“I knew the moment would be visually defining,” says Coraline writer-director Henry Selick when I ask him about the first appearance of his blue-haired protagonist’s iconic yellow raincoat.
I’m speaking to the claymation filmmaker to mark the 15th anniversary re-release of Coraline in cinemas. That, and a new exhibition at the BFI Southbank that takes viewers through LAIKA Studios’ boundary-pushing stop-motion process.
The perfect opportunity, in other words, to relitigate some very low-stakes coat-based controversy.
You see, yellow was always a curious choice. The author of the novella, Neil Gaiman, plainly stated in his story that her outer layer is blue. “Coraline put on her blue coat with a hood, her red scarf, and her yellow Wellington boots,” reads an early line.
So why did Selick go in a different direction?
Since the film’s release in 2009, fans have theorised that he elected for yellow to correspond with a horror trope which originated in It (1990).
Or Jaws: The Revenge (1987), the flick u/harriskeith29 ascribes the motif to in a Reddit thread which wonders why there are so many yellow raincoats in horror media.
Selick reveals that although he’s “aware of how yellow raincoats have been used in many gothic genre films, books, and video games,” – Stranger Things, Wonder Egg Priority and Little Nightmares, in addition to the It and Jaws franchises – its place in his film is completely independent. “I wanted Coraline to pop, to be the only sunny colour in the grey, rainy world of Oregon where she and her busy parents have just moved to, so I gave her a bright yellow raincoat and blue hair.”
Her vibrancy means that she’s more in tune with the Other World, which is brilliant and fanciful, than the real one. “Unlike the novella, my Coraline loves bright colour, [she’s] drawn to them” Selick tells us, “so the Other Mother paints the Other World that way to attract her, like how red flowers draw hummingbirds.”
Despite its change in hue, a raincoat, of some sort, was always to make it from page to screen. According to Selick, it’s simply essential to the character’s mien. “Coraline is an explorer,” he tells me. “I knew she’d be checking out her new home’s surroundings regardless of the weather.”
He also mentions that raincoats remind him of one of his favourite thrillers, Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now (1973) which is based on a Daphne Du Maurier novel.
“In this film, a father has a recurring vision of his dead, red raincoat-wearing daughter. He chases the vision, finally catching up with horrifying results. The symbolism of the red raincoat shifts from sweet flower of youth to bloody, slashing, violent death.
“Because of this, I could never have chosen red for the colour of Coraline’s raincoat.”
Coraline is a PG, after all.
Coraline in Remastered 3D is in cinemas now. You can also visit BFI Southbank’s LAIKA: Frame x Frame free exhibition until 1 October.