Costume

Nina Sayers from Black Swan

Teddy Daniels from
Shutter Island

Harry Goldfarb from
Requiem for a Dream 

The types of costumes used are almost always normal clothing. The reason behind this is to add a sense of reality and ambiguity to character profiles. Characters tend not to have clothing that would identify them as estranged so that plot lines are not reviled and the audience are not fearful of the characters and can create sympathy for them, making any plot twists that may occur more unexpected. Loose clothing for a victim protagonist is conventional to this genre. It gives them a scruffier or more vulnerable appearance so that the audience subconsciously pick up on there susceptibility, for example Harry Goldfarb (see below) and Nina Sayers (see above). The antagonist or person of authority in the movie is usually smartly dressed in order to show there superiority over the other characters to the audience, for example Teddy Daniels (see right). Costumes usually match the location for example the character  Harry Goldfarb is based in an urban area therefore his costume is a baggy T-shirt, trousers and trainers, which are connoted to a typical person of his young age from a built up urban area. The colour schemes used for clothing are always dark for this genre of film. The costumes alway reflect the dark and isolated state of the characters as well as fitting in with the mise en scene of dark and mysterious settings to fit the conventions of the genre.