Reseach into heroes and villains

While researching the murder mystery genre I found no reoccurring themes when it came to costume, even less when the murder mystery was a closed mystery, to make the consumer have to really work along with the detective or sleuth to solve the case. Subtle mannerisms are used however, such as someone nervously winding a necklace through their fingers or other traits to subtly bring them across as being out of the ordinary, not necessarily immediately alerting the consumer to their guilt.
I did however find within mystery-crime films a reoccurring theme when it came to the villain of the storyline. Almost every film features a character the consumer is meant not to like, whether this is through the way they act, the way they dress or how they treat other characters, and it is essential to make them seem dislikeable. From this I began to look into the stereotyped ‘goodie and baddie’ theme, which as the audience became more sophisticated so did the way they portray their villain or hero.
I then decided to compare a famous villain to their opposing hero, looking at both; how they are portrayed for their intended age range and how they compare as the time of their creation changes.

Walt Disney’s Sleeping Beauty (1959)
Maleficent was created by Walt Disney to create a feeling of fear among both children and adults. It is easy to see her character is portrayed to be ‘evil’, as in most Disney films, the villain wears black, symbolising darkness and mystery. Disney themselves called her the mistress of evil, and when compared against the hero Prince Phillip, Disney intend for her to be slightly ugly against the stereotyped dashing Prince, her green eyes also add to the dark and strange effect

Maleficent




Aurora and Prince Phillip

Looking a the hero of the story, you can see that Disney desired to make both the damsel and prince as attractive as possible, the damsel with blonde hair and attractive features and the prince with strong muscles. The hero and villainess in this case both make each other seem; for the prince, more attractive and for the villainess more abnormal and evil.


James Bond – You Only Live Twice (1967)
Bond has been credited with creating the arch-villain stereotype, and in a way is responsible for the appearance of villains becoming much more complex. Ernst Stravo Blofeld could be said to be James Bonds’ arch-villain, and is easily distinguished as being ‘evil’. He has disfigurements (the scar on his face) and is said in the film to be German, and since the book was written after World War 2 the public had a mistrust of Germans.


Compared against James Bond, the appearance of both characters is made much more intense, since James Bond is much more handsome that Blofeld. Throughout the James Bond films the villains are always Megalomaniacs, and more or less hope for one thing, world domination, but the way they talk is a way of creating a mistrust, especially if they are rich and intimidating.


Ernst Stravo Blofeld

James Bond



I decided to look into murder mystery films and programmes such as Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot, but I discovered that whilst films such as James Bond and Disney's Sleeping Beauty have recurring themes into how they portray their villains and heroes, when you wish to create a more realist approach in creating an evil character you must do it much more with the way they act, not the way they dress or look. Miss Marple and Poirot look like normal, everyday people and so do the murderers which is the effect I wish to create in my film.




Miss Marple Poirot