Focus Questions (what you should be able to answer by the end) - How are film stocks and colour

used in the

film?
- How does this help to disrupt linearity? - How does the use of music develop the audiences awareness of the fictionality of the identities presented?

#3 Colour and Film Stocks

The film is very visually rich and Haynes is quite obsessive about the kinds of film that he uses for each sequence for the film and the colour choices he makes for each particular narrative.
Well go through each of the images that youve got in front of you to discuss: a) the timeline being represented b) the purpose/significance of colour/film stock

Colour and Film Stocks

Colour and Film Stocks

Colour and Film Stocks

Colour and Film Stocks

Colour and Film Stocks

Colour and Film Stocks

Colour and Film Stocks

Colour and Film Stocks

- what impact does this constant colour and stock change have on the viewer?
- how does it help to shift/change/challenge/undermine our relationship to any particular narratives/story lines?

Colour and Film Stocks

Each character clearly inhabits their own world that is differentiated from the other worlds that the film offers. It becomes an obvious marker or visual cue that helps to drop us straight back in to a particular characters world.
This is useful for a film like Hayness in that it makes the film easier to follow because there are distinctly different feels between worlds, which makes it more difficult to be confused.

Colour and Film Stocks

To an extent this is about disruption. The film becomes quite visually jarring as a consequence of the constant shifting between colour and film stocks across the film.
While this relies on editing (the shifting between timelines) it is also the sheer number of different colour environments and textures that Haynes uses that has this impact on the viewer. We are never allowed to settle with a particular figure, as any settling is usually quite quickly disrupted by a significant change in the visual style of a scene.

Colour and Film Stocks

As a technique, this helps to displace our connection to any fixed idea of Dylan. It is the editing that really does it (which we will deal with in detail), but colour is what makes it obvious.
It reinforces the idea of multiplicity in the film - multiple colour stocks comes to represent the multiple identities that the film embraces. There is no stability of style, i.e. the film has no stable colour identity, no stable texture (film stock), which we can discuss as representative of the films attitude towards identity.

Music
To a large extent, the use of Dylans music in the film when it sung by him, rather than a dubbed voice - can be interpreted to reinforce this idea of a distancing effect that undermines the truth of each characters identity. Well watch a few sequences that include Dylan songs sung by Dylan. Then well talk about the immediate impact of each song (how it comments on the scene) and then we can discuss the wider impact of the non-diegetic sound.

Non-Diegetic Music
The music reinforces what the title suggests - Dylan isnt there. The incorporation of his voice alongside characters that are meant to represent him help to point out the obvious what were seeing isnt Dylan. Dylan is the singer, he has a certain voice, and a certain look, and what were seeing on the screen is definitely not Dylan. It is a fictional construction of him.

And so a lot of the non-diegetic sound can be argued to be a representation of Dylans not-there-ness in the film -

Return to focus questions - How are film stocks and colour used in the film?

- How does this help to disrupt linearity?

- How does the use of music develop the audiences awareness of the fictionality of the identities presented?