WORK · AGEING MAKEUP
Ageing a Young Poet: The Makeup of Arthur Rimbaud
Feature film · Director: Patrick Wang · Prosthetic Makeup Artist: Doug Morrow
A deceptively demanding challenge: to realistically and subtly age a 21-year-old actor into the weathered face of an iconic French poet at 37.
Writer/director Patrick Wang tasked Doug Morrow with one of the more nuanced challenges in character makeup, not a dramatic transformation, but a believable, lived-in ageing of actor Blake Draper into the iconic French poet Arthur Rimbaud in his late thirties.
INTERVIEW
Interview with writer/director Patrick Wang by Christopher Bell for Screen Slate
CB: His transformation by the end is incredible. These are all stock phrases, but… He really does disappear into the role. You won't know it's him by the end. You'll completely forget it's the same actor.
PW: There have been people who've seen it who have questioned if it's different actors. I think that’s a wonderful reflection on his work, because we had wonderful design things to help him. There's some very subtle aging prosthetics, there's some subtle aging makeup. But without him, you don’t have this real deepening of character while not abandoning the guy that we saw before… He managed that really convincingly. It’s a broad age range—15 to 37. It’s no easy task.
TECHNIQUES USED
FACIAL AGING
Morrow built the aged face through subtle use of thin, seamlessly applied prosthetic transfer appliances. Sculpted nasolabial folds, jowls, a chin piece, under-eye bags, and slightly drooping upper eyelids, along with delicate furrows between the brows. A thin layer of old-age latex stipple on the eyelids added further texture and depth.
Several light washes of alcohol-activated colour, applied by airbrush in a fine spatter technique, unified the work and completed the aged complexion. A lace moustache provided the finishing period detail.
SILICONE LEG PROSTHETIC
For Rimbaud's final days in Africa, Morrow constructed a full silicone leg prosthetic to portray the cancerous tumour that afflicted the poet's knee. Pre-painted with alcohol colours and finished with individually punched hairs, the appliance was crafted to withstand close scrutiny on screen.
ON SET
All ageing makeup and the leg prosthetic were applied by Morrow on each day of filming, with fellow makeup artist Brie Tait on set to maintain the work throughout the shooting days.
