Paul Marino-Edwards
Colloqium
Dr. Knorr
September 13, 2014
Have
you ever watched a movie and looked at the costumes the actors and actress’
wear? Often the audience doesn’t
actively analyze the costumes within the movie and how those costumes affect
the perspective of that character.
Movies such as Cambria, Cleopatra,
and both Ben Hur’s have costumes
that affect how certain people are viewed. Costumes give the idea of how a certain person thinks or what
his or her ideals are, if that certain character is the hero regardless of
historical accuracy.
Paragraph 1 Costumes representing peoples and ideals
-Egyptians
shown as wild and savage and sexy (Machismo Cabria, Cleopatra)
-Roman’s
powerful and militaristic (Ben Hur, Cleopatra)
-Earthly
colors of the Jews (Ben Hur 1959)
Paragraph 2 Wearing white
-Ben
Hur vs. Messala (Both Ben Hurs)
-Mark
Antony and Cleopatra (Cleopatra)
-Jesus
always in white but no face (Ben Hur 1959)
Paragraph 3 Costumes reflected by era
-Short
toga (Ben Hur 1925)
-Long
togas (Ben Hur 1959)
-Cleopatra
costumes (Cleopatra 1963 vs. Cabiria)
Conclusion
Costumes
have a powerful effect on how the audience perceives certain characters or
people. It has the power to show
how powerful the Roman army was, but also show the realistic Jews and their
ideals. Costumes can show us the
hero of the situation or how a character is holy and has god features. Though costumes can help the audience
show these qualities, it is not always historically accurate. Typically Cleopatra would never lay
naked in front of a foreign ruler on first appearance. Costumes have a powerful effect on how
characters are perceived and I urge you next time you watch a movie look out
for these details.
Maybe you can also mention color symbolism. For example, white typically connotes purity and innocence, which is certainly applicable to Jesus, at least.
ReplyDeleteInteresting topic, as I already wrote in class. Make sure, however, to change what Writing Center people would call your "voice". The beginning of your abstract sounds too "chummy" and not very academic.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting! I agree with Felicity that looking more into color symbolism would add to it- like how in Cleopatra both she and the Romans are always wearing very "royal" colors. Also, maybe you could discuss more about the varying levels of elaborateness and accuracy throughout the films and how this affected them overall?
ReplyDeleteGood points, costumes definitely have a role in accentuating a characters personality and role in the film, and often films will hold stereotypes which are not always true, for example Maciste's leopard print. Also, you spelled Cabiria three different ways.
ReplyDeleteHave you thought about how the black and white films affect the message of the costumes due to the fact that they cannot perceive true colors. Do they whites indicated good and the black indicate bad? I like your points of how certain groups of people dressed the same, it is very interesting how they thought to do that. Maybe so you do not have to identify everytime what background that person has so they are automatically associated with certain qualities purely by their clothing without even speaking.
ReplyDeleteThese are all really great and helpful comments. Kudos to all of you!
ReplyDelete