Live musical accompaniment by Andrew E. Simpson, piano.
At a moment of chromatic revolution, impressionism transformed how we see the world in color. Moving out of artist studios and into the natural world (en plein air), impressionists brought attention to the transient effects of light and color on scenes from everyday life. Cinema too mobilized color as a means of capturing and reframing the movements of the natural world. Since the 1890s, nonfiction films were dazingly colored, manually by hand, stencil, tint, and tone, and in the first decades of the 1900s through new photographic processes such as Kinemacolor and Chronochrome. These chromatic technologies brought the world both near and far to cinemas around world. In so doing, they paint the world with everyday scenes of card parties, laborers, and modern fashion, the waterways of Italy, France, and Turkey, colonial views from Sudan and India, and with the many flowers and butterflies that saturate the silent screen.
Part of the Color, Cinema, and the Impressionist Moment film series. The screenings in this series collectively explore various techniques, styles, and modes of film coloring during the first two decades of film history to trace the long, colorful time of the impressionist moment.
End times for film events are estimated and may vary with post-screening discussion, audience Q&A, or other factors. All film events finish by 5:00 p.m.