Orange is the warmest color: mood and chromatic temperature in Robert Altman’sMcCabe & Mrs. Miller

Abstract

This article examines the aesthetic, affective, and character-based significance of the color orange in Altman’s revisionist western. Drawing on the concept of Stimmung (“mood” or “attunement”), it focuses on the film’s interplay between cool and warm tones, wherein different shades of orange contend with blues and grays. The essay considers the ways in which this chromatic scheme describes the inner lives of the two central characters; it also shows how this use of color opens onto a politicized critique of the mortal violence, greed, and inequality that put an end to their partnership.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 4 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.