By Filmmaker Jon M. Chu’s “Wicked” film adaptation hit screens on Friday to strong reviews from critics and raves from audiences with a very healthy ‘A’ CinemaScore in exit polls.
Even so, one aspect of it that people were complaining about in the lead up to release is the film’s color grading – the film boasting an overall desaturated look. The land of Oz has generally been pictured as abundantly rich in color thanks to the Technicolor of the original “The Wizard of Oz” film to other movies like “Oz: The Great and Powerful” which tried to match that look.
“Wicked” in contrast has colorful costumes, sets and so forth – but the film is deliberately lensed like certain modern digital films that opt to mute the colors to look more ‘real’ per se. Volumetric lighting (aka. God rays) from all the digital sunshine also helps wash out the colors and contrast in some scenes.
In a recent interview with The Globe and Mail, Chu spoke about why they went with the aesthetic after he was questioned about the film being “a little desaturated”:
“I mean, there’s color all over it. I think what we wanted to do was immerse people into Oz, to make it a real place,” Chu explained. “Because if it was a fake place, if it was a dream in someone’s mind, then the real relationships and the stakes that these two girls are going through wouldn’t feel real.
[This is] a way we have not experienced Oz before. It’s been a matte painting. It’s been a video game digital world. But for us, I want to feel the dirt. I want to feel the wear and tear of it. And that means it’s not plastic.
We have the environment. The sun is the main source of light. You see the vast landscapes. You see the air. You see creatures exist here. These two characters that will go through two movies, their relationship with the land is important; their relationship with the nature of this land that the wizard imposed himself. The [color] contrast goes up over time because that is what Elphaba brings to this world.”
The comments follow in the wake of Chu revealing he was the one that deliberately chose the very dark first released images from the film and did so because he wanted to convey this wasn’t going to be a bright, colorful story.
“Wicked” is now playing in cinemas.
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