Pleasantville (1998 Gary Ross & scr, prod)

Splendid and revolutionary satirical fantasy, the first film to be entirely digitized so they could perform these amazing tricks with colour. Initially subverting TV and cultural mores from the fifties, the film cleverly touches on all sorts of other things: the youth revolution, led by music; the shock of the new in art; sexual politics; and racism with the 'coloreds' a specific reference. The screen shot below could be from To Kill a Mocking-Bird (and indeed I did then learn that it is a specific reference):

Cast: the hopeful-faced Tobey Macguire, Reese Witherspoon, Jeff Daniels, Joan Allen, William H Macy (brilliant as usual), J.T.Walsh (his last - the film is dedicated to him, Ross's mum and assistant cameraman Brent Lon Hershman who was killed during filming*), Don Knotts (famous American TV actor).

Shot by John Lindley on 40mm lens to show off backgrounds, music Randy Crawford, production design Jeannine Oppewall, editor William Goldenberg, visual effects supervised by Chris Watts, digitised at CineSite.

Fiona Apple sings us out with the Beatles' 'Across the Universe'.

*A friend of Haskell Wexler who was killed driving home after a 16 hour filming day, prompting the cameraman to start a movement pleading for shorter hours, and a documentary 'Who Needs Sleep?'