Costume, Person, Role

Tony Peake in Derek Jarman: a biography offers a description of an aspect of the film The Tempest:

For the costumes, a sense of timelessness was aimed at [...] Jarman was equally keen that the costumes reinforce character. The way Miranda's dress is festooned with shells and feathers, so that it looks as if she carries the island about her person, is a precise indication of her upbringing, just as Prospero's rumpled but once magnificent velvet waistcoat and breeches hint at a richer, more cosmopolitan past.

There is a touch of Jungian treatment here as character, theatrical, slides into character, psychological. French has "caractère" for psychological character and "personnage" for the theatrical role and both are different from personality.

Costumes may reinforce character but they also make role codable.

And so for day 160
23.05.2007