In his 1956 essay ‘Of Taste and Colours,’ filmmaker Éric Rohmer distinguishes between films that are remembered for their colour harmony as a general tonality and those, which highlight a “power of certain coloured objects.” Following this taxonomy, Catherine Wheatley’s lecture asks what it means to read a film from the perspective of colour, including hue, saturation and contrast. What are the ethical and political stakes of doing so?

Focusing on the different uses of the colour green in Kitty Green’s THE ASSISTANT (US 2019), Wheatley will examine the ways in which our subjective responses to and understandings of the ‘meaning’ of colour are interwoven with broader ideological forces. And, with Green’s film in mind, she also cautions against taking colour at face value. Billed as the first film of the #MeToo movement, THE ASSISTANT will be shown after the lecture together with the educational short film SEEING GREEN (US 1937).

June 11th 2024, 6:00 pm, Kino Arsenal am Potsdamer Platz

06:00 - Kino 1

Lecture by Catherine Wheatley

07:30 – Lounge

Reception

08:00 – Kino 1

Screening of SEEING GREEN (The Jam Handy Organization, US 1937) & THE ASSISTANT (Kitty Green, US 2019)