By Jeremy Smith
Production and costume designer Patricia Norris has passed away at the age of eighty-three. She collaborated with some of the finest filmmakers of her era, conjuring nightmares, nostalgia, wistfulness and laughs throughout a brilliantly versatile forty-six-year career. Just look at the range of directors she worked with: Howard Hawks, David Lynch, Terrence Malick, Michael Ritchie, Mel Brooks, Brian De Palma, Blake Edwards, Peter Hyams, Herbert Ross, Wim Wenders, James Gray, Andrew Dominick, Steve McQueen… that's an insanely wide variety of sensibilities.
But it is her collaboration with David Lynch as both production and costume designer that is the most distinct. In a 1990 interview with the Seattle Times, she perfectly and succinctly summed up her simpatico relationship with Lynch thusly: "We don't have to talk a lot. We sorta have the same definition of ugly." She has discussed in the past how her mind is "odd" like Lynch's, but as Lynch is notoriously averse to discussing his creative process, we don't have a definitive discussion with the two on why their minds meshed so wondrously. We do have a visual record, though, which is perhaps the most appropriate manner in which to honor the many different styles Ms. Norris mastered. The below just scratches the surface of her genius.
Patricia Norris is the only designer to ever with a Lifetime Achievement Award from both the Art Directors and Costumers guilds. She was nominated for six Oscars and, of course, never won because Oscars are meaningless.
Our condelences to her family and friends.
