Colour discussion with Milena: GREEN

Green is a conflicting colour, it is the colour of fresh vegetables but also the colour of spoiled meat. In Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, The Virgin Suicides and The Caveman’s Valentine a green liquid is used as a metaphor for poison. One might hesitate to drink a green liquid, however, when you pass a patch of fresh green grass you don’t hesitate to sit on it. Precisely because of this, green can be used as a powerful tool for irony.

In The Thin Red Line green, the colour of life, becomes an ironic presence; one moment we are amazed by the exquisiteness of the tropical flora and next we see men fall dead onto it, it is the very freshness of those grasses that leads us to remember that moments ago, they were alive. Green is similarly represented in The Mosquito Coast but is explored with a psychological twist. Peter Weir wanted Harrison Ford’s character Allie to be the only one that saw the beauty in the rainforest, to achieve this the colour grade was olivey green and drab; no one except for Allie, not even the audience could see the beauty. Alfonso Cuaron uses green in a very overpowering but effective manner in A Little Princess, it has a very ominous presence. When we arrive at Miss Minchon’s Seminary for Girls, the building in a mouldy green, the kind of green that looks like it has been deprived of fresh air.

Colour provides visual context within which the story takes on a fuller emotional meaning. The greens discussed within this segment have been used to convey something negative, however, depending on the context and the themes within your film green can also be used as a healthy presence.