remote viewer: the costumes are the sets

i meant to do this post as soon as i'd heard that eiko ishioka, the inimitable artist and costume designer had passed. she truly worked from a different paradigm. her vision was incredibly specific and her idiosyncratic.

obviously i never shut up about the 1992 version of dracula (it is from a coppola quote re: ishioka that i take this post's title) but i always admired her work under tarsem singh. (even though i think singh is an awful director -- the hack version of terry gilliam, who's curdled in his own way.)

here's a documentary clip where eiko gets to talk about her process and put the actors in their place. i love the idea of constriction as character psychology. everything after that is photos, lots of them.

bram stoker's dracula, 1992

klimt reference, musculature

this costume must have fallen to the cutting room floor

this scene starts with a flickering, grainy effect, because they are shooting with fewer frames per second. the camera pans shakily, as if amateur and hand-cranked. the film seems to be painted cell by cell -- in the style of the first color movies. when dracula sees mina, the image returns to full sharpness and vibrancy. hi, metaphor.

i read that the inspiration was a lizard's ruff

different dress on mina, different hairstyles for both. i appreciate when garments repeat over different days. a small nod to reality.

color metaphors. mina represents life, growing things. she wears mostly blues and greens, with a vine motif. just as lucy usually wears pink, red, and orange, to represent her flirtatious nature.