• Pete Hammond reports that Tom Hanks will present Best Art Direction and Best Cinematography to start the show, so we’ll know very quickly if a sweep for “The King’s Speech” is afoot. [Deadline]
• Glenn Kenny talks up the underrated “Shutter Island” a year after its release. [The Film Talk]
• It’s been a week of celebrity Oscar picks, more than ever. Here’s Elton John’s call for Best Actress. [Inside Movies]
This year’s race for Best Costume Design became mired in controversy later in the season as a dispute erupted over proper credit in “Black Swan.” Amy Westcott was listed as responsible for the threads, but fashion duo Rodarte had a significant hand in concocting the performance costumes on the film — and were denied credit, per guild regulations.
That issue has been argued from both sides and is an unfortunate byproduct of unfair rules, but the fact remains, it may have missed a nomination here as a result. Nevertheless, the five films competing make for a vibrant cross-section of visions, styles and periods, the branch even going so far as to give us a big surprise on nomination morning with a selection no one saw coming.
The nominees are:
“Alice in Wonderland” (Colleen Atwood)
“I Am Love” (Antonella Cannarozzi)
“The King’s Speech” (Jenny Beaven)
“The Tempest” (Sandy Powell)
“True Grit” (Mary Zophres)
Yesterday I began a final look at the crafts categories. Today, a look at the four remaining fields: Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design and Best Film Editing.
BEST ART DIRECTION
The precursors of the BFCA, BAFTA and Art Directors Guild have been fairly consistent in citing four titles in this category. Last year’s winner, Robert Stromberg, seems poised to dip again for creation of a 3D world on Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland.” Eve Stewart, on the other hand, will likely be returning to the fold after an 11 year absence for “The King’s Speech.”
Guy Hendrix Dyas and Jess Gonchor also have got all necessary precursors, and have fashioned surefire Best Picture nominees, in “Inception” and “True Grit” respectively. It is true that they have had difficulty being nominated in the past but Gonchor has also never had such an Oscar-friendly opportunity, whereas the impressive, integral-to-the-story nature of Dyas’s work has been especially embraced by the precursors.
Back during the pre-holiday build of Tech Support Interviews with the below-the-line talent of Joel and Ethan Coen’s “True Grit,” you’ll recall my conversation with Mary Zophres on the costumes of the film. Today we’ve got a nifty featurette for you built around the threads of the film. It makes for a nice reminder that, one week from today, the Costume Designers Guild will announce it’s nominees:
In lieu of a typical entry in our Tech Support interview series (which kicked off last week), and on the heels of Friday’s sit-down chat with the Coen brothers, we’re kicking off the week of “True Grit” (opening December 22) with a series of five audio chats with the film’s below-the-line personnel, all at the top of their game on this very traditional but detailed western.
We’ll have sound mixer Skip Lievsay tomorrow, cinematographer Roger Deakins Wednesday, and production designer Jess Gonchor Friday. Each piece will lead off with a little bit of the score from Carter Burwell, who we’ll be featuring Thursday.
Today, however, we begin with costume designer Mary Zophres. Zophres has been with the Coens for 14 years, going back to “Fargo” in 1996. We first spoke (as I did with most of these folks) last year regarding “A Serious Man,” but this time around we had even more to talk about given the period nature of the film.
I’ve seen the Coen brothers’ “True Grit” twice now, and it’s not because the film is some “Inception”-like, mind-bending narrative maze. Quite the opposite, actually. I saddled up to it a second time yesterday morning because I wasn’t quite anticipating what I got the first time around and I wanted to consider it further knowing what it was.
You see, this isn’t really “a Coen brothers film” to me. Outside of an opening act bathed in their usual trappings, the film feels almost anonymous, lacking the fingerprint stirringly present in each and every one of their efforts. And it’s all very much by design, by the way.
“True Grit,” in its second screen iteration, is a classic western cut from traditional cloth. With its wide vistas, simple narrative and focus on character dynamics (as well as a handful of unrefined horse-back riding effects shots), it’s fair to say it bears more of a resemblance to the work of Anthony Mann, John Ford and Budd Boetticher than it does that of the Coens. The film isn’t focused on being as tight and complete as most of their films, and indeed, inchoate was very much a goal here.
Glitz and glamor. Period prestige. Newbie talent and old favorites. How is the race for Best Costume Design shaping up this year?
In my opinion, Jenny Beavan is leading the way at this point in time. Beavan earned six nominations in the 1980s and 1990s for her work on Merchant-Ivory films, winning for “A Room With a View.” But after “Anna and the King” and “Gosford Park,” she has been out of the running for almost a decade. That said, there must have been occasions (notably “Sherlock Holmes” last year) where she must have been very close. This year, she designed the threads for leading contender “The King’s Speech.” Recreating British royalty of the 1930s seems almost certain to result in Beavan’s return to the final five.
Another eight-time nominee (albeit one with two wins) is Colleen Atwood. Atwood again teams up with director Tim Burton this year on “Alice in Wonderland.” The work was crazy fantasy. The branch doesn’t always go for that but they do frequently go for Atwood. That fact, combined with the film’s massive box office haul, leads me to believe Ms. Atwood is looking at nod #9 this year.
Costume design in many ways represents much about the Oscars: glitz, glamor, beauty. But obviously threads do much more than make movie stars look attractive. They build character, set mood, define period and serve as a defining design aspect of a film.
Like art direction, the nominees for here overwhelmingly fall into one of two categories: period or fantasy. Indeed, when two contemporary films (“The Queen” and “The Devil Wears Prada”) were nominated in 2006, it was a rare occasion.
It’s not an exact science, but while a fantasy film is almost always nominated every year, there is usually only one as four films tend to be period. It also should be noted that recent winners in the category have all highlighted British or French royalty and high society.
Being a Best Picture contender does not hurt with this branch (same with any), but the branch also does a great deal of thinking for itself. Last year, for instance, both “Bright Star” and “Coco Before Chanel” managed nominations here, the only ones for their respective films. In the last four years, four other films (“Curse of the Golden Flower,” “Marie Antoinette,” “Across the Universe” and “Australia”) have also managed the feat, rare for crafts categories.
The Coen brothers’ latest film “A Serious Man” opens with a quote from French Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhaki (better known as Rashi): “Accept with simplicity everything that happens to you.”
It’s obviously quite applicable to the themes of fatalism and inevitability strewn throughout the film. But that word, “simple,” also comes up over and over again when discussing below-the-line elements with the directors’ collaborators.
Jess Gonchor is the newest craftsman to join the Coens’ party, having first jumped on board with 2007’s “No Country for Old Men.” When the sibling directors got a look at “Capote” two years earlier, they were quite taken by the stark, understated look of the production design and wanted to meet with Gonchor about potentially designing their Cormac McCarthy adaptation.
“I guess I just talked about it intelligently enough,” Gonchor remembers, with an air of humility. “We were on the same page never having met each other. And also, I come from making movies that are low budget if any budget. You can do anything with money.”