Thursday, August 12, 2010

Red Riding Hood in Blue

Yep. Red Riding Hood is wearing blue - at least in the photos we've seen so far. Cast-in-costume photos shot behind-the-scenes of the movie-currently being shot in Vancouver, Canada, include pics of co-stars Virginia Madsen (Red’s mom), Gary Oldman, Cole Heppell, Jen Halley, Billy Burke and Lukas Haas.
(Yes, that's the on-screen love interest, played by Shiloh Fernandez.)
You can see all 17 photos HERE.

But that's not all.
All sites posting and commenting on the photos agree the costuming for Amanda Seyfried, who plays the title role in The Girl With the Red Riding Hood (working title), isn't sporting the iconic Red Riding look. But I suggest you take a closer look.
Maybe I'm reading much more into this than is intended but is anybody else looking at the virgin blue, the red threads woven in, the 'horny' headdress and thinking that maybe the costume is perhaps closer to a red hood than it first appears? Of course I could totally be reading into it. I do love symbology and have a tendency to see it everywhere but if this isn't intentional I'll be very surprised. Any costume designer worth their salt builds story into their characters' costumes, even if it's story that's never directly addressed. This appears a little less subtle than that to me, but it's effective, nevertheless.

The plot remains largely a mystery at this point other than "a Gothic retelling of Red Riding Hood" (actually it would be 'Little Red Cap' as 'Hood' is the Perrault version) and the IMDB one sentence synopsis:
Set in a medieval village that is haunted by a werewolf, a young girl falls for an orphaned woodcutter, much to her family's displeasure.
... but the dress, particularly the one with the horned headdress (which would logically appear to follow the 'walking in blue with boots' one at the head of this post), says a lot. Particularly about transformation, magic, blood magic, lust (and hormones) and innocence.

Until the script and story come to light speculation is king but so far I haven't seen anyone connect the dots like in this particular way. iO9 mentions magic but even the 'sexy superstar' sites haven't twigged to the horned = lust = sexual maturation aspect of Red that I've seen.

Just my take.

Of course, you didn't really think they would do a 'Red' film completely minus the hood, did you? I found the other half to the top photo. Take a look at what Amanda's harried assistant (dresser?) is holding over her arm.

Note: Additional horned headdress costume images via HERE and Amanda-plus-assistant photo found HERE.

3 comments:

  1. OMGosh! Can't wait, thanks for sharing.

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  2. Been so long since I thought of red riding hood, can't wait for this one.

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  3. I've not heard anything about this one yet! It looks great, can't wait.

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