American Horror Story’s Freak Show had its premier this week. Yes, we do seem to be going on a bit this week about popular T.V. but let’s face it, there is a lot of truly creative stuff happening on the tube. And what could be better than this particular show beginning again just a few weeks shy of Halloween?
This 4th year of the popular American Horror Story series is set in the world of a 1952 freak show carnival and what a cast of oddities we will be getting. The first episode we met Dot and Bette, Sarah Paulson’s two-headed sister character; wild stuff indeed. Jessica Lange’s character is hiding some interesting secrets this time around and she seemed to channel Marlene Dietrich when singing David Bowie’s “Life On Mars” on the premier (see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VG_BVE2VjJw) Kathy Bates is a bearded lady, there is a man with lobster claw hands and so many more ‘freaks’ coming in the episodes ahead.
And let’s not forget Twisty The Clown…the name alone conjuring up all kinds of bad thoughts.
Of course it is the lush look of this show, not just this season but every other before that continues to garner the attention of not just latex designers. We’ve yet to see the full bloom of circus costuming-things are bound to amp-up in that department the more we get involved-maybe something like our https://dawnamatrix.com/shop/mens/epic-ringleader-trenchcoat-2/ or https://dawnamatrix.com/shop/bottoms/ringleader-pantaloons-2/?
The show’s co-creator Ryan Murphy remarked about this new season’s overall look:
“I think we were paying homage to The Greatest Show on Earth, that great movie. But more than that, I think people when they think of the freak world and the world of carny, it’s a lot of black and white images. That’s how I knew them. I sort of wanted to bring them to life. So with the production design and set design we made a very distinctive choice of let’s do the brightest colors known to man and let’s let everything soak in Lipton iced tea for a week. There’s a faded melancholy feeling to it. You can see that the colors are beginning to dim—that was by design because it’s the end of an era.”
How’s that for true Art in America, the subjective stain of costuming, lighting and set and the overall artistry of this very unique and scary show?
pictures Eonline
