Anyone have some ideas of their own on this. The movie used tons of instances of this, like the scene when they are making love with the blue lighting.
Anyone else have any other good examples?
The unnatural blue lighting was used a lot when Frank was sneaking around or things were bad for them. And it seemed to me that the bad things usually happened at night and the good things happened during the day.
sharespeaking of lighting, during the vacation scene - the sun's setting rays on dennis quaid's abs... that was an awesome shot. who knew quaid had such an unbelievable 6 pack! woof!
shareI noticed the colors at the beginning of the film were vibrant, but by the final scene have become drab and washed out.
shareNot sure if it was to convey an emotion or not - but the lighting when Frank is in the bar is sooo green. Later on when Cathy and Raymond are in the bar the light is green too, and at the ballet recital the light is very blue and red. I kept noticing the lighting throughout the movie (how could anyone NOT?) but I'm not sure what the significance of it is.
shareI'm pretty sure Tod addressed this in the DVD extras. He mentions that he saw that they used this idea back in the old movies IIRC. It is definately noticeable in this movie. Also in the very dramatic parts they use odd camera angles, etc.
shareYes!!! the lighting is what really makes this movie stand out aside from its heavy subject matter.
Like mentioned, the typical everyday behaviors happen during the day and night the darker elements happen. Since darkness is where people can conceal their identities, thus sneak around.
I think the blue was also symbolic of tragic events being just around the corner. The blue is always behind something. A window, under a door, etc. The ending the color is toned down to an over cast day appearance, thus the current and sadness ahead of her.
Very theatre style light design.
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When I saw it in the theater back in 2002, I found the colours to be lush and very beautiful. The scenes between Raymond and Cathy were reds and browns which the scenes with the husband are dark blues.
The problem is that when I saw it again recently on television, the film was very very dark. Maybe it was my television set.
http://www.armchairoscars.com/21st%20Century/2002.htm
The lighting in this movie was brilliant, and is one of the reasons I enjoy it so much. Great acting and characters, and an interesting storyline as well. I also loved the location where it was shot, especially Cathy's house with the neat layout, and the production design was very elegant and not overdone.
My only intitial nitpick upon my first viewing, was that I found the music to be a bit forced at times, but looking back on it, and having recently seen the movie again, I like what they were trying to do. It was almost as if they were doing the score like it would sound if you were watching a film from that time period, so it actually worked and was purposeful, if not just a tad over the top during a scene or two!