The Big Lebowski, by Giada Fried

The Big Lebowski is a 1998 American comedy film directed by the Coen brothers. The storyline contains elements of film noire but humor is the overall main driving theme. The shaggy, baggy, un-employed surfer-dude meets bowler looks were created by Mary Zophres, an acclaimed costume designer that has worked on almost all the Coen films (she has won a BAFTA award for O brother, where art thou?).

Jeff Bridges stars as Jeff Lebowski or as he refers to himself "The Dude" - an unemployed L.A. slacker and avid bowler who drinks gallons of White Russians all day long and gets involved in a case of mistaken identity. Throughout the film his look is laid back and embodies the typical casual leisure look. In the first scene we see him walking through a supermarket in his robe and boxers, completely indifferent about his life. Later on we see him in a hoody and striped, baggy pants and then with an oversized wool, old-school sweater. Lebowski's color palette is toned down to earthy, muted colors -perhaps to indicate his social status or maybe to evoke a past era, for the entire film has a bit of a 1970's feel. Another important costume aspect is the importance of bowling, which leads to very specific costume choices. Mary Zophres did a great job at creating the "Lebowski look" - a look that is contemporary yet vintage and that embodies the slacker, california feeling. Together with the film, this specific look has become a cult classic for many around the world.

Tzar (2009) by Tsepkova Varvara

Film Tzar(2009) directed by Pavel Lungin
Costume designers: Ekaterina Diminskaia and Natalia Dzubenko.
Ekaterina Diminskaia and Natalia Dzubenko received Russian cinema awards in 2009 for the best work on costume for film Tzar(2009).
The film tells the story of the first Russian Tzar Ivan the Terrible. In 16th-century Russia in the grip of chaos, Ivan the Terrible strongly believes he is vested with a holy mission.
Tzar(2009) is a costume drama. Costume designers worked on traditional costumes of
the Tzar as well as recreated costumes of peasants.
The costume of the Tzar and nobility were hand made and hand embroidered.
Costume designers say that they went to India to get the fabrics for the costumes.
Rich fabrics such as velvet and silk were used to design the costumes.
A rich color palette is accurate for the costumes of nobility: deep red and deep green, blue.
Hats played a great role in the traditional costume of that era and in the film, there was more than 40 hats created for Tzar(2009). Kokoshnick traditional hats were used for girls. All head pieces were hand embroidered.

Mulholland Drive (2001) by Tsepkova Varvara

Lynch in the interview says that there is no particular narrative in Mulholland Drive (2001) and he likes the idea that everyone can intuitively find there own meaning to the film.
Mulholland drive(2001) is a statement about Hollywood being a "dream land" versus Hollywood being a very dark place. It is a postmodern film that provides multi layered narrative.
David Lynch coming from painting background treats his films as a painting where things are done exactly as they have to be. Each element in the movie plays a great role. Colors are carefully selected as well as objects are placed with meaning.
The costume design plays significant role in the narrative of the film and Ana Stofsky as well as Durinda Wood did a great job on costume design of the characters of Mulholland Drive (2001). Through understanding of the costume audience can get closer to the meaning of the movie.

The Prestige (2006): Kanishka Jain

The period mystery thriller The Prestige 2006 was set in the 19th Century, the film was well directed by Christopher Nolan and got numerous appreciations. Celebrated Costume Designer Joan Bergin designed the typical Victorian era costumes. The primary Protagonist Robert Angier played by Hugh Jackman is a stage magic and is a person with ample wealth and is dressed as the ‘Upper Class’ in the respective time. Bergin designed all the costumes in sync with the character and all of them were custom made.


The film was shot in the early 2000’s and the costumes were supposed to be kept very true to its time. So we see the use of tight fitting, calf length frock coats and a waistcoat or vest, cravats or neckties and breeches. The shirts were made of linen or cotton with low collars and were worn with wide cravats. Formal evening dress remained a dark tailcoat and trousers with a dark waistcoat as scene in the scenes where he is presenting on the stage. The protagonist gets on to be designated the title of Lord and thus his dress up later changes according to his status, though the colors grow more towards a sober tone than his earlier dramatic self. Consequently the character achieved the effect of the time line and as a viewer I was well satisfied in imagining the 19th century sensation.

I am Love (David Bazner)

In the Italian film I am Love (Io Sono l’amore), Tilda Swinton plays Emma Recchi, a wife in a powerful Italian textile manufacturing family. The family can be considered a Milanese dynasty, with wealth that dates back multiple generations. Raf Simmons of Jil Sander designed the costumes and pieces from Fendi were also used.

The film takes place in 2001 and in order to achieve Recchi’s look, Simmons’ had to keep the costumes elegant and refined. In one scene, Swinton’s character runs errands wearing a streamlined grey knee length coat, cream blouse, grey pearls, and nude sunglasses. Her understated yet perfectly tailored clothes combined with her posture and Birkin bag indicate her social status. Moreover, Emma Recchi does not come from a wealthy family, but rather married into one. Therefore, she must try even harder to exemplify the look of a Milanese aristocrat. This is reflected in her clothing as it is always perfect to the point of being unreal (indicating an outsider).

Donnie Darko (2001) - Kanishka Jain

The Original Theatrical Release Poster

Costume Designer: APRIL FERRY

April Cecilia Gaskin was born in North Carolina, USA on 31^st October 1932. She has had a prosperous career since her start with a number of films in her kitty. Across her years she has been accredited and awarded many awards; she won BAFTA Cymru Award for Best Costume Design for The Edge of Love (2008), Emmy for Outstanding Costume Design for television series for Rome (2005) and was also Nominated for Best Costume Design at the Academy Awards.

Currently she is working on an a Film titled Buddha; the project has created great expectations and could get wide spread appreciation for her. She has worked on numerous films and many were masterpieces; few to count are:

2009 Clones

2008 The Edge of Love

2003 Terminator 3

2001 Emprise

2001 Donnie Darko

2000 Boys and Girls

1998 Claudine's Return

1993 Beethoven's 2nd

1989 Immediate Family

1986 Poltergeist II

1984 Mike's Murder

1981 The Sophisticated Gents (TV movie)

CONTEXT

The film was set in the year 1988 in Middlesex, Virginia; so it was a period film compared to when it was written, that is in 2000. The film was shot in only 28 days in 2001 and was filmed entirely around Los Angeles. A brief point to be mentioned about the costumes is that the look that Donnie appears across the film was very true to its time; there were not much variance to Donnie compared to the actual dressing of people then. The schizophrenic character that Donnie plays is well connected with the shabby attire he is always dressed in and the use of dull colors enforces the significant aspect of his mental state.

Synopsis & Trailer

Donnie accepts his death, understanding what his continued life would mean. Most of the film takes place in a tangent universe, where Donnie is guided by Frank and others, and shown what will happen if he survives the jet engine.

Does Donnie choose to die? To me, this is hard to answer. At one point, Donnie asks his physics teacher about free will versus following the 'path of god.' We can actually see this 'path of god' for some people when their movements are predicted by some computer graphics. On a larger scale, Donnie has been marked for death as his path, and it is debatable as to how much choice he really ever had. I think to say he accepts it after losing Gretchen and killing Frank is the most accurate perspective.

Another theme of the film is dying alone. Grandma Death says that every living creature dies alone. In a way, Gretchen, Frank, and Donnie all do die alone. Donnie thinks about this doom in questioning the existence of god. He is often a lonely guy; the idea seems unfair. I think this theme is really about having to accept our own deaths. We need to see that the destruction of ourselves is just another form of creation -- something Donnie himself points out (in his own way) in analyzing Graham Greene's story in school.

Character Overview

The protagonist in the film is as the title, Donnie Darko; he plays a schizophrenic and is played by Jake Gyllenhall and the movie revolves around him and his delusions’ created by his situation. Obviously another primary character is his delusion ‘Frank the Bunny,’ which is played by James Duval. Donnie’s love interest, Gretchen Ross is played by Jena Malone and was a major sympathetic influence for him. Another important character was Dr. Kenneth Monnitoff who was his psycharerist and played an important role to develop the lead’s characteristics. Finally the mystery woman was Roberto Sparrow who played a role of joining ends and managing suspense.

COLOR PALLETE

There isn’t any particular color palette except for Donnie’s costume. We see Donnie dressed in pale colors and specially variance of blue; that is contrary to his mental state. The colors reflect to the audience a complete opposite emotion that is of calmness whereas Donnie is always in a volatile emotional state. The primary sets of colors are coherent to the secondary set of colors; we see that Donnie’s costumes are exactly the same color as the set in most of the movie. Initially we noticed that the room was of a teenage boy but after the destruction the room grasps a more mature look.

Donnie

GRECTHEN (Donnie'sLove)

The Characterization Study

The protagonist of the film is elucidated through the chronology of the movie; at instances where he encounters ‘Frank the Rabbit’ are situation that have the turning points, so these scenes carry heavy significance in the storyline and the costumes have played an important liaison between the audiences and the emotion to be scene. The use of the color blue is eminent in almost every shot whereas yellow is seen in the scenes where something goes abnormal than the emotion to be articulated. The bizarre use of liquidized visuals to convey the situation of Donnie’s elusion has also been a notable aspect.

The initial encounter of Donnie with frank is seen here; the use of the diffusion affect with the blue background lighting and Donnie wearing blue as seen routinely, creates the cold dreamy and Donnie’s evil affect of shot. This is where the viewer experiences the first instance of the actuality

The "White Witch" from The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe

by Lucinda Bellm

Tilda Swinton’s out fit as her character Jadis, the White Witch was designed by Isis Mussenden, a renowned costume designer who graduated from Parsons School of Design, who has also worked on other films such as Shrek.

The costume really went against any other stereotype of a witch being ugly and dark with the traditional black pointy hat, instead Mussenden and Swinton went with the idea to make her as Aryan as possible, more Nazi like, which was appropriate as the film was set during the 2^nd World War.

Mussenden describes the White Witch being her most challenging design during the film in which the final outfit was actually inspired with the help of production designer, Roger Ford and her 4 year old son who actually came up with the idea of the witch “evolving” rather than “changing” clothing”.

The dress was made to look as though the witch had covered herself up in a bit of Narnia. The witch’s outfit carries a lot of symbolism, in which the materials and fabrics were sourced from all over the world to create the effect it had. The first layer of the dress is a velvet dyed, the second layer is felted wool and silk, it is the sheen of the silk that created these icy lines and then the final layer is lace with metallic thread and organza pieces that are sewn and burnt into the fabric. The bottom of the dress is made from a substance that reminded her of this waterfall they saw in New Zealand which projects connotations of the witch being made from water or ice. Then they drew the ice crackle from a small scale to a larger scale at the hem of the dress to create this illusion of height, that the witch was a giant. Other symbolic aspects of her outfit were her ice crown that melts throughout the film and her hair looking like roots from the ground. Overall all these aspects of her costume was what created this organic giant ice queen witch like character.