Original title: Costume Aesthetics in Japanese Movies: A Lot of Inspiration comes from China
When it comes to Japanese movies, we are always impressed by the delicacy and everydayness of them. These delicacies and everydayness are in the details of every aspect of them. For example, when we think of the soundtrack, we think of the royal soundtrack of Miyazaki Hayao, Takeshi Kitano and other directors, and think of the smooth and rich music in Imatoshi's films, and the famous composer Behind it, Hirazawa Jin, is indispensable. However, in Japanese movies, it is easiest to overlook the most important details, which perfectly show the character and fit the plot of the movie – the costume aesthetic of the movie. For example, the famous Japanese designer Yohji Yamamoto often collaborates with Takeshi Kitano; and the costume design and tian Huimei of films such as "Hero" and "Ten Faces Ambush" won the 58th Academy Award for Best Costume Design for Akira Kurosawa's film "Chaos". Japanese cinema, without forgetting the beauty of traditional costumes, constantly tries and integrates various other elements of the East and the West, new or old, challenging the infinite possibilities that can be expressed in movies.
▍Reproduced below from copydog (yihaishibeiii)
Yohji Yamamoto
The first one will talk about Yohji Yamamoto, who is most familiar to everyone. Yohji Yamamoto and Takeshi Kitano first collaborated on a 2000 filming of Brother, in which Yohji Yamamoto was the costume designer. Wearing an oversize suit, Kitano Takeuchi's Japanese shirt, coupled with a fierce, cold and serious character image, can be described as the most stylish "big guy". By the way, this is not Yohji Yamamoto's first crossover, in fact, as early as 1990, he was responsible for the costume design of the opera "Madame Butterfly" at the Opera de Lyon.
Talking about the first cooperation between the two, Yohji Yamamoto recalled the scene at that time: one day Kitano Takeshi met him in a tavern, so he talked to him about the intention of cooperation, so the first cooperation between the two was decided between cups and cups.
It is said that when Yamamoto designed the design, he responded to Takeshi Kitano's request and asked those belonging to his own gang to wear shirts with extra lapels to show a sense of community.
The success of "Brother" also solidified the future cooperation between the two. Compared with "Humpback City" directed and performed by Takeshi Kitano and costume designed by Yohji Yamamoto, I prefer "dolls" with Takeshi Kitano in terms of costume styling.
"Humpback City"
《dolls》
"dolls" crosses three poignant love stories according to the seasons, with strong colors and long and beautiful shots, and a full sense of stage. Among them, the most stunning of these are Hidetoshi Nishijima and Miho Kanno, through the poetic four seasons, changing clothes into sets one after another along the way, from overlapping cloaks to brightly colored feathers, from the present world to the tradition, Yamamoto Yohji has long broken the cognition in his mind.
Emi Wada
"Whenever I design costumes for a film or an opera, the first thing I think about is how to reflect the character of the character in the design." Emi Wada describes her design philosophy this way.
Talking about the costume styling in Japanese movies, Emi Wada, who is revered as "Asia's first costume director", cannot fail to mention it. He won the Best Costume Design Award at the 58th Academy Award for his 1985 film "Chaos" and made a name for himself overseas.
Wada Originally studied not costume design, but art, but since she successfully designed costumes for a stage play, she decided that she was this material and was out of control.
She works hard in the costume design of each character, injecting her own personality and color. The carefulness of the clothing and ornamentation in "Chaos" also makes Westerners re-recognize the beauty of the East.
Wada Emi once introduced: "There is a female character in 'Chaos' with a snake-like personality, so she chose a shiny yarn fabric to show the insidiousness of the character's heart. When this female character is killed, she will use a combination of gold and black to replace the original gold and white in the costume, thus creating a kind of death depression."
In Wada's nearly half-century career, almost half of her time has been studying Chinese costumes.
Her first collaboration with Chinese cinema dates back to 1993's The Legend of the White-Haired Witch. As an obsessive fan of Akira Kurosawa, the director of this film, Yu Rentai, was deeply impressed by the costume style in the movie "Chaos", so he decided to go to Japan himself and invited Emi Wada to take on the costume design for his work, so he had the classic style of practicing neon in the film.
Since then, she has been responsible for the costume guidance of costume films such as "Hero" and "Ten Faces Ambush".
Ten Faces Ambush
She likes to touch the fabric with her own hands, study the color, and think that different colors can reflect different personalities. If "Hero" is composed of blue, green, red, black, and white, then the "Imperial Law Degree" she was responsible for in 1999 is based on red, blue, black, and white: the samurai's blue, the red that is both erotic and bloody, the black of kendo, and the white that symbolizes youth. In the film, Takasaburo Kana, played by Ryuhei Matsuda, still has his hair before he becomes an adult, and the white clothing shows that even if he has reached adulthood, he still appears in the new selection group as a teenager, which plays a key role in promoting the plot of the subsequent movie.
"Imperial Law Degree" set makeup photo
"Fashion design is different from costume design, which is a commercial event, while the latter reinforces the content and reflects the characters." Wada Once Said in an Interview.
Michiko Kitamura
Compared with the beauty of Wada's ancient costumes, Kitamura Michiko's works have the overlap of Chinese and Western walls, gorgeous and dazzling weirdness. The costumes that are bizarre and dazzling in the film also exude a seductive and magical beauty.
As a major American drama in 2006, the "Master of Horror" series, which is composed of 13 horror masters, includes "Memoirs of Ghost Tricks" filmed by Takashi Miike from Japan.
In addition to all kinds of torture, cruel and bloody shot descriptions in the film, you may still have an impression of the extremely strong color contrast. A woman who is beautiful and born with a distorted face in the metaphor of blue, red, cold and warm, although there are only two colors, is more heavy and complicated. Mixed with not a single hue, but a tonal pattern and layer, geisha wears red with green and purple motifs, which are faintly hairy in the intricate and gorgeous picture. It is Michiko Kitamura who is responsible for the costume styling of the film.
The plot is too bloody, interested in recommending everyone to watch the movie directly
In fact, as early as 1999, in "Twins" directed by Shinya Tsukamoto, Kitamura Michiko had already shined with her unique aesthetic of clothing. The film is based on the novel of the same name by Edogawa, which is also a more commercial attempt for director Tsukamoto. But looking at the whole film, there is a strange charm, whether it is the film style of Shinya Tsukamoto or the different colors of the Edogawa River. The actors in the film shave their eyebrows, and the eyebrowless and slightly pale makeup with the mix and matching of traditional Japanese costumes and suits adds a bit of eerie color to the film.
Kitamura Michiko creates a messy, complex and unconventional style through the unruly stacking of clothing, makeup, hairstyles and accessories that match the charming and confusing characteristics of Edogawa's chaotic stories and characters.
In the classic Japanese film "Chaos Hell", Kitamura Michiko single-handedly arranged all the shapes of the film except for the "Mars Canal", "Mirror Hell" is fixed in Kamakura, the costumes in the film are classical and gloomy, mostly using plain colors such as dark gray and dark purple, with the Buddhist atmosphere of Kamakura as the background, plus director Akio Misakiji is very fond of religious themes, so it seems appropriate. "Taro" set overhead, the story takes place in no man's island, black and white, the character shapes are with some Western classics, a large number of use of crepe, gauze, layered wear, invisibly and the play without limbs wrapped around the humanoid taro insects. The final "worm" is a black humor belonging to the dream country, from the gorgeous Showa Broadway, into the sweet as candy but hidden deadly poison scene, the costume from noble and gorgeous to pure white ethereal, each costume shape becomes part of the enchanting and seductive image.
In Takashi Miike's 4.6 Billion Years of Love, the prison clothes worn by the people in the play are similar to the costumes of Indian monks, and each person's prison clothes have different details to distinguish the personalities of the characters. Shiro Kazuki, played by Masanobu Ando, is fiery and violent, and his shirt is similar to that of rags draped over his body, revealing his left abdomen, and the color of the cloth is more torn than other people's clothes. Jun Yoshihara, played by Ryuhei Matsuda, has a feminine personality and is dressed more neatly than everyone else. Michiko Kitamura tells the story with costumes and uses slight changes in details to make the characters in this stream-of-consciousness film more three-dimensional.
Takashi Miike is also one of the directors who has worked with Michiko Kitamura many times, and the two also collaborated on a big-name film "Sukiyaki Western" in 2007. This film is a western cowboy film based on the dispute between the two families in Japanese history. Mixing and matching, old and new, full of cult, the shape in the movie is to put aside the shackles of time and geography, and to appear in the traditional Japanese style with street-flavored clothing such as Yokosuka embroidery, but you will feel that everything is integrated so naturally.
Throughout the Japanese movies, there are countless movies that are brilliant in styling and design; so don't hide them, what good recommendation is there to tell everyone in the message area!