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Maleficent (2014), the recent live-action reworking of Sleeping Beauty (1959), has garnered a lot of attention and responses over the few months since it was released (and no little commentary even before). Personally, I'm a major fan, although I appreciate that it isn't perfect (then again, what is)?
This meta was actually sparked by a friend of mine,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
darkstar1991, pointing out a flicker of gold magic amidst green at one of the film's pivotal moments (I'll come back to which one in a minute). So I dedicate this meta to her.
In essence, what occured to me was this: Maleficent's magic is portrayed sometimes as gold and sometimes as green over the course of the film. These colours are used as a portrayal of her moral behaviour - green can be correlated as 'evil', or at least 'meant to do harm', while her gold magic is benevolent or harmless. However, the way in which the magic is used allows for a little more subtlety in portrayal than, for example, her clothing (which also has two main forms as the film progresses).
[Note: all images used in this meta come from screencapped.net I've used small images to try to avoid breaking the bandwidth too much. Spoilers for Maleficent (2014) are extensive.]
( Full exploration, with pictures, below the cut )
So, it is probably at this point that I should make something of a conclusion. I find it to be an interesting stylistic choice to go for green and gold as Maleficent's colours - in the animated version, her magic is green and purple, though it is the green which people tend to remember more strongly. The shift to using two colours allows, I feel, for more of the dichotomy of Maleficent's emotions and behaviour to be addressed. Aurora describes her as both hero and villain, and I feel that this is a fair summary - she plays her own antagonist, fighting against her own internal demons as well as her past actions.
The green magic which Maleficent wields actually appears only briefly, yet it is present in all three of the great displays which are the most memorable scenes - her outpouring of pain which leads to the beacon on the mountain, her casting of the curse, and her struggle against herself at Aurora's bedside. All of the other occasions on which Maleficent uses magic are in the heat of battle against soldiers, and the green might be more representative of the fact that she is enjoying the pain that she causes, glad to fight.
The last time that we see Maleficent using green magic is against the soldiers, shortly before bringing Aurora into the Moors for the first time - and only half-way through the film. On the occasions on which it is seen after that, it is remnants of her curse, a curse so strong that it has become inescapable. We actually see her use gold magic on far more occasions, and far more consistently, but only once in great volume (when trying to remove the curse). I would argue that the golden magic represents Maleficent's 'good' nature, her desire to help people and to enjoy herself in the world, whilst the green magic represents her anger and hatred, her desire to harm and enjoyment of causing that harm. The green magic, however, never quite manages to consume or eclipse the gold, and at the end it is the gold to which the film, and Maleficent, returns.
This meta was actually sparked by a friend of mine,
darkstar1991, pointing out a flicker of gold magic amidst green at one of the film's pivotal moments (I'll come back to which one in a minute). So I dedicate this meta to her.In essence, what occured to me was this: Maleficent's magic is portrayed sometimes as gold and sometimes as green over the course of the film. These colours are used as a portrayal of her moral behaviour - green can be correlated as 'evil', or at least 'meant to do harm', while her gold magic is benevolent or harmless. However, the way in which the magic is used allows for a little more subtlety in portrayal than, for example, her clothing (which also has two main forms as the film progresses).
[Note: all images used in this meta come from screencapped.net I've used small images to try to avoid breaking the bandwidth too much. Spoilers for Maleficent (2014) are extensive.]
( Full exploration, with pictures, below the cut )
So, it is probably at this point that I should make something of a conclusion. I find it to be an interesting stylistic choice to go for green and gold as Maleficent's colours - in the animated version, her magic is green and purple, though it is the green which people tend to remember more strongly. The shift to using two colours allows, I feel, for more of the dichotomy of Maleficent's emotions and behaviour to be addressed. Aurora describes her as both hero and villain, and I feel that this is a fair summary - she plays her own antagonist, fighting against her own internal demons as well as her past actions.
The green magic which Maleficent wields actually appears only briefly, yet it is present in all three of the great displays which are the most memorable scenes - her outpouring of pain which leads to the beacon on the mountain, her casting of the curse, and her struggle against herself at Aurora's bedside. All of the other occasions on which Maleficent uses magic are in the heat of battle against soldiers, and the green might be more representative of the fact that she is enjoying the pain that she causes, glad to fight.
The last time that we see Maleficent using green magic is against the soldiers, shortly before bringing Aurora into the Moors for the first time - and only half-way through the film. On the occasions on which it is seen after that, it is remnants of her curse, a curse so strong that it has become inescapable. We actually see her use gold magic on far more occasions, and far more consistently, but only once in great volume (when trying to remove the curse). I would argue that the golden magic represents Maleficent's 'good' nature, her desire to help people and to enjoy herself in the world, whilst the green magic represents her anger and hatred, her desire to harm and enjoyment of causing that harm. The green magic, however, never quite manages to consume or eclipse the gold, and at the end it is the gold to which the film, and Maleficent, returns.
