NEW ULM – The New Ulm Film Society (NUFS) will take off the rose tinted glasses for a screening of the 1998 fantasy film “Pleasantville.”

The screening starts at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 12 at the New Ulm Public Library. This is the fifth film in the film society’s special-effects series. The series has explored advancements in movie special-effects and Pleasantville has a unique place in that history.

When it was released in 1998, “Pleasantville” had the record for most digital effects shots in a single movie. This is because roughly half of the film features color correcting effects. These effects are more than just for show. They are major plot points that also sets up the theme of the movie.

“Pleasantville” starts out in modern-day (1998) U.S.A. Teenage twins, David (Tobey Maguire) and Jennifer (Reese Witherspoon) get into a fight over what to watch on TV. The fight results in a broken remote control. Fortunately, a TV repairman arrives with a replacement remote with magical abilities that can put the audience inside the show.

David and Jennifer are transported into a black and white 1950s TV series called Pleasantville, where they have replaced two of the main characters. David and Jennifer attempt to follow the script of the show until they can return to the real world, but find it hard to stick to the plot of the ’50s sitcom that operates on old-fashioned TV logic.

The longer David and Jennifer stay in this fictional world, the more they change things. By accident the two teens introduce new concepts foreign to the world of Pleasantville. It is not long before their actions break the reality of the show and things start getting colorful — literally and figuratively.

Full color begins to seep into the black and white TV world. At first it’s a red rose, followed by a green car, but before long it expands to the characters. Some of the town folk of Pleasnativlle are happy to embrace the changes, but others are threatened by it and work to prevent further progress. Before long, Pleasantville begins to look less like an idealized 1950s town and more like a city in the turbulent 1960s.

“Pleasantville” was an eye-catching film upon its first release. Few movies had ever tried to combine black and white and color filmmaking into the same story. “Wizard of Oz” experimented with this in 1939, but the monochrome and color scenes were separated. Other films had tried to insert color into black and white scenes, but kept it at a minimum because colorizing black and white was too time consuming.

“Pleasantville” merged color into monochrome scenes on a larger scale thanks to advances in digital filming, but also by taking a new approach. Previous movies attempted to insert color to black and white film by adding splashes of colors, the “Pleasantville” filmmakers shot the entire movie in color and added the black and white. The filmmakers realized it was easier to desaturate selected objects in the frame, rather than add color. The special-effect in “Pleasantville” is not the color, it’s the black and white.

This was a huge shift in how films worked with color. The special effects work done on “Pleasantville” has been further streamlined. Today, most digital cameras can filter out select colors during the photographer process. Most photo editing software now comes with this feature, but in 1998 it was a sight to see.

“Pleasantville” was a hit with audiences. The special-effects were highly praised. Many critics were pleasantly surprised with how the color effects help tell the story.

Film critic Roger Ebert, praised the film for presenting an extremely controversial idea: “the world has gotten better.”

The fictional world of Pleasantville is initially presented as a perfect 1950s utopia, where everyone is happy, but this is an illusion. There are dozens of citizens in Pleasantville eager to embrace a more colorful world. Even those who liked the old ways are forced to admit it would be a mistake. The belief that things used to be better back in the old days is nostalgia from fictional worlds that only really existed on TV.

The New Ulm Film Society’s screening of “Pleasantville” is free to the public. Before and after the film, there will be discussion about the film, including discussion of its special-effects and themes.