For Ellen Mirojnick, costume fittings are akin to painting. "You have the ability to try on so many different things to get to the exactness of the character," she explains. "You see how the actor reacts and how they move, and you watch them fade into who they are playing until they lose themselves in it.
The veteran costume designer has been working in the industry for over 40 years, but still, she says, "It always brings tears to my eyes, watching an actor actually become the character that they will now inhabit."
A regular collaborator of directors like Jan de Bont, Steven Soderbergh and Paul Verhoeven, Mirojnick has designed costumes for such iconic films as Fatal Attraction (1987), Wall Street (1987), Basic Instinct (1992), and Showgirls (1995). "The thing that ties all my films together is that there is absolutely a glamor of some sort that comes through, no matter what," she reflects. "Eclectic characters wearing beautiful clothes is how I design stories."
Her latest is Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan's biopic about theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer (played by Oscar nominee Cillian Murphy). Working on the film, Mirojnick felt more grounded than ever in the ethos that costume design is part of the fabric of cinematic world-building.
At the 96th Oscars, Mirojnick received her first Oscar nomination for Best Costume Design, amongst Oppenheimer's 13 total nominations. She says the recognition is "a dream come true."
Here, Mirojnick shares with A.frame her five favorite films. "I was able to take something from each and every one of these films," she says. "The beauty of design and color, the gorgeousness of beautiful clothes and eccentric characters wearing beautiful clothes, it all appealed to me at a young age and influenced the rest of my life. But it also influenced my love of designing men's wear as much as designing for women, and of course, altogether designing stories."
Directed by: Morton DaCosta | Costume Design by: Orry-Kelly
Auntie Mame is, by far, my number one favorite film. I've seen it probably 200 times. I was born and raised in New York, but this was a very glamorous New York, and Rosalind Russell played a very eccentric and glamorous character with a heart of gold. Her nephew and his nanny come to live with her because her brother dies, and they walk into this massive, eclectic cocktail party with all different kinds of characters. The house is exquisite; It's on Beekman Place in New York, and it has this massive, massive, massive stairway.
It was the color, the design, the glamor of a New York that I didn't know that really captured me. Beekman Place was such an exclusive address in New York that anything was possible. The eccentricities of her life and who this character was just registered in a way that never left me — and maybe I've even adopted parts of her into my life. it just affected my whole sensibility and the person who I wanted to become. It's just fabulous.
Directed by: Federico Fellini | Costume Design by: Piero Gherardi
That's where all of this starts. I remember seeing La Dolce Vita and thinking that I died and went to heaven. This was everything that life was about! The glamorousness coupled with the fight for spirituality and religion and celebrity. It was so far ahead of its time. The costume designer, Gherardi Piero, won an Academy Award for the costume design on La Dolce Vita, but that was not why I fell in love with it.
It is a glamorous film. I have a big affinity for black-and-white films, because I love the graphicness. I love the textural feel that you get from the characters, time, and place, and when I watch black and white, I kind of feel color in a very abstract way. I love the story of celebrity and paparazzi and the good life versus the truth of who you are, and following Marcello Mastroianni through these different chapters. He's such a sexy man. You just can't take your eyes off of him. But the film itself is so classically designed that it's just as relevant today as it was then. It affected me in a way that it always stayed with me from the moment that I saw it. It's an overlay that has influenced many different ways in which I think about things.
Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock | Costume Design by: Harry Kress
I always loved Alfred Hitchcock films, but for some reason or other, my love for North by Northwest never tires. It is, above all else, a great story. Each and every beat of this thriller is just so perfect. Who's good? Who's bad? What's going to happen in the end? Are they going to fall from Mount Rushmore? I love Cary Grant as the leading man, being so bamboozled! You just never grow tired of watching him. And Eva Marie Saint? She was glorious! She was a magnificent woman. The sets and that period of time in film, it was all just so great to look at! That really affected how I see things.
Directed by: Bob Fosse | Costume Design by: Albert Wolsky
I was a very, very big fan of Bob Fosse's choreography and direction, and I saw quite a bit on the stage prior to seeing All That Jazz. His choreography was so fabulous and modern and extraordinary in that period of time. That period of time was really identified by his moves, by his not accepting what was and creating something that was fresh and modern and new. And in All That Jazz, watching his story and his compulsion and his refusal to not be a workaholic and his need for perfection and what it did to him, I just thought it was created in a way that was such a great portrait; not a biopic, but a portrait of this man who is absolutely genius.
The whole film felt so totally fresh to me, and still does feel fresh to me. I thought that it was quite inventive and very singular. There was music, there was dance, there was fantasy, there was real life. There was everything.
Directed by: Stanley Donen | Costume Design by: Edith Head
Funny Face is so beautiful, and I love Stanley Donen's work. I thought that he was a magician with all that he created. It seemed so light and carefree and never overwrought in any way. There was a brightness, a freshness, a clarity to how he used color, that it actually jumped off the screen. Stanley used color unlike anybody else. It just came into your life in a way. And that film showed Paris in a way that I had dreamt about Paris, and dreamt about all of the beauty of it -- not the grittiness of it at that particular time. All of these films affected my design sensibility in some way, whether it was color or whether it was the grittiness of black and white, they were all designed in a way that felt real and natural to me. Even the unrealness of Funny Face felt real to me. I just wanted to be there.
And Audrey Hepburn was one in a million. I actually did get to work with her in the latter part of her life, which was quite a treat; the best treat that I could have ever been surprised by.
By Sara Tardiff
