Good Morning POU!
This week we take a look at some very talented individuals who have worked behind the scenes to bring life to our favorite movies. Their costume and set designs have garnered awards and have landed some designs in the Smithsonian as pop culture landmarks.
Ruth E. Carter
Ruth E. Carter is an African-American costume designer. She is best known for her work on the films Malcolm X and Amistad, for each of which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Costume Design. She was the first African American, female or male, to be nominated for an Academy Award in this category. She received a career achievement award from the American Black Film Festival in 2002.
Carter graduated from Hampton University, and then interned in her hometown of Springfield, Massachusetts and at the Santa Fe Opera. Working at the Los Angeles Theatre Center, she met Spike Lee, who hired her for his second film, School Daze, and with whom she worked on a number of films thereafter.
Synonymous with style, design and exquisite detail, Ruth E. Carter is the costume designer to call when a filmmaker needs to tell an authentic story though a characters’ attire and accessories. Getting her start in the theatre and in opera houses, Carter remembers getting her shot for the first time as a feature film costume designer from Spike Lee on the classic School Daze in 1988.
Her portfolio today reads like that of a Hollywood A-Lister, with credits in over forty films, including classics such as I’m Gonna Get U Sucka, The Five Heartbeats, Jungle Fever, Malcolm X, What’s Love Got to Do with It, Sparkle, and most recently, The Butler.
In an interview with Madame Noire, Carter described the responsibilities of her role as this: Essentially, the costume designer designs the look of the film. Most of the time people get that confused with a fashion designer and although we do work with fashion and we love fashion, it has more to do with coordinating the look of each character. Sometimes there is fashion that’s required and other times there’s not. You really have to know people and what makes people who they are through their clothes.
In an interview regarding her work on The Butler:
How did you go about researching the costumes in this film?
Because I knew I was doing presidents [and their wives], you can’t really play around with that. I went directly to some wonderful collections [like] a book that’s called Entertaining at the White House with Nancy Reagan. Mamie Eisenhower [played in the film by Melissa Leo] was the iconic June Cleaver of the late ’50s. She [represented] the view that women had of femininity, of charm, and grace. I went to historical research books to gain inspiration. I knew I had to get the presidents right and the research was available to me, but for [Cecil and Gloria’s] story, the parts that Forest Whitaker and Oprah Winfrey played, there was more digging that needed to be done to produce a look for what their lives looked like. There’s an archive online of… different collections of photographs of the lifestyles of people who lived in Washington, DC in the ’50s and the ’60s. It painted a picture for me of, “What was the life of the middle class in Washington, D.C. and how did that look in comparison to life at the White House?” Because Eugene Allen, who in our story is called Cecil Gaines, he actually bounces between those two worlds. “What do those two worlds look like?” It was wonderful to paint that picture. I was born in the ’60s, so my mom — and most African-American households — had a subscription to Ebony Magazine. It was the quintessential look book for families who wanted to see how other people lived. I scanned so many of those images because Oprah’s character is the Ebony woman. I found hairstyles and all kinds of things that I felt [were appropriate] for the woman who is married to someone who worked at the White House.
Did Oprah take issue with any of the costume choices?
We talked about a request Lee Daniels had. He wanted Gloria to wear her hair in curlers under a scarf — those big plastic curlers with the pins — outside to the Greyhound bus station when she’s escorting her son as he goes to go off to college. She felt that a woman of her stature in her community would not ever be seen in hair curlers out in public… It took us forever to convince Lee. He would not back off the curlers! So I sent him a text one day and I said, “Did you want the first time we see Oprah in this film [to be] in curlers? Is that the image you want to present? I just want you to think about it.” Lee texted back, “Okay, no curlers.” I [was] driving and I had to pull over to the side of the road. I texted Oprah and I said, “Just in from Lee! NO CURLERS!” in all caps. She called me and said, “I just need to know how you did it. I mean, we tried to convince him every which way, but he wouldn’t budge. What did you say exactly?”
Thank you Ruth!
