Roland Emmerich has made a lot of cash blowing the planet up and he’s put that to good use funding his take on the tussle for the Tudor throne wrapped up in a fanciful tale of the ‘real’ story behind the mystery of who wrote the works of Shakespeare.
I enjoyed the film far more than I thought I would. It’s nuts, but good nuts rather than David Hasslehoff in Piranha 3DD nuts, and my review of the Blu-ray is up on the site later today.
What we’ve got for you today is part of one of the featurettes on the disc which looks at the lengths Emmerich and his team went to recreate the period setting, in this instance it involves using traditional techniques to make the assorted ruffs and corsetry.
Emmerich spoke on the partnership with his costume designer,
I said to Lisy Christl, our costume designer, that we had to have costumes which didn’t feel like costumes, and she knew exactly what I meant. They all had to look handmade. They didn’t have the same techniques that we had, they had incredibly embroideries and amazing fabrics, but when you look in the museum at the originals – because there is some original stuff still in existence – they look handmade, and not too perfect. We found a place in London which specialises in that and worked together with them to create these costumes. I was amazed when I saw them, they felt real…Vanessa [Redgrave] also insisted she have the right undergarments. These very extreme undergarments, she always wanted to have that too. So we did it, and for her it was very important to have everything on these women would have on.
It’s a brief look, and the Blu-ray contains a lot more from behind the scenes of Emmerich’s film but here’s a taste of what to expect when you start to unpick the seams of the costume design.
