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This article will be published in Fotogenia (University of Bologna) in 1995

Hannu Salmi:

"HISTORY IN COLOR"
Color, Spectacle and History in Epic Film
Since the beginnings of dramatic film, narrativization of past events has been one of the most productive areas of film making. As the German historian Jrn Rsen argues, historical narration aims to make sense of the experience of time.(1) This making of sense (Sinnbildung) is not a privilege of professional historians. History is produced in a variety of cultural products, in novels and poems, in commercials and newspapers, in TV series and films.(2) During the 20th century, historical film has been one of the most influential factors in the formation of historical consciousness. Film scholars have written countless pages about the history of historical films, but what has been left untouched is the question: Can we identify a certain historical style or specific narrative elements that are typical of cinematic historical discourse? I am myself convinced that such a style exists. There are certain signs of historicity, which are needed as markers that the film in question represents historical narration. One such marker, which carries historical implications, is the use of epic music; but there are also many visual elements that are common to historical films.(3) The use of color has also played a specific role in this genre. In the following presentation I wish to concentrate on the problem of color both as a cinematic attraction and as a historical attribute. Color seems to exist not only as a physical term, as something opposite to monochrome, but also as a metaphor referring either to the imaginative 'coloring' of historical events or to a certain richness of the past. In the study of color, it is necessary to study not only the films themselves but also how they have been received by the public and how the meaning of color has been perceived.

Color as Attraction
Historical films have been made since the first years of motion pictures. The Edison Manufacturing Company, for example, shot several historical tableaux vivants, including Joan of Arc (1895) and The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots (1895);(4) and the French film pioneer Georges Mlis made several short films such as Clopatre (1899), Neptune et Amphitrite (1899) and Les torches humaines de Justinien (1908).(5) It is difficult to estimate how important a role handapplied coloring had in these historical films. According to some previously released collections of early cinema, films colored by hand were usually fantastic adventures like Mlis' Voyage travers l'impossible (1904), or fairy tales like Path's Ali Baba et les quarantes voleurs (1905).(6) Although the latter could perhaps be characterized as a historical film in the broader sense of the concept, usually films which were made as representations of historical events were not colored. It has to be remembered, however, that during the early cinema historical film was not an important genre in the flow of production. During the first decade of the century, films became longer and soon hand-coloring was replaced by toning and tinting. We may still argue that historical narration has accompanied many of the essential turning points of film history. Italian ancient spectacles, such as Quo vadis? (1912) by Enrico Quazzoni and Cabiria (1914) by Giovanni Pastrone, assured film makers of the commercial possibilities of full-length feature films and constituted a further step in the development of film narrative. Since the 1910s, historical film has been an essential genre. In the society of the spectacle, to use Guy Debord's terms,(7) history has revived nationally important imagery and, simultaneously, offered a spectacular 'exit' from everyday life. No wonder that spectacle has used new technology to astonish the audience. When color film was invented, it was soon applied for historical films as a new source of attraction. In this case, the use of color was not introduced in order to create a more realistic vision of history. On the contrary, color sequences were utilized to give a distinctive dramatic emphasis for the film. Color was a new attraction that could widen the largerthan-life atmosphere of the spectacles. Early color sequences can be found from The Ten Commandments (1923) and The King of Kings (1927) by Cecil B. DeMille, and from Ben Hur (1927) by Fred Niblo, for instance. In the resurrection scene of The King of Kings the miracle was accompanied by modern technology: the screen burst into color when Christ "came out of the grave".(8) This film was not at all meant as a historical reconstruction; it was merely planned as a sequel in a longer chain of

representations of Jesus. Cameraman Peverall Marley tried to recreate the style of biblical paintings, and to duplicate them on the screen.(9) According to Derek Elley, there are in sum 298 homages to Christian art.(10) The use of early Technicolor process offered a possibility to go further in this visual picture-book. Some film makers were afraid that color would finally prove to be only one more element that would estrange film ever more from artistic purposes. They seemed to agree with Aristotle, who wrote in the VI book of his Poetics: "The most beautiful colors, laid on confusedly, will not give as much pleasure as the chalk outline of a portrait."(11) In principle, film makers such as Sergei Eisenstein agreed with Cecil B. DeMille, who used color for dramatic emphasis (although DeMille had also used it as an attraction per se). "Color is good when it is necessary", wrote Eisenstein, "that means that color [is] good where and when [it] can most fully express or explain what must be conveyed, said, or elucidated at the given moment of the development of action".(12) Eisenstein seems to suggest that color should be used only partly in a film, as he did in his own Ivan the Terrible (1944). Moreover, color has been used ever since in this manner by those wanting to make their film an artistic representative of the "cinema of non-attraction".(13) The history of color in the cinema in general, however, went in the opposite direction. During the 1930s, color captured a strong position in film making, especially in Hollywood. It was not used for "artistic purposes", nor to increase the "realitylikeness" of cinema. As Edward Buscombe has pointed out, color - unlike sound -- "could not be instantly accommodated to the realist aesthetic".(14) Buscombe continues by arguing that for early spectators there was something "unreal" in the use of color: In the first few years after the introduction of threecomponent Technicolor (originally used in the Disney cartoon Flowers and Trees in 1932), the great majority of films employing the process were produced within genres not notably realistic in the sense of their being accurate representations of what "life" is "like". It can be argued, of course, that not many Hollywood pictures represent what life is like; but it nevertheless remains true that a kind of hierarchy ranks genres according to the extent to which the world they portray, fictional or not, is close to what the audience believes the world to be like. Thus at one end of the scale we find newsreels, documentaries, war films, crime films, etc. and at the other cartoons, musicals,

westerns, costume romances, fantasies, comedies. Virtually all the early three-component Technicolor pictures are in these latter genres.(15) It must be added that the early Technicolor films where usually big budget productions. Newsreels and documentaries could not be done in color simply for productional reasons. Maybe this inclination to genres that could use color, however, created a situation where the audience began to associate monochrome with reality, and color with fantasy. Many of the early Technicolor films could, however, be classified as historical films. We only need think of The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), or Gone with the Wind (1939). These historical films could be characterized as spectacles where color had an essentially attracting function. These films were not made as realistic representations of authentic past events or processes; they were made in terms of entertainment and spectacle. This state of things cannot, of course, be generalized to cover all national cinemas. In different film cultures, the use of color could have had specific functions. For example, in German historical films, such as Mnchhausen (1943) by Josef von Baky or Kolberg (1945) by Veit Harlan, color became a symbol of the ability to reach the same technical standard as Hollywood. A similar kind of symbolism can be seen in some early Finnish color films. Most of the early color productions were remakes that were based on national literary classics and that had been earlier filmed as monochrome. The first Finnish full-length color film was Juha (1956), directed by Toivo Srkk. The film was based on the novel by Juhani Aho and had been earlier adapted for the cinema by Nyrki Tapiovaara in 1937. Here, color was a spectacular attraction that was intensified by the fact that the film was also the first Finnish widescreen film. It offered national imagery in color, but at the same time color served as a symbol of the domestic studio system hereby achieving international standing.

Color as Non-History
Color as attraction is without doubt a central element in the aesthetics of historical spectacle. Simultaneously, however, it is also more than an attraction. The use of color in historical films implies certain ideas about history. Could it be that "history in color"(16) is conceived as something different in essence from the monochrome Zeitgeschichte shown by old documents and newsreels? Are there thus actually two modes of historical perception in the cinema?

The Swedish film scholar Erik Hedling has located three subcodes from films that alternate between color and monochrome sequences: 1) The color change can signify a turn into mental process narration. 2) It might indicate dramatic emphasis of a spectacular, crucial and/or symbolically important moment of the narrative. 3) It can signify temporal changes.(17) The third subcode can be illustrated, for example, by Alan Pakula's Sophie's Choice (1982), where the present time, the cinematic "now", is filmed in color, but the flashbacks in monochrome. As Hedling points out, the use of black and white film not only marks memories as different from the present, but also stresses their reality as historical facts.(18) This subcode can perhaps be traced back to the history of cinematic color in general, where color has been marked as fantasy. In addition, however, there is a longer background in the history of color in other cultural products. We are still used to regarding old black and white photos as true historical images. In western culture, there seems to be a certain iconography of monochrome Zeitgeschichte. This tradition is perhaps even longer than the history of photography. Michael Camille has examined the influence of the printing press on the use of images. In the early days of printing, there was a difference between the reading of printed and painted images. There are naturally many difficulties attending any attempt to study the history of print perception; nevertheless Camille suggests that "more efficient communication" was associated with black and white woodcut images, while the "technicolor flashiness" of painted Franco-Flemish images was more illusionist.(19) Many of the early books were intended to look like medieval manuscripts, and the pictures were colored. Printed books were consciously set into the tradition of the book as a cultural artefact. During the Reformation, printing technology was applied not only to generate beautiful folio Bibles, but also to produce rushed and cheaply printed pamphlets with black and white woodcuts. Pamphleteers believed in making an impact upon their large semi-literate audience. Their products were quick-made, spontaneous. Their black and white roughness was an important sign to verify and validate their role as instant history.(20) This "instant" tradition was continued when newspapers were born during the 17th century. Their monochrome image was a contrast to colored books, which were seen as the bearers of the cultural heritage, whereas newspapers merely reporting current affairs. Of course, this was also a matter of financial resources. The use of color has been regarded as expensive and

time-wasting; thus, the lack of color is interpreted as more authentic and documentary. This is undoubtedly the case in the case of the use of photographed images. The newspapers that started to publish photographs at the end of the 19th century had neither the money nor the time to consider the use of color, even though color photography would have been technically feasible. In fact, there were many technical problems limiting this possibility. It was perhaps possible to produce a color photo, and even print it, but there was no quick means of transmitting it from the place of the event to the newspaper. As a result of these many financial and technical factors, most of the photographs preserved from the 19th and 20th centuries are black and white images. Without overgeneralizing, it could, perhaps, be argued that the history of the 19th and 20th centuries, as a whole, is conceived as monochrome, since images regarded as authentic from that period are, as mentioned above, in black and white. It seems that the use of color is permitted, on the other hand, in images of former centuries, for describing the time before the birth of photography. This unwritten codex has a strong resemblance to the historians' definition of films that are valuable for historical research. Historians discussed film extensively on international congresses during the 1920s and 1930s, and an Iconographical Commission was established to consider what kinds of films merited archival preservation. According to the Commission, historically valuable films were only those "which record a person or period from the time after the invention of cinematography and without dramaturgic or 'artistic' purposes: those films which present a visual record of a definite event, person or locality, and which presuppose a clearly recognizable historical interest inherent in the subject matter".(21) According to this definition, cinema could not describe history before the invention of cinema, or if it did, it was valueless. In this mode of thinking, color, of course, was an immediate sign of "artistic purposes", since it displaced the black and white, instant roughness of reality. In other words, color meant non-history or falsified history. Reality had been colored. Evidently, there must be (at least) two notions of history operating simultaneously. One code suggests that real history is black and white, and this code seems to work while describing our near past, such as World Wars I or II. The other code, on the contrary, presents history "in color", and openly admits that it is only a story about, not a window onto the past. This code seems to work especially while dealing with older history, such as ancient Greece and Rome.

Color as Metaphor

While reading reviews of American epics of the 1950s and early 60s, the scholar cannot avoid feeling that color was also understood in a metaphorical sense. The word 'color' is not only used to refer to visible color effects on the screen, but also to create a specific vision of history. Almost all epics filmed in the US and in Italy during those decades were made in color. The only exception seems to be Julius Caesar, directed 1953 by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Maybe the producer wanted to distinguish his Shakespeare adaptation from other epics, precisely by making it monochrome. Hollywood epics usually stressed themselves as historical monuments. Press material catalogued slavishly all the strategic numbers: how many extras had been used, how many "magnificent costumes and heraldic trappings" had been made for this "Super Technirama 70 mm Technicolor epic".(22) Color was presented as an organic part of this monumentality. Similarly, many reviewers echoed the magic keyword 'Technicolor'. In the Finnish reviews of Quo Vadis? (1949), Ben Hur (1959), and The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964), the most common characterization seems to be that they were "colorful" stories about ancient Rome.(23) One reviewer claimed that The Fall of the Roman Empire was "the most colorful play" that history could offer.(24) Here, color is a metaphor which refers to the richness of events, which is undoubtedly also what these films aimed at. They present history as a continuous parade where legions march, masses roar and events flow all the time. This parade could even be advertised in Leopold von Ranke's words as "history as it really happened".(25) On the other hand, the reference to "colorfulness" was also made in order to characterize the many contradictions of the historical period described, tensions that seeded "events" and produced history. The use of color as metaphor implies that just as there are complementary colors or contrasting colors that create the richness of the spectrum, so there are also contradictory forces in history, the dialectics of which pushes the development of history further. In The Fall of the Roman Empire, an introductory voice-over underlines that the collapse of Rome was "not an event but a process". This historical process is, however, focused on some basic binarities. Even in the first minutes of the film, the spectator is assured that there is a conspiracy against Marcus Aurelius (Alec Guinness) which aims to overthrow not only Aurelius himself but also the peaceful policy he embodies. Later, the same opposition is represented by the confrontation between Commodus (Christopher Plummer) and Livius (Stephen Boyd). The overwhelming plot consists of polarities: war vs. peace, hate vs.

friendship, personal love vs. social loyalty, ethics vs. corruption. These contradictions are brought into the field of visuality too. In the opening scene, set at a cold, isolated headquarters on the Northern frontier of the Empire, the sky is covered by grey clouds. As Jon Solomon writes, the "heavy wooden beams and thick, snow-covered stone walls remind us that ancient life was not all marble and eating grapes".(26) After the death of Aurelius, the film moves from the Danubian frontier to Rome, and the grey face of the film bursts into colors. The sky is clear and the magnificent temples surrounding Forum Romanum glisten in the bright sunlight. The dialectic vision of history was thus not only a model for reviewers to comprehend what the passage of time is all about, but also an idea that guided film makers: A good story had to consist of contradictions complemented by "colorful" rhizomes. This can for instance be seen in the press booklet printed to promote Quo Vadis? to international success: The dream has come true. Filmed in Rome itself, with color by Technicolor, on many of the very sites of Henryk Sienkiewicz's romance of love and faith, of courage and terror, of lust and luxury, tyranny and the triumph of freedom even in death, "Quo Vadis" is offered as a tribute to the finest ideals of the human spirit, and as a triumph of the myriad human skills that have gone to the making of a great motion picture - perhaps the greatest.(27) In sum, history is seen--or, at least, was presented to be seen--as an interplay between opposed forces, and the characterization of epics as "colorful" stories is precisely and appropriately a metaphor for this historical vision. History was presented as a huge drama set on a huge stage. The opening scene of The Robe (1953) is an illuminating example of this dramatic essence of history. During the overture, credits are shown before a theater curtain. After the last opening credit, "Directed by Henry Koster", the curtain is raised and the "colorful" stage of history revealed to the audience. This kind of multicolor drama, with its carefully designed white temples and red shields, marble columns and mosaic floors was often promoted as "something considerably more than a spectacle".(28)

References:
1. Rsen, Jrn: Zeit und Sinn. Strategien historischen Denkens. Frankfurt am Main 1990, pp. 157-158.

2. Salmi, Hannu: "Film as Historical Narrative", in: FilmHistoria, Vol. V, No. 1 (1995), pp. 45-54. 3. More about historical style in Salmi, Hannu: Elokuva ja historia. ("Film and History") Publisher: Suomen elokuva-arkisto. Painatuskeskus, Helsinki 1993. 4. Musser, Charles: The Emergence of Cinema: The American Screen to 1907. History of the American Cinema. Vol. 1. General Editor: Charles Harpole. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York 1990, pp. 8687. 5. Elley, Derek: Epic Film. Myth and History. Cinema and Society Series. London 1984, pp. 173, 188, 200. 6. Early Cinema. Primitives and Pioneers. Vol. I & II. British Film Institute, Film & Video Library. 7. Debord, Guy: Society of the Spectacle. Black & Red, Detroit 1977; Debord, Guy: Comments on the Society of Spectacle. Verso, London 1990. 8. Matthew 27:53. 9. Solomon, Jon: The Ancient World in the Cinema. South Brunswick and New York 1978, p. 112. 10. Elley, op.cit., p.43. 11. Poetics by Aristotle. Translated by S. H. Butcher. Electronic Text Available through Internet Wiretap (gopher wiretap.spies.com). 12. Eisenstein, Sergei: "Colour Film", in: Movies and Methods. Volume I. Edited by Bill Nichols. Berkeley and Los Angeles, California 1976, p. 383. 13. This term "cinema of non-attraction" was used by professor Jan Olsson (University of Stockholm) in a lecture that dealt with Swedish film censorship and that was delivered in the Conference of Cinema and TV Studies in Turku, Finland (February 5, 1995). 14. Buscombe, Edward: "Sound and Color", in: Movies and Methods. Volume II. Edited by Bill Nichols. Berkeley and Los Angeles, California 1985, p. 88. 15. Ibid., pp. 88-89. 16. "History in Color" is a slogan from an advertisement of an Italian spectacle Achilles (L'ira di Achille, 1962), directed by Marino Girolami.

17. Hedling, Erik: "Color and Monochrome in Lindsay Anderson's if...: An Analysis", in: Lhikuva 1-2/1988. Special issue: Nordic Cinema Studies - Nordisk filmforskning, p. 63. See also Hedling, Erik: Lindsay Anderson och filmens estetik. Diss. University of Lund, Lund 1992. 18. Ibid., p. 63. 19. Camille, Michael: "Reading the Printed Image: Illuminations and Woodcuts of the Plerinage de la vie humaine in the Fifteenth Century", in: Printing the Written Word. The Social History of Books, circa 1450-1520. Edited by Sandra Hindman. Cornell University Press, Ithaca 1991, pp. 259-267. 20. Cf. Cole, Richard G.: "The Reformation Pamphlet and Communication Processes", in: Flugschriften als Massenmedium der Reformationszeit. Beitrge zum Tbinger Symposion 1980. Hrsg. von Hans-Joachim Khler. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1981, pp. 139-145. 21. Cit. Aldgate, Anthony: Cinema and History: British Newsreels and the Spanish Civil War. Scholar Press, London 1979, p. 5-6. 22. Quotations are from the press material of El Cid distributed by Samuel Bronston's press bureau. General Reader "El Cid", in: Finnish Film Archive. 23. Cf. reviews in e.g. Turun Ylioppilaslehti (February 9, 1962), Kotimaa (March 3, 1961), Helsingin Sanomat (March 5, 1961). 24. "Historian vrikkin nytelm: Rooman valtakunnan tuho", in: Uusi Maailma 7/1964. 25. Advertisement of The Fall of the Roman Empire, in: Sunday Times Colour Magazine March 22, 1964. 26. Solomon, op.cit., p. 57. 27. Press book Quo Vadis?, in: Finnish Film Archive. 28. General Reader "El Cid", in: Finnish Film Archive.

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