‘Vatican has more fun with costume,’ says Jordan
NEIL Jordan said the Vatican could give lessons in sartorial flair as he opened an exhibition of Ireland’s most iconic film threads.
Costumes from some of the nation’s favourite movies have gone on display in Ireland for the first time.
Liam Neeson’s imposing full Irish military uniform from Michael Collins is one of the centrepieces in the exhibition at Limerick’s Hunt Museum.
John Wayne’s bowler hat in The Quiet Man,
Mel Gibson’s full warrior costume from Braveheart, and Colin Farrell’s bloodstained suit from In
Bruges were painstakingly curated by well-known costume designers Eimer Ni Mhaoldomhnaigh and Veerle Dehaene.
Daniel Day-Lewis’s flamboyant threads in the Oscar-winning In The
Name Of The Father, Cillian Murphy’s psychedelic canary yellow ensemble in Breakfast In Pluto and the beautifully tailored dresses from The Favourite are among the 33 costumes. Oscar-winner Neil Jordan, who travelled to Limerick to open the exhibition, said costumes can play a remarkable role in the acting process.
“Sometimes, you get an actor quite uncertain about their part and you leave them with a costume designer, and they spend two days together and come out with some sense of the character they never had before. I found that in every movie I’ve done.”
The costumes — many from Oscar-nominated movies — are part of a vault of on-screen costumes being preserved in Ardmore Studios by the Irish Costume Archive Project.
During Michael Collins,
Neil Jordan said the hats worn by the leading actors were pivotal to their roles.
“It was the great burden of history on Liam’s shoulders and the costumes he had to wear were deeply uncomfortable.
“Every man wore hats then and men like Liam, Stephen Rea and Aidan Quinn, they’re not used to wearing hats.
“They had to get hatters and get it right for their head, and it was a different way of walking wearing those hamburgs and those bowlers, so it is a way of discovering character for them. When I did Breakfast
on Pluto with Eimer, I can’t think of a character whom costume would have been more important than the character Cillian (Murphy) played.
“It must be great to be dressed in drag all the time.”
The common strand running through the treasure trove of film threads is an Irish connection, either through the movie being shot here, or having an Irish costume designer working on set or some other homegrown influence on the screen production.
Neil Jordan said his hit TV series, The Borgias, gave him a new insight into the sartorial flair on display at the Vatican.
“I have to say the people who have more fun with costume than anybody are the Vatican, the Catholic Church. They get costume and bring it to a level I’ve never seen before.
“I did a series called
The Borgias. It was just extraordinary, we’re talking about gold-embroidered capes and satin and lace and all those hats. We should learn from them really.”
The exhibition also features stunning set costumes from Oscarwinning Irish designer Joan Bergin from the sets of The
Tudors.