MovieChat Forums > Anders als die Andern (1919) Discussion > saturation- different from the others

saturation- different from the others

posted 19 years ago by caburke
2 replies | jump to latest

I watched this film (albeit not in its entirety, the print we had skipped a great deal of material, i do not know if this is the only surviving film left) in a Queer Literature class, and the discussion focused mainly on the homosexual themes and their implications. As probably the only film major in the class, my questions and observations seemed to be anomalies. I chalk that up the the nature of the course, but one specific detail of the film is still nagging me-
In the final blackmail scene (before the fight between Paul, Bolleck and Sivers), a vase of flowers on the right of the screen is yellow, whilst the rest of the scene remains desaturated. This is the only use of color in the whole film. I was wondering about what significance the vase and its contents could possibly hold. The only thing I could think of was that the flowers in question were carnations, in which case the highlighting of the vase is a subtle nod to Oscar Wilde and his green carnations, with yellow substituting because no suitably green filter was available.
thoughts?

[–] thurberdrawing 17 years ago

I hope this message gets to you, because your question was posted more than a year ago. I watched this movie the other night on a DVD from Kino. I will check the scene with the fight again, to see if the flowers are yellow, but, in the meantime, as I was reading your comment, the first thing I thought of when you said the flowers were yellow was that the presence of the color yellow might have been a reference to THE YELLOW BOOK, which was the magazine which regularly printed Oscar Wilde's writings.
If you're educated guess is correct and the flowers were meant to evoke the green carnations of Wilde's group, perhaps it is not that a green filter couldn't be found in 1919, but that, perhaps, over time, the color in the print changed.
Anyway, I'll look at that scene again very soon and post a message as to whether or not I think the flowers were, indeed, given color. (My television occasionally shows a yellow spot in one corner when I watch black and white DVDs.)
As an aside, I think Kino really should have put a commentary track onto this DVD. At $29.95 (U.S. dollars) the customer should get at least a booklet!

[–] thurberdrawing 17 years ago

I just had a look at the fight scene again and my DVD (released by Kino in 2003) does not show color in the flowers.
Kino's source may have been different from the one used to make the copy you saw or Kino may have decided not to reproduce the effect.
In the silent days it was not uncommon for one reel of a movie to be tinted differently from any other reel of the same movie. Certainly some silent movies were shot in what is called two-strip color. The silent BEN-HUR has at least one reel in color. I can imagine certain objects in a scene being tinted for effect.
Was the copy you saw a VHS, DVD or film? Kino may not even know about the coloring of the flowers.