movie storyboards) that had both a moral and a
satirical message. Rowlandson created an instantly
recognizable gallery of social types, many of whom
seem to have served as models for the characters
we meet at Van Tassel’s mansion. When Crane
steps into the house, a “harvest party” is taking
place, and the guests are dancing, drinking, and
quietly talking. The color palette changes from the
exterior gloom to soft browns, grays, greens, and
blacks. The interior colors are very subdued but
warmed by a patterned tile floor, orange jack-o’-
lanterns, candles, and firelight. (Here, as through-
out the movie’s interior scenes, candles seem to be
the principal source of illumination.) Baltus Van
Tassel (Michael Gambon) wears a suit of beautiful
dark-green velvet decorated with gold brocade,
under which his cream-colored silk shirt is fas-
tened with a bow; unlike many of the other men, he
does not wear a wig. His beautiful, younger wife,
Lady Mary Van Tassel, wears an elaborate gown of
yellow silk velvet decorated with an overlaid pat-
tern in cut brown velvet. Her hair is swept back
from her high forehead. The Van Tassels’ dress and
manner leave no question as to who heads society
in Sleepy Hollow.
In a scene that could have come straight from
Hogarth, Crane is introduced to the other ranking
members of the community. We are in Van Tassel’s
study, with its muted green wallpaper, leather
chairs, books, portraits, Oriental carpet, blazing
fire on the hearth, and candles mounted in wall
sconces. Each man in the scene is striking in dress
and manner. The Reverend Steenwyck (Jeffrey
Jones) wears the most distinctive wig in the movie,
and Magistrate Samuel Philipse (Richard Grif-
fiths), seen pouring the contents of his flask into his
teacup, has the stock red face of a drinking man
that one sees so often in portraits of British aristo-
crats by George Romney, another of Hogarth’s con-
temporaries.
Rick Heinrichs, the production designer, said of
the design scheme for the village, “One of the
things we were trying to do was inspire a sense of
scary portentousness in the village. I think it’s dif-
ferent from Irving’s Sleepy Hollow which is
described as a dozing Dutch farming community. If
our Sleepy Hollow is asleep, it’s a fitful sort of sleep,
123Contrasting colors emphasize narrative contrasts
in Sleepy Hollow Blood-red sealing wax [1] and blood
spattered on a menacing jack-o’-lantern [2] are the sorts of
bold design details that stand out against Sleepy Hollow’s
generally muted palette, as seen in the “harvest party” scene
[3], in which Katrina Anne Van Tassel (Christina Ricci,
blindfolded) first encounters Ichabod Crane (Johnny Depp).
Note, in contrast to the smiling children on the right, the
jack-o’-lantern in the upper left corner, echoing the sour
expression on the face of Crane’s eventual romantic rival,
Brom Van Brunt (Casper Van Dien, center).LOOKING AT MISE-EN-SCÈNE 213