Color coded wardrobe

Has anybody ever noticed that there seems to be a remarkably consistent and extensive color coding of the characters? It runs along the red - green axis with red (oxygenated blood?) being alive and green being dead. In this set of visual cues, the movie seems to consider strong emotion, or possibly feeling in general, to be the essence of life. By contrast, keeping ones self overly (in this view, anyway) controlled or rational is tantamount to a walking death.

Obviously, the ghost color scheme is all green with a couple small highlights of bright red for the lips and fingernails. Visible ghosts are dead, hence all green; but have just that little bit of life to interact with the living world, hence the little bit of red. The color green, in fact, appears to be pretty much entirely the color of the dead in this movie. It’s not just that the ghosts are all green. It’s that, with only very specific exceptions that I’ll discuss later, not a single person ever wears anything with any green in it at all.

It is interesting to note that Madame Arcati, the one character who can bounce back and forth between the living and dead worlds, is also the only character who gets to wear any pattern. Everybody else’s wardrobe is remarkably solid. Madame Arcati gets to wear multicolored plaids, or a layered look with patches of different colors peeking out in different places. Her overall look tends toward the warm colors, oranges and slightly earthier reddish tones, though generally not a full jewel tone red; but also with little bits of green mixed in. This is essentially the reverse of the ghost color scheme. The one time when Madame Arcati does wear a solid color is to the dinner party. That, of course is that dress in the deep, rich red. She is the life of the party in more than one sense, with more vitality and connection to the living world …… more aliveness …… than the entire rest of the group put together.

Ruth is the character that is really interesting to track with this in mind, though. You can completely track her state of being through her wardrobe color. Or, conversely, consistently predict the color she is wearing according to her state, by listening to her. I’ll wait to discuss her dinner party outfit until the last. After the dinner, when she gets up to find Charles and then throughout the next day, she is upset with Charles and the whole situation; in short she is feeling and all of her behavior is being dictated by what she feels in interacting with the rest of the living world. Throughout all of that time she is wearing solid warm colors; oranges and pinks. They’re not full blown reds, since she is still specifically keeping herself controlled, but they are much more in that family. By contrast, whenever Ruth is working to get her old buttoned down life back (and in the process trying to *think* her way through) she is always wearing shades of cool blue. Again, it’s not the full blown death green, since she is also partly fighting for her marriage, but she is much closer to that than to the living red.

The one and only time when Ruth completely drops her rational control and lays into Elvira (fighting for man, as it were) is also the only time that she is wearing red. That is also the dress that Elvira describes as “terrifying” (I think that was the word she used). It’s interesting that the ghost (the dead) would single out the one red dress (the life color) as being terrifying. Following the line of Ruth “fighting for her man”, there is just a bit more of that note of feeling in her behavior when she visits Madame Arcoti’s home than when she goes to London, and certainly than when can talk to Charles about the need to get rid of Elvira in rational terms. Hence, the little bit of yellow (a sunny, warm color) around Ruth’s collar when she goes to Madam Arcoti’s, and the completely solid blue in the later scenes.

That brings us back to Ruth’s clothing at the beginning of the picture. We first meet her wearing a robe with broad blue and white stripes, the only non-solid thing that I remember seeing on anybody other Madame Arcati. Then again, that stripe is a much more orderly pattern than anything that Madame Arcoti wears, it still doesn’t admit any warm / reddish colors, and isn’t something that she would ever wear “to show the world”. She’s in the overly rational mode (“overly” in the film’s view, anyway). She talks about such things as not even wanting to feel the full blush of passion in her marriage. Of course, we can see that it’s not really true when she says that she doesn’t care that Elvira may have been more physically attractive than she is. Perhaps that why she gets to have the blue of her robe broken by the white stripes (though not with any hint of warm colors). Then the camera follows Charles into the adjoining dressing room, leaving Ruth off screen. During this time is when Ruth starts talking about her own death and what Charles will do after she has been buried. And lo ….. when Ruth reenters the camera’s view, she is dressed in solid green with a splash of red ……. The dead ghost color scheme (not that the first time viewer has any way of knowing that yet). She has a bit more red than a ghost, which I guess allows that she is still more alive (or less dead) than a ghost. In this regard, having cast an auburn haired actress helps, having that extra reddish tint there.

It’s an interesting point that Charles never really enters this entire realm of color. At the very beginning we see him in a blue bath robe. So I take it that we can assume that he has become as emotionally lifeless in his marriage to Ruth as she is. After that, though, he is entirely in neutrals. He wears neither the cool blues or greens, nor the warm reds (or oranges or yellows). He isn’t an active participant in this fight between living and dying. He is standing around watching.

The minor characters are, even more than Charles, kept completely out of this set of visual cues. Edith (and the cook when we do see her), the doctor, and his wife are *always* kept entirely in neutrals. The doctor's wife, though, does have just a small dash of red in her belt to indicate some tiny spark of life in her character.