Coloring the Past

There were primarily three trends that dominated the black white era of Tamil cinema. The mythologicals and period films like Ambikapathi and Haridas, Nationalistic cinema like Thyagabhumi, and Chandramohana, and Dravdian cinema like Velaikari and Nallathambi which reflected the struggles of the working class.

Colors for the black and white images have been chosen using few reference images available in the early cinema periodicals and also based upon the scene.

Haridas (1944) was one of the most successful film of M.K. Thyagaraja Bagavathar. The scene was from a song sequence.

The early mythological movies used bright colored backdrops and costumes which was a continued tradition from drama culture. Green, blue and maroon dominated the color schemes.

Mannadhi Mannan is 1960 movie. Here MGR exhibits the swashbuckler costumes, which is an influence from the western movies.

The heroine is a princess and we gave bright red colored for her dress. MGR's dress was inspired by Robin hood and we gave similar color to his costume

Few movies in 1930s came out with nationalist ideas such as Chandramohana and Thyagabhoomi.

In this still we portrayed Mother India in red, the usual way of her portrayal, and for the hero and heroine light colors were given as they were wearing khadi dresses.

Thyaga Bhoomi is a 1939 film with nationalist theme.

This scene depicts three characters of the movie. The male wearing simple white clothes. Colors for the women is given to portray as she is from a wealthy family.

Velaikaari (Housemaid), written by former CM Anna Durai, is a 1949 movie, which comes with Dravidian ideologies.

Here we can see two female characters, one from elite class and another from working class. Colors for their costumes were given accordingly to differentiate this.

This scene of a 1953 movie captures the hospital setting, showing two middle class people. This can be inferred by the costumes of the actor. Sobre colors are used to visualize this scene in color.

This movie which released in 1967 shows a working class's house and people with very simple costumes.