Aesthetics of Plausibility and Discomfort
in Filmic Dystopia
An Analysis of the TV Adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale
Supervisor: prof. dr. M. (Misha) Kavka Second Reader: dr. S.M. (Sudeep) Dasgupta
Submitted: 28/06/2019
Introduction...2
1. Framing...5
1.1. First-person Narration & Flashbacks...5
1.2. Point-of-view...12
1.3. Close-up...15
2. Lighting and Colour...23
2.1. Lighting...23
2.2. Colour...31
3. Sound and Music...39
3.1. Silence in Gilead...39
3.2. Pop Music...41
3.3. Voice-Over...45
Conclusion...50
Introduction
Dystopian fiction has existed and been developing for over a century now, either in literature or film. The genre of dystopia has come into being a little after the Russian Revolution and one of the earliest dystopian works is the book We by Yevgeny Zamyatyn in the early 1920’s. Zamyatyn’s novel is considered to be greatly inspired by the politics of the time and has been seen as an insightful commentary on the establishment of the Soviet Union in 1917. In subsequent decades, many novels set in dystopian futures followed such as Brave
New World by Aldous Huxley (1932) and George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949).
These exemplary novels kicked off the dystopian genre and have become best-sellers and great inspirations for many more dystopian scenarios in the past century. Today, it seems that the genre of dystopia is being met with great success, as there are numerous dystopian books published each year, film adaptations and of course, TV shows with narratives specifically set in futuristic dystopian societies. One of them is Margaret Atwood’s, The Handmaid’s Tale, a novel that was published several years after the aforementioned works by Orwell and Huxley, in 1985.Recently, it has become a best-seller once again, 30 years after its first publication thanks to the TV adaptation produced by Hulu, in 2017. The success of the TV adaptation not only has drawn many people who were not familiar with Atwood’s novel, into buying the book and reading the original story that inspired the TV series, but has also contributed to the resurgence of many already existing fans’ interest in reading the story once more.
The term dystopia was originally coined by John Stuart Mill, a philosopher and a strong supporter of utilitarianism and liberalism. He used the term in one of his Parliamentary speeches in the House of Commons in 1868, while disapproving of the government’s Irish land policy. “What is commonly called Utopian is something too good to be practicable; but what they [the government] appear to favour is too bad to be practicable” (Mills qtd. in Trahair 110) It derives from the Ancient Greek prefix "dys" ("δυσ-"), which translates to something bad, and “topos” (τόπος), which means place. From Mill’s statement, we understand it as the exact opposite of the word utopia, which means no (ου in Ancient Greek) place, suggesting somewhere so ideal that we can only fantasize about it. Dystopia as a theme falls under the category of speculative fiction in an attempt to create an emotional impact to the reader or viewers by reflecting concerns of their present in a not-so-distant future. The case of The Handmaid’s Tale depicts a world where the fertility rates have dropped low and only a few women are able to give birth to healthy children. The United Sates, in their effort to
solve the danger of a possible future extinction create the theocratic, totalitarian society of Gilead, in which these few fertile women that are left, the so-called handmaids, are forced into reproductive slavery in order to bear the elite’s children. The elite consists of the Commanders and their infertile wives. All handmaids are assigned to different homes, where they are renamed after their Commanders’ first name and obliged to undergo a ritualized rape every month and carry babies for their infertile families. The Wives have no agency and their duty is to be loyal and supportive companions to their husbands. The rest of the society is also segmented according to their function. So, alongside the handmaids, the Commanders and the Wives, have the Marthas, who work as housekeepers; and the Econowives, who are not as often seen in the TV adaptation but are the infertile women of the lower classes. A very important role for this regime is played by the Aunts, who are the powerful and very dominant women who indoctrinate the Handmaids and train them for their new functions in the society. The rest of the women, who have minimal to no agency and have no use in the society, are the Unwomen, are sent to work in the Colonies, where they clean toxic waste until their death. All these categories are identifiable because all women wear a uniform of a specific colour to indicate their function and position in Gilead.
Of course, in a totalitarian regime, not only women are categorized and oppressed. Men are reduced to different functions, too. Only the Commanders are in the top of the hierarchy and have control of the regime. Below these men is the category of the Eyes, the secret “police” who watch over the society and ensure that everyone is following their function. Last in this hierarchy are the husbands of the Econowives, who, like their wives, have no agency in this society.
The Handmaid’s Tale is, as the title describes, the story of a handmaid, June, which is
presented by her point of view. She narrates her life before the rise of Gilead, as a working mother to her daughter, Hanna, and a wife to her husband, Luke, as well as her life in Gilead, as a handmaid with a new name – Offred (of Fred) – forced into reproduction. June’s narration becomes crucial to the viewer as it becomes a window for the viewer to see the repression of a woman in a society and her existence only as a cog in the machine of societal function. Gileadean people’s concern is the extinction of their species because of infertility. However, the story speaks mostly to viewer’s anxieties about the repression of women’s rights and how close we might be to a totalitarian state.
Sarah Cardwell argues that ‘TV programmes have been evaluated more often on the basis of their representations and effects, their ideological and social implications, rather than their artistic achievements’ (75). However, I believe that this statement is a little outdated and
does not apply anymore – at least not so strictly – to the TV shows that are produced nowadays because many of them have an increased cinematic aesthetic and it is precisely this cinematic aesthetic that I believe The Handmaid’s Tale has that makes it so successful and powerful enough. Although the narrative of The Handmaid’s Tale, manages to create an impactful emotional response to the reader, the TV show is the one that have got under the audience’s skin because of the aesthetics. According to an article on The Guardian, “even for those who have read the book, there is something raw and new in seeing Atwood’s tale on screen” (Cain). Cain, in her article, suggests that is it the fact that the TV adaptation goes a little bit ‘off-book’ that makes it so successful. It is adding all the necessary details to demonstrate how a future like this could actually happen (Cain). But, it is these narrative details in combination with the aesthetic details that create more impactful. My work on this thesis departs from precisely these details, these technical components and ways in which the show is put together, because I believe that it is those that make us so uncomfortable and so anxious about a similar dystopian plausibility in the future.
In the following chapters, I will carry out an aesthetic analysis of The Handmaid’s
Tale, exploring the cinematic techniques that contribute to the building of the filmic
dystopia1. The first chapter will focus on framing, where I will examine the camera
placement and movement as well as the way characters are positioned in the frame in order to comprehend their connection to the future plausibility of this world. Subsequently, I will analyse how lighting and colour work together in order to visually and aesthetically enhance the discomfort of the filmic dystopia. Moving on, in the third chapter I will analyse the sound, music and the voice-overs and I will demonstrate how these three find ways to describe the political restrictiveness of the world of Gilead. In the end, I wish to understand specifically, how all these components work towards the creation of this dystopian, totalitarian world, in which we believe it could plausibly happen, and precisely because we believe in it, we, as viewers, become so uncomfortable and upset by it.
1 I specifically use the terms ‘filmic’ and ‘cinematic’ for a TV series, in many occasions throughout the thesis because I believe that these two could fit to a broader discussion on a series that carries more cinematic characteristics than televisual because of its increased cinematic aesthetic.
1.
Framing
Framing is the way the filmmaker places an object or a character within a video frame (Compessi 68) and it is one of the most important components of cinematography as it ‘actively defines the image for us’ and the way we perceive it (Bordwell& Thompson 226).
The Handmaid’s Tale’s filmmakers meticulously construct the framing in a way that directly
impacts the audience. Throughout the show, the viewers are repeatedly exposed to images that might seem uncomfortable to watch because in these images they see a reflection of their world as it could plausibly be in the future and the way these images are framed make this plausibility so successful. The cinematographers manage to frame the world of Gilead and the repressed characters in it in a way that we, as viewers, identify with these characters. We put ourselves in the position of them and their world almost becomes our world. In this chapter, I will examine at all the framing techniques that are used as tools for identification and hence, plausibility. First and foremost, I argue that the first-person narration and perspective in which the show is shot, makes the tale quite more personal and brings the viewers close to the protagonist and her struggle and makes them relate to her in a way. Secondly, I draw attention to the verité style in which the protagonist’s memories of her past are shot and I specifically want to emphasize on these memories, these flashbacks to the protagonist’s past life because these are the ones with the most plausibility to our world. In addition to these, I argue that the intense close-ups, in combination with the long takes and the point-of-view shots become the most important tools of identification with the disempowered characters and transmit this discomfort that accounts for the impact of the filmic dystopia. Last but not least, I argue that the depth of field plays a critical role in every frame as it evokes the feeling of oppression in the show.
1.1. First-person Narration & Flashbacks
I begin with the flashbacks to the life before the rise of Gilead because these are the ones that carry the most plausibility because of the way they are shot. The character’s past is framed in a way that resembles the viewers’ present. Therefore, the viewer, being exposed to these images in the flashbacks, feels the fear that the characters’ present in Gilead could plausibly become their future.
In The Handmaid’s Tale we get an understanding of the world of Gilead from June’s subjective perspective, as the whole series are represented in first-person narration2from the
protagonist. The pilot episode starts with a woman driving away with her husband and young daughter. They are apparently being chased by some gunmen and the woman and her daughter are captured, while at the same time her daughter is taken away and we hear gunshots in the background, presuming that her husband has been killed. The pilot episode and its opening scene carry so much importance as they capture the attention of the audience. We start to feel the need to understand why was this woman chased, by whom was she and her family chased, why was her daughter taken. In the next scene, we see the same woman, in a room, wearing clothes that do not seem to match the modern age that she is into, and her voice over reveals that we are about to hear her story. This story does not come in a fully chronological order, but rather in fragments. We as viewers see her present life, after being captured but her present is in many cases interrupted by various sets of flashbacks and fragments of her past life which we presume as before the establishment of Gilead. We get to see her meeting with Luke, which evolved into a relationship and then, evolved into a happy marriage with a daughter, Hannah – the same two characters we saw in the opening scene being chased. We also see her friendship and strong bond with Moira, her best friend, having fun, smoking and drinking at parties, and being free like we viewers are in the present day. We also get to know June’s mother, Holly, a devoted second-wave feminist and committed supported of women’s rights. Of course, we do not only get to see just the life of June with her close ones. These flashbacks show the slow and steady establishment of Gilead in ways so subtle but alarming for Holly who seems in many occasions disappointed at her daughter for not agreeing with her point of view. There are small scenes where Holly discusses these governmental changes that did not really favour women – changes that we would later find out to be the preparation for the Republic of Gilead – and June seemed indifferent. When she and other women were finally alarmed too and attempted to flee with their families from the country, it was already too late. The Republic of Gilead became a fully implemented plan.
All these flashbacks that narrate June’s life in the past are very important aesthetically. Reed Morano, the director of The Handmaid’s Tale has said in an interview;
When we go into flashbacks it’s this romantic, vérité, handheld style, where the characters share the frame with each οther more often. The freedom of our society
2The first-person narration is an element that the novel has and it was constituted as important to
is in its diversity. We can wear what we want, say what we want, listen to what we want. (qtd. in Marcks)
There are two particular things that stand out in what Morano expresses; The first is the sharing of the frame and the second is the verité style of shooting.
In the life before Gilead, the camera keeps some distance from the characters and allows us to view them in a way that fills the frame very comfortably. The following figures are exemplary frames from a scene in episode 5 of season 1.
Figure 1
Figure 2
The scene shows us the day June meets Luke for the first time. She and her best friend, Moira, stand by a hot-dog canteen, sharing some laughs while scrolling through a dating app.
Luke happens to be standing nearby and Moira initiates a conversation. The happiness is evident in all of their faces, unlike the expressions that we later see in their faces in Gilead. There are some close-ups of June’s face (figure 2), when she flirtatiously smiles at Luke, but in most frames close-ups are avoided. The framing tends to be open and relaxing to watch as it allows space for more than one person to fit in it (figure 1). We can see their authentic smiles drawn on their faces. This kind of framing emphasizes the freedom the characters shared before Gilead: the freedom to speak to a stranger if they feel it like without restrictions of how they speak or what they are speaking about; the freedom to use a dating app to meet a new partner, rather than being posted in homes as objects or properties of somebody else. Hey stand careless and live their lives without thinking of how all of these simple freedoms could – and will be – taken away from them.
The flashbacks are shot with a different cinematography than the scenes in Gilead present. The verité style Morano uses provides an impression of reality. The word itself, traces, which its roots back in the 1960s and the French New Wave cinema, translates from French to “true cinema”. The verité style sought to “record events more directly and with less intrusion into those events by the production process that have formerly been thought possible – or felt necessary” (O’Connell xi). For Roe Armes (1966) cinema verité acts as a “rejection to the whole aesthetic in which the art of the cinema is based. An interesting visual style and striking beautiful effects are rejected as a hindrance to the portrayal of the vital truth” (Armes qtd. in Hassard & Holliday 43).I believe that it is precisely this preference for realism that makes the viewer perceive these scenes as very similar to their present. If these scenes were more coated with effects or gloomy colours – which are often used by filmmakers to indicate memories of the past - in the post-production process, the impact of them would not the same after all. An addition of more effects would sacrifice the reality of the atmosphere in the altar of a more cinematic look. The viewer, eventually, would perceive the scene as something rather imaginary or like a scenario that could only unfold in a movie but not in their distant future. In a way, the rejection to the visual effects contributes to the plausibility of it all, making the filmic dystopia more like a possible in the future concept rather than a fantastic or imaginary. In episode 3 of season 1, we travel back in June’s memory to a protest for women’s rights. This is a protest so needed for her and for many women, exactly like her, who lost their job and bank accounts in just one day. Images of the people protesting in the show (figure 3-5) recall images from the Women’s March in 2017 in Washington (figure 6).
Figure 3
Figure 4
Figure 6
The flashbacks to this protest are shot in a very realistic style. There is a lot of camera movement that makes it feel almost as if a cameraman films an actual protest or as if there is a simple protestor recording the event on their phone or camera alongside the other furious people. In addition to that, the colour has not undergone any change in the post-production and the filmmakers decided to keep it as untouched as possible, to convey this more natural and realistic effect that cinema vérité. Although there is a lack of long shots, even the close shots among the protestors reminisces a lot photos from real-life protests (figure 6) when they are juxtaposed next to each other. In combination with the narrative, the scenes become even more raw. In the show, the police start firing at people, as the camera follows the protestors running for their life. It is at this point, then, that we start to fear of all the things that could have gone wrong in a real-life protest and we start to wonder, what if innocent people were killed in an actual protest too.
One of the key elements of the show, which is used in the flashbacks repeatedly is the lack of information the women are forced into. The government slowly is taking a new form, establishing a system that excludes women from most of necessary rights they used to consider existing in their lives de facto – working, owning a bank account, read or write – and most of them do not realize where these radical changes are leading up to until very late. This is because the Republic of Gilead came to exist after a series of internal societal changes that the characters could not grasp yet. This is where the depth of field in the frame comes to contribute to a more powerful image by strengthening the message of the lack of information and unawareness. The depth of field, defined as ‘the degree of focus available within a
specific camera’ (Lerych 8), determines what is visible within our range of focus and what is not. Reed Morano and Colin Watkinson, the cinematographer of the show, created an extremely concentrated aesthetic using specific lenses that make the depth of field very narrow. This means that what the viewer sees in focus appears very sharp, but everything around it is a blur. In the flashbacks, we notice a constant use of shallow focus. Moving image analyst Evan Puschak, in his video, interprets this as an indication that both the world of Gilead and the world before it suffer from limited perspective. Interestingly, he adds that “in Gilead, perspective is limited by force, but in our world, perspective is limited by choice. We keep our heads down, eyes glued to the screen, stuck in our echo chambers, while the blurry world around us changes” (00:04:20-00:04:33).This comes as a shock to the viewer who comes to the realization that their whole world could alter to an uncomfortable dystopian reality, in such a little time and they would not be able to recognize it in time if they do not pay more attention to even the smallest changes around them. Puschak essentially then suggests that all these changes that escalated to the creation of Gilead and made this brutal world possible could be obvious enough, but only for someone who has been paying attention beyond their span of focus.
When watching June’s flashbacks, we inevitably feel that minor changes might happen in our society too and it will be too late for us to react before we notice. This effect mostly happens because June’s past life is presented as very similar to our life as it is now. Jessica Valenti describes that what makes the show terrifyingly plausible is the fact that what we see happening in June’s flashbacks does not really differ from our lives:
We don’t have to be in full-Gilead to understand that we already live in a misogynist nightmare. American women may not be handmaids, but we are still living in a country where conservative politicians would mandate forced pregnancy. Where women are sentenced to decades in prison for ending their pregnancies. Where a man who believes 25% of the female population should be executed is being hailed as a “singular talent” and “rigorous thinker”.
The recent passing of Alabama’s abortion bill in 2019 (summarized in Kelly),which restricts the procedure of abortion in almost all cases – rape and/or incest included – outragedmany people, especially women who inevitably have made connections to The
Handmaid’s Tale. Protesters even dressed in the distinctive red dresses and white bonnets
about these changes, thinking, What if these are the small signs June could not wake up early enough to see? What if we are also heading slowly and steadily to a dystopian place like this? What if another protest will end up like the one in the show? Many could find the creation of a place like Gilead impossible, but still, The Handmaid’s Tale has successfully made several people fear such a plausibility precisely because of the way it is framed.
1.2. Point-of-view
June’s life in Gilead, now renamed as Offred, under Commander Fred, is still part of her own narration. Therefore, there is a heavy use of point-of-view shots which puts the viewer in her shoes. The placement of the camera lens as the character’s eyes is one way to entirely immerse the viewer in Gilead and help them see from the perspective of an repressed character. This is a common technique in dystopias that address the issue of oppression. Namely, cinematographer Gonzalo Amat uses the point-of-view in the production of The
Man in the High Castle, a show that also portrays a story of oppression in a dystopian
scenario. The Man in the High Castle represents the world as it would be like - or at least as the writers imagined it to be like – if the outcome of World War II had been different and Nazi Germany had won. For Amat, in such a scenario, the viewer gets to discover this dark world through the characters’ eyes. Therefore, point-of-view shots are a key component for his visualization. The dark atmosphere of dystopia is heightened when it is experienced almost as the characters experience it.
The Handmaid’s Tale uses point-of-view shots in a similar way to enhance the
protagonist’s limited perspective. Such shots draw attention to the visual limitation of the character and, consequently, to the viewer. One of the multiple examples of such limitation occurs in the last episode of season one, in which Offred bears a child for Commander Waterford and his wife Serena. In earlier episodes, Offred has repeatedly tried to break the rules and even attempted to escape with ‘Serena’s’ baby. Offred until this moment has not seen her first daughter, Hannah - whom she had before the rise of Gilead - since the day she was captured and moved to the Red Centre to be trained as a handmaid. Often, Offred refers to Hannah, wondering about her life, if she is ever going to see her again, if she even remembers her mother. Serena in this episode uses Hannah to place pressure on Offred and threaten to harm her own child if she is not careful with Serena’s baby. She takes Offred to where Hannah is, but leaves her locked her inside the car, making her unable to touch or
speak to her. From the inside of the car, we see Offred desperately screaming to go to Hannah and repeatedly trying to her a glimpse of her (figures 7 and 8).
Figure 7
Figure 8
The way the frames are edited together in this case also make a big impact for the viewer. We are constantly changing frames between Offred’s restricted point-of-view of Serena with Hannah, and close-ups of her anxious face, but nothing more than this. This cut between these types of shots is what Carl Plantinga describes as a scene of empathy. He defines this as a scene where:
We see a character’s face, typically in close-up, either for a single shot of long duration or as an element of a point-of-view structure, alternating between shots of the character’s face and shots of what he or she sees. (Plantinga 239)
For Plantinga, such shots do not just communicate information about the character in the frame but are mostly ‘intended to elicit empathetic emotions to the spectator’ (Plantinga 239).Indeed, in the example of Offred in the car, inevitably the viewer feels empathy for June. Maybe this is an unconscious reaction, but during this scene the viewer feels something similar to her when she is sharing her point of view. What we, as viewers, can see is her
reactions and feelings through her strong, emotional facial expressions, and we see all of that, but solely from her perspective. The camera lens is used as Offred’s eyes and, therefore, we stay locked in the car with her watching the conversation of Serena and Hannah unfold behind the car window and its curtains, without having any clue about the nature of that conversation. The close-up of this shot of Offred’s face is intense enough to create intimacy and help us empathize with her, feel the pain of a mother screaming and begging to re-connect with her child, but it is also tight enough to create claustrophobic feelings and a sense of confinement and imprisonment. This confinement is highlighted by the limited vision in Offred’s point-of-view. There are some bars in front of her (figure 8), restricting her view, and although the camera could have been placed in front of them to capture Serena with Hannah, the result would not have been the same. If the camera was placed in front of the bars, we would have visual access to Serena’s and Hanna’s conversation and hence, we would not have felt limited or claustrophobic. Better yet, if the camera did not stay at all with Offred inside the car, and followed the two characters discussing, we would have full access to the conversation, the suspense would be lost and we would not be able to see Offred’s reaction to it. With the shot of empathy, the emphasis is put to Offred and her feelings at the moment, rather than the two other characters’ and what they are saying. The feeling of oppression wouldn’t have been underlined without the limited visibility. The restricted vision along with the claustrophobic confinement that we get from watching this scene unfold are vital as they enhance the same feelings to the viewer. The point-of-view, in combination with the close-ups, capture Offred’s actual captivity and confinement and progresses it to our visual confinement too.
A further distinctive aspect of the use of the point-of-view is that, in a sense, it almost becomes a narrative tool that helps us understand the character’s inner thoughts without having to listen to them speak their mind out loud. Though Offred, as well as the rest of the handmaids, cannot speak up or express themselves freely, their inner thoughts and motives are ‘loud’ enough for us to understand them just through the camera framing and the point-of-view shots. One of the few examples in the show in which we can get a glimpse of Offred’s inner thinking and motivations, through the use of the point-of-view, is in season 1 episode 5. Offred comes back to the Commander’s house from the daily walk to the grocery store. His wife Serena is at home, painting. In response to Serena’s question about her well-being, Offred responds affirmatively but the point-of-view camera lens, and thus her eyes, focus on Serena’s gardening shears (figure 10). Her words - “I’m fine” - and her smile are in
contrast with her thoughts at this moment (figure 9), which are betrayed by her looking at the gardening shears.
Figure 9
Figure 10
Offred clearly considers making a move for the gardening shears to stab her captor, because what she looks at allows the viewers to understand what is in her mind. The use of shallow focus plays again an important role here. The camera does not just centre on the shears. In fact, it focuses on them while part of Serena’s face, which is also in the lower right part of the frame, drops out of focus. Thus, the point-of-view is systematically used to allow us viewers inside Offred’s inner thoughts as an imprisoned person, while the shallow focus remains as an indicator of the constant confined perspective of Offred and her oppressed position in the world of Gilead.
In the previous example, the scene was intensified with the combination of the close-ups. Reed Morano has expressed that it is important to get into the character’s head and visualize what they feel in order to better present this in a frame (Moranoqtd. in O’Falt). One of the particular trademarks of the show’s cinematography techniques is the close-up this is especially intriguing because what he spectator sees, in most parts of the show, is a face. Like the point-of-view shot, Morano adds visual immediacy to the dystopia by the productive use of the close-up as a correlative to the privileged access granted by the novel’s first-person narrator. The book is written consistently in the first person, and when the story was transferred to the screen, there was a necessity to keep the same immediacy and intimacy of the first-person narration there too. The close-up was one way to do so.
Cinematographers Christopher J. Bowen and Roy Thompson, in their book Grammar
of the Shot, define the close-up as “the intimate shot” (8). This is the kind of shot that
“provides a magnified view of some person, object, or action. As a result, it can yield rather specific, detailed information to the viewer” (Bowen & Thompson 8). According to them, an intimate shot “puts the audience directly in the face of the subject — because every detail of the face is highly visible, facial movements or expressions need to be subtle — very little head movement can be tolerated before the subject moves out of frame” (19). This means that even the slightest facial movement or expression could be captured so intensely and will be impossible for the viewer not to notice. But, at the same time this is important, because each of these movements and expression can convey so much meaning. In the case of The Handmaid’s Tale, the viewer comes to observe at an intimate proximity the spectacle of the characters’ face and expressions, while at the same time the character’s face, serving as a mirror, can help the viewer identify with what they see. Morano achieves precisely this when using the close-ups. These shots bring the viewer uncomfortably close to the character so as to put them into the experience of filmic dystopia, too. Morano says, “One of the ways I always thought we’d visualize that was by putting the camera physically closer to her for her close-ups, but on a wider lens because it feels a little bit more uncomfortable and there’s something a little bit more unsettling about that. It makes the audience close the person in much more uncomfortable way.” (qtd. in O’Falt).In an interview with Indie Wire, Morano speaks about one of her favourite close-ups to shoot and she describes the one of Ofglen, waking up and realizing she has been genitally mutilated. Ofglen is accused of being a gender traitor3 and she is genitally mutilated as a punishment for having a homosexual
3This is how the homosexuals are referred to in Gilead. Their punishment for them is usually death by hanging, unless the woman who is accused of being one is fertile, in which case she receives a brutal punishment that still protects her function of carrying a baby.
affair in the homophobic world that is Gilead. As Francesco Bacci puts it, “she does not respect their hetero-normative vision, so she must endure the loss of her own gender identity” (162).
In this particular scene, Ofglen wakes up in what appears to be a hospital room, with her genital area covered in bandages. In the previous scenes, the viewer sees her face not only during the court’s decision about her and her punishment, but also her reaction to her lover’s execution by hanging. Ofglen must now to come to terms with the awful truth behind the bandages on her body. Her feelings progress in order, and the viewer experiences all of them one by one: the realization, her effort to accept the truth, which is followed by her anger and terror about what has happened to her and her pain, which climaxes with her scream (figure 11-15).
Figure 11
Figure 13
Figure 14
Figure 15
Morano explains that in this specific scene she did not want to follow the book’s story and make Ofglen seem simply distressed. On the contrary, her goal was to move the actor through a series of emotions. As she says,
Basically, I was holding the camera, operating because it was such an intimate moment, and after Ann Dowd left the frame, I had the camera on [Alexis Bledel] and was talking her through it. She was basically going through all of the [emotional] realizations of what just happened to her, the acknowledgement, feeling physically sick. (Morano qtd. in Yuan)
In this manner, the viewer is not simply faced with an upset character. Rather, the close-ups allow us to follow her emotional reactions to her mutilation and feel the same disgust and hatred that her facial expressions reveal.
For the scholar Amy Coplan, close-ups are also correlated to emotional contagion (2006). Psychologists Elaine Hatfield, John Cacioppo, and Richard Rapson define emotional contagion as ‘the tendency to automatically mimic and synchronize expressions, vocalizations, postures, and movements with those of another person, and, consequently, to converge emotionally’ (5). Philosopher Max Scheler expands on this notion and describes emotional contagion as ‘emotional infection’ which happens automatically, unintentionally, uncontrollably and without conscious awareness of this process while it is happening (15-16). To better demonstrate this process, Coplan uses as an example the opening scene of Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill Vol. 1 with a close-up on a woman’s face (figure 16).
Figure 16
We know nothing about this woman or her circumstances except what shows on her face: she has been badly beaten, she struggles for breath, she trembles with fear and pain, and she is looking around, anxious and afraid. In spite of the absence of cues regarding the narrative situation, we cannot help but begin to mirror the woman’s fear and anxiety, as the fixed camera stays on her face, cutting away only once and then quickly returning to the close-up of her face that continues uninterrupted for another seventy-seven seconds. (Coplan 29-30)
In shots like this, the viewer inevitably identifies with the character on screen and experiences this immediate affective response the feelings of the character. A similar response happens to the viewer when watching the big close-ups of The Handmaid’s Tale.
Let us use the same example Morano stated as her favourite. In the scene of Ofglen, we inevitably put ourselves in her shoes. We feel the same emotions of anger, fear, despair we would also feel if we were in the same situation as Ofglen.
Carl Plantinga and Greg Smith take this further and add that longer duration of such shots allow even more time for mimicry, feedback mechanisms and empathy (239). According to them, “the prolonged duration on the character’s face is not warranted by the simple communication of information about character emotion. Such scenes are intended to elicit empathetic emotions to the spectator” (239). In shots of longer duration, we automatically mimic some of what we see being experienced on the character’s face (Platinga& Smith 239). In other words, the emotional identification with the disempowered character in The Handmaid’s Tale is not a product of framing alone but also involves temporality. There are particular cases where the close-up shot of the character is extended in duration, giving the viewer more time to focus on the character, explore and experience all their emotions and facial expressions, without any cut in the editing to interrupt the emotional contagion.
Although a strict definition of the term ‘long take’ is elusive, because the length of a long take is always relative to the pace of the edit in the sequence and film as a whole, in The
Handmaid’s Tale there are several examples of close-ups that are held for quite some time.
An exemplary scene occurs at the end episode 5 of season 2, with a duration of a little over 2,5 minutes.
Figure 17
In this particular scene we see Offred in a hospital room, moments after almost losing her unborn baby, which ironically will never belong to her after its birth, but to Commander
Waterford and his wife. The long shot begins with Offred’s close-up in the frame. The camera slowly moves to a close-up of Offred’s pregnant belly and back at her face. Offred has moved underneath the blanket to speak to her baby, in an intimate mother-daughter moment, alone and separated from anyone else: “Listen to me. Okay? I will not let you grow up in this place,” she says.
Such a shot requires a longer duration to elicit the full compassion we feel for the woman in the frame (figure 17). Offred is nothing but a character on a screen but in such cases of a prolonged close-up, the viewer is invited into Offred’s most intimate and most vulnerable moments, which in this case is the connection with her baby, in a world where maternity has been re-defined. It is important to the viewer to feel this heart-warming connection also.
In almost every close-up of the show, the background is blurred out, making it impossible for the viewer to decipher what is behind the figure within the close-up. This, consequently focuses the viewer’s gaze on the clear object in the frame, but more importantly it also indicates the alienation and discomfort of the characters from their surroundings while at the same time enhancing the intimacy between the viewer and the character.
In the scene where Ofglen wakes up in the hospital, the viewer is basically very close to the character’s face – almost uncomfortably close – and the blurred background helps to keep their attention only on her face and to notice how completely isolated she feels, as exacerbated by the blurred background. We are close enough to read all the details in Ofglen’s face, her expressions that betray this inner feeling. In this sense, as viewers, we are gaining access to the character’s inner world and we begin to understand what is feels like to be living in this dystopian place, with these extraordinarily strict rules, oppressed and stripped from our rights and even worse, our identity.
In the scene of Offred under the blanket, we are again not just close to her, but almost in the bed with her. We are invited inside her world, hidden under the blanket, as if this is the only place where she can express herself with actual words. Nothing else in the surroundings distracts us from focusing on her and being a part of her world at that moment. The close-up, used in combination with the blurred background behind Offred, produces a strong intimacy between us and her, helping us identify with her and her inner world. Puschak points out that “as a slave in an authoritarian state where your physical being is effectively controlled by someone else, your only agency is mental. Your mind is where you have to retreat, to escape, to plan, to remember” (00:02:35-00:02:48). Hence, the shallow focus works as a symbolic representation of the character’s confinement and while the handmaid is physically denied
information about her surroundings and is restricted inside her mind, we as spectators are also denied peripheral vision and our focus is narrowed due to the shallow depth of field. Consequently, we become one with the disempowered character and her thoughts.
Taking everything into account, it is clear that the dystopian world of The
Handmaid’s Tale is made uncomfortable for the viewer through framing for two reasons.
First of all, it creatively uses images that seem very much alike to our present world, from a simple date or meeting someone in the street or a dating app, to the protests of women’s rights. The familiar images make us relate to the characters and understand them in terms of our own world. In particular, the way these images are shot cause them to be even more believable, simply because the directors did not choose to romanticize these events and make them seem like nostalgic moments in the character’s mind. They constructed images which make the audience ponder upon the reality of them. We watch in terror thinking that with the latest political events, maybe we are slowly entering another ‘Gilead’ too. In a second note, we feel the discomfort and alienation of the characters as if we are in this world with them, an effect of the intimate close-ups and the extensive use of point-of-view shots. The use of shallow focus, in all cases, works metaphorically to symbolize the confinement and imprisonment of the disempowered characters. Just like them, who are physically imprisoned, the viewers are imprisoned mentally and visually, in claustrophobic frames and with a narrow depth of field limiting everything but the focal point, which is the dystopian restrictiveness of Gilead itself.
2.
Lighting and Colour
Zettl asserts that “light is a radiant form of energy” (19) and the control of it “is paramount to the aesthetics of television and film. Lighting [then] is the deliberate manipulation of light and shadows for specific communication purposes” (Zettl 19). Many artists in different works have utilized it differently in an attempt to communicate specific messages or to appeal to the observer’s emotions in a particular way. Colour, in its turn, is an equally fundamental visual component in film as it directly shapes our mood. Before color in film, photographers and filmmakers depended only on light to create atmosphere. Different variations in the warmth of light and contrasts were necessary mood setters. But since colour appeared in cinema, it has deeply shaped the ways that films kindle the viewers’ emotions. The combination of these two elements play a vital role in the way we perceive the screen image and the way we react to it. The following chapter draws attention to these two visual elements and their importance in filmic dystopia. Of all the important aesthetic elements, I argue that colour and lighting are the main ones used to induce a feeling of discomfort in the viewer. The Handmaid’s Tale uses very powerful lighting and colour schemes that not only affect the composition of the frame but the way we, as viewers, comprehend it.
2.1. Lighting
Lighting in The Handmaid’s Tale is one of the most captivating visual elements of the show. From the very first episode we can see that the scenes are generally illuminated with low-key lighting and there is a heavy use of the chiaroscuro technique. Chiaroscuro derives from the Italian words “chiaro” and “oscuro”, which literally translate to light and shadow. Although the technique traces its roots back throughout the history of art, chiaroscuro was named and consolidated during the Renaissance period as an effective tool for adding volume, depth and three-dimensionality to two-dimensional paintings of the time, thus making the compositions more realistic. According to Andrew Spicer’s definition, the chiaroscuro lighting technique produces “deep, enveloping shadows that are fractured by shafts of light from a single source, and dark, claustrophobic interiors that have shadowy shapes on the walls” (Spicer 313).
Over the centuries, different painters have experimented with different variations of the technique and to see some of these examples should not be omitted because they can provide a solid basis for the series and its lighting effect. Caravaggio, as one of most famous proponents, was known for using the chiaroscuro in a very intense way, creating a lot of strong tonal contrasts between light and dark. This had a very mysterious, dark and dramatic effect in his artworks. His most famous works usually involve his subjects in dark rooms and spaces illuminated by a single source of light from above, below or from the side. In many cases, his intense lighting contrasts were interpreted as allegories, expressing the spiritual darkness and enlightenment of the subjects. One of his most popular works where chiaroscuro is utilized in such a manner is The Calling of St. Matthew (figure 18); as Sybille Ebert-Schifferer explains,
The Calling of St. Matthew shows Christ coming into a room where Matthew, a tax collector, is seated. Whether outdoors or indoors remains uncertain due to the darkness. The light appears with Christ from the right-hand side and reinforces the natural light of the scene, as there is a window behind the altar on the same side. But the light that comes in with Christ is also the light of enlightenment, which is at its brightest where it falls on the face of the tax collector as he looks up. He is the one to be enlightened and invested with a new life. The light also clearly emphasizes Christ’s outstretched hand. This is what establishes the connection and depicts the crucial gesture: you are the one I mean. (Ebert-Schiffererqtd. in Zimmermann 35)
Figure 18-The Calling of St. Matthew by Caravaggio (1599-1600)
Very often we see scenes in The Handmaid’s Tale where hard light slices into the room, creating similar, intense contrasts that we could interpret as enlightenment. In figure 19 we see Offred “locked” in her room. Her voice-over lets us understand that she has been in there for almost two weeks. She stands in front of her closed window with the rays of light that manage to get through and inside the room hitting her face. The intense rays of light that enter the room, apart from the fact that they draw attention to her exhausted face, could also be a metaphor for her own enlightenment and hope which she needs in order to survive the struggles of Gilead. Interestingly, in the next shot (figure 20), she stands up and seems more determined to stop “feeling like a lunatic in her own memories”, as she says. She transforms from a miserable being to a strong woman, ready to stand back in her feet.
Figure 19
Figure 20
After Caravaggio, there were painters that developed a more toned-down and subtle use of chiaroscuro. The Dutch painter Vermeer, for example, lit his subjects softly through sunlight that softly entered the room from a window on the side. In his work The Milkmaid (figure 21), he avoids a black background but still maintains a darker colour palette to surround his subject. The contrasts are less intense due to the more delicate lighting that comes from the right of the subject, embracing her figure. In this variation of chiaroscuro, the figure is presented as more realistic and natural rather than dramatic and exaggerated, as in most of Caravaggio’s works. There are several examples in The Handmaid’s Tale where the shots are not as harshly illuminated and there is a rather softer lighting. In figure 22, Offred’s shot seems like a painting of Vermeer, with softer contrasts on her faces and figure, and thus more realistic to the viewer’s eye.
Figure 21-The Milkmaid by Vermeer
Figure 22
Even in the film era, filmmakers continued to be inspired by the chiaroscuro technique and incorporated lighting contrasts as a visual element into their work not only to create powerful and emotive images but also to intensify the mood of their image. One of the movements that was inspired by chiaroscuro is German Expressionism in the 1920s. The filmmakers’ work during that era was marked by the financial restrictions they faced. The limited equipment and budget of the time “compelled directors to be creative with their lighting, pushing the boundaries in non-realism with their sharp and elaborate set designs, sometimes, attempting to simulate light and shadow by painting directly onto walls of the set, also allowing the symbolic application of light and shadow to emerge as a result” (Lally 13).
One of the most memorable films of that movement, still discussed for its techniques today, is The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Robert Wiene, 1920). For Ilie-Prica, “it is one of the most talked-about silent films in history and it brought to the public’s attention the
Expressionist movement right at the moment when it ended in painting and in other fine arts” (48). Although it was produced in a very small studio and on limited resources, it still managed to change the history of cinema. The dramatic chiaroscuro lighting, in combination with obscure camera angles and geometrically designed settings are used effectively to indicate horror, claustrophobic environments, the characters’ madness and extreme feelings to the audience (Aitken 54). The scenes throughout the film are rarely shot in high-key lighting so as to better convey the characters’ dark emotional states and the chiaroscuro contrasts are “used to establish conceptual pairs such us conscious vs. unconscious, spiritual vs. physical and, rather predictably, good vs. evil” (Donahue 335).
Chiaroscuro, popularized in cinema by the German Expressionist movement, also inspired Film Noir when it comes to content, themes, framing and visual aesthetics. Film Noir, which translates to ‘dark film’ in French, “emerged out of a nexus of American socio-political crises, including the Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War” (Luhr). William Luhr states that Film Noir characters often are “in physical and psychological pain” (4-5), bringing the audience’s worst fears to life by representing dark narrative, such as crime, social injustice and conspiracies, drawn from real life scenarios in an expressive manner. In particular, cinematography is used to enhance the dark and eerie atmosphere of such stories:
Film Noir’s allure resembles that of tragedy or the horror film, forms which invite their audiences to watch worst-case scenarios unfold. For their initial audiences, films noirs resembled nightmares in contemporary life. They were set in and about ‘today’. Although they evoked the audience’s deepest fears about all going wrong, they did not engage the supernatural as did horror films.[…] It generated the sense that the characters’ deepest fears were becoming palpable. (Luhr 6)
In a similar manner, the cinematographers of The Handmaid’s Tale narrate a very dark scenario, not far from reality, that could potentially happen here, enhanced by lighting that recalls the work of artists of the previous eras to support the mood and enhance the very mysterious and dark view of Gilead. Playing with light in such ways that keep most of the figures in the shadow, the cinematography nonetheless reveals some features of their faces as pools of light visible in the dark areas. In this way, lighting manages to emphasize the uncomfortable atmosphere of Gilead and make the viewer feel confused and alienated. In figure 23, Offred walks into Commander Fred’s office for the first time. She approaches his
desk, profoundly confused about why he would call her in there for a secret meeting when he knows very well that any kind of relationship between the commander and a handmaid, for reasons other than reproduction, is illegal. Offred tries to read his face and his intentions, along with her the audience, but without success. His face is dipped in shadow and only a very soft light illuminates his face but not completely. His expressions are not very visible and therefore cannot give away much information about him quite yet. All we see is a very imposing and commanding figure that signals Offred’s fear and suspicion of his intentions.
Figure 23
It is important to mention that in Gilead there is a light-based distinction between socially moral spaces and transgressive spaces, which works as an indicator for the audience about what is socially right and wrong according to the rules. On the one hand, socially transgressive places appear far darker than moral places. As in noir movies, where low-key lighting is used to indicate moral ambiguity, The Handmaid’s Tale uses the same technique for a similar result.
Figure 24
Figure 25
Figure 24 is an exemplary scene where lighting is used in such way. We see Offred in one of her visits to Commander Fred’s office late at night. In figure 25, we see Offred having sex with Nick, following Serena’s request in her effort to impregnate Offred. Both scenes take place in the dark – even the sexual act with Nick is in the dark, although it happens during the day – and in both cases, the participants, if revealed, would face a very serious punishment. The lighting in both scenes is used accordingly, to intensify the iniquity and the transgression of both ‘secrets’.
On the other hand, we have the socially moral places which have a very different type of lighting. High key lighting is mostly used to indicate what is normal and socially acceptable in Gilead. At the grocery store (figure 26), to give an instance, the lighting is always high-key. The shadowed parts of the characters’ faces, as we see them in transgressive spaces, disappear and instead, we have fully illuminated figures. It is an allowable place for a handmaid to be into. There is no secrecy nor wrongness in where they are or what they are doing there.
Figure 26
High-key lighting is also utilized for the ceremony scenes. The ceremony is the ritualized sexual procedure that the commander, the wife and the handmaid follow in order to reproduce. The ceremonies are not meant to be intimate or sexual. Therefore, it seems rather odd to see an image of a ritualized rape being captured in the same lighting as the grocery store and not in low-key. In any case, passion is entirely set aside for the sake of reproduction. Sex is only a function in Gilead and during the ceremony the handmaids are “trained in deference, self-abnegation and service, prepared only for pregnancy” (Johnson &Stillman 55, 71). Therefore, the viewer cannot perceive such a scene as an intimate one. But the intension of the high-key lighting is not help the viewer see this scene in this manner either. Although the scene itself is revolting for the viewer who perceives it as a rape, the high-key lighting sort of normalizes it the act there. The ceremonies in Gilead are as normal as a daily walk at the grocery store and exactly because such thing is normal and morally right, the viewer is even more repulsed by it.
2.2. Colour
Colour in The Handmaid’s Tale, and most importantly colour saturation and warmth, plays a significant role in intensifying the darkness of the filmic dystopia as it “creates the atmosphere of the story-world and expresses the characters’ inner worlds and emotions”
(Ristolainen 25). The show uses a washed-out colour palette of very pale tones in order to create the sense of misery one would have if they lived in a world like Gilead.
The colour palette of The Handmaid’s Tale is comprised mostly of desaturated colours. Guilford and Smith have found that brighter and more saturated colours elicit positive feelings (494). This is also one of the reasons we do not often see saturated colours in genres such as sci-fi, action, and horror, which are essentially high in contrast and have dark and cold colours. “Desaturated, extremely contrasted, and overexposed images […] can cause the viewer to feel a kind of bothersome strangeness” (Rueda 13). The Handmaid’s Tale focuses on creating exactly this ‘bothersome strangeness’, limiting its colour palette to greys and colder tones of red and blue. The goal is to enhance the depressive feeling of living in this miserable, but not so far from the present, world.
For Minna Ristolainen, the desaturation of the colours in the show tends to evoke darkness. According to her,
the hues throughout the series seem washed-out, except of the popping colours of the wives’ greenish and handmaids’ red dresses. The overall colour tone of the TV series is pallid, yellowish and greenish. This associates to something unnatural; sickness, as if something is out of place, everything is not quite right. (21)
Figure 28
Figure 29
In figures 27, 28 and 29 above, Ofglen is seen playing with a dog outside her Commander’s house. The mistress of the house watches her for a while and eventually announces to her that they will skip this month’s ceremony because she is not feeling very well. Both women seem vulnerable, weak and exhausted from the kind of life they are forced to lead. The sadness they both have is strongly depicted in their faces through the pale, yellowish colours. Worn out and almost sick, they blend easily with the equally sickly background which is comprised of dark-toned brown and pastels. There is nothing colourful here, and nothing that indicates positivity or hope to the viewer. At this point, it is important to mention how lighting changes the whole composition. The gloomy and low light, accompanied by the colour scheme of the background, makes the image appear much sadder. Even the colours of the dresses that, in other cases, would stand out, are now in colder tones, almost blending with the rest of their moody surroundings.
Figure 30
Similarly, the colonies (figure 30) are presented in a palette that consists mostly of grey and dark tones. The book only gives us information about what the colonies are but not what they look like. We know it is the place where the “unwomen” are sent to, “those who refuse to cooperate with the system, work in the colonies, cleaning up the city ghettoes, toxic dumps” (Freibert 281). A place defined by its toxic waste, which the unwomen are forced to clean, could only be imagined in very dark ways and Watkinson credits painter Andrew Wyeth for his inspiration when it comes to the colour palette. Most of Wyeth’s paintings comprise depressive, pale and nude tones. The same tones and paleness are used to present the colonies and the life of the unwomen who work there. These women do not have much of a life in a place like this and the colour palette offers no hope. On the contrary, it enhances the hopelessness of the place. Since they are useless to the society of Gilead, these women are sent to a place like this where death comes close and closer each day. An interesting note about the depictions of the colonies is the way they are illuminated. The use of chiaroscuro is almost non-existent. It is almost as if a place like this does not have to depend on low-key lighting to convey its drama. Similar to the ceremony scenes, high-key lighting is a way of ‘normalizing’ this place, which makes it even more uncomfortable for the viewer to watch. Nonetheless, the washed-out colour scheme remains.
The show maintains an overall washed-out, moody palette when it comes to the general atmosphere and backdrops, but this helps in guiding the eyes of the viewer towards the only colours that pop out which also carry the most meaning. As Ristolainen states, colour “guide(s) the spectator’s gaze on certain elements in the frame and narration, e.g. certain characters, by using contrasts and distinctive hues” (25). Rachel Robison-Greene, explains that “the nightmare world depicted in The Handmaid’s Tale relies heavily on colours
and their social and cultural meanings” (208). The colours that stand out are the red of handmaids’ and, to a lesser degree, the blue of the wives’ clothing, whereby each of them carries a different symbolism and evokes different emotions. One of the most important theorists to look at when discussing colour is Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. In the early 1800s, Goethe, observing the correlation between colour and emotion, categorized the colours into positive/plus and negative/minus fields. The positive colours are yellow, red-yellow, yellow-red. The negative colours consist of blue, blue-red and red-blue. The colours on the positive side of the spectrum are associated with “quick, lively and aspiring sensations”, while the negative side connotes more “susceptible and yearning feelings” (Holz & Plümacher 131).
Figure 31– Goethe's Colour Wheel
In the novel, Margaret Atwood depicts a world where all the handmaids are forced to wear red to indicate their function in Gilead. In the show, the producers do not just choose any shade of red, as different tones would insinuate different meanings. A warm tone of red (red-yellow) produces different feelings than a colder tone (red-blue). Atwood, who also assisted in the production of the show, chose scarlet red as the colour that best conveys the meanings she wanted to pass on through her story. Scarlet red belongs on the positive side in Goethe’s colour wheel and according to his theory, “the effect of this colour is as peculiar as its nature. It conveys an impression of gravity and dignity, and at the same time of grace and attractiveness” (Goethe 314). This association, however, contrasts with the situation of the
characters who wear this colour, which makes the red dresses seem ironic. The handmaids of Gilead are forced to sacrifice their dignity and anything that provokes attraction on the altar of reproduction. The only goal behind every sexual act is reproduction and for this, there is no need to have grace or attractiveness anymore. Red, though, is not only a symbol for attractiveness. It is also the colour of menstrual blood and fertility, which is the be-all and end-all in Gilead. The few fertile women in Gilead are the core of this regime and its maintenance. Therefore, the red connotes their function rather than attraction. It is an indicator of who is fertile, not who is more attractive.
In Patti Bellantoni’s book If It’s Purple, Someone’s Gonna Die, red, among other emotions, evokes power and strength. To further explain this, Bellantoni uses the Wizard of Oz as an example, a classic movie from the fantasy genre, where the red colour of the shoes represents the power Dorothy, the protagonist, needs in order to fight the witches, trees and monkeys (Bellantoni 5-6). Of course, in Gilead power is relational. The rules forbid women to write, read or even express an opinion. Men hold all the power. Therefore, the colour of strength and power is ironic when it comes to The Handmaid’s Tale. However, the handmaids in the show are the ones who hold the most power metaphorically. Red symbolizes the extraordinary courage the handmaids need to face the brutal reality of Gilead. They may be oppressed, but still have the will and passion to live, to keep going in the world that they have found themselves trapped in, and even escape from it or resist it one way or another. Offred, against all the rules and unable to tame her feelings, falls in love with Nick and “finds in him someone that can make her feel human and alive, despite her state of subjugation” (Wilson 165).
Last but not least, the colour red marks the handmaid’s identity, or more accurately, its loss. In Gilead, from the very first glance, one can recognize who is who depending on the colour of their clothes. For the handmaids, red represents their societal function in Gilead: “[the red dress] serves as a uniform denoting position as surely as an orange jumpsuit denotes a prisoner” (Roland 3). For as long as the handmaids wear the red dress, their true identity is lost. They all look the same, in the same dress, and even their names are just a reminder of which man they belong to. It was only prior to Gilead that these women could be themselves, just as it is only without these red dresses that we see them for who they actually are and not for their function in the society. The last scene of the first episode in season 2 captures very powerfully Offred’s desire to escape her functional identity in Gilead and regain her own. She has managed to escape and hide with Nick’s help in an abandoned building. The episode
finishes with her removing her bonnet, burning the red dress and cutting her ear brace. She is still covered in red, but this time it is her blood, not her dress anymore.
The other colour that manages to capture the viewer’s attention is the blue of the wives’ dresses. Alongside the red of the handmaids, it is important that the viewer recognizes the emotions behind the blue clothing of the wives. Serena and the rest of the wives of Gilead are always seen in blue. Of course, the dress code is different for these women. While the handmaids, the marthas, the econowives and the aunts are seen in one dress, which is the same for all, depending on their social position, the wives can wear a variety of clothes. In some cases, there is a variety in the shades of blue that they wear, but still the colours we mostly see them in are cold blues and teal. For Goethe, blue is a negative colour and gives the impression of darkness (778-779). He associates blue with shade, cold, darkness, gloominess and melancholy (782-784). Bellantoni adds to this theory and has observed that blue, as the coldest colour of the spectrum, is associated with melancholy, sadness and passivity (82, 83). As she states, “It’s a colour to think to, but not to act” (82). The colour of the wives is important to remind us that, no matter their privileges, they are women, and therefore are also marginalized in the society of Gilead and “forced to a life of utter passivity and submissiveness” (Bouson 139). The wives are forced to obey the rules that restrict them, too, which are to be obedient companions to their husbands and to raise the children. They are forced to watch their husbands have sex with another woman every month and, on top of it all, the colour red of the handmaids all around them reminds them of what they are not: fertile, in a society where fertility is scarce and everything revolves around it. These women feel sad, depressed, lonely, jealous of what they cannot have and rightly so. Sometimes, they express this jealousy of the handmaids in hostile ways. For example, in one episode Offred overhears one of the wives calling her, and the rest of the handmaids, whores. They call them whores for committing adultery, indicating their anger at missing out on intimacy with their husbands and their depression at the idea of never having children of their own.
In addition to that, similarly to the handmaids, the colour blue symbolizes the loss of identity even for the more privileged women in this society. Before Gilead, the wives had a very different life, as presented to the viewer through Serena’s past. Serena is depicted as a strong woman, once efficacious in advocacy and public affairs, a writer and a lovely companion to Fred. As Pettersson states that “what is interesting is that while Serena Joy had the power of expressing herself, she used it to undermine that very power” (15). Indeed, Serena has been hiding behind the idea of Gilead as she helped her husband Fred in the implementation of it, and even she herself seems miserable and regretful at the harsh
realization that this society turns out to be nothing like she imagined it to be, when she first came up with the idea, and is definitely not a safe place for her to raise a daughter in the future. Through her, we as viewers cannot help but feel miserable, too. The more we learn about Serena’s character, and her tragedy of being brutally punished for speaking up against the rules she created in the last episode of season 2, the more we empathize with her and understand the colour that covers her at all times.
The most important thing that is noticed regarding colour is that in Gilead colour coding uses strong primary colours of red and blue and yellow, namely, primary colours that we tend to associate with childhood. A child could play with these colours and, by mixing them, create a whole new colour out of them. For Walter Benjamin, “colour is something spiritual, something whose clarity is spiritual and whose mixture yields nuance, not blur” (51). In his work A Child’s View of Colour, Benjamin associates the spirituality of colours with the innocence of a child:
Children enjoy the alteration of colour in a variable transition of nuances (soap-bubbles); or in the clear and emphatic heightening of the quality of colours in oleographs, paintings, and the images produced by decals and magic lanterns. For them colour is of a fluid nature, is the medium of all changes, and not a symptom. (51)
However, colour in Gilead works reductively, precisely as a symptom. Red and blue are used to erase all kinds of mixing and create borders between them instead. Gilead’s society is strictly divided into colours and each colour represents one thing, one duty, one position.
The cinematographers have managed to take two of the most important visual elements of film – lighting and colour – and combine them to create powerful images, full of emotion and meaning to the viewer. Both lighting and colour are very important setters of the atmosphere of dystopia and The Handmaid’s Tale makes a utilization of both to create the creepy and unsettling world of Gilead. What is depicted is a dystopian place of oppression, where all women’s identities have been reduced to their functions in society according to their fertility. The cold, eerie discomfort of Gilead is very efficiently communicated with the reduction of colours and the evacuation of warm colours. In the few instances in which colour stands out from the desaturated backgrounds, there is no warmth. Even the reds and the blues are cold shades of these, and are used only to categorize women by their function. The light that is used to create Gilead is not very warm either, but rather a hard, washed-out yellow, almost
