Killer's Kiss (1955)

Last week we watched Stanley Kubrick’s second fiction film, Killer’s Kiss. When watching the film you can clearly see similarities form his documentary Day of the Fight and pictures that he took while working for LOOK magazine. We discussed the film on Wednesday and covered several aspects of the film. But one thing we did not talk about was the characters costumes.

Costumes are not something I usually look at or pay much attention to when I watch a film, but in this case I did.  They came to mind when we were discussing the parallels between Davey and Gloria in this scene:

Davey portrays himself as a tough guy. He is a boxer, his apartment is very rough and masculine. He even has a machete hanging on the wall.  But he also seems to have a softer side. On his mirror he has pictures of his family and he has some fish that he cares about. This image of himself as a tough guy can be seen in Davey’s costume. When he walks out of his apartment he is wearing dark pants and a dark jacket with a white shirt underneath. The dark clothes becomes the rough/tough image Davey is trying to portray, but it is not who he actually is. We later find out that Davey is not a very good fighter and runs away when he is supposed to save Gloria.

Gloria’s place, in contrast to Davey’s, is more light and colorful and of course more feminine. Gloria’s choice of clothing also contrasts Davey’s. She wears a light colored skirt, a light colored coat and a dark blouse. If we analyze Gloria’s outfit the same way we did Davey’s this means that she is trying to put up a perfect image of herself but there is something dark in her. At this point of the movie we don’t know what that is, but it turns out that she has a relationship with a criminal/violent man and a troubled relationship with her sister and father. She is also not the most loyal person since she goes back and forward between the two male characters Davey and Vincent.

In conclusion the characters costumes in this scene form the Ying and Yang, and hints that the two characters are perfect for each other and that they will end up together. 

After this short analysis of the costumes I just wanted to mention something I noticed in the book On Kubrick by James Naremore. The author discusses the mannequin fight and mentions that the two characters looks like gladiators. This is something I will come back to in a couple of weeks when we watch Kubrick’s film about a very famous gladiator.