The colour of an opening scene sets the tone of a film before the characters have even uttered a word. Whether its Gone Girl with cold, deep blue and brown/black colours, or Tarantinos use of yellow throughout Kill Bill, used in order to create a sense of insanity and instability throughout Uma Thurman's performance, colour is just as important as everything else in a film.
There are a few spoilers in here, just a warning!
Luckily, this isn't too complicated to understand, or explain, but before I ever discovered the importance of colour in film, it went pretty much unnoticed. Much like the music or score throughout a film, colour sets the scene, creates atmosphere, brings other characters to the front of shot, without being stood closer than any other character. There is no doubt that directors and cinematographers have a certain money shot, where you have an extreme wide shot, exploding with different shades of similar colours.
The first that comes to mind is Django Unchained (I know, more Tarantino, I'm sorry).

The colour very cleverly drips down this scene, starting of very bright and beautiful. Compare that to the dark, shadowy blue, black and grey at the bottom of the frame. This could signify many things. This could be the director wants you to focus more on the background, contrasting to the storyline where it focuses entirely around Django. This could elude to the world of the slave trade, where owners of slaves appear to live with a big facade, in big bright mansions, and dress in fancy colourful, or pure white clothes, but the industry they're in has a much more dark and sinister undertone.
Colour is imperative in the emphatic space opera series Star Wars. Just the use of the words, "the Dark Side" creates a feeling of uneasiness throughout the audience. Star Wars directors use thematic use of colour to reflect characters, emotion, plot and tone. The use of a passionate Red to directly contrast a melancholy Blue sets a scene perfectly.
In The Force Awakens, When Han Solo is facing off against Kylo Ren, the background behind Kylo Ren is constantly changing between blue and red, whilst Han Solo is trying to convince his son to come back over from the dark side. Whilst Kylo is considering it, the background is blue, alluding to his mind at the time, will he move over to the lighter side of the force?

But when he finally makes his decision to decline the offer and brutally kill his father, the background is a dark red, with a black back ground. In fact the red (evil) almost fills the screen. This made the scene incredibly memorable. I saw this movie in the cinema and its was a complete cinematic, visual spectacle, the kind you expect from Star Wars.

Star Wars often use the innocence of the colour white to their advantage. With Princess Leia donning a white robe, or white two piece, which successfully portrays her as a damsel in distress character often. But white also interestingly used in a completely contrasting way, with the empire deciding to use the colour, with black strikes running throughout, on Stormtroopers. This was presumably used to create anonymity among the army, and dehumanise them.

Suicide Squad is another great example. They use the same tone throughout the film, dark green, blue, grey. These colour themes run throughout the film apart from when there is an explosion of colour. The constant changing of colour and tone makes the audience feel lest trusting of the characters, which is exactly what director David Ayer would have wanted to feel, as they're all criminally insane and unstable.

You could be forgiven for thinking that The Godfather is shot in black and white. They even elude to this on the cover of the DVD. The Black and white of Marlon Brando's Tuxedo, with the red rose perfectly placed. The film is an incredibly dark tone, and that filters into the storyline too. The Godfather is another masterpiece that successfully uses colours to its advantage. From the dark shady desk that he sits at, to the costumes used, the dark theme has an everlasting impact, even when the film is finished, that has no doubt contributed to the legacy and longevity of the film.

In Denis Villeneuve's Enemy, when using a city scape shot, the theme is always a yellowish tint, used all the way through the film. It creates a striking feeling, that has become a big perk for Villeneuve, used also in Prisoners, and Maelstrom. All films create an anxiety and feeling of uneasiness, even though the films portray a real, central feeling of contemporary life. The use of yellow and greenish tints, mixed with subtle red tones in clothing and cars, makes yet more feelings of paranoia, the type that comes with living in an overpopulated dense metropolis.

To conclude, I believe that, along with music, I feel colour is one of the most important thing, outside of the storyline and actors. It really is an incredibly simple thing that may often go unnoticed. There is an example of thematic use of colour in every motion picture ever created, even black and white films, shadows even have a huge impact on the look of a scene. I know that once I noticed all of this, I looked at films differently, but definitely for the better.
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