Articulo_10_EN_Doxa_31_Study_on_the_cinematographic

In cinema, colour has become a tool that brings us closer to reality and makes the stories more believable. Similarly, it conveys and/or evokes emotions or sensations, enabling it to acquire a dramatic meaning in the work. As we have mentioned before, we connect Heller’s theory of colour to each film’s grammar in this paper’s results section. The tones4, which are mainly used in the object films of study and contribute to their semantics 5, are shown in the following table.

Table 3

Colour

Expressive function/Concept

White

-Means emptiness, associated with a lack of feelings.

- “White death” is freezing to death.

-Colour of the deceased, spirits, and ghosts. Dead people’s faces lose their vibrancy.

-Relationship: the beginning of the world was the beginning of evil.

-Used in religious rituals (sacrifices to atone for human lives).

-Political meaning: surrender.

-Link to the truth.

Red

-The colour of danger, the devil, blood (it represents violence, aggressiveness, war, destruction, cruelty, rage, anger, excess, stress, danger, evil, risk, irritation).

-Red and black: danger and prohibition.

-Colour of the immoral.

-Associated with the concept of strength, power, fire (liturgical red).

-Religious use, primitive rituals: sacrifices with bloodshed.

Black

-Death, mourning, darkness, dirtiness, negativity, lack of light, loneliness, pain, sadness, grief, depres-sion, mystery.

-Strength, power.

Beige

Beige-brown

-Colour of cosiness, every day, ordinary.

-Positive value in living spaces.

-Creates the ideal climate of a room.

Beige-pale yellow

-Colour of traitors (Ancient tradition: Judas-Iscariote betrayed Jesus, who often appears in a pale yellow robe).

Blue

-Linked values: security, intelligence, reflection, mental activity, rationality, discretion, precision, order, rectitude, honesty, professionalism, solidity, sobriety, seriousness, legitimacy, legality, justice, morality.

It is also related to purity, lightness, freedom, spirituality, greatness, life, energy, vitality, strength, joy, hope, good, positivity, and happiness.

Yellow

-Represents beauty and worth.

-Symbol of wealth (gold).

-Related terms: luxury, power, abundance, prosperity, opulence

-Linked to the sun Gods (Helios, Apollo, Sun). , divinity

-Legends: where there are yellow flowers, there is buried gold.

-Colour of mental illumination/enlightenment, wisdom.

4 Colours are shown in the table in order of appearance in each of the works (cf. in epigraph of the results) and their connotations vary in different situations and according to the tones that accompany them.

5 We have only included illustrative and expressive modes of the dominant colours that have a relationship with the discourse of the object films of study.