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3.1.16.4 Colours
** How does Jackson use colours?
Pretty crudely, actually, but in a way that seems appropriately adolescent,
somehow, and straightforward. Thematically, colours are used in very conventional ways in
"Heavenly Creatures."
** What colours are used thematically in the
film?
* Yellow(gold): Daffoldils bloom gay and golden in the Prologue. The Princess of
Ilam first appears like a vision in a flowing, golden dress. Pauline uses bright yellow
for Juliet's hair in her pictures of her, and for the stars around her head and for their
stars in Hollywood. On "The Loveliest Night of the Year" Juliet appears in a
gold lam‚ gown, and sweeps Pauline off to Borovnia. Gold is for desire. Juliet's hair
is golden.
* White: "Mummy" is dressed all in white in an elegant white skirt, white jacket, white hat with white veil, white pearls and white gloves in the 'ship' scenes. The first time we see Hilda Hulme at Ilam she is dressed in the same outfit, all in white. Doris Day is in white on Steve's record and, damn! her teeth are white. The girls wear blinding white shirts in their school uniforms and white underthings in "The Donkey Serenade"--that was their first kiss, remember? Their religious experiences are accompanied by blinding flashes of white light, and there is that wonderful shot of "the way through the (white, white, white) clouds" on the drive home from Port Levy. The unicorns are pure, snow white. The bathroom in Ilam is pure white--white tiles, white paint, white tub. Juliet's room is decorated in white. The sun breaks through, blinding white, in the last, agonizing "Humming Chorus" walk, and flashes of white obscure the view from time to time. White is for purity, for innocence, for the unattainable that must be sought, for the ideal, for deserving goals, for wonderful visions, for desperate faith. For 'good'?--Not necessarily.
* Black: Black is for balance, for sobriety, and for mourning. The Mistresses at school wear black gowns. Rev Norris wears black. Hilda Hulme is in black at Juliet's homecoming from the sanatorium, a reference to the real Hilda Hulme's trial testimony where she said, in essence, that her daughter's love for her had died while she had been abroad. Pauline is dressed all in black sitting at her desk in Digby's, and we pull back to see a room full of tired, hopeless women, not all of them young, all dressed in basic black. At the final bonfire where the girls burn the trappings of their innocence and their old lives and their ties to the real world they are both dressed in black. Pauline is wearing black as she "helps Mother vigorously" the morning after her return home from Ilam. Juliet is wearing black on the Ilam balcony in Pauline's vision, singing the mournful and beautiful "Sono Andate" the day before the murder. Pauline wears a black sweater on the day of the murder. Pauline is dressed in black from head to toe in the final 'ship' vision in that terrible, long, screaming fade-to-black. Black is for 'evil'? That is for the viewer to decide. Pauline's hair is black.
* Red: Red is for danger. The front doors of CGHS are fire- engine red. Maybe that was coincidence. Pauline's bedroom door was red. Pauline clutched Mario Lanza's record "The Student Prince," with its bright red jacket, to her heart. Diello was born a red cushion. Juliet coughed up spatters of bright red blood. And Pauline only needs red paint for her pictures at school (splotch!--we get a whole screen of red). Pauline's dress had red roses on it in her first Borovnian vision, the one she had when she was in bed with Nicholas. Juliet was knitting for Pauline in the sanatorium--bright red: "I love the colour!" Gina's velvet gown on "The Loveliest Night of The Year" was deep, luxurious, wine-red. "The Student Prince" is burned at the final bonfire. Juliet's lips are bright, blood red when she she sings in Pauline's vision. The bus that takes the girls and Honora to their terrible fate is red. And blood, real blood, is startling and deep in its redness.
* Green: Green is used for apprehension and mystery. It isn't that far removed from blue, though, is it? Nicholas sneaks into Pauline's room and then is caught, by green moonlight. When Pauline is separated from Juliet she lies on her bed under blue-green light and declares "the thought of death is not fearsome." The Riepers' bathroom is painted green and we see Pauline there just before we hear how she "loathes Mother." Juliet was sneaking around in Ilam by green moonlight just before "the balloon has gone up."
* Blue: Jackson uses pallid, cold blue lighting for death [lfr]. When the girls enact how the Saints would make love, they do so under blue light, and green light. The final bathtub scene is shot in a cold blue light and the girls look like corpses.
