The Colour Red in the Movies

The colour red is a big colour to use in the movies. Usually representing anger or passion. While it is not an unusual colour to use, unlike green, it is often only used sparingly, maybe only a single splash of colour, one object or one scene perhaps.  

We Need To Talk About Kevin uses the colour red throughout the film, so much red in fact it is uncomfortable, which is intentional, red represents a multitude of emotions from guilt to fear to anger and also danger and blood.  

In American Beauty red is used to represent lust and desire.

The visually stunning The Fall puts colour, costume and location to great use. The main character is called the Red Bandit so he likes red, but this giant dramatic piece of white cloth soaked in red represents blood. 

In this scene from Silence Of The Lambs red is used as a dominance, to highlight how small, vulnerable and different Clarice is in comparison to her towering male  colleagues. 

The use of colour in Moulin Rouge gives us coded shortcuts as to the emotions of the scene. Obviously the word red is in the title of the film so there is a lot of it about. In this scene represents warmth and happiness, but it also represents love, lust and death at certain points too.

In Schindlers List the little girl in the red coat is the only use of colour in the film. She represent innocence and horror at the same time. 

The use of red and green (opposites on the colour wheel) are plentiful in Amelie, a rare use of red to represent a homely sort of warm happiness. It also puts the stark uses of blue into high contrast. 

All of Nicolas Winding Refn’s movies make fantastic use of light and The Neon Demon is no exception, red definitely represents danger.

There is always going to be red in a vampire movie because of blood, and Bram Stokers Dracula (1992) is no exception, Draculas red suit of armor is pretty iconic, so much so that Dracula Untold uses a red suit of armor too. It is pretty scary because it is red and looks like flesh and muscle and represents life. 

There is a lot of the colour red used in the movie Her, it is used to both represent Theodores emotions, he is happy when wearing red. In contrast to other films set in the future that are often very clean, white and blue colours are used whereas in Her the future is coloured red and very warm in contrast.