It's astonishing to me how much buzz there was about this green dress when the film came out. If you do a search on the net you'll find commentary from many sources, although mostly from the worlds of film, fashion and design (in roughly reverse order).
Here are a few I found. I scratch my head reading some of this stuff. Why all the fuss about this dress? Are these people onto something? Is it the color? Discuss! Feel free to bring your own link discoveries into the discussion.
Girl in a Green Dress
Madison Mag
The Guardian: Best Film Costume of All Time??
Popcorn Reel
The Glam Guide: $486 at Nordstrom!
I think it's the combination of a number of things. Yes, part of it is the color, I'm certain, even beyond its positioning as the forerunner to the inciting incident in the film. In contrast, the rest of the dinner party is comprised of black and white, whereas Knighty seemingly glows in this dress. Something about the color seemed out of place, almost, as though something black and subdued would have created less of a stir.
ReplyDeleteColor aside, though, it's a pretty sexy dress. The back, for instance, is quite nice. It makes even Kiera's skeleton body seem to explode with sultry energy. In that way, the color further punctuates it. Would red be too much? I'd say probably. Would black be too contrived? I'll say yes. Blue too apathetic, Yellow too wholesome. The green just takes it to a different level.
I had never seen Atonement before viewing it for this class. However, I had heard ALL about the green dress after the movie came out in theaters and my friends saw it. What makes this green dress so captivating? A potentially distracting combination of such a bold color with an equally gorgeous woman wearing it could be a respectable answer. As we've explored in class, the color green emphasizes the idea of mystery, and though this dress works to communicate that idea in the actual plot of the film, I feel like this dress is more of an extension Cecilia. Her character is so bold in this movie, and though she's frail, she has such a strong figure...it seems impossible to have her wear anything else but this bold, defining and quite odd color. With her character shrouded in mystery, yet so bold, I quite honestly, don't know what to say, except that no other color would have worked.
ReplyDeleteUpon Googling "Green Dress in Atonement" and clicking on the first link, I read an article about how the color of the dress was created by blending 3 "mystery" pigments. I think it's the fact that the color green is hardly ever used at all...when it is used it's so fabulous and that's why it's garnering so much attention. People may forget about the color green because it's not really an accent color -it's a color we're used to seeing in things, like flowers and grass. The color green becomes the background in so many life scenes, (just like it does in Atonement), and so having it come into focus as a main part of this character is just surprising. In addition, I think the scenes that it is used in are equally important to why the dress is getting so much attention. If you had put Cecilia in that dress while she and Briony were laying in the grass it wouldn't have been the same. But in a scene where there's so much romance, and unresolved tension between Briony and her Cecilia, it almost makes too much sense. The dress is bold, the scene is intense, and the dress definitely fits the mood.
Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2008/feb/05/atonementsgreendressdeserve
When looking at this dress, I am reminded of emeralds. Thats what I would call the color if asked to name it. It's attention grabbing for sure. I would say that this is most likely due to the uniqueness of the color. Throughout the whole film, despite it being overwhelmingly green, there is no green anywhere close to the color of this dress. It is also the only green that you would consider unnatural. the color, combined with the luster of the fabric gives it a distinctively artificial feel. Perhaps it is that artificial nature, but this is the only green throughout the film that really made me uneasy, and gave me a bad feeling. The instant I saw that dress I knew something bad was going to go down.
ReplyDeleteTom: good point, it may be true that no other color would have worked...except maybe an equally unusual and string color like fuschia, or turquoise, or maybe orange? hmm.
ReplyDeleteCG: good comments, very interesting about the "mystery pigments", and thanks for that link. Again, it's shocking how much attention this dress attracted!
Kendall: very true, it is a disconcerting color. Yet unforgettable.