Costume

Costume

From watching a variety of films such as, The Soloist,  Girl Interrupted, and a Beautiful Mind, a focus of mine has been costume. Especially concentrated around the character struggling with the mental illness, i.e: Schizophrenia.


The Soloist

In the Soloist Nathaniel, is always dressed in yellow, with other items of clothing such as hats and jackets that highlight his creativity. Nathaniel's seen with thinning, wavy graying hair parted in the middle and plastered to his head. He wears a tattered wardrobe, giving off the impression that he wears whatever he finds or is given as he moves about during his time on the streets. One outfit he wears is composed of a silver sequined top, purple scarf, worn-out trousers and trainers. His outfit and characteristics convey's Nathaniel's poetic intelligence as well as his emotional and mental fragility.


A beautiful mind

Similarly, like Nathaniel's character, John is also highly intelligent and in no way does his costume convey his mental illness or instability. Instead it steers us away from thinking anything of his mental condition - therefore there are points in the film where the audience do doubt their thoughts about John's schizophrenia when it starts to peak. In the print screen opposite, John wears a suit and bow tie looking extremely formal for moving into his new college room. The over the shoulder shot allows us to see the juxtaposition between his friend and himself in terms of their costume. His friend wears a checked dressing gown, which shows his casual and laid back approach to the day. Through this, although John's character remains awfully reserved at the beginning of the film we wouldn't assume that he was the one suffering with Schizophrenia due to his own self appearance.

Girl interrupted

Girl interrupted focuses wholly on the mental condition of more than one person in particular especially as it's set in a mental institution. Their costumes are chosen in a sense that it compliments how they look on the outside rather than what's really going on inside their head. Susana's room mate suffered from pseudologia fantastica, also known as compulsive lying disorder yet her costume, blond hair and bare face suggests otherwise as she looks innocent and possibly almost the most trusting person within the institute however this isn't so. When looking at Janet's character who suffers from anorexia - we first see her in a hospital gown as the nurses decide to not allow her to wear her clothes unless she eats something.

  With this her identity is stripped and the audience see her as nothing but patient. Whereas, in the print screen opposite, she's wearing a dark pink dress with her hair tied up and earrings, highlighting the contrast between who she was when she was at her lowest to now. The choice of costume also signifies the well being of each character. Such as Cynthia, she wasn't mentally ill but in the era at which the film was set being a lesbian was a reasonable "diagnosis" in which you could place someone in a mental institution.


Our Trailer
Out trailer will be focusing on a teenage girl aged around 17/18 who struggles with day to day life due to her battle with schizophrenia. In terms of costume, we have many options. We could opt for her to appear very artsy, therefore patterns, bright colours and perhaps some items of clothing that do not quite match. Although, with this option is mind we may have to consider not making her character look too artsy to the extent that her clothing alone makes her stand out too much. Additionally, her character could be extremely smart and her costume could signify that factor, just like in A Beautiful Mind. Moreover, the setting of our trailer will also determine our protagonists costume, e.g. if it were to be set in a school environment; we would have to take into account how she chooses to wear her uniform.