Monday 21 February 2011

Veronica Lake in a nightmare

Have you seen Shutter Island?

We are all a measure of our senses, what we see in something another might not.  What transfixes us, another can dismiss in a blink of the eye.  Our lives are full of the small things. 

Scorcese hits Film Noir with a Hitchcockian stick, in this 1950s-set drama of an asylum for the most violently insane or is it?  The island ferry horn that repeats and scores our deep senses, removing any alternate world beyond the screen, and removes the path off Shutter Island.

There is one scene, for which this film should be watched; a scene which I found visually mesmerising - the creative direction, production design and costume.  In the scene, Michelle Williams appears, with hair like Veronica Lake, wearing a sunny yellow 50s day dress against the grayness and only a distant sunset under thunder, she stands out like a beacon.  As the scene decomposes, her yellow silken hair begins to grease and drip and blood begins to permeate her skin, throwing us on the scent that tragedy pervades and haunts the protagonist's own device for being on the island.

    Shutter Island, 2010 - stills













Mid century on Etsy - get the look:



4 comments:

  1. cool!! I Love your commentary about the movie

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  2. I only recently discovered how beautiful Veronica Lake was. She was astoundingly beautiful!!
    I really like Michelle Williams too.
    Love the dress.
    Love the material.

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  3. This is an insanely good movie. I want to see it again (isn't it a must? I reckon you can enjoy it so much more when the element of mystery disappear).
    The 50's styling is perfect and I adore Michelle Williams's dress yellow-greenish dress in the scene inside the house (the last photo of her here)

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