So finally done with my 1674830th watching of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella (dir. Robert Iscove, 1997) and I have some FEELINGS about the color choices they made in this film and how it helped get across their central message.
This is a long one, so bear with me.
We first meet Cinderella in the village, which is BURSTING with color from the walls of the shops to the clothes of the villagers to the boxes Cinderella is holding.
Cinderella herself, though, almost stands out in the village in her browns and muted reds.
During “The Sweetest Sounds,” we see that the prince is also wearing those exact same colors during his “undercover” excursion into the village. They both are feeling trapped and are trying to blend in and settle for being someone they’re not, just in different ways.
Cinderella’s stepfamily, on the other hand, are wearing very brightly colored outfits. And when they get back from the village, we see that they live in a similarly brightly colored house. There’s brightly colored tiles on the walls of the stairs, all the furniture is brightly colored, there’s flowers and baubles and colorful feathers everywhere.
But during “In My Own Little Corner,” we see that the kitchen, where Cinderella spends most of her time and is most comfortable, is mainly browns and some muted reds. There’s a few greens spotted here and there in a fruit bowl and things like that, but you have to look for them. And Cinderella herself dresses in effectively the same colors, browns and muted reds/pinks. So she disappears into her kitchen haven but she stands out like a sore thumb in the brightly colorful areas of the rest of the house.
The palace meanwhile, is also colorful, though it tends more towards purple and rich dark reds to signify their royalty. The Prince will dress in purples to match his parents and be who they want him to be, despite how stifling he finds it.
The kitchen gains more colors during the reprise of “In My Own Little Corner” when Cinderella is once again attempting to retreat to her little haven where she pretends her life is tolerable, but her dreams of entering the real world and actually being able to be herself kept intruding on her. There’s even blue light coming in from outside when before the light was more yellow/orange, probably indicating the outside help of the Fairy Godmother that’s about to appear.
And of course, she only gets her beautiful blue ballgown after she decides to actually accept her godmother’s help and go to the ball. She moves from the brown kitchen to the colorful outside, proving she’s making the choice to go against orders and do something about what she wants. Her brown and red clothes are literally magicked away and turned into a resplendent colorful dress while surrounded by colorful flowers and the front of the house.
During the ball scene, the Prince is immediately recognizable in a white top, signifying how out of place and uncomfortable he is amongst a sea of blue and purple, people indistinguishable from each other, both to him and the audience.
The stepsisters clash with the Prince in their neon green and pink gowns, but Cinderella compliments him with her light blue gown, immediately matching the very subtle light blue vest he has on underneath his jacket. Cinderella and the Prince are able to stand out from the crowd and be themselves while still being PART of the ball. The stepsisters by contrast are playing a part their mother has told them to play and disrupt the entire ball to the point that when Cinderella arrives, several people have fallen to the floor in the commotion.
After the clock strikes midnight and Cinderella and the Prince are separated, we get THIS:
Warm and cold tones highlighting their differences. Cinderella is back in her browns, back to feeling like she has to hide herself away and can’t fit in, can’t find love or belonging. Her transformation into confidence was only temporary, she doesn’t truly believe yet fully that she can have what she wants. The Prince, however, is 100% there. He’s fully invested in Cinderella and finding love, he’s got the confidence now to go after what he wants, to be the kind of Prince HE wants to be and that starts with finding the woman of his dreams.
During “A Lovely Night” Cinderella, for the first time we’ve seen, tries to fit into the colorful house with her stepfamily, utilizing what’s left of her courage and confidence from earlier. And she nearly succeeds, but she’s still always in her brown rags, she never truly belongs with them, no matter how much she tries to keep convincing herself she does, no matter how hard she tries to honor her last promise to her father to stay together as a family, she does not belong there and never will.
She always gets overshadowed by her stepsisters and her stepmother. And after she’s shot down once again by her stepmother, she goes to her haven, where her stepsisters’ things are waiting for her to put away, the only spots of color in the room except for some blue light coming from the window. She immediately turns around and goes outside, to the world of color and possibilities, to finally say that she knows she deserves better and deserves to be loved and so she can’t stay here the way she promised her father. She doesn’t have any hope of being able to be with the Prince, but she’s gotten to the first step towards freedom.
Back at the palace, the Prince is now FULL of color, but instead of a bunch of purples and dark reds like his parents wear, he’s got a bright blue coat on.
He’s embracing his responsibility and his destiny, no longer pretending to be someone he’s not, but he’s also going to do it HIS way. He won’t settle for a half life.
And, of course, at the end, when Cinderella and the Prince are dressed all in white for their wedding day, everyone else dresses in white to match THEM, and the stepfamily is still dressed in full bright colors and now THEY’RE the ones who don’t fit in.
The color schemes in the film are leading us towards the message of the film that you can’t truly get what you want from the world until you actively go after it instead of just dreaming about it and accept who you are instead of trying to settle for being who someone else wants you to be.
Just thought it was both a visually and mentally beautiful message.
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