Odile Dicks-Mireaux. Image via Female FirstThe thing about Brooklyn is that everyone can relate to it. Stories of immigration touch almost everyone, or at least run through their family's DNA. Even the move from one state with a personality quite unlike your original home, can feel like a reinvention. Nearly a year after seeing Brooklyn for the first time it's strange to think that I worried that people wouldn't connect to it! Who needs sensationalistic drama when a story is this really. When it's power can sneak up on you?
I had the pleasure of discussing this universal resonance, and the job of defining Eilis (Saoirse Ronan) through her costume changes with the designer Odile Dicks-Mireaux, who herself related to the story. Her mother was French and her father British and they met, both immigrants, in Brooklyn in the 1940s, and built a life in a foreign country together. Odile is London based and was best known, prior to know, with her frequently BAFTA nominated work on British television miniseries like Gormenghast and Great Expectations though she's also designed Oscar nominated dramas like The Constant Gardener and An Education.
Here's our interview.
NATHANIEL R: I first saw Brooklyn at Sundance and I loved it but I remember feeling that I had no idea how people would react to it when it was released. Which in retrospect was kind of foolish of me.
ODILE DICKS-MIREAUX: You never know when you're making a movie how it's going to turn out and whether it will hit a nerve. Would it be too much of a simple story or too old fashioned? So it's been a real pleasure that it's resonated. [More...]
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