Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/680832
20 The Costume Designer Spring 2016 In Carter's oeuvre, there is a notion that the truth will set you free. Accuracy is a weapon in the visual arsenal that Carter wields to its fullest poten- tial. With each consecutive project, she tries to go in more deeply, to explore a different facet of culture, society, or social commentary. With Rosewood, she strove to bring the pictures of Harlem Renaissance photographer James Van Der Zee to life on the screen. In Amistad, she personally hand-picked early 19th-century garments and fabrics in London and Italy in pursuit of authenticity. This yielded her second Academy Award nomination. Recognized with a Costume Designer nomination for Excellence in Period Film for Selma, Carter looked intently at the black-and-white photos and footage of leaders and ordinary citizens to tell a tale in color that would honor the past. She recounts her feeling upon seeing it all come together: "Here we are in a time when Obama is President and then we're re-creating the historic freedom march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge of 1965. Some of the background actors spoke about the actual march from their childhood. I felt like, for them, it had come full circle," says Carter. "Dressed in '60s clothing, walking over the historic bridge with the feeling that, 'this is for my family, my legacy'—that's the satisfaction you walk away with in the experience of it all." In the context of this trajectory, it seems natural that Carter was approached to design the reboot of the epic 1977 miniseries Roots. At first, she was reluctant because of the project's scope, which All photos: Steve Diet/HISTORY. Chicken George (Regé-Jean Page) and Marcellus (Michael James Shaw) compete in a chicken fight. Malachi Kirby as Kunta Kinte (center)