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SALTBURN (2023) dir. Emerald Fennell

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'oliver smokes in the bath. thinking of felix. forever thinking of felix’

(cattonquick + mitski)

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felix in his bedroom at oxford you will always be famous (hes so beautiful i think i just wept)

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SALTBURN (2023) dir. Emerald Fennell

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FELIX CATTON & OLIVER QUICK + proximity Saltburn (2023) by Emerald Fennell

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i need to talk to you guys about the colors of the Cattons (Felix specifically) and Oliver. the clothes they are wearing are telling the story of Oliver taking over and leaving his mark throughout the whole movie, with Oliver's failures and successes and a final triumph. holy shit. get in. this is long and ends in ancient greek culture trivia. let;s talk please.

disclaimer: am starting from Oliver's arrival at Saltburn. before that the outfits are also very intentional, but it's a lot more complicated and it has been discussed before. the world distorts once we are at Saltburn and the story gets truly gothic there, and every detail—including color!—is enhanced in meaning. also, special thanks to @kivlaro for doing this with me, the thoughts on this specifically and the Saltburn craze on the whole. pics and detailed analysis under the cut!

let's start from the beginning. here is Oliver at the door. simple, blue shirt.

the shirt is sort of its own character. logically it makes sense as Oliver's suitcase is small and he spends the whole summer there, of course he'll rewear stuff a bunch. but it is blue.

in contrast to Felix, in yellow. yellow is one of Felix's colors (he is the sun, which i've talked about here btw, so this makes sense).

same to Pamela, in blue. first time we see her, she is next to Elspeth, wearing the color that is Oliver's, taking the place that he takes right away, in this very scene. the only other time she is physically present on screen is at dinner, in black and white, and black and white are a blank slate. she is stripped of color and gone very fast.

a bit of crucial data for later: Oliver, in blue, and Felix in pink. pink is very important on Felix. this is their first morning together. they are separate and opposite, solid, contained.

where it starts to get good is the morning after the vampire strike.

Venetia is a Felix extension, just as everyone in the house is to Oliver. i will eventually rant about Saltburn as a whole entity and Cattons as aspects of one self, and Oliver as psychosis, but not here. so, yes, Venetia is a pink riot, a euphoria of self-containment because Oliver gave her a piece of something she felt she lacked to feel whole (validation, attention, care), not a piece of blue, of himself. Oliver is expectedly solid blue. Felix is incredibly interesting and something i didn't pay much attention to at first: predominantly blue, incredibly upset at Oliver for ditching him, with a tile of bright red (on the left! close to heart! over-reaching here but like still!), which still tracks. i mean, really, if i had so much foreign color bleed into me and then abandoned, i'd be pissed, too. nice little touch is sir James' beloved hydrangeas, behind Felix, also pink, very pink, always pink; i don't think i've seen them blue in the movie, although the sort exists.

Farleigh. sweet baby Farleigh i love you. I'm not dead-set on my interpretation of this specifically but i think multiple things are happening with Oliver and Farleigh here. like Rent, which is their song, blue is their color of outsiders and the triers to fit in. Farleigh points out the favoritism and preference of Oliver to him and his mother here, so it may also be appropriation of color to draw attention to Farleigh as almost (but never quite) Oliver. it may also be as simple as that Farleigh, as much as he denies and resists, still retains Oliver's influence, which bleeds into him very slowly.

a nice little moment of Felix wearing blue swim shorts with just tiny specks of a pink pattern. Oliver's shorts also have a bit of pink, but less than Felix's. Oliver is pretty good at remaining unaffected and uninfluenced overall.

and we're getting to where it all clicked and started for me. the Quick family house, the failed reconciliation, and the immediate aftermath. oh it's so good.

on the drive there, Oliver is blue, Felix has a pink polo shirt with a solid blue pullover over it. this is the most blue Felix has ever been (this is the most blue he will ever be!), this is trust. however shaky and toxic it is, Felix loves Oliver and accepts him into his world. as a side note, Oliver's parents are also very blue, mom more so than dad. nice!

and then it crashes. immediately after, it's the evening of the same day, but Felix is not wearing the blue pullover anymore. this is very, very important. this is rejection. it's the end for Oliver in Felix's world and with his trust. Felix, again, in solid pink, Oliver in solid blue. Felix successfully rips him out with the roots and everything. ouch.

daddy. sorry. is that highlighter? sweat? fuck. let me- daddy. SORRY

no i actually have a point about this.

the clothes are replaced by the lights, but we roll with it. Oliver basks in the blue-green light, while Felix is on the other side, in pink and purple and red. sure, blue shines through, and Oliver also walks through the slashes of pink, but it is mostly pretty separate, Oliver watching Felix's pink in his own blue from a distance.

the morning after palette is deep. the wine color that is so prominent in these scenes is fascinating to me. if i were to over-reach again i'd say it's the Oliver in Felix's attributes and in his place that requires the robe to be so dark, not usual definite pink, because deep blue has leaked into the color itself, mixed with it, made itself integral to the shade. but it's also just a nice color, and it is pink in its core. the flowers (with sir James in the background) i think are also this specific shade for the same reason. you look at what remains of Felix everywhere here, and it is his color.

and finally oh the lunch scene. the last supper. the judgement day. the who's afraid of virginia woolf madness.

i think we've established what's up with Oliver, but i also think it's important that he is his own color at lunch but in Felix's pink/wine right before and after. lunch is where he attacks, whereas before and after is where he grieves and enjoys. Farleigh is almost completely blue save for a strip of the same deep pink, and he is soon cast out, and Venetia is striped, blue and pink/salmon, affected deeply by Oliver yet still clinging on to the Catton pink with grief, probably, but also love for Felix.

and after all this, Oliver leaves himself.

no, like, actually, literally himself. sure, he'd got a taste of the Cattons and the pink, but he is a monolith, a solid blue when he leaves Saltburn. he has not been affected by the house, he has taken what he wanted but stayed true and whole. what a power move, honestly.

but it's an even bigger deal that 16 years later, Elspeth runs into Oliver wearing all white and a blue scarf. oh, she's not let this go, alright; it was a long time ago, "but not to me," she says. What Oliver has been up to in that time is a great question, without a doubt he's been keeping tabs on the remaining family as much as he could; but Elspeth has never moved on, either. She has held on to Oliver's blue and the pink is not important at all now. Oliver, of course, is invariably, unwaveringly blue. welcome back to his show.

and welcome back to his triumph.

the only color (except for, again, white and black) we see him wear in the flashback about Saltburn inheritance is the all-too familiar deep pink. wine. bright pink mixed with deep blue.

now i will take a liberty and step back, over-reach, over-interpret and go insane. here's a fun bit on ancient greek culture trivia for you.

this is an interesting and complicated historiographical and linguistic debate that i will not even attempt to relay here, but the essence of it is this: for us, the sea is conventionally deep blue. historically, one of the most prominent civilizations considered "deep wine" to be the descriptor for it (not necessarily the color but the property. highly rec to look this up it's so fascinating). what it gives me here is that Oliver has changed color, but not his self. he has integrated, mixed, but persisted, completely winning over, triumphing. long live the king!

in conclusion, i would just like to propose "colors" by halsey as the next cattonquick anthem. thank you for your attention, please let me know your thoughts. yours, yes, you. cheers. god. peace out

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oh to be a black hole an oliver quick.

first unassuming, floating through space and suddenly crushing into the sun's orbit. felix catton is so bright and so welcoming; there is an entire system of cattons around him, under the same roof, yet so distant it would take a rocket to get a message through the sound waves of mindless chatter.

an oliver quick is a heavy, peculiar thing. it circles slowly, on the edges of the system. it chips away at the other, older planets, it leaves its holes and it takes their mass away, somehow. it carries on the pieces, contaminates planet elspeth with planet venetia, sir james with farleigh; she talks about her daughter for the first time in years, he suddenly addresses his nephew at breakfast. the cattons drift uncomfortably closer together in that summer. an oliver quick draws them together, and closer to the sun, although planets are not supposed to do that.

real, human boys are not supposed to do that, either.

and so it collapses. not really a boy, but something pretending, crushes into the sun with deadly velocity. and it only takes the sun to explode in on itself, to collapse in the middle of the system, in the center of the labyrinth, for the catton galaxy to disperse and wither.

and it only takes an oliver quick to carry the pieces on. with incessant, deadly velocity.

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SALTBURN (2023) dir. Emerald Fennell Oliver looks over at Felix, his eyes are closed respectfully. Oliver stares at him. Waits out the silence.

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god i need this scene tattooed onto my eyeballs

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Felix and Oliver in Saltburn (2023) // Jennifer and “Needy” in Jennifer’s Body (2009)

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We need to talk about Oliver and the grave scene. (spoilers)

Barry Keoghan's improvisation in that scene completely changed Oliver's character and the film as a whole. It encapsulates a critical moment of emotional catharsis for Oliver, marking the first and only time in the film where he completely lets down his guard.

Throughout the film, Oliver maintains a distance from Felix, constantly holding back parts of himself, standing in front of the bathroom door but not allowing himself to enter. At first glance, it appears almost masochistic, but it's critical to understand that Oliver's feelings for Felix go beyond love. He's obsessed. It's as if he fears that getting too close to Felix could expose his true, empty self. And deeper than that, Oliver perceives Felix as something ethereal, akin to a living god. How could you even begin to approach such a being?

His confession in one of the last scenes with Felix where he admits that everything he did was to meet Felix's desires, underscores this guarded nature. Even in this moment of apparent honesty, Oliver is totally incapable of being fully vulnerable with Felix, as evidenced by his backup plan involving the drink.

In stark contrast, the grave scene is where Oliver's walls finally come crashing down. His open weeping, undressing, and act of penetration with the grave soil are profoundly powerful symbols of his extreme vulnerability and his unfiltered emotional state, now finally free of all societal pressures. As disturbing as this act may be, it symbolizes his intense longing for a deep, unfulfilled connection with Felix. In death, where Felix can no longer see or judge him, Oliver finally finds the freedom to express his true self and desires.

The act of penetration can be seen as a desperate, symbolic attempt to maintain a bond with Felix, a way to bridge the unbridgeable gap between life and death. It's a poignant and tragic manifestation of his grief, the complex emotions of longing and obsession he silently harbors throughout the film.

The grave scene is a turning point in Oliver's character arc, perfectly complimented by the finality of the grave beneath him.

Oliver loved Felix in the only way Oliver knew how to love Felix.

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saltburn is a romcom btw sorry to those who don't get it. pin in the bike tyre is just intentionally spilling a drink on your crush for the chance to touch their skin while wiping them down. embellishing a story so they find you interesting? been there. who hasn't drugged a bottle of champagne to kill them with when they don't reciprocate your feelings. that's what young love is all about

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felix’s lie here is meant for oliver’s benefit, with no malicious or selfish intent. but it’s interesting that felix is technically the first to lie to oliver, and the script also implies that oliver is inspired by felix’s ability to lie

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"the bridge scene is a confession" the bridge scene is an elopement

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Something so striking to me about saltburn is Felix. He’s present in a good portion of the movie, yet we know next to nothing about him. It’s not that he isn’t a fleshed out character, or that we just don’t read between the lines enough. He’s intentionally made to be unknown. It really shows just how little Oliver actually knew him. No matter how much he studied him, thought about him, conceptualized him, he never knew him. A scientist can spend years researching a specimen, but he will never know what it truly thinks. I find it so interesting how inherently wrong Oliver is when interacting with other people. He understands them, mirrors them, etc but he never has any idea who they are. He’s a blank canvas, and the Cattons are colors. He knows which background will match the best with them, but he doesn’t know what pigment they are. He doesn’t know what kind of paint, or the thickness of it on a brush, but he still manages to pull everything off despite it. It’s not that he doesn’t try to know them beyond fundamentals, he can’t. He truly doesn’t know how to view them as people.

Yeah idk man he’s just a lil silly I think

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