Download - 3 - Identity - Colour, Film Stocks, Music
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Focus Questions
(what you should be able to answer by theend)
- How are film stocks and colour used in the
film?
- How does this help to disrupt linearity?
- How does the use of music develop the
audiences awareness of the fictionality of
the identities presented?
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#3 Colour and Film Stocks
The film is very visually rich and Haynes is quite
obsessive about the kinds of film that he uses for each
sequence for the film and the colour choices he makesfor each particular narrative.
Well go through each of the images that youve got in
front of you to discuss:a) the timeline being represented
b) the purpose/significance of colour/film stock
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Colour and Film Stocks
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Colour and Film Stocks
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Colour and Film Stocks
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Colour and Film Stocks
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Colour and Film Stocks
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Colour and Film Stocks
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Colour and Film Stocks
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Colour and Film Stocks
Each character clearly inhabits their own world that is
differentiated from the other worlds that the film offers. It
becomes an obvious marker or visual cue that helps to
drop us straight back in to a particular characters world.
This is useful for a film like Hayness in that it makes the
film easier to follow because there are distinctly different
feels between worlds, which makes it more difficult to be
confused.
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Colour and Film Stocks
To an extent this is about disruption. The film becomes quite
visually jarring as a consequence of the constant shifting
between colour and film stocks across the film.
While this relies on editing (the shifting between timelines) it is
also the sheer number of different colour environments and
textures that Haynes uses that has this impact on the viewer.
We are never allowed to settle with a particular figure, as any
settling is usually quite quickly disrupted by a significant
change in the visual style of a scene.
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Colour and Film Stocks
As a technique, this helps to displace our connection to any
fixed idea of Dylan. It is the editing that really does it (which we
will deal with in detail), but colour is what makes it obvious.
It reinforces the idea of multiplicity in the film - multiple colour
stocks comes to represent the multiple identities that the film
embraces. There is no stability of style, i.e. the film has no
stable colour identity, no stable texture (film stock), which wecan discuss as representative of the films attitude towards
identity.
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Music
To a large extent, the use of Dylans music in the film -
when it sung by him, rather than a dubbed voice - can be
interpreted to reinforce this idea of a distancing effect
that undermines the truth of each characters identity.
Well watch a few sequences that include Dylan songs
sung by Dylan. Then well talk about the immediate
impact of each song (how it comments on the scene) and
then we can discuss the wider impact of the non-diegetic
sound.
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Non-Diegetic Music
The music reinforces what the title suggests - Dylan isnt
there.
The incorporation of his voice alongside characters thatare meant to represent him help to point out the obvious -
what were seeing isnt Dylan. Dylan is the singer, he has
a certain voice, and a certain look, and what were seeing
on the screen is definitely not Dylan. It is a fictional
construction of him.
And so a lot of the non-diegetic sound can be argued to
be a representation of Dylans not-there-ness in the film -
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Return to focus questions
- How are film stocks and colour used in the
film?
- How does this help to disrupt linearity?
- How does the use of music develop the
audiences awareness of the fictionality of
the identities presented?