Architecture + Film : CRIMSON PEAK
The movie Set in Cumbria, England, in a crumbling Gothic run-down mansion at a largely rural and mountainous region of northern England in the 1887. Young Edith Cushing (Mia Wasikowska) is brought there after marrying Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston) who also lives with his sister, Lucille (Jessica Chastain).
However, after Edith gets to the Sharpe home, which is slowly sinking into the red clay it sits on, she finds that along with living in a dilapidated home that has a giant hole in the roof and red clay seeping through the walls, there are creepy ghosts walking the halls.
At the start of the film, the young Edith Cushing is warned by her mother in the form of ghost who died of black cholera whispers her a warning “beware of Crimson Peak.”
Edith grown up as a budding author. She meets Sir Thomas Sharpe, an English baronet who come to the United States with his sister, Lucille to seek investors for his clay-mining invention. Edith’s father, Mr. Cushing does not impressed and he rejects Thomas's proposal. Edith's mother's spirit once again visits her, bearing the same warning.
Eventually, they fall inlove from the first sight but Mr. Cushing is not happy about it. He then the siblings to have Thomas end his and Edith's relationship. After Mr. Cushing is brutally murdered, Edith and Thomas marry and return to England. They arrive at Allerdale Hall, the Sharpes' dilapidated mansion, which sits atop a red clay mine. Edith finds that Lucille is cold while Thomas is physically distant, leaving her confused.
Gruesome ghosts begin appearing. By the time Thomas mentions that the estate is referred to as "Crimson Peak," due to the warm red clay seeping up through the snow, Edith is growing weak and coughing up blood.
Edith discoveres that Thomas previously married three wealthy women who were fatally poisoned for their inheritances. She realizes she, too, is being poisoned through tea, and that the siblings have had a long-term incestuous relationship, resulting in a sickly infant who was killed by Lucille. Lucille also murdered their mother after she had discovered her children's incest. The Sharpes are virtually penniless. The brother and sister began the "marriage and murder" scheme to support themselves and fund Thomas's inventions.
Thomas's multiple marriages and Lucille's time in a mental institution. He travels to Allerdale Hall to rescue Edith. Lucille demands that Thomas kill him; Thomas, who has fallen in love with Edith and wants to protect her, in the end Aided by Thomas' ghost, Edith kills Lucille with a shovel.
Setting
Fashion
Director Guillermo del Toro is known for creating movies filled with fantasy and horror but Is "Crimson Peak" a horror movie? Is horror movie a horror movie when you are not scared with it or is a comedy a comedy when you do not laught? To me this isn’t a horror film that I expect based on those sleek and scary trailers. It is solely a Gothic romance love story with ghost as an metaphor. In the early movie, Edith’s mother appearance had already warned us about what is going to happen next. As for the red clay pits that Crimson Peak sits on? Those don’t exactly exist in real life. Clay can’t really become a bloodlike oil that leaks through walls, but it makes for great visual effects. All in all, “Crimson Peak” is outstanding. Its romance is ardent yet deliciously twisted. Its horror is pulse-pounding, the kind that will make you want to look away.
A little white lies
Allerdale Hall
A three-storey mansion, took a full seven months to build, and Guillermo del Toro put a crazy amount of detail into its design. He bought two different sizes of furniture to more effectively portray how the characters were feeling at certain times. The scary elevator is actually real and functional. In fact, there are two things fake about the mansion were the hole in the ceiling and the front of the house. Since the mansion wasn't built outside, they couldn't look up and see the sky, so CGI was used to achieve this effect. The movie was not filmed in England, as you would be inclined to believe. Nor was it filmed in Hollywood. Production for the movie actually took place in Ontario, Canada, mostly on a soundstage.
In the movie, the house is built on top of, and also slowly sinking into, the Sharpe family clay mine, and when Edith treads on the hallway floorboards, red sludge squishes up through the cracks.
The picture is filled with ornate, hand-sewn gothic gowns that depict the dark, mysterious personalities of each character.
Discover a typical del Toro twist: a story within the story, told by objects and clothes, especially clothes. “The big thing I’ve learned with Guillermo is to look at clothes as part of the architecture so that when you get into a close up, the elements of the environment can be translated into clothes” says film’s costume designer, Kate Hawley.
All the costumes were designed from the back
Lots of the key scenes were all about people disappearing down corridors, so the back was quite important!"
Costumes aren't comfortable
The actors' bodies are modern bodies, which are very different from the period body,the weight of wig plus the constriction of the corset actually caused a lot of pain. Wearing these things for hours every day is tough, and a heavy wig pressing on forehead will cause headaches.
Colour
The high contrast of Mia’s golden dress with the dark house in one of the key scenes suggested a sense of vulnerability and warning, like “a canary in the coal mine.
costumes too, so the sleeves became smaller to show her fragility.
The faded elbows and fraying shoulders enhance the sense go fragility.