The colourful world of Wes Anderson : A study of colour in cinema

Abstract The focus of this essay is the american director Wes Anderson and the use of colour in his films. I also put some focus on colour as a neglected element in film studies, and what has caused this neglect. In my own research, I have analysed three of Anderson's films: Bottle Rocket (1996), The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) and The Darjeeling Limited (2007). To get a broad sense of a films use of colour, I have investigated the colour scheme, the colours of the costumes, as well as colour patterns. I have also interpreted the symbolism related to certain colours and then used the results of the analyses to answer the question; "how does Wes Anderson use colour, and in which film is this most apparent?" A very generalizing answer to this question, is that Anderson use colour as a means of signifying the characters' feelings and ambitions, and also their relations to the themes of the films. He does this by connecting symbolic values to certain colours and makes these colours stand out in certain scenes and in the characters' clothes. The film that best shows this use of colour is The Royal Tenenbaums. In short, this essay will hopefully bring some understanding of how colours are used in the films of Wes Anderson, but also open up the eyes of the readers to the importance of the neglected element itself; colour.