This stunning adaptation of the Henry James novel is 99.9% perfect, from the amazing costumes designed by Sandy Powell to Helena Bonham Carter’s performance in the lead role. We gush about the costumes, analyze the characters, and nerd out on early 20th century fashion designer Mariano Fortuny.
This is our first video-slideshow podcast (thanks, Kendra!), which you can watch via YouTube here:
Or you can listen to us critique The Wings of the Dove 1997 movie costumes below in the old-school audio-only podcast or subscribe to the audio podcast on iTunes.
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I’m in heaven, I love your insights and information and these clips, and I need to REWATCH THIS MOVIE, which is the best Henry James adaptation I know of!
Thank you! We really love this movie – both the films & the costumes come together & work SO well.
Thank you! I saw this movie when it first came out and it was great to review it.
One suggestion – you might want to mention in the audio podcast that this slide show is available, I only found it by accident, and I loved it.
loved this.
I listened to this on youtoob last night- loved it. When you described the Venice scenes as evocative of the early 20th century painter, I was like “ooooh! Pick me! Pick me!”
Maxfield Parrish is who you were thinking of. I so want to play your reindeer games. Great insight. Can’t wait to listen to all your podcasts!
Watched this again tonite. One of my favorites. Did you notice the Klimt influence on Millie’s carnaval costume? The geometric sparkles. Love this movie.
Just listening to some of your older podcasts, and this is one of my favorite films! Don’t know if anyone has identified the setting for the party that you were discussing, but at least part of it was shot at Lord Leighton’s house in Kensington, London. Also the aunt was played by Elizabeth McGovern, I believe.
Thank you for these great podcasts! As a costume historian, it’s wonderful to find a podcast that focuses on the one thing I always focus on in historical films.
Oops, you’re right, I got the characters confused, Charlotte Rampling was the aunt!
Thanks, this is beyond fabulous! Can’t wait to see how I can’t actually afford a real Fortuny pleated scarf on eBay. I’ve been doing some research on this film for a screening I’m introducing at the North Carolina Museum of Art, and Henry James thought Milly the heroine of his story. He based her character on a beloved cousin of his who died at 24 of TB. According to my Penguin Edition intro to the novel, James envisioned her “as a young person conscious of a great capacity for life, but early stricken and doomed, condemned to die under short respite, while also enamoured of the world.” Your podcast is amazing! As always…
I know this podcast is really a while ago, but after listening recently I just have to say regarding HBC’s Kate and her corset with no under bottoms: I always assumed that she had already taken off whatever she had on like her dress and other undergarments before Merton walks to the doorway and sees her removing her corset. The whole scene is so unsexy and “undressing” per se wasn’t a part of it. Even her undressing of him is “helps take his sweater off, now he’s completely naked a second later”. Also, when I saw this movie 20 years ago, I was and am pro-Kate in the sense that Merton knew she was not only caring for her father, BUT, she had also been continually reminded by her aunt that her mother married for love not stability and that didn’t turn out well. Merton sees unsympathetic to this fact. Also, aside from the whole dying thing, Milly didn’t have a care, Who knows her “true” personality absent this fact. Plus, it was Merton who was confronted by Milly about his deception and he had just attended her funeral. Kate didn’t do through this. Give him some time and he would no longer be in love with her memory. The end. Thanks.