A while ago, I was rewatching the movie Rebecca for God-knows-how-many times, when it struck me: I should created brooches inspired by this American film from the ‘4os. It was the first film from those that raised my interest in my youth. I was impressed by the poetic realism and the post-war disillusionment of those years. The times of the Great Depression and the Economic Crisis of 1929, events that preceded this film, made me automatically connect it with the situation nowadays.
The film noir characters are trying to survive the present and when they fail, they find shelter in their pasts. The techniques used emphasise the loss, the nostalgia, the absence of prioritising.
These pieces of jewellery are suggestions of the subjective effort of capturing the essence of the films. Just like film noir, they use the technique of codifying the theme. From a stylistic viewpoint, the objects are inspired from the clarity of the image, stage-design and dramatic structure.
As for the costumes, the films exude an oldish elegance, placed at the ends of aesthetics: brooches, necklaces, hats. The materials chosen by me reflect the atmosphere of the Great Depression and of the War- both noble and mundane. A combination of the Hollywoodian opulence and the commonness of the reality. These objects transcend the ornament status, being symbolic objects which represent themselves.
The decoding process took me 2 years. The challenge for me was extracting the essence from every image and transposing it into an object. The challenge for those who wear them are decoding the connection between the object and the film.
Brooches and text by Kuki Constantinescu.
King Kong (1933) Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack
It happened one night (1934) Frank Capra
Rebecca (1940) Alfred Hitchcock
Casablanca (1942) Michael Curtiz
Laura (1944) Otto Preminger
