Color at the center: Minnelli's Technicolor style in 'Meet Me in St. Louis.' - Style in Cinema - filmmaker Vincente Minnelli

Style, Fall, 1998 by Scott Higgins

In actuality, seasonal accents do crop up in key episodes: yellow for summer, black and orange for fall, green and red during winter, and bright whites during spring. Some elements of decor change with the seasons, the Smith's draperies are bluish gray in summer, and deep red in fall and winter. But this is by no means a dominant principle of color design since each group of episodes offers a multitude of hues with special emphasis on blue, pink, red, and gold.

Like other directors of musicals, Minnelli makes color most active in the film's elaborate production numbers, "Skip to my Lou," and "The Trolley Song." Allowing Minnelli to marshal the film's most complex and assertive color schemes, these sequences feature intense mixtures of primaries and pastels. Though color is on display, the codes of harmony and emphasis remain in place. In the Trolley number, Minnelli manages to invert Kalmus's prescription that warm and bright shades should be carried by a scene's protagonist. Esther is clad in a black blouse, light blue gloves, and a low-value green and blue pleated taffeta skirt with a thin line of pink running through it. The outfit makes her the least colorful rider on a bright yellow trolley packed with extras in high-value pink, green, and blue [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 1 OMITTED]. This decision allows Minnelli to cram the frame with aggressive colors while ensuring that contrast always serves to highlight Esther's position. But even at its most audacious, the color design seeks to provide harmony. The elements of color that Esther does carry on her gloves and dress are carefully chosen to blend with the accents that surround her. The principles that call for color to anchor attention and offer pleasing harmonies are constantly at work in Meet Me in St. Louis, not the least in the most stylized production numbers.

While Minnelli brings forward the film's elaborate palette most forcefully in the musical numbers, he never really retreats from it to render a neutral background for action. Instead, through costumes and set dressing, he uses color details continually to embellish compositions and generate striking harmonies. In some cases the deployment of hue is used to guide spectator attention on a moment by moment basis while reinforcing coordination between costume and set. An example of how the film elaborates and emphasizes a standard Technicolor strategy can be found in the sequence where Esther and her siblings build snowmen and discuss the upcoming Christmas dance. Esther wears a deep blue overcoat, blue gloves with bright blue accents, and a deep red high-collar blouse. One of her snowmen features a bright blue parasol that echoes her gloves, and a green hat with a red tassel which matches her blouse. Another wears a red hat which also picks up her blouse. Similar splashes of color are repeated across costume and decor, lending the setting a particularly coordinated look. Keying the set to the star's color scheme helps center her as a point of attention. Meanwhile, deep in the background, Katie (Marjorie Main), the family maid, generates an eye catching dash of red with her hat. The accent draws attention to her presence, alerting us that she is listening to the exchange before she enters the conversation. Color primes us to expect that she will contribute to the action. This is a fairly standard ploy for tying color to the tasks of directing attention, but it stands out more forcefully because of the degree of contrast allotted by the film's palette.