"As soon as you use an element on the screen it becomes subject to dramatic laws. This is as true of colour as of everything else. So I wanted to shoot everything from the start. I took four or five weeks to prepare my plans. My idea was to build up the colour dramatically. I wanted to start with black, white, grey; then ooze into colour. And I wanted the dramatic climax of the film to coincide with the colour climax, which would be predominantly red, because that is the nature of red."
January 1, 1970
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Rouben_Mamoulian