Russo Bros. Defend Captain America: Civil War Criticisms of Film Lacking Color
Joe and Anthony Russo undeniably left an impact on the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with the directing duo helming four films within the superhero franchise. Among these is Captain America: Civil War, the blockbuster adaptation of the Marvel Comics storyline of the same name, which pitted Earth's Mightiest Heroes against each other with great fanfare. While Civil War was undeniably a pivotal stepping stone for the MCU's narrative, it was still subject to criticism — including some arguing that the film's color palette relied too heavily on grey and other muted colors. In a recent interview with Vanity Fair, the Russos addressed that critique of Civil War, and argued that the "brutalist" nature of the film's narrative lent itself to that color palette.
"This movie is brutalist in tone," Joe Russo argued. "it's meant to be devoid of color. The whole idea behind it was all these characters were slipping into this morally gray area. They didn't understand their identities. They, you know, they were in conflict with one another. And so we wanted to use a location where, you know, civilians wouldn't be running away while they were fighting each other. We didn't feel like they could recover from that. So we chose an airport tarmac."
Joe Russo also shed some light on the behind-the-scenes work that went into bringing the film to life, and particularly how strenuous the climactic airport tarmac fight ended up being.
What's interesting is we shot this on the back lot of sound stages in Atlanta," Joe Russo revealed. "And I remember we took the temperature of the black top and it was 128 degrees on the black top. So all of the ground you're seeing here is the black top. Everything else back here is all CG, right? None of that exists. When they ran at each other this [right] side, there's no CG characters on this [right] side [on Team Cap]. So these are the only two real characters on this side [on Team Stark]. Spider-Man is CG. Ironman is CG, Vision, War Machine. It was Scarlett literally running by herself with a stunt player in a hundred and you know, 28 degree blacktop, over and over. I remember her looking at us at one point and going we can't do this one more time. There's certain actors who could escape from having to do a sequence like this over and over. Sebastian could not, Renner could not, Scarlett could not. Mackie takes flight, Lizzie takes flight, and Rudd of course is completely covered."
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