So I haven’t given up on Costume in Cinema — I just got distracted, and then suddenly had a HA-UGE list of movies to review, which was daunting. So I kept procrastinating. But I have finally gotten back in gear, so there is a raft of new movie reviews!
- Ancient – 16th century: Agora, Rome, Robin Hood
- Regency: Bright Star, Emma (the new one with Romola Garai)
- Victorian: Desperate Romantics, Sherlock Holmes, Young Victoria
- Edwardian: White Ribbon
- 20th Century: Cadillac Records, Coco Before Chanel, Easy Virtue, An Education, Revolutionary Road
Phew! You can see why that took me so long!
And, as always, the Upcoming Movies page is up to date.
Ye gods, you see a lot of movies! But then, you do so I don’t have to 😉
As the sister of a historian specialised in Ancient History (and as someone who has a particular liking to fashion of the Ancient Eras herself), I must point two little things concerning your “Agora” and “Rome” reviews:
1. Amenábar got totally wrong the sets thing. Alexandria is in Egypt, yes, but it was a city founded by Greek people, so the sets should actually reflect a Greek city, with Greek style buildings and temples, not Egyptian. I haven’t got a lot of qualms about the costumes (which I had the opportunity to see in person in an exhibit they made at the Museo del Traje), except some things related to Orestes’ senator costume(Those fibulae-thingies, I mean… WTW?) and that Hypatia’s tunics are obviously Hollywood-ized a bit beacuse the Fortuny-style pleating they have, since I’m pretty sure that the tunics the real Hypatia wore (and most of the people of that era) were straight (maybe with some creases because of the use)
2. Rome’s costumes have been definately sexed up, I can confirm you that. There’s no way a respectable Roman matron (like the real Atia was, here they seem to have given her the role Fulvia, Antony’s wife before Octavia, had in real life), could have worn that. The scandal would have been of epic proportions.
(also, it isn’t a very reliable source of what happened in that era. They’ve played with History even more that what they did in “The Tudors”- seriously, some things made me cringe too much, so now I think of it as a comedy).
Maribarbola – I did read up a bit on Agora, but more on the events of the film (which seem to have taken a “what historians think is less likely to have happened” approach), but less on the accuracy of the design, so that’s really interesting to know! And yeah, I could tell that Rome was really going for a, “Let’s titillate modern audiences” thing — sometimes it’s helpful to NOT know the history, because then you can enjoy it more! Anyway, I appreciate your input, as I know next to nothing about the era.
great to see you’re on the reviews again. i really enjoy reading them and was frankly afraid, you decided on cutting this section of your site when you’d moved.
Glad to see your reviews. I would defiently suggest you watch The Curious Case of Benjamin Button it covers the 1910’s all the way to the 2000’s. Worth a watch for subtle and interesting look at the decades with out being shinny and over the top.