The Big Picture Magazine
January 10th, 1927. It was on this day, 90 years ago, that Fritz Lang released Metropolis – not only a key film of the German expressionist movement, but also the primordial science fiction movie. Set far in the then-distant year 2000, the themes and designs of Metropolis forged new paths for cinema. It is impossible […]
With this year’s Elle and Things to Come, Isabelle Huppert is gaining acclaim for challenging female stereotypes. But the truth is she has been honing her ferocious talent for over forty years. In Claude Chabrol’s 2006 L’ivresse du pouvoir ( A Comedy of Power), Huppert played Jeanne Charmant-Killman, a fierce, dedicated French magistrate who investigates […]
Summer is optimistic by nature. So am I. Maybe that’s why noir is my favourite film genre. Harking back to the past. The sensual, fatalistic bleakness. The subtle tone and mood. The quotable lines that float up into your consciousness and stick. The morally ambiguous hero, alienated from society, charismatic yet flawed, charting a course […]
From the moment I glanced at the mirrored sunglasses of Tilda Swinton in A Bigger Splash, I knew it was time to give my own take on the best shades in the history of cinema. It’s summer and the fact of the matter is that the summer sun is much more bearable in a pair […]
It was Noah Hawley, novelist, producer, and screenwriter, who had the bold idea to create a television series based on the iconic Coen brothers film Fargo. Although loosely inspired by the 1996 classic, and showcasing different characters, the TV series Fargo still had high expectations to meet. And thanks to a great storyline, as well […]
Gloria loves clothes. She cares about them. They are perhaps about the only thing she cares about. She suddenly finds herself on the run, but she takes her clothes along. So she should. They are Emanuel Ungaro and they are a part of who she is. John Cassavetes was a director who liked to break […]
What do The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Great Gatsby, The Artist, Memoirs of A Geisha, Chicago and The Aviator all have in common? They are period movies which have all won the Oscar for costume design. In fact, over the last two decades, only two contemporary films have earned even a nomination: The Devil Wears […]
“Don’t shop anything – make everything!” Wes Anderson wanted designer Karen Patch to, as much as possible, design and build all the costumes exclusively for the movie The Royal Tenenbaums, which celebrates its fifteenth anniversary this year. The film-maker is known for placing a high importance on the visual aesthetic of his films, and costumes […]
The work of the costume designer is often overlooked, and as a consequence, books covering the connection between fashion and film are few and far between. But as Martin Scorsese says, “costume is character”. Film costume isn’t all about the dress. Great film costume grounds characters, advances the narrative, speaks more than words do, gives […]