Julie Taymor’s film adaptation of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus has many theatrical elements that aid in creating an interpretation of the written play. One of the most prominent elements that Taymor uses is color. Taymor uses color to develop Shakespeare’s characters. Many times throughout the film, color is used to represent a character’s mood or their hidden agenda during a scene. We also see color used to represent good versus evil. The three colors that are most widely used during the movie to show symbolism and imagery are black, white, and red. While there are some references to color in the written text of Titus Andronicus, Taymor’s use of color allows the viewers to see a more clear representation of mood, tone, and character. The colors may be used in costume or in setting. Regardless of how they are used each color plays a large role in distinguishing the tone that is being set for a scene or character.
The first color that is widely used is black. One of the first times that we see the color black used as a symbol is when Aaron is introduced. Aaron is first introduced during the scene when he talks to Demetrius and Chiron about Lavinia. The most notable part of color usage in this scene is that Aaron is introduced in front of a light background (43:15). This background plays a large part because it allows viewers to focus on the dark skin of Aaron. It is important that Aaron’s black skin stands out because he is viewed as inferior due to his skin color. Viewers must focus on the fact that he is darker skinned and in order to do this, Taymor must bring the focus to his skin color.
Another example of when we see the color black used is when young Lucius kills the fly at the dinner scene (1:32:00). He is initially r...
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...ymbolic things happening: foreshadowing, major change in life, or trickery.
Taymor’s use of color throughout this film works to develop Shakespeare’s characters and symbolizes the most important aspects of the play. Whether it be the inferiority of a character, purity, or vengeance, each color is representative of something major. Although Taymor’s film is simply her interpretation of the characters and the story, the colors that she uses in her adaptation allow the viewers to see a more clear image of the mood, tone, and characterization of the play. While Shakespeare does use some color in his play, Taymor takes the context of the writing and makes a more visual image of what is being said in order to further develop Shakespeare’s characters.
Works Cited
Titus. Dir. Julie Taymor. Perf. Anthony Hopkins and Jessica Lange. Fox Searchlight Pictures, 1999. Film.
I have very good sight. One moment they were white, the next red, the next blue. Then I got it. They were a woman’s dresses”. At first, I did not pay attention to the colors of the dresses, but then I realized the pattern of colors in order. In this case, I believe white represents light, goodness, and pureness. The red represents anger, blood and possibly murder. The last but not least, the color blue that represents wisdom, loyalty, and truth. It seemed to me that the author used colors symbolizes the story from the beginning to the end. I believe it is a hint for us to what to expect and what not to since Jeffries was right all along the
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In conclusion, Fitzgerald uses colours to express the different themes in the novel. The colour grey in the Valley of Ashes symbolizes all of the corruption, while the colour blue represents the reality that is blinded throughout the plot, and green represents all of the jealousy and envy. In the end, the colours have a lot of important significance to the book, just as certain colours may have importance to people.
It's the first thing people notice, so it has to be done logically to persuade the audience to feel a certain way. In the trailer for Leatherface, color is used to generate a feeling of suspense by shifting back and forth between a warmer, daylight tone to a darker, blue tone. In the beginning of the trailer, a couple is driving in a car laughing and having fun as seen in figure 1. There is a warmer tone created by the use of natural daylight to make the audience feel how the couple is feeling. Following the playful feeling created by the first scene, the color shifts when the protagonist and her child are introduced. The scene, shown in figure 2, is dimly lit by candles with no other light. Switching to darker lighting hints to the audience that the characters involved in the scene could be related to or are the problem presented in the movie. Going back to the natural daylight, figure 3 demonstrates the next shift in color when the sheriff is talking to the protagonist about her children. In this scene, the daylight is used to highlight and create shadows on
Shakespeare uses dark and light imagery throughout the play to stand for death, violence, sadness and secrecy. In act one, scene two, Shakespeare uses dark imagery to convey Romeo's sadness. Montague describes romeo as creating an 'artificial night' which seems to reflect his dark, depressed mood.
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...erent colours of costumes in Othello immediately sets him apart from the rest of society, highlight his dark skin colour and establishing he is not like the other characters.
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Hawthorne associates Chillingworth with the color black to directly represent him as the “Black Man”. After arriving in Boston, the townspeople
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