The Pleasures of Costume Dramas

The heavy momentum of Victorian gowns, long panning shots of a fictional history lovingly created like a dollhouse with its complete miniature place settings, language that travels down too oft unused paths in my brain, and myriad other pleasures come to me when I settle in to enjoy a costume drama. And settle in I must, this isn't the sort of watching that can be accomplished while I fold laundry or grade papers. I lose myself in the gulf between the world of the costume drama and my own. I feel like I'm gently tearing into a giant eclair or sinking into a downy mattress. There is so much give and softness in this viewing experience.

Tonight, I re-watched an opulent strange little film called Angels and Insects. Though I'd seen the film's larger reveal before and find significant parts of the film uncomfortable and off putting, this second viewing was vastly more enjoyable than the first. The world of the film became more of the focus for me since I have already seen the story unfold. Details came into focus since I came to the experience with knowledge of the narrative as a whole. The plaster molding of bed frames, chair railings, and interior doors compelled me without distraction. I could devote myself to the minutiae of fasteners and trim and light fixtures. This heightened the difference for me between the enjoyment of costume drama and most other sorts of time.

This is my escapism.

I doubt I'm alone in my unabashed delight in the created illusion of history of this genre. Sometimes I dream in this mode, and when I wake I do not remember who spoke or what happened, but instead I remember the rich green browns of stamped leather on the walls and the sound of eighteenth century heels ringing across a polished marble floor. Perhaps this is largely class fantasy, but I think the historical displacement has more allure than simply wealth. In a time before mass production, everything we used and looked at and touched was the product of craft. Individual aesthetics created each jacket, dish, fireplace, and chair. I do not want to fetishize someone else's reality (or many centuries and continents of someones), but a world of craft calls to me. There is something unpredictable about what comes from the hands and mind of an individual. Perhaps I'm just an aesthete leaning toward decadence despite myself. I not only want beauty, but I want it to surprise me.