The late 1990s had much to offer, and one of my favorites by far has to
be a young Johnny Depp. One of his most iconic movies of the 90ies was the Tim
Burton horror flick Sleepy Hollow: telling the story of a young constable sent out
of New York to solve a series of supernatural murders in the countryside. The
young constable is full of science and reason and suddenly doesn’t know what to
do when a real headless horseman is behind the murders and is stealing the
heads from his decapitated victims. This film is the perfect mix of scary,
suspense, and humor. Costarring with Depp are some major names in Hollywood including
a young Christiana Ricci, Miranda Richardson, Michael Gambon, Christopher
Walken, Richard Griffiths, and Christopher Lee. With such a killer cast and Tim
Burton as director, this is already a huge ethos appeal that draws me in no
matter the special effects.
However, Sleepy Hollow does have some wonderful special effects for a
film made in 1999. The biggest that I want to touch on this blog post is the
manipulation of color with makeup and video filters. In typical Tim Burton
style, all the colors have been darkened and it seems like the contrast has
been turned up on high. This really makes the fake blood pop in its intensity, making
it look almost orange in some places because of the sharp contrast between all the
monochrome characters and set.
Playing with the color palette gives this film most of its pathos and
logos appeal. As Giannetti says in Understanding
Movies “color tends to be a subconscious element in film. It’s strongly emotional
in its appeal, expressive and atmospheric rather than intellectual.” (Giannetti
22). The makeup that creates almost white faced characters gives a subconscious
sense of fear and distrust in the audience. A person that has no color in their
face seems sick or scared and this really resonates with the audience. That,
combined with the sudden outburst of vivid red blood creates shock and disgust.
The makeup, filters, and fake blood that allows Burton to toy with the color
scheme and really make characters look like “death warmed up” and this creates
a very strong pathos appeal.
It also creates a logos draw. Lunsford states in his book that “we
respect appeals to logos-argument based on facts, evidence and reason” (Lunsford
30). Logically speaking, when I started watching the movie, I saw that it was
dark and monochrome and that immediately gave me a sense of the genre of film I
was watching.
Ironically, this style has been so
used by Burton that it is now his trade mark and one of his films can be
spotted a mile away. So this style of color and the special effects required to
achieve this look has that ethos draw of prior experience with Burtons work and
what can be expected. Personally, this
not only gives me a great idea of what to expect from the movie (dark humor, a
good scare but not too much, a bittersweet ending) but makes me really want to
go see the film based on only that information.
The effects only serve to build
the image and world of Burtons imagination that allows the actors to create something
magic for the audience to enjoy. The makeup and color effects are subtle but if
they were removed would completely change the genre and feel of the film.
Therefore, I simply have to give this film and its effects 3 decapitated heads
out of 3.
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