In before
fxh
on Dirty Harry.
Heres a short version of something I prepared earlier from another place and time::- I've recycled this a few times - so apologies if you've read it
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Callahan is the only cop, perhaps only person, in the film to wear a tie done up all the time. Even running and sliding and shooting for his life in the quarry in a 3 piece brown suit.
Most of the cops wear nondescript suits with the clichéd hard working cop loosened tie. Callahan actually looks "modern" beside them. Keeping in mind that in 71 when the film was released , a jacket, tie and "tailored" pants were not the usual signifiers of "modern" by any means.
Certainly he's well dressed, not sloppy, smart. The done up tie and sleeveless jumper underneath tweed is not for the cold weather, none of the others are rugged up. More its a nod to the 3 piece suit, and a degree of formality, note he wears a 3 piece in the last scene.
Harry C is paradoxically, both everyman, - eats and orders the same hot dog every time, - and the outsider. Also paradoxically the moral outsider, protecting people/society not abandoning them for "protocol/rules" but also the immoral/amoral outsider in that hes prepared to deliver the death penalty without charge or trial of the victim.
Hes out of uniform, both the ordinary cop uniform literally and the uniform of his colleagues, the suit. He dresses differently, hes set apart in his wine vest, tweed jackets, grey pants, but at the same time he looks smarter than his fellow cops. Hes both smarter and neater than anyone who is not a cop and arguably neater and smarter looking than the cops.
His Mexican rookie partner, who starts off dubious, if not outright suspicious of Harry, and dressed in suit like the other cops, is by the end of the film coming around to understanding Harry and wearing a similar sport jacket and pants not a suit.
Whereas interestingly Harry finishes off the film, and narrative arc, in a 3 piece suit, clearly not your standard favoured police suit, at once different and more formal than a sloppy two piece. Or even a tweed jacket and grey pants.
wiki wrote:
Glenn Wright, Eastwood's costume designer since Rawhide, was responsible for creating Callahan's distinctive old-fashioned brown and yellow checked jacket to emphasize his strong values in pursuing crime
Clothes are never a frivolity, they always mean something James Laver (1899–1975)
Dirty Harry is worth watching. Again. Not only is it a great film by anyones standards but watching it with an eye to the meaning of clothes (both within the narrative and in a wider context) is rewarding. Harry Callahan is dressed (and keep in mind here that in film everything is carefully chosen and overdetermined) to convey efficiency, outsider status, everyman status, difference, morality, calculated recklessness, trustworthiness, rebel, upholder of law, breaker of law, conformist and killer - all at once. In the film it succeeds. Sometimes I'd like to think that outside the fictional world of the screen the message works too. On me if no one else.
On every film, the clothes are half the battle in creating the character. I have a great deal of opinion about how my people are presented. We show a great deal by what we put on our bodies. Meryl Streep
What’s great about costume is it’s the visual representation of the internal side of people. That’s what I love. Tim Burton
