ROGER DEAKINS HAIL CAESAR MOVIE
However, even though the whole movie is layered with sepia tone, there are some cases where scenes being predominantly brown, aren’t the case. Its old look almost resembles that of the Coen brother’s previous film, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, which also made use of desaturated, sepia toned coloring (Juliano, 80). If the clothes hadn’t tipped you off, from color alone one could infer Hail, Caesar! is trying to portray a time in history not close to the present, as sepia is commonly associated with vintage or historical settings. This combination of low saturation, browns, and sepia make the image appear in an almost golden tint for a majority of the movie, which could very well symbolize the 1950s being apart of Hollywood’s Golden Ages. Though not entirely monochromatic, a good portion of the shots could be labeled as such, and it’s rare to see anything above two-toned coloring within the movie.
Right off the bat, you’ll notice the consistent hues of brown dominating the scenes, along with what is likely to be a sepia tone effect. The ImageĬonsider watching this Hail, Caesar! trailer with the sound off: Video from: Youtube In fact, the crew tried to accurately resemble the prop making techniques and set design used in the 1950s, in order to match the visuals and atmosphere as closely as possible (Liebman, ). To add more authenticity, there were very little special effects used during the making of the movie, and a majority of the props and costumes were made by hand. Photos from: Elfinalde ( ), The Papist ( ), and Diseara ( ) For ancient rome, western, and ballroom attire, using past stars as references weren’t as necessary, but were still used in order to hone in on any particular nuances pertaining to outfit and set design. Considering historical epics, westerns, and musicals were popular in the 1950s, both Zophres and Gonchor were able to intensely study the style of each genre through a few movies, such as: Ben-Hur, ‘Quo Vadis (Whitlock, ), The Lone Rancher (Steven, ), That’s Entertainment Part II, and Neptune’s Daughter (Liebman, ).īen-Hur (left), Hail, Caesar! (center), and ‘Quo Vadis (right). Esther Williams’ outfits embedded with sequence and glitter, paired with highly saturated backgrounds and props, are a strong reminder of the importance of color to 1950s Hollywood, and Zophres doesn’t seem to forget this in Scarlett Johansson’s scene, or the rest of the movie.īesides Esther Willaims, Zophres took design inspiration from other real-life 1950s icons, including actual MGM worker, Josh “Eddie” Mannix (Whitlock, ), journalists, and MGM studio directors (Chagollan, ). Mary Zophres, the costume designer, also made the effort to match the character’s outfits to their real-life counterparts, while also taking note the strong reliance on technicolor as a way to combat the rise of television back then (Chagollan, ). Notable examples include, Scarlett Johansson’s aquatic scene ( video 1) having a resemblance to the 1950’s performances of the actress and swimmer, Esther Williams ( video 2), and the sailor musical number featuring Channing Tatum being compared to the 1950s entertainer, Gene Kelly (Hutchinson, 34-35). From the extravagant entrances, to the synchronized choreography, the Coen Brothers paired with their film crew wanted the musical sequences to match the past works of MGM, the studio known for having high-budget musicals and films.
Their production designer, Jess Gonchor, and his team mentioned having a wide array of information at their fingertips concerning 1950s Hollywood, since the movie set was in Los Angeles (Steven, ). Pertaining to costumes and set design, the Coen Brother’s apparent mantra for the visuals in Hail, Caesar! was to be as close to the actual 1950s as possible. Photo from: Universal Pictures ( ) The Set
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