“The Thief of Bagdad is a 1940 British Technicolor Arabian fantasy film produced by Alexander Korda and directed by Michael Powell, Ludwig Berger, and Tim Whelan, with contributions by Korda’s brothers Vincent and Zoltán, and William Cameron Menzies. The film stars child actor Sabu, along with Conrad Veidt, John Justin, and June Duprez” (“The Thief of Bagdad (1940 film)” par. 1).
Even though the movie was filmed by the organization of its producer, which was called ‘London Films’ at was situated in England, because of the outburst of World War II, the shooting had to be finished in the United States. Even though this movie appears to be a new version of the earlier film, both movies embrace several important alterations not only in the color of the picture but in the plot as well. One of the most noteworthy differences is the fact that the thief and the prince appear to be the dispersed main lead roles in the preceding version of the movie. The movie’s framework is retailed in the form of a remembrance, imitating the manner of the Arabian Nights. By the means of its scrumptious Technicolor, intense scenes, and extraordinary pictorial miracles, the movie ‘The Thief of Bagdad’ has enchanted the spectators of all ages and from all generations for more than fifty years.
The chapter of the book ‘Color, the Film Reader’, which is written by Natalie Kalmus and is called ‘Color Consciousness’ applies several movies, including ‘The Thief of Bagdad’ as an example of using the new at that time technique of Technicolor. The movie ‘The Thief of Bagdad’ reveals distinguished, diverse and in the different circumstances extraordinary usages of Technicolor. It implements the role of a case study in order to determine the ways of how the concentration of shades in the movie offers an arrangement of diagnostic and theoretic viewpoints that disclose the multifaceted encounters modeled by color to the movie learning. The specific importance of this essay is positioned on the impact of Natalie Kalmus’s ‘Colour Consciousness’ thoughts and the application of her person as a leader of Technicolor’s Color consultative facility. Her effort in spreading the procedure of Technicolor to the United Kingdom is approached as one of the most noteworthy impacts on the frequently disordered response to the colors during that period of time. Basing upon the archival foundations, trade documents, and recorded studies, this movie review approaches the film in the framework of the rehabilitated attention to the colors that have been obvious for the previous several years.
“In Bagdad, the Grand Vizier Jaffar has King Ahmad cast into a dungeon and takes power for himself. But Ahmad manages to escape with the help of a young thief, Abu. In Basra, the king falls in love with the sultan’s daughter” (“The Thief of Bagdad (1940 film)” par. 4). Nonetheless, his competitor for the love of the royal daughter is none other than Jaffar, who applies the enchanted supremacies in order to take the sight of Ahmad away and transform Abu into an animal. This story is magical, and it should be retold with the help of the magic powers of contemporary progress. The makers of the movie along with the color advisor Natalie Kalmus stressed in their comment that they were not simply producing colored image cards with the help of Technicolor. Even though the producers claimed that the movie ‘The Thief of Bagdad’ is believed to possess more than a thousand colors at its discarding, every section is produced with a careful shade. Simple red has the control over the scenes of the multitudes while blue and green indicate a heavenly allotment.
The greeting accommodations of the sultan sparkle with gold and silver; and as the opposing scenes, the bivouac of the Bedouins is a pavilion in orange. In order to achieve the necessary contrast of the characters in the movie, Jaffar, the antihero of ‘The Thief of Bagdad’, give the impression most of a man without any colors, with the black or white clothes. The point of the movie is that every single upshot, administered by the magician of the visual effects Lawrence W. Butler, is applied in order to advance and excavate the plot of the film. The view has to comprehend the extraordinary exquisiteness of more than a few acts presenting outstanding towns mounting the hills in the background of the picture. The lens of the camera is misled by the picture into making the viewer observe the forefront as the background. The metropolises are all colored peach or blue without exceptions; these visual effects allow the viewer to see them as more fantastical. With the help of Technicolor, the producers explain that every detail matters.
As a consequence, the Arabian traditional tale of a thousand and one nights advanced several idealistic dashes with its allure, color, its cheerfulness, and contentment, at a time when the entire planet was vibrating with the dread of the World War II. Even nowadays, the movie pleasures the all-observing eye from, as Ahmad would have said, the other part of history.
Works Cited
The Thief of Bagdad (1940 film) 2015. Web.