Variety: Deborah Nadoolman Landis is known for her encyclopedic knowledge on the subject of costume design. But the curator of the Academy’s upcoming Hollywood Costume Exhibition didn’t just trust her own opinion when she began researching the list of items to be included in the project when it first opened in 2007 at London’s V&A. Instead, she asked everyone from her mother and mother-in-law on down for ideas about the movies (and the costumes) that resonated with them.
9 comments:
I really like what Deborah Nadoolman Landis (Great name too!) said about having great costumes from non-memorable movies. It's true, popular movies aren't always the ones that win the Oscars! I think when you have an exhibition you want to connect to your audience. Seeing something famous is cool and all but it's kind of a "I saw it, now I don't need to see it again" kind of thing. But when you see something that means something to you, you want to keep going back because it's special. I think clothing is really personal too because the clothes help create the characters in the movie. When you see Dorothy's dress, it's instantly recognized because it's such an icon and something that was significant in everyone's childhood. But no one remembers... well... I don't know because I don't remember! Haha.
I think it's great that people are appreciating costumes beyond fantasy and period drama! It takes the same amount of skill to research, design, and distress contemporary movies as it does corsets and petticoats-- corsets and petticoats obviously just take a lot longer to make. It's really excellent for Landis to give some perhaps unappreciated designers the attention they deserve.
This is quite possibly the best thing that has happened to movies in a long time. It reminds me of the museum exhibit about Julie Taymor. She costume designs were on display for everyone to see, and the original Lion King costumes were also there. I imagine this will be close to the same, except it will have a bunch of the old movies. I have to wonder though, will it have the actual costumes, or reproductions of them? Some of the older pieces might be hard to get a hold of, especially if the pieces weren't kept somewhere. A lot of them might actually be property of private collectors. Those would be a pain to get a hold of. This exhibit is a good thought, but I don't know how big the collection will end up being.
I want to see this exhibit though I would not consider myself a movie buff or fanatic. I am such a believer that a great production design and make or break a film, or any production for that matter. Would love to know what other costumes are featured at this exhibit. I would love to see period pieces like from the movie, Marie Antoinette or Sweeny Todd. Costumes and styles make icons. Marylyn Monroe for instance is the main image behind the certain type of white dress, Judy Garland is behind the blue apron and brown pig tails. The costumes help create the character for the actors and for the brand of the movie. I love when there are museum exhibits that remind people of this. I read on the website about the exhibition and I think it is interesting that there are a lot of newer costumes (like from Django Unchained).
I appreciate that Landis isn't just including best picture costumes into her exhibit. She's right in saying that "Popular movies don't often win oscars," and I am curious as to what other types of costumes she is including in her exhibit. Also, I wonder if she will also include sketches and versions of costumes as part of her exhibit. Not only is it amazing to see the final product but it is always enlightening to see the starting idea in comparison with the finished product. For example, I have never seen costume renderings for The Wizard of Oz but would love to see how the final costume compares to the original idea.
The quote from this article that stood out most to me is from Landis: "I didn’t want to have an exhibition of great costumes from movies that were forgettable films." This is very thought provoking to me because it brings up questions of all of the various components that make a good film. Although costume design has interested me for a while, I think that since coming to school here, I have started to look at movies critically with more criteria than I once had. I now am more conscious of seeing a movie that maybe I didn't love as whole, but I can appreciate individual elements, like the costume design. That said, I think it is well-thought out choice on Landis' part to chose costumes from movies she considers to be memorable. Costume design is an integral part of story telling in film, but it is important to consider how that fits into the end product of the movie. And films with opportunities for extravagant costumes are not the only ones with well-designed costumes, as the article mentions with the exhibits inclusion of pieces from "Borat."
I think that this article really dives in and lets us grow to appreciate and concentrate on the field of costume design in both the theatrical as well as film aspects. They center in on how some films simply cannot be done properly without the correct costumes. For example, The wizard of Oz cannot be done without the ruby slippers and Joeseph and the Amazing Technicolored Dream Coat cannot be done without that said dream coat. It was nice of this author to shine a little light on those who are under appreciated.
I think Deborah Nadoolman Landis has a very smart way to phrase her sentences. and I agreed with most of the people that her quote that all strikes us in this article was "I didn’t want to have an exhibition of great costumes from movies that were forgettable films" and "Popular movies don’t often win Oscars" It's more like in music when composers and song writers always discussed about why while some songs or pieces are so good, so delicated, so complicated,so beautiful, but the one that always win Oscar or the music awards, or even get to be on of the nominated pieces, will always be one that is ordinary,easy to perform , and don't need much of intellectual to write. But it's just the way it is. and it becomes classics and people will remember those songs.
Anyway, back to the article, I would love to see the exhibition though I'm sure it won't be possible for me to do so. I really like her idea and appreciated her intention.
I think it is very nice that Deborah Nadoolman Landis is including costumes from all different kinds of movies in her exhibit. Normally people would only choose the most popular movies to display. Just because the movie was not the best, it doesn't mean that the costumes were bad as well. There are many talented designers that work on movies that don't win best picture. It is important for all designers to get their work displayed for many people to see. They deserve the same recognition as the designers of best picture movies.
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