[Sca-cooks] One more costume question...

[Terry Decker]

Most of this stuff gets done because it looks pretty or sounds good.  A 
recent show I saw where they stuffed $10M dollars in a child's backpack for 
a ransom.  Sounds great!  Unfortunately for the script, 10M bucks in $100 
bills weighs around 220 pounds and takes up about 5 cubic feet.  As for 
costuming, has anyone encountered something that breaks the laws of physics? 
If they have, give it to Mythbusters and see what they can do with it.

Bear

> Christianna, speaking as someone who's primarily a historical costumer, 
> and for whom movies in general are fairly far down on the list, there 
> really are remarkably few that are "good" in a historically-accurate 
> sense.  What you tend to get, in the better cases, at least, is stuff 
> that's good as "costume," insomuch as it enhances whatever mood or 
> attitude that needs to be brought across.  "Shakespeare in Love" is a 
> decent example of this, as is the first "Elizabeth" movie (haven't seen 
> the second one, so I can't comment)--decent enough costumes, but they 
> compress 60 years of fashion change into a couple of years to make some 
> silly point about E the 1st as the Iconic Virgin.  But historical, in 
> general, no.  And some, like, say, "The Tudors" of t.v. fame, or 
> "Braveheart," are appallingly bad.
> In general, I have learned to turn off my costuming taste buds, and just 
> enjoy what they're doing--especially if it's so tongue in cheek, like 
> "Knight's Tale," where you have women wearing something that's this odd 
> combination of 14th/15th century high class stuff, but with oddly modern 
> touches.  Or "Forever After," with some fairly decent 16th century stuff, 
> but it's all mixed up.  Or "Dangerous Beauty" which is visually gorgeous, 
> at least. (I'm not always sure of the accuracy of other time periods being 
> depicted--my primary area of study has been 16th century Northern Europe.)
> There's an h-costume list out there--I'd ask for you, but I'm not on the 
> list anymore.
> --Maire