Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Crimson Peak - The Ghost is a Metaphor
25 Plays10 days ago
Is this the most gothic movie to ever be gothic? We think so. It has the Ghosts. It has the Horror. It has the Drama. But most of all, it has the gorgeous costumes. Grab your top with the biggest sleeves and join us for this creepy, bloody romp through the Victorian Era.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2554274/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_3_tt_8_nm_0_in_0_q_crimson
https://asufidmmuseum.asu.edu/learn/articles/crimson-peak-part-one
https://www.motionpictures.org/2015/10/costume-designer-kate-hawley-talks-crimson-peak/
https://variety.com/2015/artisans/news/crimson-peak-costume-designer-kate-hawley-1201603363/
Music: Cassette Deck by Basketcase
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Hot Set Podcast and Crimson Peak
00:00:00
Speaker
I'm Melinda. I'm Ariel. This is Hot Set, the movie podcast about costume design.
00:00:22
Speaker
welcome back to another episode of Hot Set Podcast. ah We are here today to discuss the, maybe the most gothic movie to ever goth in the history of cinema. It's so goth.
00:00:41
Speaker
Yeah. who are here today talking about the 2015 film Crimson Peak, directed by Guillermo del Toro, starring Mia Vosikowska, Jessica Chastain, Tom Hiddleston, and Charlie Hunnam.
Plot and Setting of 'Crimson Peak'
00:01:02
Speaker
Hunnam. Hunnam. I think I even practiced it before we started. And I still said it wrong. Well, how did you say Mia's last name? ah well she vote vohi ah voshi kofska it's polish i am the worst because i always thought just wasikowska i think it's the i think the w's are pronounced like these and i always pronounce it wrong but i think i like heard her
00:01:35
Speaker
in like an interview one time, like introduce herself. And I was like, oh, that's a different language. That is a different language. This is so upsetting because I've been reading it wrong um so long. Yeah, I don't remember. But yeah, I think it's...
00:01:51
Speaker
washi kovska so um we're gonna go with that until people who know better can correct me and tell me all the ways in which i don't understand polish and they can tell me that i'm wrong and i look forward to it i'm here to learn ah but yeah okay crimson peak uh wow um where to even start with crimson peak um it's I mean, this movie is absolutely insane to look at. And the content of the movie is, I think, on par with the insanity of like the visuals here. So that's good. We're in harmony.
00:02:31
Speaker
For like the most brief summary before we like really get into it ah Mia plays a young woman named Edith who is from... New York State Buffalo I think and she's uh she's a young lady she's entering adulthood she has these aspirations for herself she wants to be a writer whatever she loves her dad she's haunted by literally by the ghost of her mother and she meets Tom Hiddleston and his sister sister
00:03:03
Speaker
sister Jessica Chastain who are British and they came to the U.S. looking for investors and they're kind of shady and she gets kind of mixed up in them because she falls in love with Tom and after the sudden death of her father she seems to sort of alone with Tom they go back to England and And she moves into his dilapidated manor house with his sister.
00:03:36
Speaker
Lucille. Sister. Period. Exclamation point. Period. Period. period Exclamation point.
Ariel's Experience and Fear of Ghosts
00:03:44
Speaker
And um then things just get very, very bad over the course of the movie.
00:03:49
Speaker
um I had seen this movie once before, it maybe like five years ago. and But Ariel, this was your first time seeing the movie. So I would love to start with...
00:04:01
Speaker
Your overall take on the movie. So I've seen Guillermo del Toro's work before. I love his stuff. And I'm a big old baby.
00:04:12
Speaker
Anybody who knows me can attest to this when it comes to horror, horror, horror. I am such... Especially when it's ghosts involved.
00:04:23
Speaker
If it's like serial killers, like thrillery kind of thing, then i can I can follow without being like, like I can react, but not just be like my eyeballs. But as soon as ghosts come into it, I'm just like.
00:04:36
Speaker
such a baby and so like very quick i was like nope like my first notes and this are oh yeah i forgot i'm a little baby when it comes to scary things and then underneath that in all caps not the grandfather clock because you listen to me right now you listen to me right now that was a genuine horror of mine as a kid Because my grandparents had a grandfather clock and it was right outside of their guest room, which is where I would sleep.
00:05:04
Speaker
And I was an insomniac as a child because I had night terrors. And I would imagine that the rhythm of the ticking and talking was footsteps.
00:05:16
Speaker
And so... So you would just scare yourself. Yeah. Oh, horrifically. And like, you know, when you're laying down and you can hear your heartbeat, like your I was like, yep, it's somebody coming out of the grandfather clock. They're coming.
00:05:31
Speaker
And so I saw that clock and I clocked it. something Not good. It's coming from over there. and then it was proven right so quickly. so I was like, thank you, Mr. Del Toro for like not even taking a second to like fuck up my life. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. funny, because we had a grandfather clock in our house when I was growing up. And so after...
00:05:54
Speaker
living with one for not very long, like I just never ever like heard it like and it would chime every 15 minutes and I would maybe hear it like once a day, i would actually like register in my brain that I was listening to it.
00:06:07
Speaker
um But anytime I ever had friends like stay over as a kid they would be like oh my god I couldn't sleep in your house because this clock kept me awake and it was chiming every 15 minutes and I was like wow I don't think I've heard it in like months I just like don't you just like stop hearing those sounds after a while it's like living near a highway where you just like stop hearing the sound of like traffic Yeah, I grew up next to a freeway.
00:06:35
Speaker
And that was absolute white noise to me. And it was like comforting. So I understand the whole white noise phenomenon of it all. Grandfather clocks never, never got there. No matter how much time I spent with my grandparents.
00:06:50
Speaker
No. Yeah. I was like, I was ready. I was like, you put, you put a little post-it note an exclamation point on where the first ghost is coming from. So thank you.
00:07:01
Speaker
I know where she going to be. She was there. Yeah. What did you think about the design of the ghost specifically in this movie? Cause they are so particular to this. They are you like visually. So what i what I really appreciate about Guillermo del Toro,
00:07:19
Speaker
I like his his takes on horror or scary things. And there are other directors that I can't think of right now that are European or Spanish directors that also i like their takes on it because it's...
00:07:34
Speaker
I feel like Guillermo del Toro is like a good primer for me on how to appreciate horror because when it's just about like the gore and the the gotchas. Yeah. And the the scare, i can't, I can't.
00:07:50
Speaker
have ah I have a small tolerance. um But when there's more
Guillermo del Toro's Unique Horror Approach
00:07:56
Speaker
to the story. yeah That makes you look backward and see things differently.
00:08:01
Speaker
I love that. Like, did you ever see, this is ah an aside, but did you ever see the movie, The Orphanage? No. Then I can't talk about it, but I highly recommend. So with Guillermo del Toro, did you ever see The Devil's Backbone?
00:08:16
Speaker
no okay so I saw the devil's backbone that was the first of his movies I'd ever seen and then I saw pan's labyrinth yeah and I've seen hellboy and you know other stuff that he's done and so he has a very specific style that um comes into the more fantastical elements and it's kind of like a sharp style yes if you will where there's like no softness fingers get longer yeah ah things are very disquieting yeah because they're so close. One of the ghosts is that blood red, like head to toe skeleton, blood red skeleton with like bits and things. And it's yeah like, there is no question. no
00:08:59
Speaker
that And it's like, scary. There are a few ghosts that are red. There's like yeah four of them or something. And so it's like, there's, there's a very specific style that he has. And so I i kind of love that.
00:09:13
Speaker
Love that because it ties in with his world building so much so that I recognize it. And I'm like, okay, this is a world that I recognize who this is coming from. um But it is so. and actually scary, though. and They are.
00:09:27
Speaker
They were. very uncomfortable for me and part of that was because so yeah i will say scary not not scary enough to last but as the effect the whole film but like the first times i saw them oh yes yeah that mother goes crawl into bed looking on that one That was scary. Some of the ways that the ghosts interacted with Edith is what I found scary, but the actual visual of the ghosts, I was just like, well, this is so crazy looking. Yeah, the visual is that there things are longer, it feels like, than they should be. Like, angular and different angles, the ghosts felt taller than they should be. yes
00:10:14
Speaker
And so there were, like, things like that. Yeah, and the angles. But then it was how they were interacting that made how they looked scarier. If it was just how they looked and they were like, by the way, don't go to that house.
00:10:27
Speaker
I'd be like, hey, thanks, Bones McGee. But could we have a little bit more... kind like you know Because like the the ghosts of her mother just keep saying, like don't go to Crimson Peak. We don't know what that means.
00:10:41
Speaker
That's only a thing that's going to make sense in retrospect. Which I'm like, okay, you're here. You're appearing as an apparition to warn me. Could you be like... Hey, by the way, Crystal Keek is the colloquial name of this manor house in England.
00:10:56
Speaker
And it doesn't mean that much to you now, but it will in about 10 years. So just like, keep that in mind. like And BT dubs, I got this from some ladies that are also dead.
00:11:07
Speaker
and they wanted
Edith's Character and Literary References
00:11:08
Speaker
me to tell you. yeah We have a network of lady ghosts together for brunch. Just like all this stuff. And obviously those women wouldn't be dead yet. But so there would just be one, there would be the the mother, that mother. It's the mom network. The moms are like. The mom network. Yes. They have a Facebook group.
00:11:26
Speaker
It's a. Never our children shall meet. yeah. yeah Like I feel like also what made. What made the ghosts creepy were two opposite things. The mother...
00:11:40
Speaker
the shape of her, the silhouette of her because of her clothing was creepy because she had that like floaty quickness. Don't make things fast. That's horrible.
00:11:51
Speaker
And, um but she like kind of floated, like she was like underwater and because she felt so big because of that gown that she's wearing, that was like, Oh God, she's going like envelop you.
00:12:04
Speaker
And then the other women They had nothing. It was just their bodies because they were like moldering. And so they were just, yeah, like leathery, not full skeletons, but like almost.
00:12:19
Speaker
And that was the opposite, but had ah also a strong effect. But because they were so designed... it made them a step apart where it's like, okay, well, I know that if we pass, we're not going to look like that. So that made them, that made them ah metaphor visually because it's like they were up a step apart from the real world.
00:12:41
Speaker
And like, I love that very quickly yeah we're told. Yeah. The ghosts aren't, it's not about the ghosts, they're metaphors. And I was like, thank you, because that's you holding my hand.
00:12:52
Speaker
was so great. Like, because like Edith's character, you know, she wants to be a writer. She writes ghost stories. Makes sense. Yeah. ah She's also a woman. this The movie set, I think about 1900, although we can talk about clothing oh i think i think we will it's all very intentional but intentionally done we know but yes there there's some there's some choices there um but yeah she's she's trying to get one of her stories published and the guy's like oh it's a ghost and she's like well the ghost is actually a metaphor for the past and i'm like he's Guillermo.
Intricate Costume Designs by Kate Hawley
00:13:30
Speaker
And I was like, thank you for telling that to my dumb, dumb brain because I needed it so that I could look at what you were actually trying to tell me.
00:13:39
Speaker
But it's just so funny to me. Like one of my biggest notes for this movie is just that this movie does not understand the concept of like subtlety. And I don't mean that to be like negative.
00:13:50
Speaker
It's just this movie is not subtle. It is constantly being like, this thing is important or like this thing means this and yeah it's so it's like done in such a fun way that it's like fun to watch and enjoyable but yeah this movie is not like making you know there and wonder you do not have to guess there are like visual subtleties yeah You will not catch.
00:14:18
Speaker
And there are like, you know, color palette tricks and things like that. So there are subtleties, but when it comes to storytelling, they're like, by the way, this, couple brother and sister killed people like a lot they done did it it was them and you're next yeah so um yeah like so edith her her dad is like super like rich uh like industrialist kind of guy like it's a very it seems like a very kind of new money situation like there yeah because he explains like when he's mocking thomas's soft hands he's like feel my hands and i was like okay sir Oh, whoa, whoa. Wow, wow, wow, wow.
00:15:03
Speaker
Like, Tom and Lucy have come to New York to get money for their, like, their project back in England. Like, they they have this blood red clay on their property that they want to, like, harvest and, like, make it into, like, bricks and building materials and, like, whatever.
00:15:20
Speaker
And, yeah you you're clued in very early on that, like, they have not been able to find anyone to give them money at this point and they're kind of like they started closer to home and they're just like traveling like a bigger and bigger radius away from their house and they think that they're gonna get money from edith's dad and he's like uh no yeah and he's like also my friends No. No. I will tell them, no. Absolutely not. Yeah.
00:15:52
Speaker
Not for you. and of At the same time, of course, like Tom is like, oh my God, Edith, like I'm so in love with you. It's crazy. And she's like young and she's like, oh my God, this is amazing. This is like Northanger Abbey kind of stuff where it's, a it feels like a teenage girl. if And she might not be teenage, but she's a very young naive, protected um young woman. and so this is a gothic romance because like she loves Mary Shelley. like There's these women, ah Charlie Hunnam's mom and sisters are like mocking her because they're like, you just want to be Jane Austen who died alone, didn't she? And she's like,
00:16:35
Speaker
Well, actually, I'd rather be Mary Shelley who died a widow. think okay Okay. You had that locked up on the back burner. Good for you. But it's like, I love that she's reading Frankenstein and that she's like...
00:16:50
Speaker
recognizing that the horror of Frankenstein is not just about the horror of sewing together dead bodies and creating life. It's, it goes beyond. And so like she sees things, but first she's going to see them the romantic way. yeah And then she's going to see further. And so we get to follow her character through that.
00:17:10
Speaker
And we also get to kind of see that through costume, which is great. lu It's so great. I love it so much. Yeah. Yeah. Our designer for this movie, Kate Hawley, we've met her previously on the podcast when we did our mini series on the rings of power season two.
00:17:28
Speaker
she, and i didn't I don't think I had known before ah that we were going to be revisiting her work. I did not remember who designer was. I didn't preload any information. i knew that this was Guillermo del Toro. I knew the three main actors and that was pretty much it. And like I knew that it was a gothic-y horror. And I had a couple of the costumes in my mind. Because i i didn't look this up. So I'm so sorry. Maybe I'll look it up and see if I can help put it in the episode notes.
00:17:59
Speaker
But there is cosplayer made one of these gowns. And it might have been the red gown that Lucille is wearing. oh dang. It's either that or like didn't make it for the movie. Made it, recreated it. Yeah. And I remember seeing...
00:18:18
Speaker
such crazy work, like workmanship go into her gown. It was stupid, gorgeous. And like, I need to find it. And it was cool because she was remaking something that she was seeing on screen. And I love that cosplayers track their progress, like in a different way. Like I, I'm so bad at that, but like, they're like step by step. This is how i figured this out. Or this is where I researched this from. This is where I made it in a way that,
00:18:46
Speaker
you can't always track things when you're working on a project. And so I love that. So I'll try to find that. Yeah. Especially like it's, I think it may be in some ways it's easier when you're making like one outfit because you're staying focused on that. But like when you're tracking like an entire project of multiple characters, yeah multiple looks, like it's just kind of a lot to,
00:19:14
Speaker
also be like documenting as you go it does yeah kind of fall by the wayside like here's how I sewed the hem documented this that piece that's a lot um did you read up on this at all like did you find any articles or anything I found i think maybe the best article I've found in the history of this podcast me too I found four that I was really happy with And each gave a different new piece of information. yeah And I was like, yes, these are questions that we ask all the time.
00:19:49
Speaker
Which article did you find? So the absolute best one, I read ah like maybe three. The best one that I found was a an article on like the blog for Arizona State University's FIDM program. Did you find that one? didn't read that one. Oh my God, Ariel. It has...
00:20:08
Speaker
It has photographs of Kate's actual mood boards for the movie. It has fitting photos with some of the actors. It has up close, like detailed process photos of people like hand crafting, like the lace and trim and like hoarding for incredible.
00:20:30
Speaker
So I'm going to tell you, dear listeners, this this link, there will be a link in our in our episode notes so that you can find this, a reference to it, because I'm excited to to read up on that.
00:20:41
Speaker
Because I was delighted by the articles that I found, which are by like Elle, Variety, Vanity Fair. Yeah, yeah. motionpictures.org because like they each had interviews with Kate Holly and each one had slightly different questions so that she was able to talk about slightly different things.
00:21:00
Speaker
Like one, i loved So the Vogue Australia has um the interviewer asking on average, how long can it take to create a costume like the ones you designed for Crimson Peak? And I was like, yes, I love every opportunity that a designer gets to actually answer any of the practical stuff. Like I love hearing about their design process, but I also want to hear about the construction process. I want to hear how many hands...
00:21:30
Speaker
We're with you. How, how, what was your timeline? So we have that information and I love it because, okay. Kay Holly says three weeks on average to create a costume. Wow.
00:21:46
Speaker
Six for something like Lucille's blue Allardale dress.
Victorian Mourning Jewelry in Costumes
00:21:50
Speaker
Then a schedule can change and we're asked to pull a dress out of a hat very quickly, like the red dress Lucille wears in Buffalo.
00:21:58
Speaker
I think that was made nearing the very end of shoot, very little time and very little money left, but very important to Guillermo. So it's all hands on deck at that point. And I was just like, wow.
00:22:11
Speaker
That's, thank you. Because like we, we in theater have had i very different timelines. Like there's another, um i ah also the the type of theater that we work, we don't have like a very, very long run up to certain things. It's like ah only a month.
00:22:31
Speaker
yeah Yeah. Like design, we have months. And then the actual construction when we actually have like people, maybe a little bit more than a month. Sorry, I have to find this other one because it was just like a great answer where she was talking about specifically how long they had like overall. So not just talking about how long they had to construct per gown.
00:22:58
Speaker
Oh, I think I read that the actual like scheduled pre-production for the movie where everyone, like the teams were assembled and at least like planning and conversation was about five months.
00:23:12
Speaker
And I think I read that Kate spent one action extra month of her own time researching. Yeah. what So on the motionpictures.org, she spent a month of personal research before five months of pre-production, which was followed by three months of shooting.
00:23:27
Speaker
that's just crazy also i saw elsewhere that she travels with like 600 books for research and my brain just like couldn't process what that means like yeah how do you do that i mean it was incredible and like that's part of the things that she and guillermo del toro like first bonded over when they first met it was cool to also read about their relationship because they've worked together on a few movies and Yeah, I mean, ah it's like, that's kind of like what you what you hope for is that if you find somebody that you work well with, that you can like, keep moving on to like new projects with them. Because at that point, like you have, um like a mutual understanding of each other's process, and you can develop like a shorthand and, you know, have like, collaboration, which is like what we're always searching for, isn't it?
00:24:21
Speaker
And it's not just a bullshit word that's used. It's actually real. Yeah. I mean, oh my God. um But yeah, I mean, like, i i was so excited to make you watch this movie, because the clothes in this movie are just like, absolutely insane. And like, what I love about them is I think that they're a really good representation of stuff that we both like, where it comes from a historical basis, but the movie's not constrained by history. It's part of the storytelling. Yeah, it's very, very theatrical in that sense. Where like in theater, and we've talked about this before, forgive, but like when you're when you're designing for stage, you can design in detail, of course, because you want to worry about your audience that's up close.
00:25:06
Speaker
You want to worry about photographs, but you also have to design big for the audience, depending on your theater size, that's farther away. And even if it's like a black box, you're going to have people who can see and who can't see certain details because that's just...
00:25:21
Speaker
That's how eyeballs work. So um with this, I feel like that is carried over into this design very much because yeah this is, and she talks about it, Kate Holly in the Elle article and elsewhere, I'm sure as well, where she's like, Oh no, no, no, this isn't like,
00:25:38
Speaker
married to history. she She specifically says that the silhouettes were what was important. The silhouettes were true to the period. And then they played with that by pushing some things and then also just like focusing on kind of like character details and also messing around with scaling and things like i okay loved so many little details on these things i yeah like certain stuff so um i was i was watching the movie with uh with my friend shout out to antonia
00:26:18
Speaker
fan of the podcast um because she was the one that introduced me to the movie in the first place and there were certain things like when they would show up on screen that i like didn't remember where i was like literally like screaming because i'm so excited to watch this again sometime yeah and then like now that i know certain things see where they come in see where they play in and because like okay this is this is where you and i get into the weeds of our joy is talking about the details that, that depending on the director you're working with, they may or may not ascribe value to these details because the camera is not necessarily going to catch some of these details.
00:27:02
Speaker
Like Edith is wearing when she, Lucille and Thomas are out at the park, And she's wearing this like walking skirt, this mutton sleeve blouse that has like beautiful stuff going on on the bodice.
00:27:17
Speaker
But she has this mourning belt. Oh my God. I scream when I say that. I am so in love with this belt. Because mourning, okay, mourning jewelry, mourning art in Victorian society was ah ah a big ever-present thing. Mourning was like a process. And I know that this exists in a lot of cultures where mourning has like ah a duration. It has a code of of wardrobe and... behaviors and all these different things but it feels like the victorians like there was just something so it's the gothic miss about it they were so so people would cut the hair of their loved ones and then they would braid that or create other in other ways jewelry art And like little Edith is wearing a belt with these ivory hands.
00:28:14
Speaker
And the hands are kind of like, they're clasped. And it's sort of like that thing. Like when you see like a stone, you know, where you see stone angels, like their hands are in different.
00:28:27
Speaker
you know styles of repose these hands would not ever be this big no they're like life size they're like it's like her mother is actually holding her and so is what it's supposed carrying and and ah ah ah right on the outside where the hands cut off is where her hair yeah is in these wide braids and that presumably go all the way around her waist, which is like, dang, that's a lot of hair. Good for you, mom.
00:28:55
Speaker
um But like, and they, what they, what I love is that they took the actual technique of braiding that was used for Victorian mourning jewelry. And they used that on this, but they like blew it up in scale.
00:29:06
Speaker
yeah And I love that visual so much because like are like, they're not really, but they're supposed to be ivory. Yes. The actual, like actual ivory, the material there, obviously like not really because that's crazy. That's freaking nuts. Like we don't do that. No.
00:29:25
Speaker
But yeah, like the scale of them is like huge. Because like first thing in the story, we see that her mother loved her in enough to come back. We see it twice to come back and say, please beware and be safe. And it's terrifying on the, on the first thing it's, it's so creepy to see this belt, you know, like well who's holding you? Who is that?
00:29:52
Speaker
But it's like, it's your mother. And like, she is gone, but she loved you so much that a part of her came back from the dead to try to protect you. So it's like these hands are like around her.
00:30:06
Speaker
And specifically in this scene, when she's just with Thomas and Lucille, she's like in her world, she's still in Buffalo, but she's not with any other friends. She's not with her father. She's not with anybody else. She's just with the two of them and her mother.
Color Palette and Character Relationships
00:30:20
Speaker
and it's like, Oh my God. Yeah. And you kind of get the sense that like, other than um ah Antonia kept referring to Charlie Hunnam's character Dr. Detective.
00:30:35
Speaker
Dr. Detective, the very good boy. Other than Dr. detective, you don't really get the sense that she really has very many friends. Like she has her dad who obviously cares about her a lot in his way.
00:30:47
Speaker
But ah yeah, she doesn't really seem to have, she seems pretty much like a loner. So it's like, and like Lucille throws that in her face, like at the end and and also has the audacity to say, oh, they didn't have anyone. And it's like, well, she did. Yeah. actually And then you killed him in like a crazy blue brutal way, which by the way, the, some of this like makeup and the effects is like pretty great. They're great in a way that I am like literally covering my eyeballs even right now and remembering because of, but like so good. Like what we see with her dad is that like he, he clocks Tom and Lucy pretty fast as grifters and knows like he doesn't want,
00:31:30
Speaker
His daughter to marry Tom, he can see that she's fallen in love with him in this sort of like pie in the sky, like idealized way. And he is like, you guys actually need to go and you need to leave my daughter alone. And you need to make her like not want you to come back because i want her to move on.
00:31:48
Speaker
And as a result, he gets bludgeoned to death at his like... club in the bathroom by having his head like slammed into a sink and you see a pair of hands in like black gloves that do it the implication is that it is Tom we find out later and we see the figure from behind yeah and the hair is even shaped yeah like Thomas and so we are we are supposed to be given this like that's definitely the guy yeah and it's horrendous and I hate it
00:32:20
Speaker
I did not want to see all of that. But it is a perfect segue for color palette discussion. So in Buffalo, we have this almost, it's not sepia tones, but you know, when you see something that has sepia tones thrown on it and it's supposed to be like nostalgic and warm, that's the effect that we have in this greater world of Buffalo, yeah where it is like golden almost. and like yeah There's like greens and yellows and burnt oranges and creams and ivories. It's a warm palette.
00:32:53
Speaker
Rosy, pink on some other people. Soft colors. like We don't have these like hot We do have black because there's like funeral and men's suits or darker suits. But it's not like this style of gothic that we get with Lucille and Thomas. And like... um eat Edith says at one point, like, yeah, his suit might be like 10 years out of date, but who cares?
00:33:17
Speaker
And so they're, they're like frozen a little bit behind. um And that like makes them stand out even further. And when they're in Buffalo, they're wearing very, like Lucille's in very saturated red and Thomas is in black.
00:33:33
Speaker
Yeah. think they are And then Lucille also has this like black gown with like stand up lace collar, like all this stuff and like little teeny tiny Victorian sunglasses, which I love whenever those show up anywhere. i'm all about it. know that there, it's like people like, I mean, it goes back to Bram Stoker. People just love putting those little smoked glasses on Victorian people. And I'm like, I'm, I don't think that those had any kind of like prevalence. But i but we love it.
00:34:03
Speaker
Yeah. I love it. certainly need the sunglasses. And so this this like exaggeration that we've mentioned of of historical silhouette is very...
00:34:17
Speaker
It's very present because like i I think one of the only other things that comes to mind and this is also my brain not working in full capacity because it never is. But when I think of like movies that are taking place like in the Victorian era, like the late Victorian era, um ah there's the TV movie.
00:34:35
Speaker
movie version of Anne Green Gables, Anne of Avonlea, the 80s Canadian, like that was so formative. It's not even funny. yeah And there's a joke in there because Anne, who's like supposed to be like 13, 14 at the time is she's like thirsting over this dress that's like a party dress like a ball dress a ball gown and it has puffed sleeves and she's like i would i would rather die than not wear dress with puffed sleeves puffed sleeves are mutton mutton sleeves and like, have you ever made a dress with like a big leg of mutton sleeve? Let me tell you right now. I actually have it right here.
00:35:17
Speaker
In the dress, or not the dress, but the the bodice that we were talking about with the Victorian mourning belt, Edith's sleeve, like each sleeve, yeah three and a half meters of fabric.
00:35:30
Speaker
oh So when you are making one of these sleeves, you have to not only think about the amount of fabric that's going in there because you have to get voluminous, but you also have to think of support. How is that structure going to hold itself up?
00:35:45
Speaker
The first time we see Edith in a house coat, which is a beautiful garment, it's like this lovely green velvet. The sleeves don't hold themselves up. And part of it is because she's supposed to be comfortable. She's at home. It doesn't yeah need the structure. Like she probably has a way to get in there to like put something in if she needs to.
00:36:05
Speaker
like. Or just have like a tight inner sleeve. Yeah. Something. Although her nightgowns have these giant like. The nightgowns when she gets to England, those nightgown sleeves are out of control. They are like the ice cream at the top of a cone.
00:36:21
Speaker
I don't know if that was really a thing at the time, Jerry. Well, could you imagine sleeping with that? Yeah, like, can you imagine nine feet of fabric fighting against it? Getting choked by organza.
00:36:34
Speaker
like And it's, like, beautiful. I would never change anything. No, I would never. But I loved that we were able to see... so many versions of these giant sleeves because there are the tight fit and mutton like leg of mutton sleeves and then there are like super puffed even beyond that and then there's like the poof and then you know like there's just versions like quite fitted up yeah past like the elbow and then all of a sudden there's just this like olive of whipped cream like dropped on her shoulder made of like gold silk
00:37:07
Speaker
we'll We'll get to that gown. We'll get to that one because we got to spend some time with that nightgown that she wears at Allardale. But um there's also a note ah from this interview where um I just want to drop it in because I i love it so much.
00:37:24
Speaker
There's two things. One is that... Kate Hawley admits that at a certain point, like she she would check in with the actors. She's a designer who talks about in these interviews how important it is to to collaborate with your actors because yeah you want to give credence and weight to the the work that they've been doing to build out the character. And so you want to meet them somewhere and work together from that point on.
00:37:46
Speaker
yeah And so they, the three main actors were a part of that process pretty early on because like she had sketches, she had mood boards, she had all this stuff and they were able to come and see that and then give like some input and then they could move from there.
00:38:01
Speaker
But I love too, that um she mentions that all of Tom Hiddleston's costumes were built by a company in England. I don't know the name of it, but I love when there's any mention how many people were doing stuff because like on IMDB, there's like 21 people listed in the costume and wardrobe department, but that's not including the costume house that's that's been hired presumably to build its own shit with its own employees.
00:38:29
Speaker
So like, love that. Thank you for even just mentioning it in passing. But um yeah, there are some sleeves in this that you could like, that would choke you out. You would die you would literally drown to death inside of them.
00:38:41
Speaker
And there's also, we have to talk about um the amount of pleated like organza on Edith. ah So much. And something that I was really like, like thinking about when, when I was watching it last night is the nightgown that we see her in at the beginning when she's a little girl, like,
00:39:02
Speaker
And the nightgown that we see her in later are exactly the same. Exactly the same. Because she's not meant to grow any older is like a part of it.
Symbolism of the House and Costumes
00:39:12
Speaker
She's not meant to, she's meant to die.
00:39:15
Speaker
and so it's like, she's meant to just like, keep holding onto this and not grow. But like the first one we see her in is, oh, the, I, I, I even have to like lift my glasses off my face because I'm so impassioned that I can't see straight. Ariel has removed her glasses. This is serious. Which means I can't see anything.
00:39:34
Speaker
like I am a sucker for pleated fabric. And what we're talking about is not like knife pleats when you think of like, you know, a kilted skirt or cartridge pleats when you think of like a big, big busty like skirt, like Queen Victoria. Right. We're talking, which are very, very tight. Right.
00:39:57
Speaker
pleats side by side that are very heavy, holding up very heavy fabric. Very precisely. Very precise. These are pleated fabrics. Yeah. So this is something that's actually the opposite of a lot of other pleats, which are using heavy fabric to like shape that fabric around something.
00:40:17
Speaker
This is very lightweight fabrics that now have this gorgeous texture that is not as rigid Yeah. As those other pleats, it's very, it feels organic, but regimented, if you will. It's often called primitive pleating. Yes.
00:40:34
Speaker
Because it's more organic in a way. It's like a chemical treatment or a heat treatment. Yeah. And so you can have these like gorgeous like waves in the pleating. And some of that is just because of how something is constructed will create those waves when it would have just been like straight if it was just like squares and rectangles.
00:40:56
Speaker
And what it does is it makes a person look like they're wearing like a sea creature. yeah like Like an anemone or, like you know, the jellyfish. like Sea cucumbers. Yes. like it And that feels so organic. And it just like it makes Edith feel organic.
00:41:19
Speaker
alive And all of her custom her costumes and her color palettes are meant to do this. They are meant to make her feel alive. And like she's floating because like a big metaphor, a big theme throughout are butterflies. And what was nice was that on the DVD, there is something that talks about this motif and,
00:41:40
Speaker
And how it affects all these things because it is definitive. She is meant to be a butterfly. There's a conversation between her and Lucille where Lucille is like, where I'm from, we only have black moths and they eat the butterflies. And it's like, it's just her looking at Edith going, I'm going to eat you. This movie is not subtle. This movie is telling you over and over again what's going to happen. And so like,
00:42:05
Speaker
Edith has these like soft light colors that sometimes cross over into the world of Thomas and Lucille. Like um she will have like a red moment in the wedding ring that was their mother's that she wears. She'll have...
00:42:23
Speaker
the um The black ribbon that's tied into a bow at the back of her neck in her like golden rod gown that we see quite a few times in Allardale. Even that golden gown, like once she gets to England, that gold in the gown is a different tone.
00:42:39
Speaker
It's not the same... like rosy sepia gold as it was in buffalo it changes and i i wanted to go back really quick to the scene where her father dies because i i mentioned and then totally lost the plot of um it's a perfect moment to talk about the colors creeping because colors are creeping in this yeah And like they're very loud when they need to be, but they like sneak sometimes. And we see the effects of one character on another by how their colors kind of transfer over ah based on their environment or how they're affecting people around them. So when her father dies, so we like the sink has overflowed.
00:43:23
Speaker
There's water on the floor. The blood that he's that's draining from his lifeless body is mixing with the water. And it is like super saturated. And then it also like fades out into like watery pinks and all that kind of stuff.
00:43:36
Speaker
yeah And like we have seen the only person we have seen in red. The only other time that we've seen a massive red is Lucille playing the piano. yeah So like every time red shows up, it is an impactful moment.
00:43:50
Speaker
And it's it's there on purpose. Yeah. so like the only thing that we see that isn't blood that Edith ever wears that is red, like red, red is that ring.
00:44:03
Speaker
right And like we see pinks on her and they get yeah more saturated or they're like blush and all those things. But we never see her in this red, red because she's coming from this different world. She's not touched.
00:44:16
Speaker
buy these things that Lucille and Thomas are and their costumes. Cause like, yes, when they're in Buffalo, it's like black or red, you know, like, yeah, that's the palette. Yeah.
00:44:27
Speaker
I love that Thomas' suit when um ah Edith goes to find him and she's like, i love you. And he's like, I love you. He's wearing all black, but it's a different textures of black. So there's like black with sheen. There's like a solid black. There's like file. There's wool. And you can see the differentiations. They don't just disappear into each other. yeah And I love that. Like, it's just so, mama you just like want to eat it up.
00:44:53
Speaker
And then. Absolutely amazing. There's every detail. as So gorgeous. And it's so well thought for what you can get on camera. And, um and then when Thomas and Lucille are in England, like Edith still has her yellows. She has like some lavender. She's got the soft pinks.
00:45:12
Speaker
She also starts to go into like a little bit of a blue, I think, because that nightgown I think is blue. It's is it or the light? I couldn't tell because there are like filters. There are like color filters. So it does turn like it does kind of it turns blue at night. to tell if the actual garment is or if it's like, you know, like it's hard to say without seeing the actual. But it it takes on that color because the color creeps because the house, the interior of the house has teals.
00:45:41
Speaker
And like black and red, but it would like it has lots of wood. It has a lot of darkness. yeah But the glorious thing that I love is that once we're here, Lucille and Thomas are no longer wearing black.
00:45:54
Speaker
They're wearing dark, like deep blues. Yeah. blues yeah Which they disappear into the house. In the creepy way. In the creepiest way. And like Lucille has this gown that is this deep, deep, beautiful blue.
00:46:12
Speaker
But it has these like green velvet trim kind of things that are climbing up her that were hand appliqued onto her. Yeah. And it's supposed to look like she's being eaten by by the house dying of the house. Yeah. Like she is decaying into the house. have if I move across the world to somebody's house and they got a hole in the damn ceiling and it's snowing inside the house. not just one either like so many holes i leaving and it's like it's not even snowing when they first arrive it's like leaves they're falling in because i i was looking just for random stuff and i went across a reddit thread somebody mentioned exactly what you did like who the hell is living this house and they're okay with leaves also where are the leaves coming from
00:47:03
Speaker
There's and nobody was like nothing around the house. there's no And that was something that I just like kept losing. Every time there was like a wide shot of the house, I was like losing my mind because I'm like, this house looks absolutely insane. There's yeah nothing around it. There's not a tree. There's not a shrub.
00:47:20
Speaker
There's not a courtyard. There's like a gate around like the very, very edge of the property. And then it's just like the ground. Yeah. If anything else ever existed, the clay has killed It's so insanely creepy looking that I'm just like, if you don't get bad vibes from this.
00:47:39
Speaker
And the fact that these leaves are coming from a phantom tree, where the fuck are they coming from? ah That tells you, that puts you on edge anyway, because like you might not notice it at first, but then you're like,
00:47:51
Speaker
Like, wait a minute. Huh? What? And then when the snow comes in, it's incredible. And then like, how cold is it inside? Okay. The house. That's a perfect place to start talking about this nightgown.
00:48:05
Speaker
So we see... I love this because we actually see our characters repeating clothes. I love this. like My favorite. I love when movies recognize that you have endless supply of clothing. Yeah. And it's like the person who has the most costume changes is Edith because she's the one with the money.
00:48:24
Speaker
Yeah. and then when she comes to this house all of her shit has been liquidated basically. That's like left in Buffalo. So she only has what she came with and they're not going out shopping anywhere because there's no one out there.
00:48:37
Speaker
It's like four hours by walking down the road to get to the depot for the post for the post. And like, I, Oh my God. They're freaking murder house. Yeah.
00:48:49
Speaker
yeah And so she is recycling her bright clothing. They are recycling their darker clothing. And she is in this nightgown every night that has these improbable balloon shoulder puffs.
00:49:04
Speaker
So much. It's like organza. And there is just... just yards and yards and yards, but it's so thin that it's like, so keep people warm it would do nothing to keep you warm. And what I love though, is that the whole purpose of it is I think that, okay. So I think this was the one where she mentioned that she was,
00:49:26
Speaker
ah Kate Holly was um working off of symbolist paintings. And there's one by Sir John Everett Millay that's very pre-Raphaelite and somebody has their hair um all out. And so she was answering the question one of about one of the most striking looks being this nightgown. And um she's like, yeah, this is this was very influenced by Millay painting. You can see contrast. Opposition and color and like certain looks like and just like scenery. like You can see the influence of paintings from the Victorian period like throughout. And what I love too is that she says specifically that it was all about creating the atmosphere of the house as a living, breathing thing.
00:50:14
Speaker
So they chose the lightest fabrics for the nightdresses so that everything responded to movement. And so like you, I love it. It's so perfectly gothic because it has nothing to do with reality. She'd be so frigging cold.
Plot Complexities and Ghost Significance
00:50:28
Speaker
I feel like she's walking around barefoot yeah and like fine. So much barefoot. Like she would literally be in like a hypothermic coma. She'd be She'd have no toes. because therere As mentioned before, there's a hole in the damn roof.
00:50:42
Speaker
And that's just one of them. And like, it's so like, it's, it's so diaphanous and you can see her silhouette. And so she becomes ghostly and she's the, the connection between this house and it's dead.
00:50:57
Speaker
And like, the real world and so like because she can see ghosts which they did not they did not um bet on i think when they chose her as their their mark yeah so we learned that they they she is literally like a mark like they have done this multiple times they find a vulnerable young woman who has a lot of money they get her to marry thomas they get all of her money and then she disappears Yeah, because of their relationship and Lucille not wanting this person to exist.
00:51:35
Speaker
Right. and And Thomas fully participating. Oh, yeah. as well Like he's, yeah, he's, um, he knows what's going on. Yeah. So like, yeah, we've we discover in the film that Lucy and Thomas are having a incestuous romantic relationship with each other, and that they probably have for a very long time. They have since she was 14 and 12. And maybe before then.
00:52:00
Speaker
Because when she was 14 and he was 12, that's when she killed their mother upon their mother's discovery of their relationship. So it's definitely been happening almost their entire lives.
00:52:13
Speaker
And yikes. And so the sort of conflict to between Lucy and Edith, obviously, other than this, just the generic, we are going to murder you for your money plot, is that Lucy sees that Thomas...
00:52:31
Speaker
is actually has some kind of like feelings for Edith, whatever that means. And she's very, very jealous of that because that's never been an issue between them. He's always been very mercenary and murderous and just married these ladies.
00:52:47
Speaker
got As soon as they get the money, ladies are gone. And it's never been an issue. So there's a lot of very, very scary, creepy moments with Lucy like threatening Edith. There's like...
00:53:00
Speaker
boiling pots of oatmeal there's tea with poison in it there's all kinds of and the poison is red and like edith starts coughing up blood so like red just has this and there's like the the mine or whatever that's like underneath the house that has like clay repositories if you will and one of them is showing that it's where one of the bodies has been buried and because it comes up to the surface and everything is just like there's there's a point where thomas like steps on some boards and red oozes out so it's like the house is sinking and it's like coming through the walls and slowly oozing down
00:53:39
Speaker
And it's just like, it's just a delicious, like example of what you can do with color and like how it can set the mood and basically like make your atmosphere, your world be its own character because like, oh my God, it's terrifying. Obviously, like red, red clay, like is a thing. But the clay in this movie is like Kool-Aid red. Yeah, absolutely. Unreal blood red clay in the soil.
00:54:13
Speaker
and ah yeah like when when it becomes like winter and it starts snowing everywhere that you step on the snow and like push the snow into the ground, it turns red. Which basically is it's.
00:54:26
Speaker
Whatever that salt world is in like The Last Jedi. my God. It totally looks like that. but Victorian. I just like loved that so much where i was like, um somewhere down the road, there's Kylo Ren going, ah freaking out about something. Listen, Prince Eden Peak came out first. So what want about that?
00:54:48
Speaker
This is true. So this is just like, A good word for this design is like luscious, right? Because it's, we have so many bodies in the first half of the movie in Buffalo. We have so many people. We have like a ball scene where yeah there are the soft pinks, there's the golds, all these different colors. We have soft greens and velvet and all these things.
00:55:14
Speaker
And coming to England, it's everything has to have a great amount of depth. and saturation in order to kind of like make up for only now having a certain amount of people.
00:55:28
Speaker
And there's this these like velvet details. There's a ah beautiful velvet jacket that Edith wears with her golden...
00:55:39
Speaker
dress c grapes on it with grapes that are velvet and like it has tails on the back of the jacket they keep that jacket so much it's so gorgeous like all of these costumes and this is this is a thing that I always talk about is like i just want to touch and of course you can't because the oils in your hands would like break down stuff the more that like hands that get on them But holy cow, this stuff is so gorgeous.
00:56:06
Speaker
There's even like to talk about the level of detail that goes into these things. In the first half of the movie, we see Edith at home ah and she has a maid who comes in and we see her, i think, a couple of times. She has a very unique collar.
00:56:23
Speaker
that is not a collar I've seen on anything that like is almost like a petal around her neck like when you think of a petal kind of like a cupped shape around her neck that like stands out a little bit and there were so many collars in this that are very unique and stand out that it made me feel like somebody was going to get to decapitate them Oh my God. I know Jessica Chastain, when they're at the ball in Buffalo and she's in the all red, she has this lace, like pointy gathered lace collar with like, I mean, I'm sure they're not real, but like ruby, like a beading like the tips of the lace and it's like ah framing her face and like- It's just like this rough.
00:57:11
Speaker
Yeah. It's just like, there's so much- There's so much texture. um Something that that was like really just delightful to look at throughout the movie is how many of the textures like reflect light in different ways. And there's so much silk and like satin velvet, charmeuse, different textures.
00:57:38
Speaker
that just have this rough slightly like luminous sheen to them that are just beautiful to look at. I think that's what I was trying to hit by talking about Thomas's black suit in Buffalo.
00:57:52
Speaker
Because when you have somebody in all black, depending on how it's lit, that could just become flat as hell. You won't see any dimension in it. You'll know that those garments are there depending on what the light catches to pull out like the necktie, the waistcoat.
00:58:08
Speaker
All of these things. But it's like every detail stands out because they all catch the light so well. So yeah, thank you for putting it exactly the right word. Because like velvets are so deep that like, yeah, some of them could swallow light.
00:58:23
Speaker
These all push it right back out. Like they are lit so well and like work with it so well. Like they just, all of these details, all of the handwork that has gone into everything,
00:58:35
Speaker
This is not a situation where the costumes disappear. And they also aren't overwhelming. and They exist to tell the story of these like butterflies and moths like striving for the light and trying to eat the light.
00:58:52
Speaker
like It works with the metaphor. It works with the theme so well. And there's even a chair in the house. that that Edith, they sit her down. We see it a bunch of times, but like they sit her down in it when she sees the first ghost and gets chased by a ghost and she's like flipping the fuck out.
00:59:10
Speaker
And um they're like, you're crazy. Yeah, like, aww. And that chair... Drink tea! Yeah, drink some of this tea. You won't worry about this in 36 hours. But, like, the chair was built to look like butterfly wings.
00:59:24
Speaker
So behind her, like, it's not shot... Maybe it is shot dead on. But there's, like, a light coming down on her to pull her The chair... It's like a corner. like that the The back of the chair has like an angle to the construction.
00:59:37
Speaker
It has like a seam for sure. yeah so it's like three cushions and there's like the body of ah a butterfly essentially when you like look really close at it. And it's it's just like a ah single occupant. Yeah.
00:59:52
Speaker
chair that's very wide for one person but she is lit in a way so that she takes up where the body of a butterfly would be and then these wings are behind her and they're like looming over her in their dark dark clothes like just like we're gonna eat the life from you There's also when she first, when edith Edith first arrives at the house, there's this little dog that like runs up to her out of like the nothingness of the landscape that she kind of takes in as like her only companion.
01:00:28
Speaker
And what I did not know, but Antonia knew and pointed out is that breed of dog is called the papillon, which is butterfly, which is means butterfly French because of their little ears.
01:00:41
Speaker
like know my God. That I was just like, I was anytime there's a dog in a horror movie, something horrible is going to happen to the dog that is it's like a checkoff gun.
01:00:56
Speaker
Yeah, it's like, and it did. I was curious about it. I was like, Lucille, you signed your own death warrant, just so you know, because you killed that little papillon. And we find out that that dog was owned by a previous woman that was brought to the house and murdered. it was her dog that that Thomas was supposed to kill. And he's like, I don't know. I thought I did. Oops, my bad.
01:01:21
Speaker
So the ghosts that we see, the red ghosts, we see a woman in the bath. With with like a hatchet in her head. in her head And then she's like dripping water and like coming after Edith saying, like you know basically, have to get out of here and they will pay the price.
01:01:43
Speaker
Whatever. And then we see a ghost crawling. We ah also saw somebody in an elevator, but I actually was, i not I was looking down when that one happened. So I don't remember exactly what that one looks like, but we see, i don't think we got enough to understand who it was. Yeah. We just see her reaction.
01:02:02
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And so another one is a woman crawling up from underneath the floor, dragging herself down the hallway. we see ah woman behind a door,
01:02:15
Speaker
which is the linen closet because she's scratching from the inside of the little linen closet. yeah And um but one then we see clay pit thing. Yeah. In the clay pit, we actually see the actual physical body like remains, I think.
01:02:31
Speaker
And then another ghost that we see is floating in the center of like, almost like the atrium is the wrong word, but the grand staircase yeah and like the balconets floating.
01:02:42
Speaker
In the center of this house, she's floating way up in the air holding a baby. oh my God, the baby. baby. The ghost baby. Thomas and Lucille's child.
01:02:55
Speaker
what a bait and switch with the baby where you're like, oh my God, Thomas married this woman and they had a kid together. no. no The baby died because it could not thrive based on being the product of incest.
01:03:11
Speaker
And these like ghosts. There is one ghost at the very end. Yes, that's right. We, we see two. We see, we see. Okay. Okay. This is where we're going, which I love. So we see,
01:03:26
Speaker
the black ghost of the mother we see these red ghosts we see thomas and thomas who got what did i write in my notes i was like because i was like it was actually like covering my mother yeah that death was grisly she in all caps i wrote stabbing thomas in the face brain like She stabs him, stabs him in the chest and then just right right under the eye.
01:03:53
Speaker
like I'm so sorry to anyone listening to this that is very squeamish. This movie is very graphic. At the end, there's this long, prolonged like battle fight yeah he does tom and lucy and then dr detective has shown up at this point he's come from america because he figured out that this yeah shit is bad and he literally walked four hours because like it was in a rain not a rainstorm a snowstorm the horse was exhausted the post guy was like yeah uh our horses are not for rent like you can't get there tonight and he's like i need to get there now deuces i'm out like how long does it take to get there four hours goodbye so this man hasn't s slept but he's knock knockity knock right before everything hits the peak of tension because edith has discovered everything and gets pushed over a balcony and falls so brutal and
01:04:50
Speaker
That one was so brutal to me because it I mean, obviously this movie is like extremely like heightened. It's a Gothic horror fantasy, but like that moment felt like what would really happen to a person's body as they fell. And it was horrifying. Cause she hits things like a banister on the way down, like full. And then she goes to the ground.
Film's Climax and Symbolism
01:05:13
Speaker
So it's like, it kind of slows her progress if you will, but she has hit that shit There's a big pile of snow on the floor because of the hole in the roof. And she ended that. And she's like broken her leg. yeah
01:05:26
Speaker
And like just. so so bo so it's It's horrible. And the clay partially because of the weight of her body and the impact of her body hitting that snow has driven the floor down a little bit.
01:05:38
Speaker
Clay. red clay starts to melt through the snow underneath her and it's like oh my god this house is being eaten and the house is eating people it's crazy and like she tries to leave with charlie hunnam they're just like you guys just let us go this will be over we know what's i'm just gonna leave we're just the game the gig is up And, you know, like, like Lucy, she just, she cannot abide ah by that. And so what in, what happens over the next like 15 minutes is everybody gets stabbed so many times. Everybody gets it.
01:06:14
Speaker
And like, yeah, Dr. Detective, good gets like shivved in the underarm. Yeah. Right in the armpit. By Lucille. And then he like takes that out.
01:06:26
Speaker
And then. She tells Thomas to to end it. And so Thomas comes up and he's like, if it's not going to be me, it's going to be her and she'll actually kill you. You're a doctor. Tell me where to stab you. So this guy has to get stabbed on purpose in a non-lethal place.
01:06:41
Speaker
So he's just like free bleeding for the rest of the movie. for it And, um and then we have, yeah, Lucille, She got the knife. Yeah. She has Edith and is like, you need to sign this paper. And then to like she gets away because she stabs Lucille in the chest with the pen that her father gave her at the beginning. yeah And the pen is like a golden pen. So I loved too that that color was like tied into her color palette and her life in Buffalo, like the world outside. And dad. And her dad.
01:07:12
Speaker
And then Thomas comes to find her to like burn the papers because he's like, Edith, I will, I will stop this and you can wait for me or you can keep running. And like Dr. Detective is alive.
01:07:26
Speaker
He's down in like the clay mine, all this stuff. And so she's like, okay, I guess I'll wait by the elevator. Jesus Christ. And Lucille stabs her brother.
01:07:37
Speaker
Cause he's like, we can all be happy together. And she's like, say what now? die Stabs him in the chest and then in the face. In the face. And he sits down and dies. And he like has like blood like yeah pouring out of his face.
01:07:51
Speaker
And then we see him become a ghost because outside, now it's just Lucille and Edith. And they're in an epic showdown. And she also looks like a pre-Raphaelite painting because her hair is down. This is the first time in the movie that we've seen her Unhinged. Uncontrolled. And uncontrolled. And like she has this loose, loose, big sleeves. like She looks amazing. Incredible. This like house coat robe situation is like so like medieval. like It's gorgeous.
01:08:23
Speaker
Yeah. And she... It's gorgeous. And it's covered in blood. And so she's like whipping around the house, running, trying to like catch Edith. Yeah. And edith Edith has like a kitchen knife. And like, I mean, she has the resolve, but she doesn't have the know-how. She hasn't freaking murdered anybody before.
01:08:41
Speaker
And so like they end up out in the snow with all the red yeah everywhere, the clay everywhere. And, and like freaking Lucille is like a ninja just like coming up out of all these places.
01:08:53
Speaker
And then, And Edith picks up a shovel because she loses her knife. So she picks up a shovel because it's like a construction site. And you know what? She ends the fight. but She ends it. And part of how she ends it is she looks over Lucille's shoulder and she says, help me.
01:09:10
Speaker
And Lucille says, I'm not go to help you. I'm gonna kill you. And then she's like, I'm not talking to you. talking to your brother and then we see thomas and he is this tragic figure who is already like his body is probably still warm i'm like he is already rotting yeah because he's beyond ghosty like you can see through him looking than he he's different looking in every single respect because like except for one the the women that we see in red were Probably the mom in black, but like I was also going like, so I didn't really see the the makeup.
01:09:46
Speaker
They all have this thing happening where I think I mentioned before that they look leathery. Yeah. And so it's like a different part of decay. And so there's no like face left. No, it's no longer tissues. Yeah. And whatever is there is like, there it's not just bone. There's something there that's like showing decay. And so he is already in decay, but where his decay has started is at the wound yeah that his sister stabbed him in his face.
01:10:14
Speaker
So the two halves of his face are different. Yeah. And like, On top of that, he's totally see-through. The other ghosts that we've seen have been see-through, but they've been very saturated and very like present.
01:10:28
Speaker
He is like a wisp in the wind. He's like a Jedi ghost. And I feel like it's because he kind of sacrificed himself. like There was a different element to his death where it was not...
01:10:41
Speaker
murder, like it was murder, but it was like he he put himself there. was not the same like cold-blooded mercenary murder that the other red ghost experienced. It was him seeking redemption.
01:10:55
Speaker
yeah And so that like allowed allows his death to be slightly different because he also blows away in the wind. Like he disappears. But aside from that, his clothing. So what we saw him in before is like all the dark blues and everything.
01:11:11
Speaker
He's wearing white and like ochre. and like a little bit of the yellow so he's now in the color world of buffalo and like also in the the grasslands around the house the property of the house before the winter came that's what it looked like outside where it's like things are bleached it's like bone tones but it's not he's not he's also got this like there's like the bleeding of like ochre Maybe not ochre, but like umber on his shoulders. oh yeah So it's it's like he had he's decayed, like rust and stuff.
01:11:47
Speaker
But it's not the same decay anymore. It's like the decay has even faded. Like you get the sense that, you know, even the like the longer that he stays dead, I didn't feel like he was ever going to look like those other ghosts.
01:12:04
Speaker
was going be a different thing. And what I love is that we actually, because like you said, this movie is not subtle. We get a voiceover with Edith saying there are different types of dead. There are different types of ghosts.
01:12:17
Speaker
There are the ones who stay because of love. And there are ones who stay because of a... a moment because of a, an impact in a certain place because of revenge.
01:12:29
Speaker
And like, she's describing these things and we're seeing Lucille now who is a ghost and she is the same kind of ghost as Edith's mother was. They're the only two all black and she still has like blue in her gown, but she is now like coal black the same way that the mother was. yeah And so we're kind of,
01:12:53
Speaker
If we're going to draw by visual comparison and context, she is locked there because of her twisted love. Like it's two different kinds of love. Right. But the revenge ghosts were all red. red And then Thomas was a completely separate kind of ghost. Third thing. Yeah.
01:13:10
Speaker
Yeah. And so like, I just love so much how color plays into all of these meanings and, and is so strong throughout. Like, yeah and I know that people have like a varying, you know, appreciations of this movie, but one that folks I think are very united on is that like visually,
01:13:30
Speaker
It is... yeah It's undeniable. It's undeniable visually. like If you like the story or don't, like totally personal preference. like whatever yeah but like the The style of the movie, I think, cannot be denied, even you don't like the movie. Not even a little bit. And it's it's such a great...
Costume Design Philosophy in Film
01:13:50
Speaker
such a well-designed movie and like all of the designs work so strongly together and the costumes are so well used because like sometimes it can be frustrating i get it as an audience to watch something period and then be like this isn't accurate to the period but it's like okay but we do have to let that go sometimes and it's hard for me sometimes okay There's ghosts in the movie, and some people will tell you that ghosts aren't real, too. So it's like, you know, you have to kind of, I don't know. i
01:14:24
Speaker
With movies, I feel like just like give yourself over to the experience in the moment, and you can talk about it later. This is a a very distinct pet peeve of mine. Mm-hmm. we've talked about before because there are some folks in the in the sphere of costume talk um like not tiktok but like t-a-l-k oh i thought you were saying the okay and i was like okay yeah let's get into it no so like folks folks who would cause tube there There are a lot of folks who are perpetuating things that that kind of annoy that ever-loving fuck out of me. Specifically is this.
01:15:03
Speaker
the costs the The conversation about costuming, why are you limiting yourself to always expecting things to be 100% accurate?
01:15:18
Speaker
It depends. The whole point of of designing costume is not to reflect what you think the real world was. That's not the whole point. It depends on what you're designing, yeah how much that is the point. Sometimes, yes, you do want that attention to detail and accuracy because it and it it it's part of it's what part of the whole mission, right? Yeah.
01:15:49
Speaker
But to only expect that from design is to take away like half of what design is, which is focusing on telling a story.
01:15:59
Speaker
This movie is such a great example for this conversation. This is a gothic fairy tale. Mm-hmm. That takes place during a kind of like amorphous period of time, you know, where we are seeing styles that are older. We're seeing styles like, let's say at 1900.
01:16:20
Speaker
And we're seeing these things combined. like Yeah, with like... And there were yeah and like there were such things as aniline dyes from like the 60s onward, right? okay The colors are real. The colors are real. like People sometimes do not know that like deep, but crazy bright saturated like acid green came in with aniline dyes. There's a reason it's called acid green. Because there was actual acid in it. like there was poison in this stuff, which is why it's not used anymore.
01:16:51
Speaker
But like those things were super saturated. They were bright. The the details on these things could be stunning and like overwhelming. Like all of that can be true. But yeah.
01:17:02
Speaker
it's not always the most important thing to reflect what you can see in historical evidence because that's not necessarily part and parcel of telling the story. What you want is to tell the story and Gothic stuff like this is about like us vibes, right?
01:17:19
Speaker
So like what you want is you want impact. So how do you get impact? Silhouette. Now we're landed somewhere. We're grounded. So how do we stop caring about being so grounded in the reality of things? We push it.
01:17:32
Speaker
How do we push it by messing with size and proportion and like specific details that tie in with our character development and our story. And that's what a costume designer does. And it's really exciting when a costume designer gets the opportunity to work on a project like that, because it is also exciting to do one that's like, okay, we're doing historical stuff.
01:17:53
Speaker
from from like inside out. So like undergarments out, we're doing historical. Great. That's awesome. That's a cool opportunity. But to limit costume design and your expectation of costume design to always be that is a real big bummer.
01:18:05
Speaker
And there are people who think that that's what you should be doing at all times. And I'm sure there's critique out there about this not being 100% accurate. But it's confusing. That's such a bummer. don't know want to live in... Because like if that was how things were made...
01:18:23
Speaker
then we wouldn't have stories that were fantastical at all because those things don't happen. Like it's just, it's crazy to me that you're limiting yourself to, to that when it's like, okay, but like the stories that people really care about often are, have like elements of things outside of,
01:18:44
Speaker
stark reality them so like why are you limiting yourself to clothing there are things where you're but where you're changing yourself and pushing you're telling your story through emotion and like this is one of those where you're capturing emotions you're capturing bright versus dark and what does that mean what does it mean for something to be more alive than something else what does it mean for something to look like they're being eaten by a house like when you have fantastical shows, you also get the opportunity to like make stuff up, right? like It can be anything.
01:19:18
Speaker
And it's it's okay to do that to reality-based things because we're also recognizing this is a story, right? this is a Yeah, it's like, um you know, if that was really the concern, then we wouldn't make things about the past before we had like photograph and film because...
01:19:43
Speaker
You're relying on someone like translating the real world into like a painting or a drawing or like maybe we have some real garments, but they're only like certain types of garments that are still existing. So it's it's it is the most confusing critique that I will literally never understand. And it's, I will never understand it because like, to also continue on what you just said, like we do have extant garments, right?
01:20:06
Speaker
yeah And usually the extant garments we have are very tiny or they belonged to very wealthy people. So people have this idea that all around the world, people were only this height.
01:20:18
Speaker
They only had feet this this length and width. They only had waist this size. No, the reason why those garments are still extant is because nobody could wear them.
01:20:29
Speaker
And they were so expensive that you didn't want to waste them. So you kept them because you inherited them and they were beautiful. The things that people wore that were different were used until they could no longer be used anymore. And then they were given new life as like yeah stuffing for blankets or pillows, rags, robes, like all these different things. And then they literally were used until they...
01:20:53
Speaker
disintegrated disintegrated and could no longer exist so it's like any it's it just it's just don't limit don't limit your expectation of what costume design can do and this is like such a great adventure in costume design that that is also like not 7 000 pieces so they could put in so much loving detail and time and effort and like Also, with that nightgown, like all of these nightgowns, all of these things, how many do they have?
01:21:25
Speaker
Because we have them pristine and we have them covered in blood. red play and So it's it's like how many versions of them do we have? Because that's pretty rad too that you got to make multiples of something with so much going on in it.
01:21:40
Speaker
Yeah. I loved it. I loved it. Yeah. Thank you for suggesting it. I loved it. Yay. I'm so glad that I made you watch the movie. So you're welcome.
01:21:52
Speaker
um That was Crimson Peak. ah I don't remember where we're going next. what are we watching next? So we are heading back into Aiko Ishioka territory. And this is towards the end of her career before she passed away. um And this is a Tarim Singh film starring Lee Pace and ah bunch of other people.
01:22:15
Speaker
And I... I love this movie. And like, one of the reasons that I love Tarim Singh as a director is that his movies, sometimes it feels like there's like a ah translation difference in like how the stories are told, but it it makes it feel on my end, kind of more like a dream.
01:22:39
Speaker
And so I don't mind that because it feels more, fantastical and set aside from from the world. So I feel like it's a logical step from Crimson Peak to the fall. It'll be, it's an interesting way to actually kind of go chronologically through her stuff too. Because obviously like Bram Stoker was one of her first like film. So we're, we've seen her, you know, she's got more, um, yeah, she's done the cell and like done some other stuff and done more stage stuff. So yeah by this point she's like, yeah, I know what I'm doing. And I'm excited to see how you feel about it. So join us for the next film and yeah, keep, keep following us through this season. Yeah. And tell us how you feel about the fall. Please do. We'd love to hear from you. All right. Thanks for listening.
01:23:22
Speaker
Bye. Bye.