Imagine before the pandemic started: you’re in the theaters and you’re currently watching this movie but you kinda think why is it so dark? Proving you have a 20/20 vision; how could it be this dark?
You can’t adjust brightness on cinemas. And when you do it with your phone or any device you’re using to stream, you’ll sooner realize it’s really dark. Literally.
Some of the most visually engaging films use color and vibrancy as a tool to further aid the cinematic experience, and yet in the past decade or so, movies have become increasingly dull.
THE START
Few years back, ‘Game of Thrones’ finale was criticized by many fans and viewers for being so dark—almost impossible to figure out what is going on.
Cinematographer Fabian Wagner explained that the scene was shot at night and said that the intention was to differentiate the battle aesthetically from other scenes throughout the series. He stressed that watching the show anywhere other than a darkened room with a neutral, large monitor was a disservice to the viewer.
At the end of the day, it’s still the cinematographer’s call on how he or she will portray the scenes. They have the full control when it comes to resolution and coloring of movies. American cinematographer Bradford Young has shot film in dark mode. Films including Solo: A Star Wars Story, Arrival, and the miniseries When They See Us. Some things are just meant to be dark, according to him. Aside from it requires a certain amount of expression and mood, some scenes are really meant for darker tones.
The recent Batman movie starred by Robert Pattinson offers darkness too. Cinematographer Greig Fraser used a technique where they printed the digital print of the movie onto film and used a bleach bypass to achieve a more high-contrast image. The technique includes film and digital aspects, and creates a more textured look than most digitally shot superhero movies would allow.
THE 1990s PRE-GAME
Way back, there were films that have a dark, slightly grimy aesthetic. Movies drenched in shadow have existed long before. Movies like ‘The Silence of the Lambs’ in 1991 and ‘Se7en’ in 1995 created hugely influential color palettes streaked with darkness.
Viewers failed to realize that this film strategy or whatever you call it has been going on for a while now. It already built its rapport in film during the 1990s until the present times where digital coloring revolution exists.
CINEMATIC STRATEGY
We are not living in this generation where superheroes come in flashy brilliance and horrors & thrillers are innate dark. Trends change overtime and cinematographers get a good grasp of their style on how will they approach their films respectively.
Ari Aster’s horror movie ‘Midsommar’ sparkles in colors and Netflix’s ‘Squid Game’ are filled with bright color ideas. See, they’re a handful of exceptions.
Post-apocalyptic thrillers aren’t sometimes dark too. Mad Max: Fury Road for instance.
On the other hand, others remain to its current tradition – the themes. Given for example HBO’s Station Eleven. This post-apocalyptic thrillers bathes in green and dark colors. The series’ color palette deliberately made use of rich reds, blues, and greens, and the post-production digital color work actually tugged the colors toward richer, more saturated hues.
In the end, though, there is no answer to the question of why desaturation is everywhere. The flow and timeline of the film mentioned above just marvelously made their way to put a specific theme by their own decisions. Colors create such excitement and thrill to viewers and so does dull and darker ones. But one thing is for sure, darkness and desaturation in film is 90 percent of a filmmaker’s expressive way and interaction to its viewers—style and creativity ignite.
