In Contention

Tag: Tariq Anwar

  • OSCAR GUIDE: Best Film Editing

    I’m afraid you’ll find that I’m having trouble getting all that excited about this year’s race for Best Film Editing. How can I when the absolute best editing job of the year (from a true master, no less) was shunned altogether, while a cruel joke was played in the form of “Inception” editor Lee Smith getting the shaft, too.

    The below is a decent set of contenders with an array of virtues. It’s just a shame that the editor’s branch is so slavishly devoted to Best Picture frontrunners, especially when truly exceptional work that doesn’t necessarily find itself dovetailing with Oscar bait is ignored each and every year. Nevertheless, the statistic remains: in 30 years, no film not nominated here has gone on to win Best Picture.

    The nominees are:

    “Black Swan” (Andrew Weisblum)
    “The Fighter” (Pamela Martin)
    “The King’s Speech” (Tariq Anwar)
    “127 Hours” (Jon Harris)
    “The Social Network” (Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter)

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  • TECH SUPPORT: Final analysis, part two

    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.

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  • TECH SUPPORT INTERVIEW: The Crafts of ‘Revolutionary Road’

    Tech Support at In ContentionIn less than a decade, filmmaker Sam Mendes has established himself as one of the most intriguing directors of his generation. “Revolutionary Road,” his fourth film to date, hit theaters over last weekend. Regardless of its Oscar fate in the writing, directing and acting categories, the film seems poised to be a major player in the craft arenas, our central focus here at Tech Support.

    I recently spoke to cinematographer Roger Deakins, production designer Kristi Zea, costume designer Albert Wolsky and film editor Tariq Anwar about their work on the film, a 1950s period piece featuring the on-screen reunion of Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. All four artists are veterans, having had long (Deakins is the youngest at age 59) and successful (each has been nominated for an Oscar at least once, with Wolsky earning two statues to date) careers.

    Each of the respective department heads commented on Mendes’s tendency to balance a well-defined vision with the necessity of cooperative discovery on the set. Deakins previously worked with Mendes on “Jarhead,” stepping into the shoes of late legend Conrad L. Hall, who lensed Mendes’s first two efforts. “He’s not happy until he gets what he wants,” he says of the director, “but he has an enormous respect for the collaborative process.”

    Zea, meanwhile, says Mendes has a great “willingness and affection for collaboration, but has a precise vision and, because of that, the movie, in its entirety, is very controlled.”

    Anwar received an Oscar nomination in 1999 for his work on Mendes’s “American Beauty.” This year marks their own reunion. He agrees with Zea’s reflection of the director’s balance of his own preparation and the input of his collaborators.

    “In spite of being so sure-footed in his approach to film production, there is never a feeling of being excluded from the creative process,” he says, “or a sense that his material is too precious not to be rearranged or even deleted.”

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