HopkinsCinemAddicts

Funny Games

Anna: Why don't you just kill us?
Peter: [smiling] You shouldn't forget the importance of entertainment.
                     Funny Games (2008)

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The setting was Shriver Hall, Halloween 2009. I sat back in my seat as a member of The Johns Hopkins Film Society, after weeks of promoting a spooky holiday double-feature, and prepared for what was to be my least favorite screening of my undergraduate career. Though I've loved decorating my new post-grad apartment with glossy skulls and pumpkins, Halloween is not my holiday. I don't like being voluntarily frightened. I don't enjoy feeling nervous. I don't like things taking me by surprise. And, though I appreciate some Diane Arbus-style forms of the grotesque, scary things freak me out.

The way I appreciate a film is inseparable from my experience with the clothes in it. So the paralyzing fear I felt during our first screening of the night - Funny Games, the 2008 English-language remake of the 1997 Austrian psychological thriller by the same name - began first and foremost with the choice of costumes. The clean white golf polos on our villainous duo immediately brought to mind Malcolm McDowell & co. in A Clockwork Orange, sans bowler hats but with an equal amount of premeditated evilness. Paul and Peter's achingly friendly attitudes at the start reminded me of Alex's cordial, composed, practically relaxed forms of violence. (Plus, anyone catch the biblical reference in their names? Creepy.) Their highly stylized characters from the start struck me and sickened me before I even knew what was to come.

And after sitting and squirming through the entire thing, I decided that what it all boils down to is this - the thing that makes Funny Games so terrifying (and, admittedly, so successful) is just the opposite of theatrical: it's the fact that it could happen.

Think about it compared to our other beloved scary movies. Scream is so foolish, if only for the Ghostfaced Killer mask alone. How can you take something like that seriously? If it had a knife, maybe. But the movie is practically a spoof of a horror film in itself...and the mental image of Drew Barrymore screaming and crying on the phone in her little bob hairdo makes me laugh just thinking about it.

Halloween could happen, I suppose. But what are the chances that everyone in your town will just happen to be out that night, leaving no one to answer their doors and lend you some help? Oh and also, what about your cell phone? Get your iPhone out and call 911, problem solved. (Although the isolation of being in 1978 without a cell phone is frightening on its own for some people, I'd imagine.)

Nightmare on Elm Street, The Exorcist, Poltergeist, The Ring, Zombieland, and most other thrillers require some sort of belief in the magical or paranormal. Something alternate that isn't quite real or logical is causing trouble, mixing up the "usual" we've come to know and expect. Some elements of the story may be possible, but as a whole these films are simply so much less believable because they constantly remind you, in some way, that they can only exist in an alternate reality - the movie theater.

But Funny Games. It's thought of everything. Our main characters are a family of three plus family pet - and, though the only totally likable character is the little boy, the cozy family unit still gives us a sense of stability to be broken. The film drops the family in an "ordinary" rich neighborhood (aka The Hamptons), where luxury, comfort, and security should be high. And what happens when you pay the steep price for a getaway so you have a place to go when you don't want to connect with the world? Two men, slickly groomed and dressed in eerie white, force themselves into your home, drown your cell phones, torture your family, have a laugh, and over the course of 24 hours painfully pick off one loved one after the other. For fun. (And then the tall one joins the cast of Boardwalk Empire.)

I recently thought of Funny Games again when I went to the theater to see Martha Marcy May Marlene. There on the screen is the same luxurious isolation, the same dread of something/someone being after you, the same fear of evil invading your comfortable home and trapping you there in a sort of hell - with the complex addition of pondering whether your hell and your home are one in the same. (Or if any of it happened at all - but that's a discussion for another day.) But more strikingly, I thought of the film again after following the trial of a New England pair who stalked a family of four, invaded their home, and ended up torching the place with a mother and two daughters inside. The courts have just convicted the second man of committing the crime (they've got him on 17 counts, including six capital felonies), but they're waiting to sentence him. So the "story" of Funny Games can happen and, recently, has happened. It's existing horror. And what defense do we have against it?

But really, a movie that thrills you, makes your heart pound and your palms sweat, runs through your head long after it's over, haunts you in the safest of places...isn't that the best scary movie of all? Because I saw this film ONCE two years ago and I still wake up at 3am sometimes thinking about it, I figure it's definitely one worth talking about.

Happy Halloween.

A Vintage Obsession: Fashion in Period Pictures

We might love seeing real personal experiences on the screen, but we welcome the ability to escape into movie worlds with tremendous appreciation. Watching a movie, we are transported out of our seat, away from our problems, into some intangible, unfamiliar place. Here, we see what we want to see, feel what we want to feel, and do what we want to do which is not possible in the realm of reality. Afterwards, we leave the theater – back into the real world – with our imaginations strong and healthy. We’ve talked about how people love an intimate look into worlds of luxury, valor, vacation, and downright eclectic, but there is one realm that moviegoers love even more: the past.

We have a natural love of nostalgia – reliving good memories, regretting bad ones, running our minds over and over could’ve-should’ve-would’ves. We love to ponder where we came from, what we’ve learned, and who we would’ve been if any number of things had gone a different way. Plotting the history of human experience (especially those events and eras we couldn’t witness ourselves) is a major part of the film industry. Period pictures aren’t every movie fan’s favorite genre, but the money and energy invested in each proves just how important it is to create convincing mise-en-scene.

Aside from lending to the magic of the time-machine effect, costumes can make or break a period picture’s authenticity. No matter what time period the film is attempting to capture, audiences want to feel the time warp in all ways, especially in the film’s fashion point-of-view: we see period pictures because we want to leave our seats in the theater and arrive in another year, another place, another time. Every detail – accurate dialogue, landmarks, events, or even hairstyles – gives us a clearer picture of what life would’ve been like had we been there too. Without clothes to imagine wearing, it would be near impossible for us to place ourselves in this strange, foregone world.

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We might think of the past as a ‘simpler’ time, but the I, Claudius (1976) series (adapted for television) shows ancient times were anything but simple. Chronicling the key historical events in the Roman Empire between 44 BC and 41AD, the 13 episodes actually suggest not all that much has changed in society since then. Love, aspirations, and betrayal were still life-controlling; family bonds and political responsibilities were still paramount. The largest reminder that we are watching a portrayal of events that happened several millennia ago? The characters’ appearance, largely affected by the clothes on their backs. Arguably, the costumes in the serial are not overly crafted or complex: flowing fabric creates toga-like dresses and drapes, what we think of as typical for the era. Still, the lines between social classes are clear. Laurel crowns, white and bold colored togas, and brown leather military chest plates differentiate the rich from the slaves who serve them. We are invited into the world of the Roman aristocrat, outfitted in costume to constantly remind us we are watching a period picture about an epic era of world history.

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Rob Reiner’s storytale classic The Princess Bride (1987) is the perfect example of our love for period pictures. Bouncing back and forth from contemporary 1987 to Medieval farm/royal culture, the movie’s timeline recreates the experience of seeing a quality period movie in the first place. We, like Fred Savage’s character, are a bit skeptical of a story about the past, we persevere to hear more with a slightly wary ear, and we end up relating to the story enough to be consumed by it. The best part about this particular film is that the action is being read from the pages of a book – therefore, the costumes we see on screen are actually ‘created’ by the boy’s imagination. We believe the costumes because they are what we think they should be in our own minds: long dresses for the princess, tights and puffy sleeves for male royalty, mysterious black for the hero. It may not be entirely historically accurate, but it suits our idea of medieval times – and that is what allows an audience to whole-heartedly follow a story to its happily-ever-after.

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Les Enfants du Paradis, directed by Marcel Carne, follows a French courtesan  through her interactions with four men who fall in love her. One of the many elements that makes Children of Paradise unique is its setting: though released in 1945, the story takes place in Paris from the 1820’s through the 1830’s. Garance’s four lovers include an aspiring actor named Frédérick, a criminal named Lacenaire, a pantomime named Baptiste and Édouard de Montray, a rich Count. Set in the world of 19^th century Parisian theatre, the film has an extravagant, romantic flavor from the start. Each character has his/her own particular style (related to his/her profession, social class, and role in the story) that helps pull the reader even deeper into the era – a welcome escape from the realities of the 1940’s, which included the Nazi occupation of France. The Count’s tall top hats and Baptiste’s oversized stage outfits take us to a dramatic fantasy world where even the most heart-wrenching tragedy becomes poetic. Even Garance is dressed in puffed sleeves, sweeping skirts, and exquisite accessories: she enjoys luxury, so she allows the audience to enjoy it for several hours as well. And now, with World War II nearly 70 years behind us, audiences consider Children of Paradise to be one of the best films ever made, showing just how this look into Paris’ romantic past transcends time as well.

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As the market grew for period pictures profiling the years of the 20^th century, it became even harder to define these short bursts of culture-changing trends. The most current period pictures are full of a diversity that parallels our recent colorful history as a culture. Take, for example, the following three films. Though they all take place within less than 20 years of each other, Shutter Island’s (2010) eerily simple neutrals straight out of 1954, the skinny ties and slick hair that characterized a 1960’s pop band in That Thing You Do! (1996), and the wispy shirts and relaxed hippie denim of 70’s-based Almost Famous (2000) could not paint a more different picture of modern American life.

Now, movie-goers have so many options for how they experience life in the past. There are exponentially more worlds for them to enter and explore, all made to be more accessible than ever with the costume designer’s ability to style them perfectly and uniquely. Though there is a true respect for accurately depicting reality in present-day pictures, movie audiences have certainly not lost their desire for decadence and escape into the past.

Losing Ourselves in Film Fashion: All About Escape

Film is a biography – an autobiography, even – of a society. It is a window into the soul of a movie-watching culture. It freezes in time the morals, values, interests, aesthetics, abnormalities of a culture.

What I’m going to say here, however, is going to completely contradict my answer to the question, Why do we love film and fashion? Sure, even the most surreal film contains the truth, the sincere raw intensity of the human experience. Even the most incoherent, avant-garde fashion show reflects human emotion, human eyes, human reactions. Film, even since it became a publically accessible thing, is us. There’s no way around it – by making movies at all, we leave a little bit of ourselves – our goals, our fears, our thoughts – behind in them. That’s why we love them. Fashion is the same. We love knowing there is a way to explain ourselves. We love knowing we aren’t the only ones who feel this or wonder that. We love discovering new things about ourselves and we love trying new things courtesy of others, trying them on for size.

And yet, one of the other most sincere reasons for why we love movies and fashion seems quite the opposite. The two mediums also share our ambitions, those things we yearn for most deeply but aren’t manifested in everyday life. There’s a wickedly complex veil over the worlds of film and fashion, as if they are inaccessible to the everyday man or woman. But it couldn’t be more personal. What we see on the screen is, often, what we wish to wear but can’t. It is a reflection of our desires. Sometimes, we don’t want to sit in a dark theater and  see something out of our everyday lives: we want to escape, to see something foreign that was once only possible in our imaginations. The point is not that the plot feels possible, just that we believe, in this other universe, the chain of events on screen makes some sense. And without unique fashion to emphasize a crazy plot, movie goers may not buy it at all.

Just imagine any of the following movies with people wearing modern clothes. Rose DeWitt, sitting in first class wearing jeans? The Harry Potter kids, casting spells in Forever 21? Even surrounded by the appropriate sets and props, these movies wouldn’t seem quite so magical or quite so exotic without fashion following suit. Fashion has the ability to make the audience feel the full effects of a whole host of escapism moods. Without it, movies steeped in luxury, location, valor, surreal, and the truly fantastic would just fall flat.

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LUXURY: DANGEROUS LIAISONS (1988)

This remake of the 18th century-based drama, starring Glenn Close and John Malkovich, won an Oscar for its extreme costume design. The task certainly must have seemed daunting: French Revolution-wear (think: modesty, lots and lots and lots of fabric) that could allow seduction and delicious betrayal to shine through? Costume designer James Acheson’s trick was not to show skin to achieve the presence of sex; instead, the characters’ addiction to indulgence was emphasized by yards of luxurious material in rich colors like pumpkin, lemon yellow, and clean stark white. Audience members most likely would never have a chance to dress this way, but the richness of the whole environment makes high-class debauchery accessible to all (if only for a couple hours). A romantic story of love, schemes and epic drama would only be complete with extravagant clothing in tow.

LOCATION: THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY (1999)

Italian faux-vacation hotspot Mongibello is the location of this psychological thriller that transports its stars (Damon, Paltrow, and Law to name a few)  back to 1950’s Italy. The world around them is beautiful as Tom Ripley works his ‘ugly’ magic, conniving his way into his targets’ lives. Marge’s long wide skirts and effortlessly tied button-downs at the start of the film are the epitome of resort fashion of the day – they look expensive and cause the audience to subconsciously crave her blueblood, warm weather traveler aura. Tom and Dickie’s characters physically manifest their differences with two distinct styles of their own. (Crisp collared button downs, tight swim shorts and thick rimmed glasses were just some of the items in the costume closet.) Dickie’s background – including a degree from Princeton and grooming to take over the profitable family business – is there in every thread of his clothes, a silent but ever-present reminder that Ripley (nor the audience member) will never attain exactly what he wants: to be Dickie, style and all.

VALOR: THE LONGEST DAY (1962)

The star-power behind this war film might be distracting if it appeared in any other movie: it features Henry Fonda, Robert Mitchum, John Wayne, Richard Burton, Sean Connery, George Segal…I could go on. But dressing all the men in their nation’s uniform, whether it be the United States, Britain, France or Germany, works to make them equals forced to live D-Day together as their ancestors did 20 years before. Especially in war movies, there is no choice but to dress the characters in anything but completely accurate military garb. When memories of combat, war terror, and lost loved ones are on the line, anything less would be disrespectful. When these memories don’t exist in the minds of audience members at all (those people who have never experienced war first-hand), accuracy is even more important. It brings the highlights of war to us and, while we can never experience pain or fatigue to the level of a serviceman, we feel exactly as we wish to feel when we begin to watch: as if we are there in the trenches, experiencing courage, strength, danger and loss with these heroic men.

THE SURREAL: A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971)

Though I admit I don’t have much experience in this department, I’m fairly certain that you don’t normally get roughed up on a dark street by a crew of men in white overalls and bowler hats. Milena Canonero’s cartoonish costumes in the midst of Kubrick’s sinister violence play with the audience’s psychological state in the way that Alex’s mind is plucked and prodded by the story itself. Dark maniacal crimes paired with patent leather skinny pants make Alex and his crew more than just a group of hooligans committing nightmarish acts: they are entertaining in their suspenders, tempting the movie-goer to be seduced by such rich and visually-appealing images. It is terrifying to think, even for a moment, that you actually like what is on screen, but that is what Kubrick mastered as a director. Beautiful horror, stylized crime, indulgent ideas of a dystopian future – it is nothing we could ever see and, more importantly, appreciate in real life. Such surreal anti-pairs certainly satisfy us as a movie-watching, escape-driven public.

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Fashion has long been more than a way to cover ourselves from dirt and indecency, just as film has forever been more than just images on a screen. Together, they are able to create worlds that stretch and satisfy even the most creative, most extreme imaginations, giving movie goers a way to live outside their means, outside their norms, and outside their wildest dreams.

 

The Essential Women of Film Fashion

Why do we love film? Obviously, that’s a big question – huge – and certainly too big to tackle here.  But let me try: in so many words, we love film because we love any reminder of what it means to live the human experience. And a lot goes into a film to earn our trust on that. Whether or not the plot is plausible in any way, we crave that feeling of knowing we’re in good hands – that something about what we’re seeing is authentic and genuine. Sets, locations, props, lighting – they all contribute to our ability to imagine ourselves within the context of that movie. But arguably the most important, at least to me, is fashion.

Now, why do we love fashion? Still a tough, slippery question to try to answer. But I believe we love it because it’s the best, most direct way of telling the world who we are. Life choices, social standing, our level of creativity, our goals in life, our human experiences thus far and the way we see the world, the way we hope for the extraordinary. You can’t possibly tell a person all of these things in your first conversation with them. You can, however, wear clothes that show them all.

As a film audience, we automatically get a sense of a character from the clothes on her back. (For the sake of space, I’m being sexist and dealing with women’s wear; the same can be said for men too, though.) Once fashion becomes important to you, it becomes a part of the way you see the world. And once a character from a film becomes a style icon, history has shown that culture will never be the same.

It may not say great things for the fashion industry’s ability to push forth in fresh directions, but it is a comforting fact to know that, every season, I will open a fashion magazine and see many of the same film icons referenced as inspiration. The people that, without fail, continue to be the source of inspiration for trendy new runway shows. The pieces that say something, that suit certain classic personalities. The effortless looks that are the cleanest ways to tell the world who we are.

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Katharine Hepburn, Sylvia Scarlett (1935) / You are: A spunky, determined, perhaps career-driven woman who likes men…but sure doesn’t need them.

Four days out of seven, I wear pants. (That’s an actual statistic.) I wonder if that would be true without Katharine Hepburn. Sylvia Scarlett may not be the most popular of her films (or quite frankly, the best), but pants appearing on screen – on the legs of a woman – would change fashion, film, and the American woman forever. But she did more than simply wear pants: somehow, Katharine had the magic to turn wide-legged, high-waisted trousers into the boldest statement of female independence. We take for granted the jeans and slacks hanging in our closets. Without her undeniable sense of self, I wonder how long it would’ve taken for them to reach us.

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Jean Seberg, Breathless (1959) / You are: A tomboy or a Francophile. Or both.

 

 Somehow, I made it through 19 years without ever having seen this Godard masterpiece. Luckily, the rest of the world was not so slow: at least twice a year, I open an issue of Vogue, Elle or Vanity Fair only to see a black and white photograph of Jean’s sweet-yet-sly smirk surrounded by cut-outs of fedora hats, striped boat-neck shirts, skinny black pants and little cinch purses to help readers “get the look.” Breathless put a charming, doe-eyed American on the map as a model for Parisian style – and we have looked to her to mimic it ever since.

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Brigitte Bardot, And God Created Woman (1956) / You are: A feminine, vivacious woman who may or may not be used to men falling at her feet.

Pouty lips, check. Wavy hair, check. Hourglass shape, check plus. Whether she appeared on screen in underwear, sheer shirt dresses or... well, nothing at all, Brigitte set a new standard for what it means to be a sexy woman. In life and film, she dressed her bombshell personality with cinched waists, corseted bodices, full skirts and dark liquid eyeliner. Brigitte Bardot opened a door for women, showing that a sexualized image could actually be empowering – not demeaning. This was an idea that would endure not only through the next decade, but as a timeless template for seductive style.

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Uma Therman, Pulp Fiction (1994) / You are: Mysterious and tough as nails, period.

 

Yes, I’m going there. Fashion might not have been the first thing on your mind while watching Quentin Tarantino’s crowning achievement, but women left the theatres ready to bring touches of Mia Wallace into their everyday. Think black: midnight nail polish, inky blunt bobs, and sharp dark stilettos exploded with Pulp Fiction. More importantly, women tend to look to these accessories for the quickest way to an edgy, darker style even today. We’ll pass on the needle through the heart, though – no need to be that edgy. 

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I know I’m committing a blogging crime by leaving another pretty Hepburn off this list (the little black dress is incredibly iconic and one of my favorite films of all time, Funny Face, is so fabulously rooted in fashion that I felt I couldn’t do them justice), but the truth is that there are still so many more. The newbies – Zooey Deschanel, Anne Hathaway, Sienna Miller, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kirsten Dunst. The classics – Lauren Bacall, Catherine Deneuve, Grace Kelly, Greta Garbo, Diane Keaton. They are archetypes of the facets of female style that don’t grow stale: the girly girl, the sophisticate, the tomboy, the low-maintenance, the eclectic. It’s no secret that women are complex, if not slightly confusing, creatures…but these style icons complete us. I venture to say that is why their faces smile up at us from glossy pages on a regular basis. And with these staples already in our closets, we’ll walk confident, knowing we’re already one timeless step ahead.