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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
A second principle held that excessive use of bright, saturated color should be avoided in favor of more "natural," harmonious and less intense color schemes. In Natalie Kalmus's words: "A super-abundance of color is unnatural, and has a most unpleasant effect not only upon the eye itself, but upon the mind as well." She recommended "the judicious use of neutrals" as a "foil for color" in order to lend "power and interest to the touches of color in a scene" (142). Successful design would balance assertive hues with an array of neutrals.
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Third, warmer and brighter shades should emphasize only narratively important information, otherwise neutral colors were advised. According to Kalmus: "the law of emphasis states in part that nothing of relative unimportance in a picture shall be emphasized. If, for example, a bright red ornament were shown behind an actor's head, the bright color would detract from the character and action" (147). In general then, the warmest colors should be associated with the main action while background and incidental information should be carefully blended and carried by cooler and unobtrusive hues. The maximum point of color contrast should be associated with the principle players in a scene while those who play "relatively unimportant roles" blend with the background (146).
Finally, elements of mise-en-scene should be coordinated so as to avoid distracting juxtapositions when characters move through space. Kalmus advised that it was vital to "consider the movement in the scene in determining its color composition because the juxtaposition of color is constantly changing due to this movement" (148). Restraint and attention to color harmony were the keys to avoiding unwanted juxtapositions when the director staged action within a set.
A central goal of all these rules was to tame color's potential for misdirecting spectator attention. As David Bordwell has argued, a central function of film style is to make the image intelligible, to direct the viewer's attention toward relevant portions of the frame.(3) Critics of Technicolor often referred to the distracting effects of ill-conceived color design. One observer complained that "colors perform strange tricks at the most unexpected times and for no apparent good reason. "One may suddenly decide to stand up and cheer, or roll over and play dead. And the perverse little devil usually does it at just the wrong time" ("Just What" 414). Harmonizing color to avoid striking juxtapositions, concentrating assertive hues on the protagonists, and associating color with mood would have the net effect of preventing these "strange tricks" of chroma. Natalie Kalmus's rules were drafted to guarantee that color, like lighting, sound, camera-movement, and editing, would hold the viewer's attention to the narratively important elements of the moving image.
Moreover, Kalmus's directives would seem to be especially relevant to Meet Me in St. Louis, given Minnelli's stylistic preferences. The director professed a dislike for the standard method of scene dissection editing, calling it "unimaginative and repetitious" (123). Rather than break scenes down into routine master shots and closer angles, he tended to rely on somewhat longer takes, camera movement, and more distant framing. If color presented a problem for directing attention, it would only be magnified by a style that depends more heavily on guiding the viewer's gaze within the frame. Technicolor's aesthetic guidelines were designed to help regulate color so that it supported the demands of directing attention. One challenge faced by a Technicolor filmmaker, and by Minnelli in particular, was to develop these guidelines into specific methods for making color harmonies and contrasts steer attention within an unfolding shot or series of shots.
