Friday, December 18, 2009

Dec 18: Think Pink [Updated]

By the way, the Roadrunner and the Paul Grimault posts have finally been updated.

I have just seen The Princess and the Frog. It will take me some time to come up with a decent review. Some parts were better than expected, some worse. I've always said that I wanted this to be a success regardless of whether I like it personally, but a few times during the screening I found myself wondering: do I really want THIS to be a success? And: was the ARL such a good idea, after all? (Of course, it was and still is, but more on that later...)

Now, for something completely different: Before either Fred Astaire or Audrey Hepburn are introduced in Stanley Donen's 1957 musical Funny Face, Kay Thompson makes her first scene stealing singing appearance during the now classic production number "Think Pink".




What color is she wearing here in her role as uncompromising fashion designer Maggie Prescott?
In case you are new, THIS is how it works. 


A                        B                          C                          D 

It was indeed C:

Contentwise I agree with Soriah's guess that snobby old women wear dark or grey in these kinds of movies. And even though she's making propaganda for "pink as the new white", she herself would never wear that kind of color.

But the grey also helps to push the color pink even more. As you can see in this wideshot, apart from make-up and skin tones, pink is the only hue in an environment that is limited to the greyscale (mostly white). Here, the dark grey dress stands out.

In another scene there is a similar approach, only this time Audrey Hepburn (whose colors are close to the bookstore she's working in) is fooling around with a yellow hat and a green veil. In the actual song sequence these colors look pretty dazzling in front of that backdrop, because everything else (except her face, of course) is muted.


4 comments:

Aaron said...

I want to say green but I am going A, blue.

Urwen said...

A

sunny kharbanda said...

Here's a guess: A!

Soriah said...

I never watched the musical but I think she would be wearing something dark or grey. Every time I watch a movie, actresses who plays the role of an old, snobby woman usual wears grey or brown clothing. Well, she looks old and snobby to me.

My answer is "C."

Maybe if she looked like a cheery old gal I would've picked a more uplifting color that would stick out nicely against the pink background.