Librari[d]an

I just saw The Strangers and honestly it’s a pretty solid film. How did this occur, with Liv Tyler as the heroine and a cast of models as the masked intruders? The answers are much (much much much) simpler than you’d imagine:

The strangers don’t have outlandish motives.

There was a time when an approximation of psychological realism in a murderer’s motivation was a breath of fresh air for horror, and has allowed films like Psycho to achieve canonical status. However, nowadays audiences feel either weighed down by too much psychology or cheated by motivations that tie up the film with a nice, neat ribbon. Rather than Freudian examinations of a killer’s life (for example, the lengthy scenes depicting Michael Meyers’ childhood in Rob Zombie’s reimagining of Halloween) or exotic psychological explanations (dissociative identity disorder in The Secret Window, Session 9, and countless others) they appreciate less complex motives.

Dissociative identity disorder (a.k.a. multiple personality disorder), popularized by Hitchcock’s Psycho, is not only trite, but lacking in realism. (”Real” cases of DID are quite rare).

The fact that the strangers are most likely “thrill killers” is understated, never articulated in the film. (When Kristen finally asks the baby-doll faced stranger why they’re victimizing them, the girl flatly and evasively responds “Because you were home.”) Compare this to Murder By Numbers, another film about kids who thrill kill, and you can see how a minimal focus on character motivation results in a tighter, creepier, and less clichéd narrative.

The actors are never required to display any emotional range.

The Strangers has only the sparest of narratives: James and Kristen arrive home after a party where Kristen rejected his marriage proposal. Strangers start to terrorize them. James accidentally shoots his buddy. Strangers continue to terrorize them. James admits that he lied about his father taking him hunting. Strangers overpower and kill them. So what are the emotions that are asked of Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman? Sadness, fear, anguish/regret. Pretty easy fare, considering how limited the dialog (much of which is delivered into mobile phones or vintage radios) is. They only have to look sullen or alternately terrified.

The really complex emotional work, when James realizes he has killed his best friend, is neatly avoided by focusing on Liv Tyler’s character’s imploring “What? James, what?” and James’ back (no joke). At the end, when the two realize that the strangers are really going to kill them, the scene is surprisingly brief and revolves more around the diamond wedding band Kristen decided to wear than their professions of love to one another. (Good idea, Liv. Let the rock do the acting for you!)

So why do these characters work? The answer is that James and Kristen are stand-ins for audience members: white, boring, middle class people with mundane interpersonal relationship problems. Also, a sense of realism is achieved when audiences don’t get the whole story in a few hours: I have included the fact that James lied about his relationship with his father for this very reason. It is one of the few overtures toward character development that are made in the film, and that’s what most of this stuff is, just overtures. All we really need are hints that these characters have emotions and inner lives beyond the few hours the audience spends with them. Beyond that, any explicit details of their lives clash with an audience members’ ability to identify with them.

Bryan Bertino, the writer/director, avoided stale subgenres.

Virtually every review of The Strangers mentions how it is not a splatter film (charmingly referred to as “torture porn” by non-professional reviewers) and how this simple fact is refreshing. When the horror genre is overly permeated with certain stock styles or narratives (like J-horror ghost stories) audiences swing like a pendulum to something different (in this case, tension). So it’s not that The Strangers is a masterpiece of suspense, but rather that it is light on gore and doesn’t have a 12 year-old female ghost with long, dark hair.

The Strangers is unremarkable for the most part. However, there are some redeeming elements to the film. It is interesting to see that Bertino and co. have accomplished a few goals in terms of cinematography, sound, and pacing:

1. The framing of several shots is rather impressive. I’m thinking specifically of one instance (pictured in a publicity photo to the right) where Liv Tyler is crawling through the back yard and the highly kinetic camera (something I usually deplore, but which in this case beautifully masks the impending jump scare) pulls out and pans up slightly to reveal one of the female strangers.

2. The soundtrack, diegetic and non-diegetic, is rather well done. One of my favorite parts was when the dissonance of a skipping record was put to good use as a jarring, disorienting device. (This isn’t exactly original, but the execution was spot on.) The only thing I felt it lacked were music cues when the strangers appear (à la the original Halloween) to heighten the mood. The filmmakers probably felt this would be over doing it, but I think when used discriminatingly such cues could really have enhanced the strangers’ appearances toward the end film.

3. Tension scenes are remarkably long, with the strangers walking into the background of the frame for extended periods of time. This in itself isn’t really impressive. What I was struck by was how Bertino was able to sustain suspense over these long periods of time, relying heavily on horror conventions (shadow and focus) but also less-used devices to do so. For example, when the male, bag-headed stranger first appears behind Kristen (who is in the kitchen) from a hallway, Bertino allows the camera to move away from the stranger and out of the shot. Although audiences can quite literally not see him, they still have a palpable sense that his menacing presence is still there. Thus, when the camera returns to the space that the stranger occupied, audiences hold their breath waiting for Kristen’s unwitting discovery of the stranger.

So, The Strangers did a few things right, but when the film didn’t do anything wrong it basically didn’t do much. Do I like it? I enjoyed watching it, but I’d like Bertino’s next film to have more substance.

:: Bibliography ::

• CelebrityWonder.com. The Strangers production picture. CelebrityWonder.com. http://www.celebritywonder.com/movie-pictures/2008_The_Strangers/002.html (18 June 2008).
• Emerson, Jim. Close-Ups: A free-association dream sequence. Scanners. http://blogs.suntimes.com/scanners/2007/10/closeups_a_freeassociation_min.html (18 June 2008).

There’s a “high likelihood” that My Bloody Valentine, a remake of the classic 1981 horror flick, will be filmed in Pittsburgh! (Schooley) Hooray!!! MBV is one of the better holiday-themed slasher films, and ranks right up there with Black Christmas in many people’s books.

The ‘burgh is a very appropriate locale, considering the city’s industrial past. (I wonder, do you think I can be cast as a surly miner extra? I’ve a beard and a flannel shirt…) For those of you who don’t know, a good portion of the action in My Bloody Valentine takes place in a mine.
Apparently Lions Gate’s interest in our fair city has been cultivated by John Dellaverson, a producer within the company who is not only a University of Pittsburgh graduate, but also a native of New Castle. (Schooley) He has lobbied Governor Ed Rendell “to enact Pennsylvania’s $75 million tax credit program for filmmakers who shoot in the commonwealth”. (Schooley)

It’s always refreshing to see the cinematic potential of Pittsburgh being mined. (Not a pun.) More or less unplanned and organic, with remnants of the Gilded Age scattered about, Pittsburgh is a compelling urban backdrop for a film. To learn more about filmmaking in Pittsburgh, check out The Pittsburgh Film Office, the Steeltown Entertainment Project, and of course Pittsburgh Filmmakers.

:: Bibliography ::

• Schooley, Tim. “Spotlight shines on Pittsburgh as two more movies set scene.” Pittsburgh Business Times (8 February 2008). http://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/stories/2008/02/11/story8.html?page=1 (19 March 2008).

You probably haven’t heard of the recent controversy spurred by the new Collector’s Edition of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The color palette of the film has been drastically changed, darkness greatly increased, desaturated, etc. in comparison to earlier mass market releases. According to the motion picture archivist Robert Harris, this is because American Zoetrope has digitally matched the colors to those of the Francis Ford Coppola-approved answer print. According to fans it’s an unpardonable, deliberate revision of their favorite film incarnation of the Dracula story. I honestly don’t care about any of that… as long as consumers have a choice between the two.

My only lingering concern with the Collector’s Edition is that it has been accused of totally altering Eiko Ishioka’s Academy Award-winning costume designs. From very early on in Dracula’s pre-production, Coppola “decided that the costumes would be the set.” (Dworkin 17) When Eiko Ishioka realized “that the costumes would be the key factor in determining the quality of the film itself, I accepted the job.” (Dworkin 21) So that is what this post is actually about. Not the concern for color fidelity in film archiving, but those beautiful costumes - inspired by everything from the Symbolist movement to the Australian frilled lizard - that were conceived of and created by Ishioka. (Dworkin 19, 70)

One of the most memorable garments from the film is Dracula’s “red Oriental-Turkish robe”, which was created to “emphasize the androgynous quality in his character”, “a haunting aura of transsexuality.” (Dworkin 41) In the thematic color of red, Eiko had Dracula’s golden coat-of-arms embroidered on the breast.

This emblem is Dracula’s “identity, similar to the Japanese family crest. I designed a motif of various animals intertwined into a single form.” (Dworkin 42) These included a dragon, wolf, snakes, and birds, as well as fire. (Landau 37) The robe’s voluminous train was constructed to “undulate like a sea of blood.” (Dworkin 41) Not all of Dracula’s planned costumes made it into the film. Check out this sketch of a brocaded vest with red detailing/piping and handkerchief:

The designs for women are the cornerstone of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. And why is that? It’s because the original, decentralized story found in Stoker’s novel - told through every character’s point of view except Dracula’s - has been appropriated for Mina. Screenwriter Jim Hart felt that “The key to writing Dracula was to make it Mina’s story.” (Landau 80) Instead of a fragmented narrative, Mina gives it unity and continuity. While it may seem that Mina’s story is framed by Dracula’s historic prologue, the truth is in fact the opposite. Dracula lacks agency. He can merely react as Elisabeta kills herself, as Mina abandons him to marry Harker, as she makes the decision to become a vampire, as she exploits their psychic rapport to assist her friends, and finally as she delivers them both from the unholy covenant Dracula forged with “darkness”.

Throughout the film, Mina’s costumes convey just as much of the story as the actress beneath all that silk. For example, the dress Mina wears in Rule’s Cafe (the absinthe scene) was colored red - Dracula’s color - to convey that Mina would soon be tainted by vampirism. (Landau 127)

Ishioka “carefully considered Mina’s role in the drama” before she chose green as Mina’s thematic color. (Dworkin 61) The color needed to compass the character’s intelligence, sexual naïveté, stoicism, sense, and strong will. Many of these attributes can be seen in the dress she wears on the streets of London and in the cinematograph. The pert hat represents her vivacity and fortitude, the manly lapels her status as a New Woman with a “man’s brain [...] and a woman’s heart“, etc. (Stoker 266)

Winona Ryder wearing the town dress. Photo by Ralph Nelson II. (Landau 80)

Sketch of the town dress by Eiko Ishioka. Photo by Keith Sherins. (Dworkin 60)

Most of Mina’s dresses - including her typing gown - also sport high collars to reflect her modesty and chastity:

Mina’s typing dress. Photo by David Seidner. (Dworkin63)

The high collar can also be seen on Mina’s three-quarter sleeve dress. This dress is rather domestic-looking because of the contrast between the apron and the skirt and wrap. It also lacks leaf embroidery (whose importance will be discussed later) and is almost always worn while in the presence or under the protection of Van Helsing.

Mina’s three-quarter sleeve dress. Photos by Ralph Nelson II. (Landau 129, 125, 141)

As you can see, Ishioka took a predominantly historical, orthodox approach to Mina’s costumes, only pushing boundaries with her creative embellishments. (Dworkin 94) However, “Costumes should be more than just items that explain the role of the actors who wear them”, she stresses. (Dworkin 27) A costume should challenge the actor, filmmakers, and audience. (Dworkin 27) An example of this type of costume is Mina’s wedding dress, which is featured only briefly in the movie. Rather than a virginal white, it is instead a sombre gray-green:

This type of implicit message can also be seen in the final act of the film, in which Mina wears a historically outmoded style. “I designed her cape in the last scene with a strong Renaissance flavor, a Pre-Raphaelite look.” (Dworkin 91) This costume foreshadows Mina’s realization that she is truly the reincarnation of Elisabeta, Dracula’s 15th century bride.

Mina’s Renaissance cape. Photo by David Seidner. (Dworkin 91)

Elisabeta’s gown, seen at the beginning of the film and later in flashbacks, contains the elements that draw the two (three?) central characters together: Emblazoned on the torso is Dracula’s crest. Elisabeta and Mina’s designs are relatively consistent: On the sleeves and skirt - and even her crown of laurel - is the foliage motif that is often also found on Mina’s dresses. Both have the theme color of green. While Elisabeta wears a farthingale, Mina wears a bustle.

Elisabeta’s gown. First photo by David Seidner, second by Ralph Nelson II. (Dworkin 79, Landau 14)

Ishioka’s desire to design museum-quality costumes and her overall perfectionism meant that making multiple copies of her garments for filming was financially impractical. Richard Shissler, the associate costume designer, said that “We probably should have had duplicates of everything, but we just didn’t have the budget [...] Eiko didn’t want to compromise, so we had multiples only when we really needed them.” (Landau 127) Mina’s costumes were constructed with silk taffeta, imported from France and Italy, by Dale Wibben, a freelance dressmaker from San Francisco. (Dworkin 94) Sally Ann Parsons from Parsons-Meares, Ltd. in New York did the more theatrical costumes for Dracula, Lucy, and Renfield while Vincent Costume, Inc. made the men’s clothing. (Dworkin 94) The elaborate embroidery on many of the costumes was done by Penn and Fletcher and Monogram West. (Dworkin 94)

In retrospect, upon seeing her handiwork, it’s no wonder that Coppola chose Ishioka. However, at the time it was a gamble; she had never worked on the costumes for a film before, only television. Coppola’s “strategy in hiring someone like her - an independent, a weirdo outsider with no roots in the business - it worked in the end. Because I could look at the screen and say, well, these costumes are truly irrational and artistic and absolutely unique.” (Dworkin 93)

If I revisit Bram Stoker’s Dracula again, it will be to talk about the one thing in in the film that is more beautiful than the costumes: Wojciech Kilar’s glissando filled love theme, “Mina/Dracula”. (You can hear it over at YouTube, in this video from 2:00 to the end.)

:: Bibliography ::

• Dworkin, Susan, ed. Coppola and Eiko on Bram Stoker’s Dracula. By Francis Ford Coppola and Eiko Ishioka. San Francisco: Collins Publishers San Francisco, 1992. ISBN: 0002551675.
• Landau, Diana, ed. Bram Stoker’s Dracula: The Film and the Legend. By Francis Ford Coppola. New York: Newmarket Press, 1992. ISBN: 1557041393.
• Stoker, Bram. Dracula. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 1989. ISBN: 0812523016.

Others have tried - and failed - to recreate Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo: In 1976 Brian de Palma created the interesting, if poorly executed, Obsession–a thinly veiled Vertigo knock-off. Sixteen years later, Paul Verhoeven would emulate the film’s visuals to a surprising degree in Basic Instinct. (A visual comparison of Basic Instinct and Vertigo can be found here.) Attempts to recreate key scenes from the film have occurred as recently as 2005. Now, it’s time to add another to the list; Vanity Fair’s March 2008 issue will feature a photographic homage to Hitchcock’s films, including Renée Zellweger as Judy / Madeleine in the final tower scene from Vertigo! (Roy)

I never would have expected Vanity Fair to pick Renée Zellweger to fill Kim Novak’s shoes. Although I admit that she’s a talented actress, Zellweger has never been in a role that required the vulnerability, complexity, and emotional scope that Novak had to bring to her character. And of all the scenes to choose! You’d think they’d pick an easy “grey suit” episode, but instead they chose the climactic dénouement in the tower. It is perhaps the movie’s most emotionally charged scene. However, as you can see in the video of the shoot (also below), Zellweger has pretty much nailed it.

Zellweger’s performance at the shoot - described by Vanity Fair itself as “especially notable” - was both intense and impressive. (Windolf) This praise is pretty amazing, considering that there were five other Oscar winners and a huge amount of A-listers being photographed for Hitchcock’s other films. (Check out the article, cited below, for the full list and scans.) As you can see in the photo and video, everything in terms of the mise en scène was perfect: the coiffure, cosmetics, dress, earrings, tower interior… even Carlotta’s pendant.

At the shoot, Zellweger “was watching the scene over and over while getting her hair and makeup done, and when she came on set she started breathing really hard, almost hyperventilating. [...] She just absolutely exploded on the set and truly became that character like I’ve never seen before. We were in awe.” (Windolf) This method acting may explain why Zellweger’s performance lacked the subtle artistry that Novak brought to Judy’s character in both this and other scenes. (And in all fairness, it was just a photo shoot.) In addition to amplifying the emotions for a traditional camera, Zellweger herself may have been having an emotional reaction to Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak’s performances.

Revisiting Vertigo is something of an obsession for fans of the film. (Unfortunately, this Vertigo fanatic will not be close enough to visit San Fransisco when he goes to Anaheim, California this summer for the annual ALA conference.) Watch a YouTube video of the locations featured in the film here. Check out a stunning visual comparison of scenes from the film and contemporary photographs at Vertigo… Then and Now.

Special thanks to Joel Gunz, Hitchcock Geek for bringing Vanity Fair’s photo shoot to my attention and Deeda Blair for scanning and posting the article.

:: Bibliography ::

Roy, Norman J., photographer. “The 2008 Hollywood Portfolio.” Vanity Fair (March 2008): 370-71. Accessed 8 February 2008. http://community.livejournal.com/ohnotheydidnt/20148385.html.

Windolf, Jim. It’s the Hitch in Hitchcock. March 2008. CondéNet. Accessed 6 February 2008. http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2008/03/behindthescenes200803.

L’amour de l’étymologie is a feature exploring the etymology of English words. Today’s entry: the noun vertigo! You may rarely find this word spelled (vertego, verteego, virtigo) and pronounced (although this is the standard pronunciation) in any number of ways. If you’re feeling adventuresome, branch out and use related words such as the adjective “vertiginous”!

Let’s get one thing out of the way: Vertigo should not be confused with acrophobia, the fear of heights.

I have been consistently fascinated by the word vertigo since childhood, having seen Hitchcock’s classic of the same name at a tender age. Hypnotized by the film’s salient imagery, captivating score, and general pathos, I found myself returning to the term time and again. Only about a year ago I discovered that the title - Hitchcock’s personal favorite for the film - barely survived the journey to the marquee. (There were around fifty suggested titles ready and waiting to oust Vertigo.) In late October of 1957 the studio asserted that “No execs like Vertigo and believe it handicap to selling and advertising picture whether potential customers know what word vertigo means or not”. (Auiler 113)

This quote most likely explains why the original trailer for Vertigo opens with a shot of a dictionary. The book opens and the camera zooms in on a page as a quick dissolve takes viewers to a detail shot of the entry for “vertigo”. A voice-over informs the audience that the word means “a feeling of dizziness … a swimming in the head … figuratively a state in which all things seem to be engulfed in a whirlpool of terror.” As the book spins and dissolves into one of Saul Bass and John Whitney’s iconic spiral motifs - known properly by the name “Lissajous spirals” - it seems reasonable to ask just how much of this definition is fact and how much is hyperbole.

In truth, the clever mind that thought up this educational prelude got the meaning pretty much right.

In the original Latin, vertigo meant “a turning around, giddiness”. The Romantic languages inherited this term, and it can be assumed that Anglophones adopted the word from either French or Spanish. The first known use of vertigo in English has been dated to 1528 in Paynell’s Salerne’s Regim, which describes “The heed ache called vertigo: whiche maketh a man to wene that the world turneth”. The main gist of vertigo has followed this pathological assessment. The Oxford English Dictionary’s primary entry: “A disordered condition in which the person affected has a sensation of whirling, either of external objects or of himself, and tends to lose equilibrium and consciousness; swimming in the head; giddiness, dizziness”. The term can also be applied to animals such as horses, sheep, and hawks–although any link between dizziness and these animals’ diseases seems tenuous.

All that jazz is without adding an article. You can slap an “a” or “the” before vertigo if you don’t mind sounding a bit backward. Similarly, using plural forms (vertigos, vertigoes, verteegoes, vertigines) may sound awkward to contemporary ears.

Figurative uses of the word came along later, with the first recorded use in 1634. Vertigo in this case means “A disordered state of mind, or of things, comparable to giddiness.” The OED quotes people who wrote that art, power, and intellectualism may induce this state.

The final use of vertigo is as a noun which encapsulates the “act of whirling round and round.” Although loaded with poetic potential, this usage seems relatively rare; the only historical quote the OED cites is 19th Century writer Thomas de Quincey’s use of the word to describe a top in his Autobiographical Sketches.

That’s all she wrote. Stay tuned for more etymologies and musings on Hitchcock’s Vertigo!

:: Bibliography ::

Auiler, Dan. Vertigo: The Making of a Hitchcock Classic. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998. ISBN: 0312169159.

“Vertigo.” Oxford English Dictionary. 2008. 2 Jan. 2008 <http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/findword?query_type=word&queryword=vertigo&find.x=0&find.y=0&find=Find+word>.