10 Crazy Tricks Directors Tried To Pull On Audiences
8. Green Is Good - Wall Street
A critical, if not a financial hit in 1987, Oliver Stone’s drama Wall Street exploited the excess and empty arrogance of the eighties to create one of cinema’s all time great villains, unscrupulous financier Gordon Gecko.
Michael Douglas won an Oscar for his performance in the role, and it’s justifiably considered one of Stone’s best works. Despite the realism of the plot and action, however, there’s a secret hidden deep inside the movie.
That’s Gecko himself, telling Charlie Sheen’s Bud - and the audience - that what he does is bullsh*t, an illusion. Well, Stone hid an illusion inside the print itself, ensuring that a constant orange shade overlaid Wall Street, saturating the New York skyline.
When your eyes are inundated with a specific colour and you switch to something neutral (like a long blink, or a white piece of paper), you’ll immediately see that colour’s contrasting shade, as your fatigued retina compensates for the overload.
Orange’s contrasting shade? It’s green, of course. Stone was shoving money in the audience’s face throughout the entire movie without them knowing anything about it.