolds. He makes color part of a precisely organized composition in which minute changes are significant. As Lon finishes the song's first verse, he shifts rightward to lean slightly on the piano. This subtle movement opens up the center of the composition, uncovering the foot of the stairs, which had been blocked by his suit jacket. The motion also more fully reveals a well-lit patch of carpet just in front of the stairs, introducing another source of color to contrast with the foreground [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 8 OMITTED]. Having presented one verse of the song, Minnelli alters the composition to amplify the background. It is in this portion of the frame that the drama of reconciliation will be played out as the Smith daughters and Grandpa descend to join Lon and Anna.
At least one commentator has mistaken this composition for a deep-focus shot, and the error is understandable since so much emphasis is placed on background staging (Harvey 54). But Technicolor's remarkably slow film stock limited three-strip to a relatively shallow depth of field. By 1944 the Technicolor system had an effective speed of around 12 ASA, compared to the 80 ASA panchromatic stock that helped Greg Toland achieve his bravura deep focus a few years earlier in Citizen Kane (1941). Because the system required so much light, it was impossible to close the lens aperture enough to extend the depth of field. Significant deep focus would remain an insurmountable challenge to Technicolor into the 1950s (Bordwell 237). But the same technological characteristics (a slow film stock and extreme illumination requirements) afforded Technicolor an exceptional density of detail in a well lit background. Carefully measured and directed lighting helped ensure the registration of shade and color that could contribute to apparent sharpness. For example, though the crimson curtain is beyond the plane of focus, the image presents the folds of fabric and variations in tone in an almost tactile manner.(10)
