31 Movies of May, Day 14: Crimson Peak
May 14th viewing: Crimson Peak, chosen by my wife, Olivia Goldstein (this was actually the movie we went to see on our first anniversary while we were dating)
Year of Release: 2015
Directed by: Guillermo del Toro
Written by: Guillermo del Toro and Matthew Robbins
Starring: Mia Wasikowska, Jessica Chastain, Tom Hiddleston, Charlie Hunnam, Jim Beaver, Burn Gorman, Doug Jones
Accompanying Beverage of Choice: Lil’ Sumpin’ Sumpin’ (IPA, 7.5 ABV), Lagunitas Brewing Company, Petaluma, California and Chicago, Illinois
(Support Independent* Breweries - buy local when getting buzzed during quarantine)
*I know, I know, Lagunitas is owned by Heineken now and thus not an independent brewery, which I totally forgot about when I chose my beer for this movie. BUT, in my defense, I did pick up this six-pack from my local neighborhood bar, Dante’s Tavern, so today I’m supporting small business in a different way
On occasion, I love to get particularly angry about a snub in a lesser regarded technical category at the Oscars. My banner year for this was probably 2015. That year saw the ridiculous omission of Straight Outta Compton from both of the sound categories - the Detroit concert scene from that movie alone should have earned it at least a Sound Editing nomination, given the whole climactic heft of that scene largely succeeds based the the auditory upshift when NWA kicks off “Fuck tha Police.” But the even bigger stub that year came at the expense of a personal favorite of mine, Guillermo del Toro’s Crimson Peak.
Unlike Straight Outta Compton, which managed to grab at least an Original Screenplay nomination, Crimson Peak got completely shut out on nomination day. That’s an overall shame, considering the film is a real underrated gem. But the one that hit the most was the lack of nomination for Best Production Design, easily one of the most egregious below-the-line Oscar snubs in recent memory.
Production design is essentially the creation, design, and decoration of a film’s sets. It greatly impacts the mood of individual scenes and the film at large and is essential to grounding the audience in the time and place the director is trying to establish. The director, screenwriter, and producer create an overall vision for the look of the film, but the production designer does the concrete, hands on work to make that vision come to life.
Guillermo del Toro’s vision for Crimson Peak is a dread-filled gothic romance, and the production design does more than anything else achieve the film’s macabre tone. The story follows a new bride as she joins her sketchy new husband and his sister at their decaying British estate of Allerdale Hall, only to discover evil plots and haunting apparitions barely hidden below the surface. I could describe the general look in words, but this seems like the kind of thing better done in images:
The visuals and tenor of the film intertwine in the most ghoulishly lovely way. The sand is stained blood red. The walls drip with blood red clay. When the winter comes and the first snow falls, the titular crimson hue of the ground gradually seeps through. All of this follows the terror at the core of the film, that the house of its title is built on blood, figuratively and almost literally. The characters can try to cover it up or explain it away, but it always manages to expose itself given enough time.
The cherry on top of all of this is how the film’s visuals match with those of the standout performance of Jessica Chastain as the plotting sister. Chastain brings a dry moroseness to her part that belies the underlying madness of her character. This is best demonstrated through the recurring image of Chastain playing the piano. She is clearly a skilled pianist, but every time she plays the expression on her face is one of sheer joylessness. It’s a depiction of a woman who was tortured into learning the craft in her youth, and now, despite her torturers being long dead, she still feels trapped by an imagined duty to continue on. It’s a perfect stand-in for her whole family legacy. She clings to the piano like she clings to Allerdale Hall, because she fears even the slightest change may jeopardize the tenuous hold she has on her brother, the only person she has ever loved - and, by extension, will render worthless all of the terrible acts she has committed to preserve their relationship.
If only for the set of Allerdale Hall, the titular Crimson Peak, this movie would have won the Academy Award for Production Design in most years. Granted, 2015 was not like most years, as even had it been nominated, Crimson Peak would have had to compete with eventual winner Mad Max: Fury Road, which, well, duh. But it feels criminal that Crimson Peak was left out in the cold while nominations were handed out to the fairly standard period set designs of Bridge of Spies and The Danish Girl. As period accurate as they may be, neither of those films lived or died by their visuals. Crimson Peak only achieves the gothic wonders it does because its production design is as top notch as it can be. May the Academy be forever haunted by the devilishly rendered ghosts of Crimson Peak.
