Chromatic Cinema: A History of Screen Color

"This remarkable book opens new vistas on what cinema is, how it works, and what it can mean, with a deep historical perspective and an unobtrusive but effective deployment of film theory. It is bound to be a major intervention in an exciting and growing field of film studies, and a significant contribution to technology studies."

"Drawing on optical theory, art history, and film technology, Richard Misek rejects conventional distinctions between color and black-and-white, arguing instead for a `chromatic cinema' which sees color everywhere. Original, thought-provoking, and sure to be controversial."

"In this important and surprising study of cinema's most central, seemingly simple, and notorious opposition-black and white versus color-Misek upsers the usual caregories for understanding the development of cinema as technology and aesthetic practice. Chromatic Cinema should change the way we understand the so-called evolution of film style as the triumph of realism."