The Doha Film Institute held its ninth version of the Qumra program – an incubator occasion for movies being developed within the area and additional afield. Apart from movie screenings which have had DFI funding, this system additionally included masterclasses by which doyens of the movie world shared their experiences in dialog with Richard Pena together with the clips from the movies they’ve labored on.
One of this 12 months’s masters was Jacqueline West – the costume designer recognized for her work in movies akin to “The Revenant and Dune.” It is at all times refreshing to take a look at the movie trade and the filming course of via the eyes of an expert whose perspective we hardly ever get to listen to about.
Also, I used to be utterly on board when Jacqueline West stated: “Costume is where the actor meets the character,” particularly as somebody who takes Shakespeare as the primary and final phrase on how “apparel oft proclaims the man.”
West herself is an avid reader of literature and termed her college years “foundational” a number of instances for a way she approaches her work, significantly when she works on historic drama tasks. West’s mom was additionally a well-known designer, and after just a few makes an attempt at making an attempt to not observe in her footsteps, she arrange a clothes retailer in Los Angeles (LA) subsequent to a restaurant continuously visited by movie stars. And earlier than she knew it, in accordance with her: “She was corralled into the filming business.”
During the masterclass, the primary clip they confirmed was from the movie “Quills,” by which a really younger Kate Winslet performs a washerwoman who serves on the asylum the place Marquis de Sade was incarcerated. West defined how for every challenge she went to historic assets and pored over drawings with a view to get the small print proper. For “Quills” and a number of other different movies, the manufacturing arrange their very own workshops to make the costumes.
West has collaborated with well-known administrators a number of instances together with Terrence Malick. For the masterclass, they confirmed a clip from “Knight of Cups”, which concerned many individuals having a celebration in an LA home round a pool additionally starring the well-known Antonio Banderas. West defined how for this movie they’d rented nearly all the garments and that she had signed the guarantee for all of them.
“Malick is a water diviner,” continued West, and that in his each movie, the characters had been made to enter the water. When Malick urged this throughout the taking pictures of “Knight of Cups” as properly, West needed to put her foot down, and as a compromise, Banderas got here to the rescue and stated he can be joyful to leap into the pool himself as he was sporting his personal go well with.
A movie the place the actors might hardly survive sporting their very own wardrobe was “The Revenant.” West informed the story of how the stakes had been very actual as a result of they didn’t need the actors to freeze to dying. She stated she studied the journals of the fur trappers and merchants and with a view to safe the bearskin for the movie, she needed to get a dealer’s license herself.
It appeared they solely killed the 2 oldest bears in a 12 months and she or he needed to bid for them. The journals and chronicles she learn revealed the hunters would begin off with “European clothes” however because the situations grew harsher, they’d add animal pores and skin to their attires, and sometimes their complete costume would find yourself being fabricated from animal pores and skin.
Another “blockbuster” challenge that West labored on was “Dune” and this time, she was making an attempt to maintain the actors cool fairly than heat. When approached by Villeneuve for the challenge, she defined she wasn’t into sci-fi and he replied she was good as a result of he didn’t desire a sci-fi look.
Her inspiration when designing the costumes for the movie was naturally the Tuaregs, and once more the memoirs of journey writers who had been within the Middle East got here in useful. It was when talking about “Dune” that she revealed for the lead roles significantly, other than the costume, she at all times gave the actor a talisman of some type to ensure that them to get into the position. The one she gave Chalamet to put on inside his go well with was a shawl “printed with the Muad-Dib – the desert mouse from the Dune world,” Nina E. Rothe revealed in Screen Daily.
Answering the query of what occurred to those costumes after such time and vitality has been invested into them, West informed the story of how Terrence Malick had all of the costumes burnt after the filming of “The New World”, and West managed to save lots of solely the one worn by the lead, to be given to a museum.
This was a harsh revelation certainly, having simply watched a clip from “Dune,” the place folks attempt to survive on a scorched planet, made me marvel concerning the sustainability of the movie trade.
The attire trade is claimed to be one of many worst offenders in depleting the planet’s water assets. As West described the “still suits” in “Dune” and the way they flip physique waste into potable water once more, I mused how the movie trade wanted its personal “still suit,” a minimum of via recycling the custom-made costumes and units.
Source: www.dailysabah.com
