KODACHROME
OURAt first, color was very slow; that is, it needed a lot of lights to "take" an image. Those lights (along with the light needed for projection) made the colors on the screen look bright, hard, and garish. Hence color stock was used mainly for unrealistic movies, such as musicals, romances, science fiction, and later westerns.
As film stock became faster (fixing images more quickly), less lighting was needed, allowing for more realistic (low-key) color effects. Soon it became possible to shoot great gangster films (The Godfather) and film noir (Body Heat, Blade Runner) in color without artistic compromise.
But there's a picturesque beauty to the older color films in the way they transformed the real world into fantasy, even when fantasy was not the theme of the movie. This effect was captured in the hit record, "Kodachrome," by Paul Simon ("Sound of Silence," "Bridge Over Troubled Water"). ("Kodachrome" is a trademark name for one kind of color film stock.) Here are the lyrics to Paul Simon's song so you can follow along:
When I think back
On all the crap I learned in high school
It's a wonder I can think at all
And though my lack of education
Hasn't hurt me none
I can read the writing on the wall
Kodachrome
They give us those nice bright colors
They give us the greens of summers
Makes you think all the world's a sunny day
I got a Nikon camera
I love to take a photograph
So Mama don't take my Kodachrome away
If you took all the girls I knew
When I was single
And brought them all together for one night
I know they'd never match
My sweet imagination
Everything looks worse in black and white
Kodachrome, etc.
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