Work with flowers every day and you’ll never watch a film in the same way again. American Beauty – red roses. The Wizard of Oz – orange poppies. Last Tango in Paradise – purple hydrangeas. The Great Gatsby – white orchids. Memoirs of a Geisha – cherry blossom. Then you’ve got that spindly two-leafed stem in WALL-E, those painted white roses in Alice in Wonderland and the bright yellow sea of daffodils in Big Fish. Some of the most emotionally torn and aesthetically beautiful moments in film are brought to life not with actors but flowers. Here are some of our other favorite flowers-in-film moments.
![Vertigo](https://floom.imgix.net/general/vertigo.png?auto=format&crop=focalpoint&fit=crop&fm=pjpg&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&ixlib=php-1.1.0&q=80&w=1440&s=c7f135444d1c81c0d8fb28618d84581d 1440w, https://floom.imgix.net/general/vertigo.png?auto=format&crop=focalpoint&fit=crop&fm=pjpg&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&ixlib=php-1.1.0&q=80&w=1000&s=e065160fbf0362785a78a6cb9ba3cf45 1000w, https://floom.imgix.net/general/vertigo.png?auto=format&crop=focalpoint&fit=crop&fm=pjpg&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&ixlib=php-1.1.0&q=80&w=600&s=26a78a7503d9c9fdc2ff894083ac4110 600w, https://floom.imgix.net/general/vertigo.png?auto=format&crop=focalpoint&fit=crop&fm=pjpg&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&ixlib=php-1.1.0&q=80&w=400&s=dba45da4ee5b8e4c691dc05186e05534 400w)
Vertigo
You don’t have to be a student of film history to notice that flowers are a recurring motif in Vertigo. Made in 1958 by grandaddy of film Alfred Hitchcock, Vertigo opens with Madeleine entering a floristry – Podesta Baldocchi, back then one the oldest operating florists in San Francisco and still delivering today – packed with beautiful blooms. The fragile-looking bouquet she buys turns out to represent her character. Later in the movie, falling apart, she tears her flowers to shreds.
![Leon](https://floom.imgix.net/general/leon.jpg?auto=format&crop=focalpoint&fit=crop&fm=pjpg&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&ixlib=php-1.1.0&q=65&w=1440&s=02e47f2f21b7591b819d8651b92b5e1f 1440w, https://floom.imgix.net/general/leon.jpg?auto=format&crop=focalpoint&fit=crop&fm=pjpg&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&ixlib=php-1.1.0&q=65&w=1000&s=5edacc01372dd5a7e64e385e080bce55 1000w, https://floom.imgix.net/general/leon.jpg?auto=format&crop=focalpoint&fit=crop&fm=pjpg&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&ixlib=php-1.1.0&q=65&w=600&s=7e8be9df6cfa5453786de9210eb99627 600w, https://floom.imgix.net/general/leon.jpg?auto=format&crop=focalpoint&fit=crop&fm=pjpg&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&ixlib=php-1.1.0&q=65&w=400&s=26cc4d6f1a9b9fe378e9283cc2f134e4 400w)
Leon
‘He May Be a Killer, But He’s Such a Sweetie’ ran a New York Times headline in 1994. The article was reviewing Leon: The Professional, and articulated one of the main themes that made the film so interesting to so many – that a supposedly cold-blooded murderer could also be a gentle, childlike soul that liked drinking milk, sitting beneath a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary in his apartment and – the camera most insistently – spending so much time lovingly tending to a potted plant. Every day, he sprays water on his aglaonema, or Chinese evergreen, and wipes them down – presumably to prevent dust from enabling the plant to photosynthesise properly! A good example for us all.
![The Town](https://floom.imgix.net/general/the_town_191015_173518.jpg?auto=format&crop=focalpoint&fit=crop&fm=pjpg&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&ixlib=php-1.1.0&q=65&w=1440&s=537c0d39dd77c89713d66e3c3bd09ab7 1440w, https://floom.imgix.net/general/the_town_191015_173518.jpg?auto=format&crop=focalpoint&fit=crop&fm=pjpg&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&ixlib=php-1.1.0&q=65&w=1000&s=c666d86228cf751c03c52a5d393060d5 1000w, https://floom.imgix.net/general/the_town_191015_173518.jpg?auto=format&crop=focalpoint&fit=crop&fm=pjpg&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&ixlib=php-1.1.0&q=65&w=600&s=48ed3c0207922081e3fe67e64afe64bc 600w, https://floom.imgix.net/general/the_town_191015_173518.jpg?auto=format&crop=focalpoint&fit=crop&fm=pjpg&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&ixlib=php-1.1.0&q=65&w=400&s=c42b86e6e851299bcb057e3555b8cb7c 400w)
The Town
Ben Affleck’s 2010 thriller The Town features the brutal manipulator, drug dealer, heist planner – and florist – Fergie brilliantly played by Pete Postlethwait. The character is based on the notorious Irish-American mobster Dean O’Banion, who ran a successful, real-life floristry in Chicago as a front for his criminal activities. Until his death in 1924, however, he always insisted that his greatest love was floral arrangement, for which he had a genuine passion and talent.
Image credits:
American Beauty, DreamWorks Pictures, 1999
Vertigo, Paramount Pictures, 1958
Léon: The Professional, Les Films du Dauphin, 1994
The Town, Warner Bros. Pictures, 2010