Historical Period Films: The Young Victoria

A character’s costume is much more than the clothes they wear to play a part. These clothes help us venture into the author’s world and help us connect with this new place and believe in its reality. They help us capture so much more than what the character looks like. We are able to see, feel, and experience the characters personality and purpose in the story. In a play or movie, we immediately make our fist connection with a character based on what they are wearing, this is the first step in drawing us in and making us believe in this new world. This first impression gives us the first glimpse at the characters style, background, and social class. All of these things are meant to immediately draw us in.

Director Stephen Frears did a great job using syntax to help analize the language in the movie and reinforcing the theme. He also did a great job reinforcing the theme with real television clips. An example when the people in the news clip confirm that the Queen is acting traditionally while they have modernilized and their actions show that they have progressively modernised. When the Queen is watching the news and the people are speaking about their feeling toward the actions taken by the Queen after the death of Diana. The real telivision clips make the events in the film

The character I have chosen to portray from Stephen Frears movie, “The Queen”, is Queen Elizabeth who is conflicted and under pressure due to the high pressure from her people,

All the costumes were normal attire people wear everyday. Richard wore a maroon collared shirt, with black dress pants, and had a briefcase that matched his collared shirt. When Richard first walked onto stage I thought he was a businessman because he was clean cut, dressed professionally, and carried a briefcase.  Richard’s hair color was light grey which means he was an older gentleman like Anne said in the play. The next costume I thought was interesting was the superintendent outfit because it looked like a janitor uniform. When the superintendent made her first appearance she was eating a cookie and taking the garbage can out of the room. Therefore, I initially thought she was just a janitor. Later in the performance the audience found out she was the superintendent in charge of the apartments in the building and also did a lot of repairs. The third costume was Paul’s plaid shirts that stood out to the audience. This costume tells the audience about the time the performance is taking place. In today’s world people tend not to wear buttoned up plaid shirts because they are out of style. However, back in the 70s plaid shirts were in style and all the men wore them as causal attire. The last costume I thought was interesting was Larry’s, the expectant father, he wore a sweater vest and dress pants, his hair was comb to one side, and he wore glasses. This costume tells the audience that he comes from a wealthy yuppy family and is a smart person because he wears nerdy glasses and wears a sweater

Most of the actors are wearing darker clothing as well which makes their faces stand out even more. This lighting style also adds to the tension and the mystery of the scene. It makes the audience on edge. The contrast filled lighting of film noir is also effective at bringing out the extremes of emotions and thought. The darkness of the genre makes anything that goes wrong seem less taboo, because the lighting of the genre sets up the norms for the world that the film lives in—and in that world, bad things happen. The lighting of the film helps the audience understand the world that the characters are in.

Being that this is a movie about fashion, I did enjoy the array of clothes—especially the way Nancy Meyers compares fashion from decades past to today. There is one scene when Ben explains why men carry handkerchiefs in their pockets. A fact that I never really understood until I saw this

Chris Columbus is a well-known American director who won many awards and nominations for his films. Columbus typically directs films centering how average Columbus’s perception on the goal of movies is to “leave people with a sense of hope”. In Columbus’s films, he attempts to exemplify this idea. Home Alone, I Love You, Beth Cooper, and Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief all share the same element that make the film captivating: the use of mise-en-scene. Mise-en-scene uses setting, music, costumes, lighting, props, and sounds to create the overall appearance and impression of the movie.

In the same token, the costume design also did a marvelous job helping to relate to the tone of the plot line. In the beginning, we are introduced the Lotte, a lonely British doll maker and repair artist who is planning a singles getaway in order to find love in Troy. Her costume throughout the play is very baggy and unflattering with very mutual colors. I believe that the costume designer did this in order to emphasize the simplicity of the character. When she gets to Troy she meets Clive who is referenced to as the guy she begins to love in Troy. His costume is a bright pink shirt and khakis. His outfit almost represents a butler or a server in the resort scene. During the scenes from the "past" we are introduced to the women of Troy. These costumes were very intricate and detailed. To begin, the costumes

Surprisingly to me I couldn’t find too many historical inaccuracies in this movie. The settings of scenes match up well with 1800s France and all of the architecture is generally similar to French architecture of the time period. Where I found the most inaccuracies was in the clothes that the characters wore. Doing a little research on the fashion of the 1800s, specifically 1815-1844 when the story takes place, I found that the style of clothes that the characters wear would be nearly half a century old, the clothes worn in the film being more reminiscent to late 1700s fashion. Not to mention the total negation of hats in the film which were a staple of men’s fashion throughout the 1800s.

In “The Role of Costumes and Costume Designers” Deborah Landis, the author, advertises the two most important roles of costumes in film, the first is to support the narrative and the second is to provide balance in the frame. In the article Landis says “Costumes are one of the tools, which the film maker has to tell the story” (Landis). She engulfs the idea that the costumes are one of the most important aspects of the movie. Essentially Landis agrees with Bruzzi that without costumes, viewers would not be able to understand a character as well and it would be harder for the plot to

Clothing has and always will be a vital thing in life, but it is very hard to find for a reasonable price, let alone free, it seems it has always been that way. I noticed a few costumes had ends that weren’t finished, they were cut or worn down, that is one of a few things that added a different level of humanness to this production. When they did costuming, I found that everything clashed in so many ways; patterns, colors, clothing styles, everything, I loved it! The artists are trying to use costuming to convey things that the dialogue can only hint at. They are adding points of view on life that different people can relate to in different ways. By taking these characters/people who were pretty high up on the ladder and dressing them in scraps they are portraying that clothing is not only a precious commodity which does not make the man, but you will always find clothing corresponds very closely to an environment –Even the first Duke was dressed in Camouflage with leaves glued to his hat and coat.

“An effective costume engages the audience’s attention and enhances the production and the actor’s performance: (1) it visually defines and supports the character developed by the actor, and (2) it helps establish the overall theme and mood of the production as interpreted by the director. An effective costume speaks to the audience’s subconscious store of knowledge and experience, helping them to identify the individual characters even before they speak and even if they are silent.”

The western movies are film genre where the scene generally takes place in North America during the American conquest of the West in the last decades of the nineteenth century. This genre appears since the invention of the cinema in 1985 finding its inspiration from literature and painting arts of the American Wild West. This genre reached its first success in the mid-twentieth century during the golden age of Hollywood studios, before it had being reinvented by European filmmakers in the 1960s.

Costuming can tell you plenty of information about characters. It can tell you a character’s mood, the time period the movie (or particular scene) was set in, and the fashion sense of the character, among other things (Zemeckis, 1994). A good example of costuming giving the viewer good insight was when Forrest was about to be sent off to Vietnam for the war and he was in Washington, D.C. During this time, it was the late 1960s and the hippie movement was in full effect (Zemeckis, 1994). This movement was all about free spirit and the people who were for the movement was against the Vietnam War. Jenny, the other main character in this movie, decided to go with the times, with the colorful attire and wearing the peace symbol. On the other hand, Forrest remained the same. As the movie went to and the time changed, the costuming changed as well, which made costuming very important.

Imagine a classic Shakespearian play or Italian opera performed in hip-hugging jeans or baggy t-shirts; or imagine the period musical 1776, produced by the wonderful Stuart Ostrow, performed in the groovy attire of the 1970s. These performances would seem completely out of place and confusing. One would not be able to grasp the completeness of the story or have any understanding of the time period, geographical location, or the character’s lifestyles and/or social statuses. As a result, the audience would fail to see certain emotions or feelings portrayed, character personalities, and would find it very difficult be connected to