#cissarambles

[cissa-calls]

Rewatching Crimson Peak & Things of Focus and Notice:

As a child at her mothers funeral, Edith wears butterfly/moth earrings

Is the pen her father gifts her the one she later uses to stab Lucille? He describes the importance of having “The right tool for the job,” is that foreshadowing for gifting her the tool to begin her escape from Crimson Peak?

Is Edith wearing a butterfly hair clip when she dances the waltz with Thomas?

Lucille’s iconic crimson red gown is so detailed, so beautiful. It represents the skeletal ghosts with its spinal column along the back, crimson peak itself in color, the carapace of a bug on the sleeves and structure, and the upper bodice has trim that blooms outward (present similarly in her blue gown) but is bisected by buttons…creating a familiar shape…a moth?

The candle they hold during the waltz is held at the same level Edith holds her iconic candelabra, a subtle parallel

The trim on the collar of Lucille’s black dress references the spikes and trims of gothic architecture - which is very heavily featured in Allerdale Hall

Lucille says that: “At home we only have Black moths, formidable creatures but they lack beauty.” Knowing the parallel between her and moths, it implies that she sees herself as a survivor and powerful, but something no longer beautiful because of it

Lucille places the butterfly she holds directly into the ants, an action that’s brutal but quick. Is it foreshadowing to her execution of Edith’s death? Something quick for such a beautiful thing, done by her hand?

The LOOK Lucille gives Thomas when they realize Edith’s father knows their past. THE LOOK (JESSICA CHASTAIN YOUR ACTING)

“You seem the more collected one my dear” Lucille is called this. She always holds the mission undetered in her mind, as opposed to Thomas who seems more easily swayed by emotions

When Thomas breaks Edith’s heart by ripping apart her book. He says: “What do you dream of? A kind man? A pure soul to be redeemed? A wounded bird to be nourished?” He is telling her exactly what he is. None of those things, none of the dreams she has built of him in her mind. Not with a past and life such as his.

The significance of gramophones and wax cylinders: it is what plays when Edith’s father is murdered, it is also what saves her from meeting the same fate

I want to know more about Lucille!! Her character is so rich, so so complex, she needs more screen time!!

Need a prop replica of the ring NOW

[the house] “is a privilege we were born into, one we can never relinquish” METAPHOR ALERT METAPHOR ALERT metaphor for the cycles of abuse and trauma they could not break

HOW THE FRICK did I MISS the fact that Thomas’ workshop is in the attic when that was where him and Lucille were locked up as children. SO MANY IMPORTANT SCENES HAPPEN THERE. So many significant to their past we never see, so many ghosts not visible but are so real and present to have caused this

The trail of smoke like red essence that emanates from the ghosts as they walk, like they are still bleeding

Lucille’s hair looks black in darker lighting, but a dark brunette in others. It’s provides a black, dark shroud when she’s in America, and catches more light when she’s in Allerdale Hall

“I like to think she can see us from up there. I don’t want her to miss a single thing we do.” UM MA’AM

“…in time, everything will be right” LUCILLE QUEEN OF FINAL OMINOUS STATEMENTS IN SCENES

The amount I WISH to explore this set. To pry apart each detail and pick apart each piece, so much of it had to be handcrafted pieces for the movie or vintage pieces sourced for it. LET ME IN

THE LIGHTING MUAH

The ghost in the hallway has a rope dragging behind her…is this a gory detail, or an allusion to how she may have died (if not by poison)?

The ghost in Edith’s dream is pointing, though it is never shown to what. Is it to the exit, her warning to leave as all the other ghosts try to do?

The children’s laughter after the presumed scream of their mother’s ghost as she is stabbed, is it just for creepy effect, or did Lucille and Thomas actually laugh after they murdered her?

The scar on Lucille’s lip? Never noticed it before!

Not the first time I’ve noticed it, but the act of her clutching hot steaming food with her bare hands is chilling every single time

Were the bodies of Thomas’s wives left in the vats of clay? I don’t know HOW I didn’t make that connection before, originally i thought it was merely for creepy effect.

Many people villainize Lucille and try to make Thomas out to be solely a victim. But as stated in the wax cylinder, he was fueled by his desire to pay for and make his machine. Him and Lucille are both complacent in using their victims money for their own gain

We need to bring Chatelaine’s back into fashion. That is all.

The scrape of the spoon over the porcelain cup, it screeches and is a subtle way that shows Lucille act of caring has a harshness to it, an unpleasant sound resulting from an otherwise pleasant action: tending to Edith

Such an interesting camera choice to have the camera focus in a circular inwards and outwards

also also Lucille has a temple scar on her forehead?

The small amount of glee Lucille takes saying Edith “thought [she] was a writer” as she throws the pages to her novel in the fire.

The absolute deadpan, matter-of-fact-ness Lucille has to Edith when she signs the papers “you have nothing to live for” & “mercy killings.” This is a familiar repeated cycle

“Sign your name! Sign your bloody name!” Bloody is not just for emphasis. Edith’s name is soon to be nothing but blood

Lucille’s night gown sleeves as she flies down the stairs in pursuit - like a moths wings fluttering towards its prey

Lucille and Edith fought each other with bare feet on the stone and in the snow

Lucille is the only one of the two who knows how to start Thomas’s machine, because she was the one who witnessed it working

It is only the stab wound on Thomas’ face that bleeds and smokes when he is a ghost, perhaps because it is the wound that bears his betrayal by Lucille, reminiscent of tears of his lingering pain

Edith now has a facial scar, gifted to her by Lucille, who bore ones of her own. It is a passage, a continuing of the cycle, but it is its finale. It is Edith’s souvenir from Lucille, who took her own souvenir (her hair) from the other like a prize

[cissa-calls]

I love you themes of haunting, I love you Stevie nicks, I love you Gothic architecture style windows, I love you hand sewn dresses, I love you eclipses and moon phases, I love you aged metal, I love you cracked ceramic and fine china, I love you vines and moss and fungi reclaiming things, I love you chiffon fabric, I love you pressed flowers, I love you books with yellowed pages that crinkle, I love you ink, I love you deep reds and ghostly blues, I love you whimsigoth, I love you mixed metals layering gold and silver

[cissa-calls]

I need to do a proper written thing with citations from the text and stuff but I will continually howl about how tragic, broken, but so so so beautiful of a character Nellie was written to be. She was slated to be both the most naive but also the wisest. The kindest but most abrupt. The most aloof and wistful but grounded in the dirty painful reality. The most gentle and timid and absolutely delicate but the one made to repeatedly endure the most and the worst for the longest out of everyone in that house. She is both human and mythical, raw and fantastical. Nellie is nothing but contradictions and pain and love rolled into one messy ball full of tragic hope. The best, the most good, made to endure the worst.

[cissa-calls]

I wanna be a comic book artist I want to be a comic book artist (what I chant when I’m forced to hand ink my own comic panels and the only one forcing me is me)

[cissa-calls]

Sweating in the rain feels like a joke. Like ooo was my body jealous of the sky and needed to join in and cry??? Hate it

[cissa-calls]

I WAS TOLD I REMINDED SOMEONE OF CORALINE BEST COMPLIMENT EVER

[cissa-calls]

Oil painting is so so so so GAHHHHHHHHHHHH. That’s all

[cissa-calls]

Probably not the first to say this, but seeing a disabled Spider-Man variant in Spiderverse was so so so so so exciting. Oftentimes disability is excluded or only used as plot devices to exploit in action or sci-fi movies, so having it just be a person whose disability is a part of them - not a source of punishment or pain - just a part of them, is so important and liberating. Oftentimes it’s easy to feel excluded in this genre of superhero movies full of stunts when physical disability hinders that. But this proved it’s not at all the case, it’s just simply a choice that writers can make to include a wider range of people with different experiences and bodies

[cissa-calls]

Why do people only crush on Laura Dern in the original Jurassic Park? Laura Dern all day any day everyday is incredible and deserves acknowledgment

[cissa-calls]

I love a distinctive but feasible distinguishing character trait or quirk (thinking of you midnight suns agatha with her white streak of hair) - and subsequently playing with that idea into more surrealistic things. Once I did a character with a distinct pattern of freckles that connected like constellations. Character design is the funnest thing in the entire world to me

[cissa-calls]

Oh look I’m justifying once again watching crimson peak for artistic sake

[cissa-calls]

My favorite ocs are the women who have the potential for slaughter and insanity. Did they commit it? Maybe, not yet? Are they capable? Yes definitely

[cissa-calls]

I need to start posting art again….I’ve fallen behind and been forsaken

[cissa-calls]

I’m so sorry to the takeout restaurant I just took four sets of chopsticks from to use for sculpture

[cissa-calls]

I WILL find a way to interject my current blorbo into any conversation. It’s a talent to veer the original topic so far off course I can seamlessly link it to my current love

[cissa-calls]

I have fucked up cutting my own bangs so many times at this point you would think I’d have learned better