On The Narrativity Of Movie Costume In The Duchess

As a kind of narration in the films, more often than not costume plays the essential role as props do in the course of story and it promotes the development of the movie moments, even conveys the important information through non-verbal communication. The costume in the movies expresses rich material culture, spiritual culture, and social culture of the age. Moreover, movie characters show their distinctive external image, social status and power through the costumes which are specially dressed by the characters who speak little and have the innermost thoughts. To put it another way, it is easy to reappear appearances of costumes than to foil the atmosphere of the scene. Since they are closely related to film space in the movie, costumes should abide by the principles of unity of the space and authenticity. And the emotional authenticity is the particular way of foiling the atmosphere of the scene. In addition, the color, style and fabric of costumes contribute a lot to the way of expressing infection and artistic charm. In short, all of the narrative functions mean a lot to the development of clothing and costume cultural heritage, because films, as the communication media in modern society, inherent the historical values of costume culture. The Rococo age reappear through costume in the film The Duchess, which won 81st Academy Award for Best Costume Design. Moreover, the rich color, style and fabric of the costumes in The Duchess shape the typical characters and reveal their psychological traits. Costume motivates the development of The Duchess story. Taking The Duchess as an example, this thesis aims at analysing the narrativity of movie costume.