Anna May Wong and the Color Image

Abstract In Cinema 1, Deleuze proposes the “color-image,” a type of film image with an “absorbent characteristic” that does not refer to particular object but seizes all happens within its range. Like color-images, racial categories have absorbent, seizing quality: they assert “color” at expense representation. address potential applications his concept race, are especially illuminating when applied early color-process cinema. This essay approaches The Toll Sea (dir. Chester M. Franklin, 1922), starring Anna May Wong and set in China, first Technicolor be widely distributed general release, as feature-length “China Girl” color-image, Deleuze's sense. It further shows how her world virtualized this under rubric fictional orientalist palette.