• Home
  • Completed Costumes/Impressions
  • Emma and Her Dresses
  • Free Patterns and Instructions

Kitty Calash

~ Confessions of a Known Bonnet-Wearer

Kitty Calash

Tag Archives: Turn

Visual Illiteracy

23 Wednesday Apr 2014

Posted by kittycalash in Art Rant, Clothing, Fail, Research, Snark, TV Review

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

art, Banastre Tarleton, Captain Tallmadge, Colonel Tarleton, dragoons, helmets, light, museum collections, National Gallery, paintings, Research, Revolutionary War, Turn

Banastre Tarlteon by Joshua Reynolds

Portrait of Sir Banastre Tarleton (1754-1833) by Joshua Reynolds, 1782. National Gallery (UK)


See update below!

By 9:00 on Sunday, I was asleep and missed “Turn,” which Mr S wasn’t even watching because, as he declared, “It’s just a bad show.” On Monday evening, I made it through the opening of the show and gave up for good. But those minutes made me think of the Banastre Tarleton portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds, and the suggestion on Twitter that “Turn” had no historical consultant.

It occurred to me, as I stared at the rather curious headgear worn by Captain Tallmadge (I think it’s stretch lycra over a “Roman” gladiator costume helmet glued to a baseball cap visor and edge-taped with gold foil) that perhaps the people doing the costumes simply lacked visual literacy. This could explain the refugees from Fort Lee who looked like they stepped out of an Emma Lazarus poem, and it could explain the very unfortunate helmet.

Tarleton_notes

Let us look at Banastre Tarleton, hunky bad boy of the British dragoons: he came to mind on Monday night, and what visual relief he is.

Note the light edge of the visor: this is a highlight. The leading edge of a polished surface will shine, and helmets, even of leather, will be reflective. Over time, the edges will polished by wear if not on purpose. I cannot speak to the helmet habits of the horse-mounted, but I know from paintings, and that edge is a highlight.

The Boys last July. Look, shiny, not-taped visor edges.

The Boys last July. Look, shiny, not-taped visor edges.

Reynolds painted what he saw, and just as the Young Mr’s cheekbones are reflecting light off the underside of his visor and Mr S’s helmet edge is shining in the direct light, so too is Colonel Tarleton’s helmet edge shining.

(Yes, there are both mounted and unmounted dragoons within a unit; but I just can’t help feeling that an officer would be mounted more often than he has appeared to be thus far.)

ETA: Heather has graciously pointed out a very nice blog on Turn, which is doing a far more even-handed and informed job of watching and commenting on the show. Thank you, Heather!

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • Email
  • Twitter

Like this:

Like Loading...

Not in Defense of ‘Turn’

14 Monday Apr 2014

Posted by kittycalash in Fail, History, Snark, TV Review

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

18th century clothes, 18th century clothing, historical fiction, history, material culture, Revolutionary War, snark, Turn, TV Review

John André’s self-portrait, 1780. George Dudley Seymour Papers, Manuscripts and Archives, Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University

John André’s self-portrait, 1780. George Dudley Seymour Papers, Manuscripts and Archives, Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University

Like all the other history-obsessed Rev War reenactors with basic cable, Mr S and I have been watching ‘Turn’ on AMC, and like some other reenactors, I’ve been lurking on the fringes of the Facebook feeds trashing the show, but hoping a contrarian view would be possible, just to keep things interesting.

So we watched last night with the best intentions: I would not think about shoulder seams, drawstring-neck shifts, circular caps, obvious mascara, white linen shirts on farmers, shirts with neck bands but not collars, a lilac silk cloak on a farmers’ wife, the amazing amount of light candles throw, beards on smugglers who look like they escaped from a spaghetti western… Mr S has learned to live with this and I have learned to keep quieter. He learns best visually, so he really had hopes for this show. I think we all did, even given what we know Hollywood does to historical realities.

Mr S keeps asking, “Where’s the war? Where are the soldiers?”

I keep asking, “Why is Tallmadge allowed to be on his own for so long, and what the heck is wrong with his uniform facings? And he’s a dragoon, where the heck is his horse?”

The low shoulder seams on Woodhull’s leather(?) jacket still make me nuts, though I think Anna serving in the tavern in a pristine white apron over a cranberry silk button-front gown really took the cake last night, costume-wise.

The dialogue howler I enjoyed the most (i.e. caused the final outburst) was Major Andre and his “player” girlfriend who is so not pumping him for information (horrid pun intentionally retained).

If you were the suave Major, you would respond with complete candor to the charming (mascara-eyelashed, obvious foundation-wearing, look out for the lip-gloss) woman’s question: “You will tell me where you’re going on your next secret mission, won’t you?” “Why, sweetie, yes, and let me use my time machine to bring you the Enigma machine and a smallpox vaccination.”

I expect and grudgingly tolerate:

  • Bad costuming
  • Odd set dressing (highly suspicious table in the church-stable; suspect it would be happier in Amistad)
  • The incredible candlepower of candles
  • Non-18th century speech rhythms
  • Changes to actual events for increased drama

But patently absurd, asinine dialogue on top of all that goes beyond my patience.

I should give it up: Two Advil PM at 8 and I’ll no longer spend an hour every Sunday night performing mental alterations on TV costumes. (Those shoulder seams really annoy me, and could someone try pressing the facings?)

But no; next week, Fort Lee should fall and chances are good Mr S will lead the screen-shouting…

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • Email
  • Twitter

Like this:

Like Loading...

Archives

wordpress statistics

Creative Commons License
Kitty Calash blog by Kirsten Hammerstrom is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Website Built with WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • Kitty Calash
    • Join 619 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Kitty Calash
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

    %d bloggers like this: