The red coat in movies

[Maurice]

The Times 17/03/11
'What to read into the red coat' by Kevin Maher

What is it about the red coat and movies? Like the taciturn action hero, the musical montage or the final reel kiss, the conspicuous red coat - in poke-your-eye-out crimson - is a movie staple that won't go away.

It's up next on Jordana (Yasmin Paige), the spiky teenage star of Richard Ayoade's witty feature debut, SUBMARINE. She wears it duffel-style, as both protection against the world and a passionate hint of what lies beneath.

Amanda Seyfried will soon follow in RED RIDING HOOD, a TWILIGHT-type teen fest that has stripped bare the original fairytale of the iconic scarlet cape.

But it's nothing new. You see it on the faceless girl who runs through the rainy streets in the 2006 OMEN remake. Or glimpsed briefly, yet significantly, in popular horrors such as HOSTEL and DARK WATER (the drowned girl-ghost in the latter wears a red coat). Or before that in SCHINDLER'S LIST, on the girl who wanders through slaughter in the Cracow ghetto. Or before that still in FLATLINERS, on the angry boy-ghost who chases Kiefer Sutherland through the (nearly) afterlife.

If you're looking to lay blame, look no farther than Kiefer's father Donald, the star of DON'T LOOK NOW. Prior to that, movies had shown a leaning towards luscious red signifiers - in the jacket of James Dean in REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, or the ballet pumps of Moira Shearer in, yes, THE RED SHOES - but DON'T LOOK NOW changed all that. The red coat was it. In shiny mac form, it clings to young Christine Baxter (Sharon Williams) as she drowns in the movie's unforgettable opening sequence.

It then appears again duffel-style, on a midget serial killer who slits Sutherland's throat and somehow signifies that unholy alliance between sex and death, and stuff.

The movie was so powerful, the coat so disturbing, that film-makers who followed couldn't let it go. Spielberg said that his use of the red coat in SCHINDLER was to symbolise "the large red bloodstain" of Allied inactivity during the Holocaust.

Others, such as FLATLINERS director Joel Scumacher, claimed homage. Certainly, in SUBMARINE, a film that is brimful of cine-literate nods, Jordana's coat feels like a giant bow to DON'T LOOK NOW. Perhaps the reason that it lingers over film like a spell is that, well, it looks good on camera. At 20 yards or in close up, it's red, it's duffel. What's not to like?

[Steve Crook]

... or the ballet pumps of Moira Shearer in, yes, THE RED SHOES

If they're just looking for examples of the colour red as a signifier they could also look at Moira Shearer's hair.

Or when Sister Ruth "sees red" in Black Narcissus and there's a wash of red across the screen. Just before she "blacks out" and the screen goes black (not blue as in some bad prints)

But the movies are full of red coats - what about Zulu? Or all the old Empire films from London Films?

Steve

[Rowdon]

Not blaming Maurice, of course, but that's a bit of a half-arsed article, isn't it? It looks like the writer was paid to plug the new film (Submarine) but make it look as if it's actually a more general article that happens to mention it. And on a personal level, I can't stand it when a critic uses phrases like "that unholy alliance between sex and death, and stuff" as if they're a bit embarrassed that people might think they are trying to actually say something, which would make them well sad, or some such. And the sign off, "What's not to like?" - well, your inability to finish an article without getting in-your-face teenage, for one thing; unforgivable unless Kevin Maher is a fifty year old Radio One DJ.

4 out of 10. Must try harder.

[Moor Larkin]

Ah, the dust of Empire and Glory........ ...

[Steve Crook]

Not blaming Maurice, of course, but that's a bit of a half-arsed article, isn't it? It looks like the writer was paid to plug the new film (Submarine) but make it look as if it's actually a more general article that happens to mention it. And on a personal level, I can't stand it when a critic uses phrases like "that unholy alliance between sex and death, and stuff" as if they're a bit embarrassed that people might think they are trying to actually say something, which would make them well sad, or some such. And the sign off, "What's not to like?" - well, your inability to finish an article without getting in-your-face teenage, for one thing; unforgivable unless Kevin Maher is a fifty year old Radio One DJ.

4 out of 10. Must try harder.

Of course it's nonsense, it's an article in a British newspaper

Steve