Category: Casual
No Country for Old Men: Javier Bardem as Anton Chigurh
Javier Bardem as Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men (2007)
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Javier Bardem as Anton Chigurh, relentless psychopathic killer (“but so what? there’s plenty of them around”)
Texas, Summer 1980
Film: No Country for Old Men
Release Date: November 9, 2007
Director: Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
Costume Designer: Mary Zophres
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
The Coen brothers’ masterful adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s novel No Country for Old Men was released eighteen years ago today on November 9, 2007. The film won in four of its eight nominated categories at the Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay, and Supporting Actor for Javier Bardem’s chilling performance as the amoral and awful-coiffed Anton Chigurh. Continue reading
Farewell, Friend: Alain Delon’s Casual Jacket and Turtleneck
Alain Delon in Farewell, Friend (1968)
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Alain Delon as Dino Barran, discharged French Army doctor
Marseilles, France, December 1963
Film: Farewell, Friend
(French title: Adieu l’ami)
Release Date: August 14, 1968
Director: Jean Herman
Costume Designer: Tanine Autré
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Last year, the world said adieu to French screen and style icon Alain Delon, who was born 90 years ago tomorrow on November 8, 1935. Among his prolific filmography that includes Plein Soleil (1960), L’Eclisse (1962), The Leopard (1963), Le Samouraï (1967), and La Piscine (1969), one of Delon’s less-remembered films is the 1968 French-Italian heist caper Adieu l’ami—which translates to Farewell, Friend (also re-released as Honor Among Thieves). The film established Charles Bronson’s stardom in Europe, though it wouldn’t be released in the United States for another five years. Continue reading
Back to the Future: Doc Brown’s Snakeskin Robe for a Scientific Breakthrough
Christopher Lloyd as Doc Brown in Back to the Future (1985)
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Emmett “Doc” Brown, eccentric inventor and amateur chronophysicist
Hill Valley, California, November 5, 1955
Film: Back to the Future
Release Date: July 3, 1985
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Costume Designer: Deborah Lynn Scott
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
If my calculations are correct… 70 years ago today was a red-letter date in the history of science: November 5, 1955. For those who haven’t seen Back to the Future, this was the day that Hill Valley’s resident mad scientist Emmett “Doc” Brown slipped from standing on his toilet to hang a clock, hitting his head on the bathroom sink—triggering his concept of the flux capacitor, which would make time travel possible.
Even a freshly bandaged Doc (Christopher Lloyd) seems unaware of that day’s significance when he’s visited by Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox)—not a space man from Pluto but a high school student from 1985 who was flung thirty years into the past by the DeLorean that Doc had transformed into a time machine. Continue reading
Beetlejuice: Alec Baldwin’s Plaid Flannel Shirt and Khakis
Alec Baldwin in Beetlejuice (1988)
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Alec Baldwin as Adam Maitland, hardware store owner and model hobbyist
Connecticut, Spring 1987
Film: Beetlejuice
Release Date: March 30, 1988
Director: Tim Burton
Costume Designer: Aggie Guerard Rodgers
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Beetlejuice is a spooky season favorite for many, so even if the concept of Alec Baldwin crashing his car feels a little too real for a certain tree in the Hamptons, let’s celebrate Halloween with newlydeads Adam and Barbara Maitland.
Adam (Alec Baldwin) and Barbara (Geena Davis) are looking forward to a stress-free sojourn in their small-town Connecticut home when their two-week staycation becomes a 125-year haunting after dying when their Volvo station wagon crashes through the side of the covered Winter River Bridge. Continue reading
Kenneth Branagh’s Antarctic Exploration Gear as Ernest Shackleton
Kenneth Branagh in Shackleton (2002)
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Kenneth Branagh as Sir Ernest Shackleton, prolific polar explorer
Antarctica, December 1914 to August 1916
Series: Shackleton
Air Dates: January 2-3, 2002
Director: Charles Sturridge
Costume Designer: Shirley Russell
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
The Channel 4 series Shackleton aired in two parts during the first week of January 2002, winning Emmy Awards in two of the seven categories for which it was nominated among nods from the BAFTA Awards and Golden Globes. Kenneth Branagh stars as the titular Sir Ernest Shackleton, specifically depicting his leadership of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition toward the end of what many call the “Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration”. Though the specific expedition failed in its scientific objective, his leadership and the resourceful group’s survival have become legendary as a feat of, well, endurance. Despite this, Shackleton wisely avoids hagiography as it presents the titular adventurer with virtues and flaws intact.
After securing funding and approval from the British Admiralty despite looming war across Europe, Shackleton’s crew departed from Plymouth in August 1914 aboard the Endurance. Shackleton had purchased this Norwegian-built three-masted schooner, which was originally christened Polaris before he renamed it from his family motto (“By endurance, we conquer”), thus its journey from England through the South Atlantic was its maiden voyage. Following stops in Buenos Aires and South Georgia Island, Shackleton and his crew of 28 men—and 69 dogs—finally departed for the Antarctic on December 5th.
The real Ernest Shackleton (1874-1922), photographed aboard the Endurance by Frank Hurley, circa 1914-1915.
Shackleton commanded the Endurance through the Weddell Sea, while Aeneas Mackintosh helmed a supporting party aboard the Aurora through the Ross Sea. Hoping to make landfall by Christmas, the seagoing expedition stretched into January 1915 when the Endurance became beset in pack ice. To conserve fuel for a potential return to South Georgia, Shackleton cut the engines and began drifting in the ice… for nine months.
110 years ago today on October 27, 1915—one year and a day after the Endurance left Buenos Aires—Shackleton finally gave his crew the orders to abandon ship, establishing a camp on the ice after—aside from Frank Hurley’s photographs and Leonard Hussey’s banjo—each man was instructed to dump all but two pounds of personal possessions from aboard the ship. Endurance finally sank just over three weeks later on November 21, 1915, starting a new chapter as the crew realized their mission shifted from science to survival.
My job now is to make sure you all live: every single one of you. To do that, I cannot afford to be sentimental. If I am, you will die—die starving, die frozen, die mad. I’ve seen it before, I do not intend to see it again.
Patrick Wilson’s Argyle Zip Sweater in The Conjuring
Patrick Wilson as Ed Warren in The Conjuring (2013)
Vitals
Patrick Wilson as Ed Warren, paranormal investigator
Harrisville, Rhode Island, Fall 1971
Film: The Conjuring
Release Date: July 19, 2013
Director: James Wan
Costume Designer: Kristin M. Burke
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
With ten days until Halloween, let’s shift into horror mode with the first installment of The Conjuring franchise, based on real-life demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren’s 1971 investigation into the possible haunting of the Perron family’s Rhode Island home. Starring Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga as Ed and Lorraine, this movie was the first in a shared cinematic universe of nine films to date—most recently The Conjuring: Last Rites, which was released last month. Continue reading
Al Lettieri in The Getaway: From Chalk-striped Suit to Corduroy and Chambray
Al Lettieri in The Getaway (1972)
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Al Lettieri as Rudy Butler, menacing and duplicitous armed robber
Texas, Spring 1972
Film: The Getaway
Release Date: December 13, 1972
Director: Sam Peckinpah
Men’s Costumer: Kent James
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
From The Godfather and The Getaway to McQ and Mr. Majestyk, if you needed a swarthy, mean, and snakishly charming son-of-a-bitch in the early ’70s, chances are you would call Al Lettieri. A bona fide tough guy who channeled his real-life connections to less reputable characters into his dynamic performances, Lettieri was only 47 years old when he died of a heart attack fifty years ago today on October 18, 1975.
Adapted from pulp author Jim Thompson’s 1958 crime novel of the same name, The Getaway was released in the final weeks of 1972—Lettieri’s breakthrough year, following the release of The Godfather in March. Continue reading
Dustin Hoffman in Double Denim as Lenny Bruce
Dustin Hoffman as Lenny Bruce in Lenny (1974)
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Dustin Hoffman as Lenny Bruce, controversial comedian
New York, Spring 1964
Film: Lenny
Release Date: November 10, 1974
Director: Bob Fosse
Costume Designer: Albert Wolsky
Background
Did you know that Eleanor Roosevelt gave Lou Gehrig the clap?
Groundbreaking stand-up comedian Lenny Bruce was born 100 years ago, on October 13, 1925, in Long Island. His first steps into comedy were fittingly unconventional; while serving in the Navy during World War II, he dressed in drag to entertain his shipmates, eventually leading to his discharge. After struggling through the New York comedy circuit in the 1950s, Bruce began to find his footing toward the end of the decade, releasing his first solo record The Sick Humor of Lenny Bruce in 1959 and delivering his now-legendary Carnegie Hall set during a snowstorm in February 1961.
Legal battles soon became inseparable from the outspoken Bruce’s act and reputation. His October 1961 arrest for obscenity put him squarely in the crosshairs of law enforcement, and over the next five years his performances were increasingly shadowed by surveillance, arrests, and prosecutions for obscenity and drug possession, while he became a living symbol of the struggle for free speech.
On August 3, 1966, the 40-year-old Bruce was found dead of an apparent morphine overdose at his home in the Hollywood Hills. Reflecting on the irony of a man persecuted for words, journalist Dick Schaap concluded his Playboy eulogy with a bitter epitaph: “One last four-letter word for Lenny: Dead. At forty. That’s obscene.”
Decades before he was reintroduced to modern audiences through Luke Kirby’s Emmy-winning performance in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Lenny Bruce was the focus of Bob Fosse’s 1974 biographical film Lenny starring Dustin Hoffman as the titular comedian. The movie received six Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor for Hoffman, though it won zero. Continue reading
The Dreamers: Michael Pitt’s Suede Jacket, Jeans, and Chuck Taylors
Michael Pitt in The Dreamers (2003)
Vitals
Michael Pitt as Matthew, expatriate student and self-professed cinephile
Paris, Spring 1968
Film: The Dreamers
Release Date: October 10, 2003
Director: Bernardo Bertolucci
Costume Designer: Louise Stjernsward
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Much discourse around Bertolucci’s 2003 erotic drama The Dreamers (which premiered in Italy 22 years ago today) centers around what the characters aren’t wearing, so I’ll flip the script by focusing on Louise Stjernsward’s evocative costume design that brings to life Parisian culture against the backdrop of the 1968 student protests.
Hailing from San Diego and studying in Paris, Matthew encounters sibling activists Isabelle (Eva Green) and Théo Fontaine (Louis Garrel) among his “freemasonry of cinephiles”—introduced during the very French situation of Isabelle asking Matthew to take her cigarette during a police demonstration at the storied Cinémathèque française. He’s quickly drawn into the siblings’ strange dynamic of deeply incestuous overtones littered with cinematic references epitomized by Isabelle’s insistence on leading the trio on a run through the Louve as seen in Bande à part. Continue reading
Taffin: Pierce Brosnan’s Leather U-Boat Coat and Black Jeans
Pierce Brosnan in Taffin (1988)
Vitals
Pierce Brosnan as Mark Taffin, debt collector
Ballymoran, Ireland, Fall 1987
Film: Taffin
Release Date: February 26, 1988
Director: Francis Megahy
Costume Designer: Imogen Magnus
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
In the years between his career-defining roles as Remington Steele and James Bond, Pierce Brosnan’s career spanned a variety of roles, from classic adventurer Phileas Fogg in a TV production of Around the World in 80 Days to spurned lovers in Love Affair (1994) and Mrs. Doubtfire (1993)—losing his love interest to Warren Beatty (makes sense) and Robin Williams dressed as a fussy old British woman (oh!), respectively.
For the 00-7th of October today, let’s look at one of Brosnan’s more Bond-like roles during this period, portraying the title character in Taffin, adapted from Lyndon Mallet’s book series of the same name. Mallet reportedly balked at the casting choice as his literary Mark Taffin was described as overweight and unattractive—two words which would not describe Pierce Brosnan.
Taffin works as a debt collector in his small Irish hometown, filmed in County Wicklow, where his popularity ranges based on whether he’s helped you recover your debts… or had him knocking at your door on someone else’s behalf. Despite his cynical attitude and less-than-reputable profession, Taffin emerges as the town’s de facto defender, working against the developers who’ll stop at nothing to capitalize on the land. Continue reading
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