Today I wasn’t planning on doing any work, to try and give my mind a rest and get back into the flow of work tomorrow, but it just happened that I was watching ‘The Addams Family’ for fun and caught a few inspirations from it.
The film is about a man claiming to be Fester, the missing brother of Gomez Addams, arriving at the Addams' home, and with the help of the families lawyer, attempts to steal the Addams family fortune hidden in a vault in their house. He manages to get the family evicted, and when Gomez realises the two men are conspiring to steal the money, he realises he must challenge Fester.
The film is a dark comedy/fantasy, and there are many unique points in the film.
Colour:
The use of colour throughout the film obviously was the thing that originally intrigued me, as the effect in the film is almost selective. When showing scenes inside their house, everything is black and white, or at least very desaturated apart from Morticia’s bright red lipstick and nails, and other bright red objects throughout their house.
Scenes from The Addams Family (1991)
The contrast between the bright red and desaturated interior makes the colour stick out a lot throughout the film.
The colour when used in scenes between Morticia and Gomez, is used to represent the passion and romance they feel for each other. These feelings are obvious through their actions and words to each other, but the colour helps to visually enhance these emotions.
When red is used in scenes with Wednesday and Pugsley however, it evokes a sense of danger because of their actions (sword fighting, electrocuting each other, shooting a cross bow). These actions are never really a worry as the film turns it into a comedic tone.
When we see scenes of the Addams family in the ‘real world’ among other parents and children the use of colour really exaggerates how eccentric the family is, and how different they are to societies norms, especially shown in the films sequel Addams Family Values.
Scenes from The Addams Family (1991) and Addams Family Values (1993)
I think this difference is shown best in the film when the Addams family go to Pugsley and Wednesday's school to watch their school play. We see the family watch the first performance by other boys and girls at their school, as they perform a cheesy song while dressed up as colourful flowers.
School play scene from The Addams Family (1991)
However, this performance is followed by the Addams kids sword fight scene, using fake blood which ends up covering the front row of the audience. The use of a vivid colour red obviously represents the danger and gore of their performance, and juxtaposes what the audience witnessed a couple moments before.
Sword Fight play scene from The Addams Family (1991)
When Morticia speaks with Wednesday's teacher the use of colour in their clothes and class work also exaggerates the difference in personalities and characteristics.
Morticia at Wednesday's school, The Addams Family (1991)
1960's TV show:
I was researching about the movie and I came across this article that shows how the set of the original Addams Family TV show was actually pink, but they shot it in black and white. The use of black and white was obviously to create the contrast between social norms and the Addams families eccentric characters.
I thought it was interesting, as it really does show how colour can change the mood of a film, and it is definitely something to consider.
Before and after shot of the original Addams family house from the TV show.
Transitions:
As I was only watching this film for fun, i wasn't particularly looking for any cinematic techniques that the film used. However there was a transition that caught my eye while I was watching.
The use of transitions is something i have been trying to figure out when thinking about ideas for my own film, so when i saw this scene, i was immediately inspired.
Waltz scene from The Addams Family (1991)
In the scene, Morticia and Gomez are dancing together, and when they bend down she pulls an old sheet off a chair, the scene transitions seamlessly to the party. I thought it was really cool and I would also like to get creative with transition ideas like that one in my own film.
Overall:
It was a happy accident that I discovered how powerful selective colour in particular is effective in films, and there were multiple things that i now want to try. The transition as well filled me with inspiration, and I will definitely try to incorporate some of these ideas into my own work and experimentation.
References:
The Addams Family (1991), Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, Available at: Netflix, (Accessed 30/3/22)
Screenshots:
Sluss, J (2021), Highdefdiscnews, The Addams Family - 4K UHU BLU-RAY SCREENSHOTS, Available at: https://highdefdiscnews.com/2021/11/23/the-addams-family-4k-uhd-blu-ray-screenshots/ (Accessed 30/3/22)
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