Costume designer Mark Bridges described "There Will Be Blood" as his most challenging film. During the filming of the film, he had to transport the clothing to a remote area of West Texas, and the hardships he faced on this journey also seemed to confirm the theme of the film itself: hardship, isolation, and overcoming in achieving goals. determination of any obstacle.
Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) is a turn-of-the-century prospector who one day receives a tidbit of a giant oil mine from a family farm in California. The family includes Eli Sunday, an ardent preacher and faith healer who hopes to fund his Third Apocalypse Church by selling the estate. Daniel and Eli constitute the most intense and intense conflict in the entire film, with each refusing to succumb to the will of the other. Through a series of betrayals, anger, and violence, they all ended up falling prey to their ambitions, losing everything that gave them strength: Eli was desperate to admit his crisis of faith and died tragically at the stick of Daniel, who himself said: "I 'm finished', don't be crazy, don't become a devil!
The challenge of the costumes for the film is to create strong chronological and regional identities for these characters while the budget for extravagant costumes is strictly limited. In 1910s California, a relatively generally poor "democratic" social environment, Mark Bridges needed to demonstrate changes in character classes, occupations, personalities, and motivations in a world of nuanced detail. Also, "There Will Be Blood" isn't a film with a lot of dialogue, and Bridge had to use the strong visual significance of certain clothes to show the development of the narrative without a sufficient amount of explanatory dialogue. Because of this, the subtle details on the costumes and the immediate impressions they produce together highlight the personal charm and tension of the characters with their own characteristics under the harsh social reality.
The film begins with two scenes in 1898 and 1902 at the beginning of Daniel Plainview's career, then moves to 1911, and the whole story begins in 1911. In 1898, Daniel had been working in the deepest part of the mine, wearing the typical clothes of a hand laborer: brown nondescript slacks, suspenders (suspenders), soft felt hats with wide brim for sun protection, joint suits and ubiquitous Blue workwear shirt with loose sleeves. The dress and its subsequent changes will be repeated throughout the film. The fact that we first saw him dressed tells us that he comes from a background in the life of a miner, but the motivation and tenacity of his work also reflects his strength and determination, and the potential to be able to break free from drudgery. This resilience became even more evident in 1902, when Daniel could already hire some workers to travel by train with his adopted son, HW. This socioeconomically ambitious man sought to emulate the dignified gowns of the middle class: dark sack suits and hats, tall crowns and short sides, signaling his ambition and growing status. Its dilapidation, however, suggests that he remains in a relatively humble position, in stark contrast to his 1911 lawsuit image.
Mark Bridge said that Daniel's suit in 1911 was one of the few luxuries he had in the film because with the financial resources at the time he was already able to have custom fabrics, made to measure. While the suit may not be apparent in the movie, the suit was tailored to Daniel's tall, lean physique and differentiated from the other characters that underscore the importance of Daniel's character traits: vest, tie, upright brim and A pocket watch, while a white shirt also hints that Daniel can now afford a job position that doesn't get him dirty. This outfit can be regarded as saying goodbye to the upstart miner with the image of the 1902 native turtle. Of course, if we are careful enough, in addition to Daniel's own clothing, HW's clothing has also changed a lot. Daniel has always viewed HW as an exhibit, using him to create sympathy among business associates to convince them of the "family" nature of his business. HW's attire at this time was also very sophisticated: a double-breasted jacket, white shirt and shorts. There is also no sign of labor and hard work, which is indicative of the success of Daniel's career.
In the film, the clothes that appear on important occasions are also clues to our identity status. For example, Daniel will only wear formal suits at important meetings (such as the Standard Oil meeting), important events (the opening of a new drilling rig) and church. By avoiding suits and white shirts and opting for more everyday wear, it shows that he still can't get rid of the inferiority of the bottom laborer, and still needs to be hands-on in the work scene. So, instead of enabling a more laid-back, middle-class lifestyle, suits are seen as just another business tool for him. Daniel's independence and pride in his work is especially evident in the details of his collar and tie in his talks with BP and Allied Oil. Unlike other merchants who wear individual, starched upright collars and pinned silk ties, Daniel still opts for unstarved collars and a simple black tie. This shows that he is a pragmatist who desperately needs efficiency, and his sweat-stained hat shows that he not only works hard but is not ashamed of his practical work.
At the same time, when Daniel is not wearing a suit, he will still keep some necessary accessories, such as the existence of a winding pocket watch and at least two pens, which can be used as a signal of wealth, as well as Daniel's ability to manage business and command others. power. The silhouette of Daniel's character is most easily discernible from a distance: his most classic short riding boots and boots that fit snugly against the calf, convey the owner's strong sense of purpose and control. For example, during the meeting with United Oil, he stood upright on the table with tight boots on, and set the metal shuttle into the map to indicate success. And, if we're careful enough, Daniel never removes his hat. The etiquette of hats was actually very important in the historical environment at that time. The conventional etiquette rules usually require removing hats in the room, or removing hats when meeting other people formally. But Daniel's refusal to do so shows his need to hold power over others at all times. But only, only alone! He took off his hat in Eli's church to give up control.
For Eli, when he first met Daniel, he was wearing long underwear, suspenders, and baggy black trousers that were actually so short that they even flipped around the ankles. There's nothing to suggest the character is a threat, or any different from his twin brother. But this lack of any sign would have caught Daniel by surprise when Eli challenged him to buy the land, and confidently claimed that the money should go to his church. Eli's attire as a priest includes black trousers, a black vest and a white crewneck shirt. Eli's slightly ill-fitting dress and Daniel's tailored suit form an asymmetrical authority scale, and we can also deduce that Eli is indeed too poor, and his clothes are donations from some residents.
The scene of the drilling opening ceremony in the film fully emphasizes the dialectical logic of the two-way struggle between new clothes and old clothes, which is also the dialectical logic of power and wealth. When Daniel ignores Eli's request for a congratulatory message and invites Eli's sister Mary to accompany him, it's not hard to notice that Mary is wearing a bright white dress, in stark contrast to the faded, dirty pink dress she usually wears . It was later revealed that this was a new dress that Daniel had prepared for Mary. It was his threat to stop domestic violence from Mary's father, and it also symbolized his neglect and disregard for Eli. In fact, Mary's white dress is used again near the end of the film. Mary's transition from a scene where a girl plays with HW to a scene where she steps into the marriage hall with HW in a white wedding dress is a considerable time shift and narrative development.
At the same time, when HW grew up, he also wore a dark functional clothing without a tie, and a pen was attached to his pocket, completely replicating the attire of his father Daniel in his prime. At this time, this contrasted with the elderly Daniel, who was just wearing underwear and a shawl-style cardigan, and was bored at home and shot bottles with a gun. Cardigans are the antithesis of Daniel's prime-age suits, and baggy-crotched pajama pants are the antithesis of tight calf boots, alluding to his boring and messy "retirement." But Daniel's indifference to appearance is incompatible with Eli's "clean and tidy" outfit. When Eli wears a black suit, a big white-collared shirt, a sleek, oil-backed hair, and a giant cross hangs around his neck, it's not a sign of swearing. Because upon closer inspection, his clothes were somewhat worn and his trousers had been treated a few times, the chain of the crucifixion looked so small that it hung awkwardly around the collar. And the absurd size of the cross pendant also implies that Eli has lost all his money and is suffering a crisis of faith, trying to compensate for this in the spiritual world. Later, at the end of the film, Daniel frantically chases Eli with unraveled shoelaces, and both lose control of their ambitions.
The costume design realized by the film's costume design director Mark Bridges in "There Will Be Blood" is a respect for this historical background. He uses the available details to indicate the character's state, motivation and spiritual world, and creates a rich language of costume symbols with originality. It is subtle enough and low-key enough to immerse the audience in this harsh social history, discovering the visible from the invisible, and excavating the truth from the details.
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