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| via Beth Matthews |
i love Wes Anderson's films. The vibe, the memory-saturated associations, the musical score and its link to the images and events onscreen (synchresis)1, the ethos, (think "brand," -- the "b word"). All coordinate to tease out a variety of affective intensities i experience at a Wes Anderson film screening.
Work in visual rhetoric (a form of rhetorical analysis) encourages us to analyze those affective intensities2 we experience as readers/viewers/audiences -- this, as a way of discovering the text's rhetorical strategies for encouraging certain responses in its audience. Sometimes, a rhetor finds that strategies are desirably repeatable, and they become associated with that writer, that rhetor -- in this case, that filmmaker (the agent or entity crafting the text).
Ideally, we'd avoid talking "brand" and instead use only those terms emerging from our rhetorical lexicon. But Beth Matthews does talk brand in discussing Anderson's work, and it so happens that i enjoy and find pedagogical value in her attempt to characterize WA's films with this color palette image.
Characterization via visual rhetoric often works. It seems that it is often the most obvious signaling technique and is thus also considered perhaps too obvious to bother with it. Yet others may argue that when it's done well, the strategic rhetorical use of color can be subtle, refined, and very clear in its power to radiate a certain ethos (see Tom & Lorenzo's Mad Men blog entries!! ... here is one to get you going!).
In rhetorical terms, to "characterize" is to argue, to suggest a particular ethos a rhetor associates with a (body of) work. Thus, Matthews' image is a kind of visual rhetoric (it argues). What does it argue? Working in groups (discussion for all, at least one note taker, and one spokesperson), draw upon your experiences viewing Anderson's films. Reflect upon any or all of the following clips. And, use Matthews' image to tease out a sense of ethos or character associated with Anderson's films.
Group 1.) Color, alone. Where do you see these kinds of colors? Do they seem to "belong" to a certain time? A certain place? Where? Do you like any of these colors or palettes, in particular? Why? What do they evoke in you?
Group 2.) The Background. What is this background made of? What does it resemble? Have you ever seen such a pattern? Where? Do you like it? Why? Why not?
Share your findings in a discussion with the whole class. After some consideration, try to explain the importance of color as visual rhetoric. How does this discussion of visual rhetoric in film color palettes relate to professional writing? ... to the kinds of choices you will make as a professional? as a writer?
(if time permits ... do the following)
Notable blogs picked upon the palette image, and the uptake is different in each case. Working in groups, think about:
1.) How does Matthew's imagistic analysis argue for/about Anderson's use of color? If you can't find anything solid enough in the image, see the accompanying blog entry, and think about how image and text work together. What do they say about Anderson's work?
2.) Vulture.com's reproduction. How does the display at Vulture.com shift, emphasize, or otherwise alter Matthews' argument? In other words, how does Vulture.com see the image (arguing) differently?
3.) LaughingSquid.com reproduce's the palette image in a way that seems rhetorically distinct from Matthews and Vulture.com -- How so?
1 See Chion, Michel. Audio-Vison: Sound on Screen. New York: Columbia UP, 1990.
2 "What do I mean by affective qualities? Most theorists who deploy the concept of affect draw from Brian Massumi’s definition of affect as a physiological state of intensity." Also, "Brian Massumi describes affective intensity as a 'state of suspense, potentially of disruption. It is like a temporal sink, a hole in time… .'[27] This is a moment of incipience, before action is taken, before emotions qualify and retroactively determine the affect." See McKay, Sally. "The Affect of Animated GIFs (Tom Moody, Petra Cortright, Lorna Mills)"
