Color In Ex Machina

F. Scott Fitzgerald uses color imagery in his novel, “The Great Gatsby” to convey themes and influence emotions. The color green is symbolic of Gatsby’s hopes and dreams. White represents Daisy’s pure, yet selfish mind. Lastly, the color yellow foreshadows wealth and decay. Humans unknowingly associate feelings with colors. The idea of color description is used by authors to set the mood or evoke certain emotions in the

Colors can invoke feelings for people. Certain colors are attached to moods. Red can represent anger, green sometimes represents envy and blue can represent calm or even melancholy. Much art, music, and literature is dependent on color to convey the intended mood of the artist. In the novel, The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby, a man with wealth, power, and possessions is on a quest for the dream that he will never attain. He cannot have all that he already has plus the true love of Daisy. Fitzgerald creates his own unique motifs surrounding certain colors and uses these colors to emphasize the futility in Gatsby’s quest for this dream. Through the use

Fitzgerald also uses colors for symbolism. The color white is used many times in the story. The author uses white to describe Gatsby's clothes and his mansion. The color white represents Gatsby's innocence and pure heart.

     F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of The Great Gatsby, uses symbolism throughout the novel to create the characters and events of the post World War I period. Colors are one way symbolism was used to develop the characters’ personalities and set up events. This is shown by colors like the green at the end of Daisy Buchannan’s dock, the color of Jay Gatsby’s car and how Myrtle and Jordan surrounded themselves by white. Other symbolisms used to set up events are the difference in the people of the West Egg and East Egg and the sign in the “valley of ashes”.

Colors have a remarkable ability to affect mood and emotions in everyday life. Usage of colors helps to convey certain feelings without any spoken words needed. Color is used throughout literature to communicate with the reader and to develop an atmosphere. In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald utilizes colors to symbolize specific characters and to inject a sense of emotion into scenes. There is an array of colors used throughout the novel, but the most prominent colors are white, black, and blue.

This was highlighted in the scene where Daisy and Gatsby reunite at Nick’s house. This use of symbolism was evident in the novel as it outlines that Gatsby was wearing “a white flannel suit, silver shirt and gold coloured tie”, all three colours symbolising wealth (Pg.81.). This was similar in the movie bar one exception, Gatsby’s tie was not gold but orange. This enabled Gatsby to symbolise his wealth while also symbolising his passion, desire and determination for Daisy through the use of orange. This relationship between this motif of colour and symbolism continued throughout this scene in the movie predominately with the colour green. In the movie Nick’s cardigan is green, his fireplace is green, some of the flowers are green, and everything around his cottage is green. All symbolising hope and vitality, showing that Nick and the meeting at his house sparked hope for Daisy and Gatsby’s relationship to perhaps bloom once again. This use of colour within the setting also allowed director Baz Luhrmann to add further meaning to that which was in the book. In the novel, however, there was no mention the colour of the flowers, nor did it make reference to the colour green besides the green light. This lack of symbolism in this part of the novel goes to show that symbolism is more prominent within the movie, allowing the movie to add further meaning and detail give the audience a better visualisation and understanding of the story

I think the designer chose to a concept of realism and simplicity because they did not want to take away from the message behind the play. The play has a strong message so as a costume designer it was probably very important to design clothes which would not take focus away from the message of the play, and realism and simplicity were key in doing that. There was definitely a color scheme of browns, olive greens, black, and grays. Most of the male costumes consisted of pants, ties, dressy button ups shirts, and jackets and the color scheme stayed the same in those outfits. Vivian was the only character who wore dresses out of the color scheme which included a red and floral dress. Also the last outfit wore by Jefferson consisted of a light blue shirt with jeans. I think the designer went with more colorful pieces at the end in order to portray a change in the character’s attitudes and to bring a sense of light and color to the triumphal

In “Ex Machina” Nathan informs Caleb that he will be testing an Artificial Intelligence. He has never faced A.I before, no one has, but the first time he meets Ava he treats her as if she was a machine. He seems completely surprised when she shows the ability to actually think and form her own thoughts and opinions. Just as Murdoch theorizes, instead of accepting the sublime as something that is impossible to fully understand, he is making connections with ideas he already possesses knowledge of, and in the case, Caleb is observing her as an advanced computer. Similarly, in “The Sparrow”, the crew discovers an alien song and begins to make assumptions about their technology, society, and even their emotions.

Although, Heathers (1988), falls under the category of the classic “teen movie”, its story suggests that it is much more than a teenage film. This film includes a little bit of all teen genres, subsequently creating the “non-classic” teen movie. The classic teenage film, typically deals with one of two subjects: the coming of age story, where the protagonists reaches a certain level of maturity by the conclusion, and the slasher, which typically involves a psychopathic killer and no one but the protagonist surviving. Although it involves the “psychopathic” killer and the protagonist does make it all the way to the ending credits alive and mature, unlike her antagonists, Heathers, by contrast also parodies the pursuit of popularity while taking

From these various excerpts from the novel, we (the readers) can observer both what Nathan looks like, as well as his personality. The first two quotes, describe Nathan visually. We can read that he is rather short, and dresses quite fancily (well he is forced to by his mother). The third quote is a rather interesting one since it was said about Nathan. Somewhat self-explanatory, yet it states that Nathan is not “normal” compared to the other kids his age.

The blue and white hues add an innocent factor to the characters while the neutrals give them a sense of traditional average people. Honest people that think about others before themselves and don’t intend on causing serious harm to the rest of the cast. During the duration of the movie the intensity of the colors used changed, the bold primary colors were displayed less in scenes. The transition was due to the problems and confusions in the plot coming to a conclusion.

Next is Brian. He is wearing a dark green with khaki pants. The color wheel shows that dark green represents ambition, greed, and jealousy. Next is Allison, who is wearing all black. Black sweater, black shirt, black skirt, and black shoes. Black is mostly associated with mystery.

The only time there is color the prison scenes is when he reads the bible and starts to fantasizing about the violence in the bible. In those scenes, the warm colors come back and Alex feel happy once again. After Alex is “cured” by the “ludovico technique”, most of the scenes turn into darker, colder colors, like blue, which symbolizes “depression” and “sadness” (Nassau). Alex lost his ability to act freely, specifically committing crimes, and to listen to “Beethoven’s 9th symphony”, the two things that brought him joy. So now he is depressed and suicidal.

A relationship between Nathan and Caleb was revealed throughout the film, Ex Machina, by the use of various language features including costume, camera work, and dialogue. The costume of Nathan and Caleb in the scene that they both meet each other for the first time tells us about their relationship that Caleb is there as a worker and helper for Nathan. Nathan is in a very comfortable exercise clothes and Caleb is in a very formal clothes. This implies that Nathan is quite relaxed, whereas Caleb is quite stressed because it is his first time of being there. On the next day, Caleb talks to Nathan about his first interview with Ava, an Artificial Intelligence (AI) that Nathan has created.

The colors in this film signify so much more than just clothes or landscape, colors seem to signify significant moments in Eilis’s life. I think that we all subconsciously wear certain colors when we are feeling a certain way, I know that even on some level we do it consciously, like for example when you go to a wedding you cannot wear white, or when you go to a funeral you usually wear black. Especially in a time like the 1950’s when women really only wore dresses, their only way of looking different would be to wear colorful dresses or the makeup on their faces.