Jon M Chu, the director of Wicked, has hit out at criticism about the film’s colour grading after audiences attacked it for looking “washed out”.
The musical follows Ariana Grande as Glinda the Good and Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba Thropp, two friends whose relationship reaches a crossroads as they are treated differently by the people around them. The actors have drawn some scrutiny over their teary interviews during promotion for the film.
Wicked, based on the Broadway stage adaptation, is also an adaptation of Gregory Maguire’s 1995 novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West,which is meant to be a prequel to L. Frank Baum’s 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and its 1939 film adaptation.
While the story itself has been praised, and the film’s debut broke box office-records, critics have hit out at the movie’s appearance. The Independent’s Clarisse Loughrey described it as “aggressively backlit, so that the audience can feel what it’s like to watch events unfold while also staring directly into the sun”. Loughrey described its cinematic efforts as “shot and lit like we’re being sold an Airbnb in Mykonos”.
However, Chu has defended the movie as he said that its colouring is intentional.
“I mean, there’s color all over it,” he toldThe Globe and Mail. “I think what we wanted to do was immerse people into Oz, to make it a real place. Because if it was a fake place, if it was a dream in someone’s mind, then the real relationships and the stakes that these two girls are going through wouldn’t feel real.”
As well as maintaining the dreamlike quality of the atmosphere, Chu said that he wanted the film to also feel more real, and less like a virtual reality.
“It’s also [presented in] a way we have not experienced Oz before,” he continued. “It’s been a matte painting. It’s been a video game digital world. But for us, I want to feel the dirt. I want to feel the wear and tear of it. And that means it’s not plastic.”
He continued, “We have the environment. The sun is the main source of light. You see the vast landscapes. You see the air. You see creatures exist here.”
Chu explained that the colour grading varies as the film progresses to mirror the journeys of the characters.
“These two characters that will go through two movies, their relationship with the land is important; their relationship with the nature of this land that the wizard imposed himself,” he said.
“The [color] contrast goes up over time because that is what Elphaba brings to this world.”
Wicked is out in cinemas now
