Contextual studies Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Contextual studies - Case Study Example I. Introduction (160 words) Costume and set design is an element of a movie production that tries to make a film seem real. Here the costumes and sets from two movies will be analyzed, for their ability to move the viewer backward and forward in time, making different worlds detailed, authentic, and ultimately, more believable. The movies that will be analyzed in each section are the movies The Hours and Peggy Sue Got Married. Costuming and set design can completely revolutionize the way a movie appears. If one has, as a director, sweeping visuals and detailed props, it makes an environment come alive with wonder. Costuming, especially in period pieces, definitely enhances the quality of a movie, because the people acting in the movie are much more likely to feel that they are part of a genuinely-created world, but that it doesn’t feel that it is created. It feels genuine, both to the performing artist creating the piece, as well as to the viewer. II. A Detailed World (400 wor ds) The details in the movie The Hours are chillingly accurate, from the decor in Virginia Woolf’s English house to the clothes that she wears, as well as the sets designed for the characters at the other levels in the movie. Similarly, in Peggy Sue Got Married, Peggy Sue’s â€Å"blast to the past† back to the ‘60s before her and her husband got married has some very good sets and costuming. Details in sets and costuming make a movie seem more real, to be sure. Details such as the particular hat that Virginia Woolf wore in The Hours and her furnishings in her house are definitely throwbacks to 19th-century England. In The Hours, Mrs. Brown (Richard’s mother) wears clothing that has an air of the ‘50s about it. Her household appliances and decor of her house are all post-war-inspired. The contemporary apparel that Meryl Streep wears in her appearance as Clarissa Vaughn (a friend of Richard’s) in The Hours, reflects the dress and style of a 21st-century woman living in Manhattan in New York. So do the furnishings in her own flat also reflect a modernistic tone with a homey and soft—versus aloof and austere—look. Her flat looks lived-in and accessible. In Peggy Sue Got Married, we are vaulted from Peggy Sue’s late 20th-century birthday party which has a cake on the set that is shaped in the form of a large letter â€Å"X,† symbolizing, subconsciously, that she has gotten divorced. This is a key prop that is used to set the scene of the movie. The fact that Peggy Sue wakes up as a high school student at her parents’ house is frought with reminders from the ‘60s. Peggy Sue wakes up in the nurse’s office after supposedly fainting while giving blood. Peggy Sue’s house is typical of a house in the ‘60s, with its architecture and appearance. Peggy Sue’s clothing is typical of a ‘60s female high school student—complete with a hoop skirt and a l etterman sweater. Some of the details in this movie--such as Peggy Sue’s future husband Charlie’s car, an old Mustang with flared sides, and the motorcycle ridden by poet-beatnik, black leather jacket-wearing Michael, whom Peggy Sue rides off with for an evening date—only enhance the quality of the movie, and make one feel the genuineness of the movie with its surroundings. Thus, this movie becomes more ‘real,’ as it were. III. An Authentic World (420 words) The worlds in both The Hours and Peggy Sue Got Married are authentic. This is because, in the movie The Hours, costuming and set design both contribute to the genuineness of the movie by having clothing and period pieces that evoke those particular time periods. The same is true of Peggy Sue Got Married. In The Hours, the flowered apron that Mrs. Brown wears, along with the decor of her ‘