Analysis of Costumes in Psycho Thriller's

I will be analysing the costumes in three psycho-thriller films, which include:
Silence of the Lambs
Black Swan
Shutter Island


Silence of the Lambs:

Screen shots of characters costumes

The film 'Silence of the Lambs' comes under the sub-genre of a psychological thriller. The audience knows this through the costumes, especially through Anthony Hopkins costume as 'Hannibal Lecter', through the mask and the other costumes that Anthony Hopkins wears. Also the contrast between Hopkins costumes and more professional characters show the sub-genre.

It is creative because the difference in costumes between the characters shows how much authority the character has to the audience, as well as having an element of representing things such as professions to the audience, in which without the costumes might not be exactly clear to the audience.

In our opening sequence, it wouldn't be necessary to have use costumes like this as our film doesn't demonstrate the same aspects of 'Silence of the Lambs'.

The sub-genre in 'Black Swan' is psycho thriller, similarly to 'Silence of the Lambs'. This helps the narrative as throughout the film the main character has to fight against her own psychological state. The costumes help display this through the contrast of white, being the 'innocent girl' she is frequently described as; the black representing the evil side of the swan and the overwhelming sense of power. It is creative as it uses the innocence of white and the power of black to represent the main characters psychological state of mind, which is especially portrayed in the last picture, with the black ground and the character the only white on the scene, through the use of costume. This could be used in our opening sequence as the innocence of white costumes could be used to represent a child like innocence.

In 'Shutter Island' there is a large contrast between the characters, showing the characters who are powerful, and less powerful. In the psycho thriller, the characters of authority are clean, where as the others are dirty, suggeseting llack of authority to the audience. We can use this in our opening sequence to leave the effect of power to the audience.