My Favorite Period Movies

Today, I decided I was in the mood for making lists, and decided to make one about my favorite period movies. Period dramas were basically my gateway drug into a career as a fashion historian and they continue to have a huge influence on my life. A list of 10 would be nice and round, but for some reason I could only come up with 9 that I felt truly deserved to be on my best list. Maybe there is something meaningful about always being on the search for that great movie that will round out the list. Or maybe tomorrow I'll wake up and think of the 10th and feel like an idiot for forgetting it. Whatever. There are 9. Deal with it.

1. Pride and Prejudice (1995)

Olivia and I re-watched this the other day, and I commented that I've basically never recovered from seeing this the first time. This is where it all started. There is something about this adaptation that is so compelling, so delightful, so re-watchable. Loving this movie led to watching other period movies, reading the books they are based on, developing understanding of historical fashion and eras, and eventually led me to graduate school and the job I have now. Blame Jane Austen. Blame Andrew Davies. Blame Mr. Darcy and his proclivity for swimming.

Best Costume Moment:

Ok, even I'm not cheesy enough to pick the wet T-shirt. But how about the scene right after the lake dive?

After changing clothes with historically inaccurate speed, Darcy re-emerges in this beautiful green coat with a striped vest and tan pants. Elizabeth has on this dark orange spencer jacket and they just look so perfect and elegant.

2. Sense and Sensibility (1995)

It is hard putting Sense and Sensibility second to anything, because as a feature-length movie I think it is basically perfection. This movie is excruciatingly good. The screenplay is funny at times and heartbreaking at others; the cast includes Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet, Alan Rickman, Hugh Grant, and Hugh Laurie; and it is beautifully directed by Ang Lee.

Best Costume Moment

Bad girls get the most colorful and ridiculous clothes in Jane Austen adaptations and FANNY DASHWOOD IS HERE FOR THAT PARTY.

3. North & South (2004)

There are a few deviations from the book that bother me every time I watch this, but everything else is so good that it still comes out near the top. This story has layers of interesting commentary on class, economics, worker's rights, the role of women, religion, military service...as well as mesmerizing shots of a working 19th century mill. This is the movie you show your friend who thinks period films are just about rich people going to parties. Also, it has a male lead who gets a five star rating on the Mr. Darcy scale of tortured brooding.

Best Costume Moment:

I both love and hate the ending of this movie (mild spoilers ahead). Hate, because the makeout session in the train station is WILDLY inappropriate for the time period and why oh whyyyyy is Henry there to watch...but also love because it is so good and so satisfying and everything you want after 4 hours of sexual tension between these characters. But also, Margaret wears this fantastic striped dress for this scene and I want it.

4. Our Mutual Friend (1998) 

Speaking of movies with layers...where do I even start with this one? I feel like I am riveted by a different plotline every time I watch. Sometimes it is the romance of Bella and John. Sometimes it is Eugene and Lizzy. Sometimes I can't get over how terrifying David Morrissey's performance is as Bradley Headstone (which is why I struggle to warm to him as Colonel Brandon in the new Sense and Sensibility adaptation), and sometimes I'm just in love with the bromance between bored lawyers Eugene Wrayburn and Mortimer Lightwood.

Best costume moment:

Mortimer Lightwood is the unappreciated heart of this film and his white tie evening look--complete with top hat, cane, and opera cape--is the best. Close runner up: his giant nightgown shirt, but THERE ARE NO PICTURES OF IT ON THE INTERNET.

5. Northanger Abbey (2007)

Tortured brooding is all well and good, but sometimes you want a male lead who is just plain fun. Henry Tilney is the anti-Darcy: great at parties, full of jokes, smirks, and smiles. This adaptation is delightful, short, and full of winks at the gothic romances that Jane Austen was parodying.

Best Costume Moment:

After Catherine meets Henry, she fantasizes about him fighting a duel in a disheveled white shirt and black greatcoat, while she looks on in a filmy nightgown. Hahahahaha YES GURL.

6. Wives and Daughters (1999)

This movie is sort of quietly wonderful, and sneaks up on you. There are so many period pieces that have "sweet," "perfect" characters that are cloying and dull, but somehow Molly Gibson manages to be compelling and strong while dealing with everyone else's crap and always doing the right thing. One word of (spoilery) caution: there is no kiss at the end and it feels deeply unsatisfying. Have the final scene of North & South cued up just in case you can't handle it.

Best Costume Moment:

This is a horrible screen grab, but apparently there aren't that many pictures on the internet of this amazing hairstyle with pearls literally dripping out of her hair. One thing that is fun about Wives and Daughters is that it is set in the 1830s, which is an era that doesn't translate well to our modern eye. The hairstyles are wacky and the dresses are fluffy and wide. Because we are supposed to like Molly, her costumes and hairstyles are subdued and simple. But for her terrible step-mother? Release the breaks on the 1830s crazytown express!

7. The Young Victoria (2009)

I saw this movie in the theaters. Afterward, someone asked me how it was. I thought about it for a moment and realized that I had no idea. It was so full of things I love that I felt sort of intoxicated by it and and I could't come up with any kind of objective assessment. This movie has 1) beautiful costumes and scenery 2) an empowering, female-centered story 3) history stuff and 4) a hot guy. I've now re-watched many, many times and it seems to hold up, so I'm going to declare that it is a good movie.

Best Costume Moment 

The fabric of this gown jumps out at me every time. Iridescent green with a woven pattern of blue circles. Also, everything that is going on next to her.

8. Cold Comfort Farm (1995)

How is it that so many people have not seen this movie? Maybe because if I describe the plot it sounds embarrassingly trite: Orphaned girl from the city moves in with her dreary farm relatives and brings joy into their lives. But it is based on a hilarious satirical book, and it is surprising and cynical and charming all at the same time. It also includes a performance by Ian McKellen which you will never forget.

Best Costume Moment 

Ugh, I think MOHAI has this hat.

9. Marie Antoinette (2006)

When people say they think the 2005 version of Pride and Prejudice is superior to the 1995 version I have to take a breath and pretend that that is a valid opinion and not an invitation for me to give them a 20 minute rant about how they are WRONG WRONG WRONG. But if you tell me you hate this movie, I'll be chill about it. It isn't for everyone, but I keep coming back to it and really enjoying it.

This movie also brings me full circle from the journey that started with Pride and Prejudice. Soon after I began grad school at FIT I had a friend visit me who had just started law school. We were hanging around my apartment and she saw Marie Antoinette on my shelf and expressed interest in seeing it. We put it in, and since it is the kind of movie that is easy to talk over, we started chatting and I was telling her about stuff I was learning in school and pointing out costumes that were and weren't accurate. A few minutes in she started groaning about how stressful law school was and how she should be studying right now instead of having fun. I realized that this sort of did count as studying for me. And I felt pretty good about my life choices.

Best Costume Moment

How can I choose? This movie is all visual. The whole thing is a costume moment! But if I have to pick, it would be this ridiculous pink dress with feathers and a tricorn hat. It isn't accurate. It isn't practical. But I want it.

Tippets and Tilneys

You know how after a break, it can feel even harder to go back to work? At the beginning of this week, I couldn't imagine making it through FIVE DAYS of work, and was already fantasizing about taking some time off. "Maybe I'll get sick?" I thought. A couple days doing nothing but drinking orange juice and watching movies? Sounds pretty good. But yesterday I woke up actually feeling sick, and realized that I am an idiot and all my ideas are terrible.

Besides the fact that being sick sucks, I actually have a lot of important stuff that I was excited to get done this week.

Most importantly, after spending all of 2013 moving the costume collection, cleaning items that were frozen, and trying to get everything organized, on Monday I was planning to finally start INVENTORY.

Last week I paced eagerly around the textile room trying to pick the perfect place to start. Perhaps quilts? No, requires too much table space. Handkerchiefs? No, that would be starting in a middle aisle in the middle of a shelf. Wait, i've got it! TIPPETS.

Wait, what are tippets again? Something to do with fur? Or some sort of glove situation? Oh, right...things that cover the shoulder and neck area but are neither scarves nor capes. I WAS SO EXCITED ABOUT THE TIPPITS.

But now, I'm sick so tippet time is going to have to wait.

The sliver lining, of course, is that I get to wallow in my misery by interspersing naps with delicious couch time. Last week I failed to mention that my cousin Laura got me the best bridesmaid gift ever: a Blu-Ray player. Husband John already had one, and so when she was packing up her house she asked if I wanted the extra. I got mega-excited. Why? Because I love high-def entertainment? No. It meant that the long, dark Northanger Abbey drought in my life was finally over.

Before there was Downton, there was Northanger

You see, for some idiotic reason, the DVD version of Northanger Abbey was a cut version--omitting a couple scenes that made the run time too long when it was shown on US television. A couple of great scenes. So I held out and never bought it, even though it was one of my favorite Austen adaptations. But the Blu-Ray is the full version, so the moment I got home from Kansas I hopped on Amazon and bought it. New Blu-Ray player. Only one Blu-Ray to watch. Time to binge on the only Austen hero who can give Darcy a run for his money: Henry Tilney.

YES

BRING IT

TILNEY SMIRKS FOR DAYS

Austen Translation

If you know me, you know that I love Jane Austen.* Even if you don't know me or Jane Austen, you probably know that her works are something of a pop culture cash cow. I have mixed feelings about this. Sometimes I take a purist "don't mess with Jane" attitude, but sometimes I willingly buy into it. I mean, I own a modern-day Pride and Prejudice movie made by Mormons which I have watched more times than I'd like to admit. There is a right way and a wrong way to mess with Jane, and I'm going to lecture you on it now.

Last Sunday, my roommate and I decided that we wanted to enjoy all the fun parts of the Super Bowl (snacks, spending time with friends, sitting around in oversized shirts, Beyonce) but skip the boring parts (football). So we bought some food, rented some Friends (the TV show, not the social concept), put on some Destiny's Child hits, and danced around in our favorite dumpy clothing (for me it was a gigantic shirt with raccoons on it). Our video store rents everything 2 for 1 so we had to get another show or movie. I advocated for Lost in Austen a miniseries in which a modern day fan of Jane Austen finds herself transported to the world of Pride and Prejudice. I thought it might be fun.

It turned out to be pretty unwatchable. The main character was unpleasant and obnoxious and as she wreaked havoc in the P&P world, I just got more and more disgusted.

Her period-inappropriate bangs were particularly grating

I resolved to give it a full hour, but only made it 40 minutes. I then tried to skip ahead and see if it got better, but instead ended up at a point where Jane was miserably married to Mr. Collins and Bingley was running off with Lydia. Ugh. Bleh.

Strangely, in the same week, I had a second opportunity to be entertained by the mangling of Miss Austen. Local theater company Jet City Improv is donating something to the museum collection, and the guy facilitating the donation told me about their latest "improvised play" called Austen Translation. It sounded intriguing, so on Friday I went.

Photo from the Jet City Improv website

There was a narrator and every actor had an assigned first name, but how they were related to each other, their social status, and who falls in love with whom was all made up that night.

It was awesome.

My night was the tale of Elinor Quackenbush, who was courted by new-in-town clergyman Frederick Fredericks and local braggart Walter Cavindish. Scenes were regularly stolen by her dim-witted twin sister Harriet, and elder sister Violet who was of "a sickly constitution and often near death." In the second act, Violet kept appearing with new arm-slings and eyepatches, and when Elinor said something particularly cruel to her she ran off stage sobbing "You know I'm allergic to my own tears!" It really looked like Elinor was falling for Mr. Thomas, but after a twin-based mistaken identity marriage proposal, Thomas and Harriet ended up together and Mr. Cavindish made a surprisingly charming declaration of love ("All my life I've known I was better than everyone else, but that changed when I met you"). It was ridiculous yet satisfying at the same time.

Austen Translation was more irreverent with Jane's work than Lost in Austen, yet somehow it was way better.  I think Lost in Austen went wrong because it messed with things that make Pride and Prejudice good in the first place. Watching the story unfold incorrectly because Elizabeth Bennett has been replaced by Annoying McStupidBangs wasn't fresh or exciting, it was just sad. But Austen Translation poked fun at Austen tropes while creating something new. It was goofy, awkward, romantic, funny, and exciting because no one knew exactly where it was going.

I'll leave you with one of the best "yep, this is improvised" moments from the show. The characters we had already met were going to church, where they were encountering people who weren't yet identified.

Un-introduced male character: I find these meetings so uncomfortable. I hope I can say as little as possible.
Second un-introduced male character: Are you going to start the sermon soon?

Apparently next month they are making up a Gilbert & Sullivan opera. YES.

*I should get points for resisting the urge to start this post with "It is the truth universally awknowledged..."