Notes taken during Anthony Powell's visit to Cranbrook Film Society - 4th June 2008  

These are in the approximate order of the films, not the order of telling.

The Royal Hunt of the Sun

This was Anthony's first foray into film. He was invited to dinner and met the film director, Irving Lerner. They got on famously talking throughout the evening, and the director rang Anthony the following morning, "Would you like to do costumes for a film?" "Yes." "Come to Spain." He went and worked on "The Royal Hunt of the Sun".

Travels with my Aunt

This was a George Cukor (GC) film, a "lovely director". After two weeks' shooting, the studio saw the rushes and sent a message, "Stop shooting." GC issued the order and there was no more shooting until he met the Head of Studio (an accountant) who came to the set. The whole crew, on hearing the studio head say after the meeting that a new script was in preparation, asked to be released from their contracts without pay. The studio refused so the film was made but butchered. Originally Kate Hepburn was earmarked to play the lead role, but she was fired by the studio (the first time it had ever happened to her). Maggie Smith was then blackmailed into doing it: she didn't want to, saying "I am 37 years old I have the rest of my life to be playing 70 year old ladies." Anthony had to remake all the costumes, which considering he had used antique Italian lace for some of them was quite a task.

Papillon

Because this was filmed early in Anthony's career, when they were shooting the swamp scenes, he thought how tough it was for the actors to be up to their shoulders in mud and mangrove, and was naïve enough not to realise that he would be close behind the actors, also up to his shoulders in mud and mangrove. Only a few establishing location shots were filmed in French Guiana, the rest were in Jamaica. Steve McQueen (SM) needed about 20 sets of rags/prison garb for the escape sequence: a great deal was shot of this though only a small part of the footage ended up in the finished film. Apart from SM, all the doubles had to have similar prison garb, etc. all of which had to be similarly progressively aged and worn during the shooting: continuity was always a nightmare. Early on, the director asked Anthony to research French prison garb, etc. in the Bibliotheque Nationale. In the B.N. the system is that you sign a sheet in each book when you took it down from the shelves. Anthony was amused to note that in book after book the previous signatory was Henri Charriere, the author of "Papillon". Charriere had never been to Devil's Island, and was a small-time informer and crook, eventually jailed by the authorities as he was becoming an embarrassment.

Steve McQueen

SM had a tragic early life; his mother was a circus cashier. SM was probably conceived as a result of a one-night stand and never knew his father; there was no money in the family. As a result SM was always very paranoid & thought everyone was out to get him, from the studio head to the parking attendant.

Off-camera SM only wore T-shirts and jeans. The jeans were of an individual make, and when the "Papillon" preparations commenced, Anthony found that the particular jeans factory had closed and Anthony had to scour the USA in order to track down pairs of these jeans. The jeans then had to be disassembled and reassembled to fit, complete with matching thread and stitching to the original. In desperation at the time and effort being taken Anthony went to the studio and said "Look, I've had to buy 73 pairs of these jeans so far just to have enough pairs to get it right." The studio replied, "No problem, on the last film they had to buy 120 pairs." SM only wore T-shirts and jeans once and then discarded them: Anthony had a pantechnicon full of discarded underwear, T-shirts and jeans.

SM never liked fittings and gave Anthony a hard time over this. When the crew arrived in Jamaica to shoot "Papillon", SM had just done a 30 second commercial for Honda, for which he had been paid $2 million (in 1965/6) and given twenty Honda motorcycles. Ten of these had been delivered to Jamaica and SM said to Anthony early on, "I'm going to drive round the island coast roads, do you want to come?" Anthony accepted sitting pillion with his arms clasped tightly around SM's waist, as SM drove around the Jamaican coast at about 150 m.p.h. Anthony reckoned the offer was made for two reasons - firstly to see if Anthony was scared (he wasn't, it was tremendously exciting) , secondly, as a way of making up for the hard time he'd given Anthony.

Dustin Hoffman (DH)

A totally different attitude towards fittings, very accommodating and would stand for up to five hours during the fitting for "Papillon". DH was very fit, used to work out a lot and Anthony had to make him look skinny. DH used to make the point that "actually I'm a quarter inch taller than Sylvester Stallone."

Buffalo Bill and the Indians

Robert Altman (RA) made what Anthony thinks is a masterpiece. It was shown at the 1976 Berlin Film Festival and won the Golden Berlin Bear. It was 3½ - 3¾ hours long and studio heads said "no-one is going to sit through a movie that long" and they cut it to 1½ hours. The resulting film was butchered and nonsensical. However, the Paris Film Festival has contacted Anthony recently and said they believe they have found RA's own copy (which will be the only copy existing of the film in its original length) and they plan to show it, maybe in 2009.

Anthony thought RA was an amazingly flexible director - e.g. if a scene called for a spring day and flowers and it happened to snow, RA was likely to say "OK let's adapt the scene to snow".

Death on The Nile

This film had a huge star roster and you would have thought that at least two of them would have been on the same continent, but no, they were all over the world. As a general rule, Anthony asks actors how they are going to play a part and then he designs the costume based on their answers: (some actors get it completely wrong, see Bette Davis below). Peter Ustinov was an incredibly funny man, a continual cabaret starting at 6 a.m. and still going strong at midnight.

Anthony went up to New England to see Bette Davis (BD). He was greeted by the smell of baking cookies; she'd been up since 6 a.m. baking. Sat in the lounge with coffee and cookies, with the windows open letting the scents of the garden mingle with those of the cookies. BD said "you'd better see what you've got to work with" and opened her dress, she was practically stark naked underneath. Anthony noted particularly that she had beautiful shoulders and delicate feet and ankles. BD had her own ideas of costume and hair style for "Death on The Nile". "No hats" as she had spent her acting life wearing hats, "just a chiffon scarf." She went upstairs and got a huge wig, specially made for something else. It was a torrent of curls - this and all her other ideas were awful.

Anthony realised this was a defining moment, and asked BD to come to the mirror in the room. He asked for a comb: "get a comb" says BD to an assistant and a comb is brought. Anthony says "look at this iconic face, it shouldn't be hidden behind this curl" (working away with the comb) "and these cheekbones" (straightening out curls with the comb) "….now look at your profile". There was a silence, then BD turned from the mirror to her assistant and said "this boy knows his stuff." Anthony had no more trouble!

P.S. By an extraordinary coincidence a month or so later at a lunch party I met a theatre designer who said he had been present at this meeting. His memory is slightly different, not that it matters a jot as both stories are good: according to him BD was by the pool, and after various preliminaries proceeded to throw open her robe displaying unadorned BD, with the remark, "Fellas, this is as bad as it gets!"

Tess

Anthony thought very highly of the actress Natasha Kinski (NK) who starred as Tess. Only 17 years old at the commencement of filming, she had her 18th birthday on set as the filming took a year. (The year's filming included a freezing winter). She was born in Germany and her Italian was fluent, having been making films there since she was 12 years old. She had the most musical ear that Anthony had ever come across, and she had to learn both English and the Dorset accent. "Tess" was filmed in Brittany as the small fields and hedgerows looked more like 19th Century Dorset than Dorset did, and also used the Brittany peasants and farmers as extras as they had been working on this land all their lives. English extras and character actors looked different from the French actors, because the French had no teeth. Anthony had to take the English actors aside and ask each one "Are these your own teeth?" A lot had their back teeth taken out and all was fine.

The crew were all French and very passionate about the film. Anthony considered NK to be a "director's tool", i.e., the director would say whatever he wanted her to do and she would do it. She needed the studio system to look after and tailor-make productions just for her.

In the film, colours were muted until after she kills her lover, at which point when she appears in travelling clothes, these are brilliant red, the colour of dried blood.

On one memorable occasion a close-up shot was being set up with NK standing about four feet from the camera. Anthony noted a spider hanging from the camera. It proceeded to swing backwards and forwards, eventually landing on NK's sleeve. It then dropped a short distance and swung backwards and forwards before landing on the camera, and so on. By the time the scene was ready for shooting there was a complete web between NK and the camera. Thereafter whenever "Tess" director Roman Polanski was taking what Anthony thought was overlong in setting up a shot, Anthony used to make a swinging movement with his fingers to remind Roman of the spider.

Chariots of Fire

Anthony was sent the script and noted that the opening sequences - Paris celebrating the end of the First World War, montages of the Olympics from 1896, 1900, etc. with thousands of people in the cast - would be very expensive. He spoke to the director about the budget and was told it was $2 million. "This will be tight for costuming these opening sequences." "No" he was told this is the budget for the entire film!" Anthony declined the film. (Question: They filmed it, and it was before the days of CGI, so what did they do, diminish the scope, increase the budget, what?).

Pirates

Anthony considers this film to be a Roman Polanski masterpiece, but it was cut by studio head, Dino de Laurentiis and butchered. Anthony believes RP has an uncut copy.

The Last Emperor

Anthony asked the director how many costumes were needed for the crowds, how many extras were there? "Oh, about 100,000"!

Hook

Steven Spielberg's (SS) briefing for Anthony on this film was that he "liked all those wigs and big hats." Anthony remembers particularly the costumes for the Lost Boys; there were not enough dwarf stuntmen/doubles to go round. The script was written as the film went along, and a number of 15/16 year olds of reduced height were hired to boost the numbers. Anthony was visited in his hotel room by the Assistant Director at 8 p.m. with the latest script which called for 60 sets of extra costumes for these 15/16 year olds by 6 a.m. the following morning's dressing for shooting. Anthony had to tear round LA seeing who had material from whichever stores were open. He had also to get the wardrobe crew together to work through the night. Anthony was assured that during the fight scenes all the 15/16 year olds would be in the background out of focus, and of course in the film they were all in full shot in the foreground.

SS loves a joke: the Hollywood set of the pirate ship for "Hook" became a well-known sight for Hollywood stars/directors/studio execs for visits, e.g. Bruce Willis, Glenn Close, etc. Whilst being shepherded off the set Glenn Close (GC) said to Anthony "Gee, I'd like to be in this, any chance?" "No, all the female elements had already been shot." "A pity." "Wait a minute, I've an idea." The idea was to make GC up and dress her (as a pirate) and if she could stand by SS and Anthony for five minutes without SS realising, she would be in. And so she was. GC worked very hard, was in at 6 a.m. with the other extras and had a voice coach especially to lower her voice.

101 Dalmatians

Glenn Close (as Cruella de Vil) is just a country girl, happy in jeans, shirts and flat shoes. She never normally wore heels: for this film she wore 5" heels using a 5" nail at one point. In order to save her feet they used a "leaning board" in the wings between takes, this is a board supported at an angle against which the actor lies. Anthony decided at the outset never to show Cruella's pink hands or arms as this made her seem vulnerable, to the extent that she always wore gloves, with nails. She also wore huge fur wraps, one of which was dyed red (several examples, as she had to fall into a tank of molasses whilst wearing it). For these Anthony had to use some real fur because if faux fur gets wet it goes into rats tails.

GC has it written into her contracts that she retains all her costumes after shooting, which are stored in a private museum on her New England estate - built by the (?) Museum so it is temperature/humidity controlled, and uses acid-free paper and full-size storage boxes. These costumes are loaned out for occasional displays/exhibitions.

Braveheart

Anthony read the script. The final pages describe the sequence showing William Wallace's death - he is hung, then racked (you hear his joints break as his arms and legs are pulled from their sockets) and then he is disembowelled - "and I kid you not" - the final direction is "you see a close-up of his face". Mel Gibson's comment on this was "it's good for the sinuses."

Miss Potter

Anthony had seen photos of Beatrix Potter late in her life wearing a shapeless old dress. He believes it was the dress she was married in, and as fashions changed she would raise the hemlines herself. He could see that it had been done in a very amateurish way. The instruction from the studio re the film posters was "To make Miss Potter look young and sexy!" Anthony thought the posters were terrible.

Indiana Jones

Anthony had done the first two, and was invited back for "I.J. and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull". Anthony was not allowed to see the script. (Note: John Hurt has reported exactly the same condition before signing on). The only way was to fly to LA, be locked in a room with the script and to make notes. Anthony was not disposed to do that, so the only way was for the script to be flown to him in the UK. Which duly happened, and he was locked in a room in the UK to make notes, and when he finished he was let out. Anthony thought that the opening sequence was OK but after that it degenerated into a series of stunts, and most noticeably in his opinion, lacked wit, so he declined. And, he wondered, why on earth was Cate Blanchett in it?

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

In the opening sequence set in a nightclub, the singer (now Mrs. Spielberg) wore a dress covered in vintage stones and sequins: only one was made and apart from the nightclub scenes, it was used also for the sequences in the jungle. At one point, there was a campfire scene in the jungle, the singer and Indiana Jones were sitting in front of the fire, she wearing an old shirt and slacks, with the dress hanging on a branch. The Assistant Camera Director nudged Anthony with a look of horror, "Look!" An elephant was eating the dress, not even one of the production elephants, but a wild one. Anthony filled out the insurance claim with great glee - "cause of damage to insured item = eaten by elephant." Anthony had to have the dressmaker who made the original to repair the damage, using the few stones and sequins left over from the original making, as the elephant had "eaten the arse out of the dress". SS is very open to ideas, e.g. Anthony suggested that the opening nightclub sequence with the singer singing over the credits, opened up into a Berkeley Busby number and SS agreed.

Unspecified Western set in Mexico

Anthony found lots of Mexican peasants living in the hills wearing old original garments. He brought them all down for use in the market scenes and they were filmed accordingly. He saw the rushes and everything was in a muddy red colour. He turned to the cameraman and asked, "What happened?" "Oh, that's the red filter." He hadn't told Anthony he was going to use a red filter, as a result Anthony couldn't see anything of his costumes.

Audience Q & A Session

Q: Do designers have agents?
A: Yes, All cinema technicians have agents, similar to stars and directors.

Q: Do you have a regular team with whom you work?
A: No, because so often the work is abroad, it's difficult to get a regular team together.

Q: Would you advise youngsters to go into Costume Design?
A: No, the market is too competitive, and everything - labour, materials, etc. - is too expensive.

Q: What happens when you go over budget?
A: You don't!

Q: Do you have an ongoing film at present?
A: No, nothing in prospect at present, my own choice.

Q: What book or script would inspire you to do more costume design?
A: The follow-up book/film to "The Kite Runner" is good, I find that appealing.

In conversation afterwards

Q: Who is/was your least favourite star?
A: One Hollywood star of today (Anthony refused to name her) gave Anthony a very hard time on a film, and when later he was offered a chance to work with her again, he refused saying that apart from his own feelings he was sure that she wouldn't want him on her film. When this later film was premiered in Los Angeles, part of the publicity campaign was a poster of the star's face with a huge beaming smile: apart from the usual billboard locations, these posters were also displayed on the sides of a lot of the LA buses. Anthony was in LA at this time for other work, and had been given the use of a chauffeur-driven limo. He instructed his driver whilst he was being driven around LA on business, that when they saw a bus in the traffic whenever possible they should endeavour to draw up alongside it at stoplights. Anthony would lower the electric window and with a large magic marker carefully black out a tooth, so by the end of his visit there were a dozen or so buses driving around LA with this gleaming gap-toothed smile on their sides.

Links

Anthony at Internet Movie Database

Anthony at Internet Broadway Database

Academy Awards - The Oscars

Interview with Anthony by Royal Designers for Industry (MP3 audio - requires Windows Media Player or similar)

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