Charles Bramesco's cinematic encyclopedic brain is in full throttle mode in Colors of Film: The Story of Cinema in 50 Palettes, this sizable collection of film essays -- accompanied by screenshots broken down by color. He delves into the history of color cinematography in all its Technicolor and Eastmancolor glory.

In 50 chronological profiles, he recounts the painstaking hand-tinting process used to make Méliès A Trip to the Moon soar in 1902. He zooms into the costume color-coding in Kurosawa's Ran. He explains the bleach bypass that gives Fincher's Se7en its drab, lifeless vibe. And he looks at the stark day/night contrast that George Miller presents in Max Max: Fury Road.


The casual moviegoer will come for the stunning visual breakdown of hues, but the true cineaste will stay for the smart, behind-the-scenes details about the ebbs and flows of cinema technology. It's hard to talk about cinematography in print form, but Bramesco gives it a distinct vividness as only he can.

First nonfiction book I’ve read in a while, and I loved it! I loved the use of colors next to the pictures from the movies, and the descriptions were great. I was happy to see a few of my favorites, and a few new movies to add to my watchlist. I do think that because each movie got the exact same amount of description, some descriptions suffered. Some felt like they were trying to say a lot in too small of a space, and others felt like they were trying to meet a word count when there wasn’t much to say.

The ultimate coffee table book for film lovers. This book is gorgeous, Every page is stunningly composed. It features a wide range of films and the write ups are super interesting and insightful.

A truly splendid exploration of the most important visual feature in cinema. Bramesco is one of the finest film writers working today.

This book is incredibly informative and covers a wide range of films, it’s a great read for any film fan!

I personally enjoyed reading about the use of colour in Spirited Away, Saw and A Trip to the Moon, which just goes to show the vast differences of films covered.

There was also a great selection of film stills to illustrate each film mentioned.

This absolutely gorgeous and informative book is a must read for any film fans! This book covers the history of colour in some of cinema's classics, and each entry on the history of the film is accompanied by stills from the film in question.

I absolutely loved reading this book. I was completely drawn into the topic and could not stop reading it.

This is a great book gift for the hardcore movie lovers in your life. Its both beautiful and educational. There aren't just pop culture favorites but the more obscure movies a true fan would know.

A minor complaint is that in the electronic version, some of the pictures are a little dull. Maybe the printed version is better.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC to review!

5 stars!

I'm a huge movie fan!! HUGE. But mostly I adore photography as I am a photographer, but onr thing I love more is cinematography. I love watching movies and seeing certain scenes that I adore. Usually this is because of how they are framed, certain filming techniques, but also colour.

I really enjoyed this. It was informative about each movie it featured in both about the movie and director, and how colour was used. I was so happy to see Vertigo!!!!! The use of colour and lighting techniques used in that movie are amazing and to see it featured and the use of colours used with Judy in the scene in the motel mentioned was great!

There's a great wide selection of movies featured that all have a wide scale of colours. The pictures of the movies along with their colour scales/codes included really make this a great read if movies/colours/cinematography is something you enjoy! :)