In Contention

Tag: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

  • TECH SUPPORT: Final predictions

    Tech Support at In ContentionAfter six months of Tech Support previews and interviews, the films have arrived, the nominations have been announced and the guilds, the critics and BAFTA have all announced their preferences.  Today we take a final look at the races before the envelopes are opened on Sunday.

    BEST ART DIRECTION
    After guild and BAFTA wins, I would say “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” has cemented its frontrunner status in this category. Spanning decades of the 20th Century, Donald Graham Burt’s production design was impossible not to notice and gave us gorgeous backdrops for its character’s predicaments.

    The other nominees all have the odds stacked against them, whether similar work has been seen before (Michael Carlin’s “The Duchess” and Kristi Zea’s “Revolutionary Road”), is just not showy enough (Nathan Crowley’s “The Dark Knight”) or the nominee is otherwise along for the ride (James Murakami’s “Changeling”).

    Will win: “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
    Could win: “The Duchess”
    Should win: “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”

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  • Not so very shocking

    Dave Karger has posted a list of ten potential “shockers” that he thinks could (however faintly) foreseeably shake things up on Oscar night.

    Many of them have been raised before, and are suitably fanciful. Though I’ve said before that there is a logical case to be made for Melissa Leo leapfrogging both Kate Winslet and Meryl Streep to the Best Actress award, it’s safe to say that the odds are firmly stacked against that happening. Meanwhile, while the “‘Benjamin Button’ goes 0-for-13” theory has been floated around before, it’s difficult to see how it could lose all three of the technical awards in which it is deemed a lock. So those outcomes would certainly count as shocking in some measure.

    Some of Karger’s ideas would definitely be upsets, but not necessarily “shockers.” As I’ve written before, I’m joining him on the same limb in predicting a Best Foreign Language Film win for “The Class” — but that category is so prone to upsets, it’s almost more of a surprise when things go according to plan. And I know I’m not the only one seriously considering Viola Davis in the frequently topsy-turvy Best Supporting Actress category — she’s not the favourite, sure, but it wouldn’t be a jaw-dropper of Marcia Gay Harden proportions.

    Some of Karger’s supposed “shockers,” however, wouldn’t even count as upsets to me. He lists both the possibility of “Slumdog Millionaire” making a clean sweep of nine awards, and “The Dark Knight” getting only one statuette — which are really co-dependent on each other, since the sound awards, as far as I can see, represent “TDK’s” only other shots at victory. (Cinematography, I think, sailed with the ASC.) And since “Slumdog” just nabbed the CAS award, would that be so very unexpected?

    The one on Karger’s list that really surprised me, however, was a Best Actor win for Mickey Rourke. It’s well-known by now that this is a neck-and-neck battle to the finish between two beloved performances that have evenly split the major Oscar precursors. In the latest Gurus of Gold chart, Penn leads Rourke by a single vote. I think we can honestly say by now that either result would not be a surprise at all. Now Frank Langella … that would be a shocker.

  • Who almost starred in the season’s Oscar nominated films?

    Linus Roache in Batman BeginsThe folks at notstarring.com have put together a list of the year’s Oscar contenders and the stars who turned down opportunities to star in them.  There is, of course, Nicolas Cage in “The Wrestler” and Russell Crowe in “Australia.”  Heath Ledger is also mentioned for the latter (somehow I didn’t know that).

    “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” given its lengthy gestation period in Hollywood, had a slew of names attached: Steven Spielberg, Spike Jonze and Ron Howard in the director’s chair, Tom Cruise, John Travolta and Rachel Weisz in front of the camera.

    Those of us who follow Batman casting decisions closely know all the names that pop up in the “Dark Knight” section, though somehow I never realized Linus Roache was going to reprise his role of Thomas Wayne in flashbacks.  I feel like that would have worked and been a nice element to tie the film more closely to “Batman Begins.”

    There are plenty others to read through, including Matt Damon and Chris Evans being considered for the roles that eventually went to Josh Brolin and James Franco respectively in “Milk.”  There’s even a beefy section on “Wanted.”  Go have a look.

  • TECH SUPPORT INTERVIEW: The crafts of ‘Benjamin Button,’ part two

    Tech Support at In ContentionYesterday was the first of our two-part look at the crafts artists behind “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” Today, I feature conversations with cinematographer Claudio Miranda, visual effects supervisor Eric Barba and film editors Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall, who have all received Oscar nominations for their work on the film.

    When asked about the enormity of the project, Wall rhetorically asks, “‘How do you eat a whale? One bite at a time.  The metaphor we always used is that we always look not at the peak but our feet. It was a two-year process and you have to be sure of every decision you make every day because it affects the end project.”

    Miranda admits he was intimidated by the task of breaking down the script. “I had to just try to imagine how this would be realized on screen,” he says, “going through each task at hand, devising a plan for all the different looks, especially with some things on blue screen.”

    Barba was especially scared that the main character would have to be created by visual effects for the first 50 minutes. “We had to make it work or else it wouldn’t be believable,” he says. “I had to think of the enormity of having to do what up until now hasn’t been done.”

    As regards the man at the helm, Baxter agrees with his colleagues who were featured yesterday that David Fincher is “extremely helpful and very very clear. He knows when to be loose and when to be a lot more specific. He’s got great intuition on what his crew needs from him.”

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  • THE LISTS: Top 10 pet peeves of the 2008-2009 Oscar season

    Rachel Getting Married

    The season is winding down this week.  The slow President’s Day holiday yesterday seemed to be more of a harbinger than a lull in the excitement.  This time next week, we’ll probably be over the fallout of the circuit and on to debating the contenders we’re likely to see a year from now.

    It’s a vicious, beautiful, sad, interesting circle.

    But before the 81st Annual Academy Awards telecast puts a bow on the festivities Sunday night, it seems a decent enough time to reflect.  And not to be too negative, but this became one of the most irritating seasons I’ve ever covered, both in the lack of excitement to the dichotomy that circumstance presented for me (given that my favorite film of the year has lead the field throughout).

    With that in mind, I fully expect this piece to grate the nerves of more than a few readers.  Then again, I’m sure plenty of these views are shared by a handful as well, but whatever the case, a list of pet peeves began to stack up early on in the season.  I thought it reasonable to collect them here, so feast your eyes (or roll them), this is what got under my skin this year.

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  • TECH SUPPORT INTERVIEW: The crafts of ‘Benjamin Button,’ part one

    Tech Support at In ContentionThirteen Oscar Nominations.

    Very few films in Academy history have achieved that status and, prior to this year, no film had secured that many nods since “Chicago” in 2002. But “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” has managed it this year, largely because of the incredible work going on below-the-line.

    Last week, I featured composer Alexandre Desplat and his role as film music composer on David Fincher’s film. In the past week, I have spoken to cinematographer Claudio Miranda, production designer Don Burt, set decorator Victor Zolfo, costume designer Jacqueline West, film editors Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall, visual effects supervisor Eric Barba and makeup artist Greg Cannom, a healthy lot, all of them cited for their work on the film by the Academy this year.

    Today, I concentrate on my talks with Burt, Zolfo, West and Cannom. Tomorrow, Miranda, Baxter, Wall and Barba will be featured.

    “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” is, without any doubt, a film extraordinarily reliant on visual attributes to be effectively told. The crafts artists acknowledge the intimidation poised by such a project.

    “‘Hmmmm…’ is what went through my mind when David [Fincher] first asked me to do this,” says Burt. “How in the world are we going to do this? Then I started going through the different periods in my mind and started building a plan, thinking maybe – just maybe – we could pull it off.”

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  • ‘Button,’ ‘Knight,’ ‘Slumdog’ take ADG Awards

    The Art Directors Guild didn’t really veer from the expected last night, handing their awards to “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” in the period category, “The Dark Knight” in fantasy and “Slumdog Millionaire” in contemporary.

    And on we go. This pretty much affirms “Button’s” grip on this category for the Oscars. The real question, however, remains: how on earth does Nathan Crowley’s work in “The Dark Knight” qualify as “fantasy” design?

  • Top lensers praise ‘Slumdog’ cinematography

    Slumdog MillionaireOver at Variety, Robert Koehler has put together a survey of sorts of some of the industry’s top DPs to gauge their reaction to the year’s work behind the camera.  It could be a nice hint toward what the ASC will chose as the year’s best lensing, and judging by Koehler’s results, Anthony Dod Mantle’s “cherry on top of a career” efforts on “Slumdog Millionaire” gets the gold star.

    It’s really quite an achievement.  Even though I’ve long been on the record in favor of Wally Pfister’s innovations on “The Dark Knight,” I have to say Dogme 95 veteran Mantle broke unexpected new ground in Danny Boyle’s film.  In lieu of an Oscar win for the highly deserving Pfister, I would be very content to hear Mantle’s name called.

    Here’s a taste from Koehler’s survey:

    Mantle’s “Slumdog” was “the biggest technical achievement of the year,” says [Roger] Deakins, “because even though part of the film was shot on a 2K digital camera and part on 35mm, my eye could never detect the difference…it was quite a feat to maintain a consistent quality of image throughout.”

    Adds [Janusz] Kaminski: “I like cinematography that feels alive, and Anthony’s work felt that way for me. The shooting got the sense of the Mumbai streets, the reality of the gameshow, the nostalgia of the romance.”

    Goldblatt agrees, noting that “Slumdog” was “a very adventurous mix of media, fun and beautiful and very courageous. I’ve worked in India as a photographer and know how tough it is there, so I was quite impressed with the results.”

    McGarvey “loved how Anthony thought about how the various formats he shot in would serve each milieu in the story, so that the images never patronized the characters. It was such a ride.”

    Koehler then goes on to say Claudio Miranda’s gorgeous work on “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” was close behind in his unscientific poll, followed by Pfister, who McGarvey says “can work on the grandest of scales but can also be terrestrial, and is able to provide an anchor to fantastical situations — a talent he shares with (director) Chris Nolan.”

    I was happy to see Maryse Alberti (“The Wrestler”) and Hoyte Van Hoytema (“Let the Right One In”) also mentioned, but hey, you’ve heard that kind of stuff out of me in this space over and over again. It’s nice to see the trades pumping up their crafts coverage, since no one seems to be willing to give them the proper attention this time of year beyond the expected outlets (American Cinematographer, Below the Line, etc.).

    For a crash course in the year’s best cinematography, have a look at our Top 10 Shots of 2008 column from last month, laced with insights from an esteemed crop of lensers.

  • OFF THE CARPET: Come together, right now

    Dev Patel in Slumdog MillionaireAnyone ready for it to all be over?

    For me, it hasn’t been a painful Oscar season, despite what I may have let on throughout the last five months. After all, my favorite film is and has been primed for the big win since November (well, since we said it was in November…everyone soon followed suit). And for that, I can’t be agitated, can I?

    Obviously I can’t speak for the troops over on Melrose. “Slumdog Millionaire” has to be the worst thing to happen to a lot of those hard-working folks. Blood must be boiling.

    And who can blame them?  It really just sucks when the perfect storm conspires against you. Old timey Hollywood mixed with state of the art digital artistry just hasn’t been enough for industry filmgoers this season. The economy, the new president, the zeitgeist, it was all too much. Fox Searchlight finally moved out of its perennial role as underdog and became the schoolyard bully.

    Of course, it would be nothing more than an upset if “Slumdog” failed to take the prize at this point. And really, besides a scattered few, who’s predicting that with any confidence?

    (more…)

  • ‘Slumdog’ takes 7 BAFTAs as Rourke, Winslet triumph

    For an awards body renowned for its frequently contrarian bent, the most surprising thing about this year’s BAFTA awards was, well, just how unsurprising they were.

    As the evening unfolded, not a single result emerged that could be classified as a major upset, even if the winners (“Man on Wire” helmer James Marsh in particular) occasionally looked more astonished than anyone else. Yours truly got 16 out of 21 predictions correct (a personal BAFTA record, I think) and even then, most of those errors came from trying to second-guess their usually far less predictable tech categories, and slightly underestimating the across-the-board love for “Slumdog Millionaire.”

    For love it they did, awarding it 7 trophies in the biggest BAFTA sweep since “Schindler’s List” matched that tally fifteen years ago. There really is very little to say about the “Slumdog” phenomenon at this stage, other than to admire the grace, modesty and genuinely endearing excitement that Danny Boyle, et al, still manage to convey at these ceremonies, all the while concealing the fact that they can no longer be surprised when their names are called.

    The other major story of the ceremony, however, was Mickey Rourke, whose outrageous but nonetheless slyly self-deprecating speech was the evening’s clear highlight. (His hilarious shout-out to his agent for “telling me who to fuck” is surely a soundbite for the ages.) I think it was clear to anyone in the UK that Rourke would win this – “The Wrestler” appears to be attaining cult status here, while the buzz around “Milk” has been eerily quiet – but it does nevertheless prove that he’s still very much in the Oscar race. Taking his wonderful performance aside for a moment, Rourke has now twice proved that he makes for great TV – and assuming they can handle some salty language, his knockout speech tonight may well win over some undecided AMPAS voters.

    (More thoughts, and a full list of winners, after the cut.)

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  • WEEKLY WRAP: ‘Slumdog’ stays happy, Bale gets angry

    A slower news week, this, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t find plenty to discuss. Here’s what was on our (and your) minds:

    • In the week’s biggest precursor news, Danny Boyle won the Directors’ Guild Award. Hollywood is still reeling from the shock.

    • Oh, and “Slumdog Millionaire” nabbed the USC Scripter award too.

    • Speaking of scripters, we say “WALL-E” is taking Best Original Screenplay. Here’s why.

    • We take a detailed look at this year’s Oscar-nominated shorts.

    • The Santa Barbara fest wrapped, with a tribute to Mickey Rourke among the highlights.

    • Two London critics’ groups acquitted themselves well this week, giving long-overdue Best Picture honours to “Hunger” and “The Wrestler” respectively.

    • Does “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” have a prayer in the Best Picture race after all?

    • Sticking with “Button,” Tech Support interviewed composer extraordinaire Alexandre Desplat.

    • We finally laid eyes on an Oscar season institution: the Vanity Fair Hollywood issue.

    • We contemplated what constitutes a genuine ‘upset’ in the Best Picture category.

    • BAFTA is taking a long hard look at their own voting process.

    • Away from the awards beat, you probably didn’t know this, but Christian Bale said some bad words.

  • “It’s a shame ‘Slumdog’ is going to come in second.”

    Kate Winslet in The ReaderYep, those would be Harvey Weinstein’s words right there. EW has an interesting piece positing the theory that “The Reader” is really the film most likely to spoil the party for “Slumdog” on Oscar night — even if the writers admit that it’s unlikely to happen. (I agree on both counts.)

    It’s a handy precis of the comeback narrative that Weinstein has forged this year — both for himself as a major Oscar campaigning force, and for the movie, which some months ago looked like an awards-season casualty after suffering tepid reviews and unwelcome behind-the-scenes controversy.

    How did he do it, given a campaigning budget that’s a mere fraction of the millions he spent back in the “Shakespeare in Love” days? The answer, the article says, lies in Weinstein’s self-professed new “low-key” strategy with an emphasis on simply screening the film, especially in certain well-targeted areas:

    Weinstein’s first salvo was to home in on the Academy’s aging Jewish population. Although he’s been trying to get all voters to see the movie, it’s no coincidence that he has screened The Reader at such Jewish cultural hot spots as the Skirball Center in Los Angeles and the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan, places where one is likely to find older voters with a deep connection to films about the Holocaust. ”When I went to a screening, I was one of about four people who didn’t have blue hair,” says one Academy member and former campaign engineer. ”And I was the only WASP.”

    Weinstein also invited Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel to The Reader‘s New York premiere, and courted an endorsement from the Anti-Defamation League, a group whose mission is to call attention to anti-Semitism … Weinstein says, ”It must have been the hand of Anthony Minghella and Sydney Pollack, because Elie Wiesel asked to see me after the screening and he hugged me and said how much he loved the movie.” (Wiesel, through his agent, declined to comment.)

    Ahem. While there may be a lot of people (Roger Ebert among them) protesting that “The Reader” isn’t a “Holocaust movie” — and beneath the surface, it isn’t really — it doesn’t appear that Weinstein has got that particular memo. The point is that he’s marketing it as a Holocaust movie, and it seems to be working.

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  • Predicting BAFTA, part one — the techs

    It’s no secret that the BAFTA awards, which unfold at London’s Royal Opera House on Sunday evening, can be one of the most contrarian and surprising events on the awards calendar – but nowhere are they more unpredictable, and occasionally inscrutable, than in their technical awards.

    Year in, year out, anybody trying to predict the BAFTAs is foiled in the tech categories, which they tend to spread far more generously than the American Academy, throwing up one (occasionally head-scratching) shocker after another. Who could foresee “Almost Famous” beating “Gladiator” to Best Sound, or “Vera Drake” getting the better of “The Aviator” in the Costume Design race?

    What few people realize is that, unlike at the Oscars, BAFTA’s tech categories (in addition to the directing and writing awards) are voted on by branch members only, rather than the entire membership – and peers can have a very different take from ours on their own craft. This makes predictions a rather thankless task, but I’m forging ahead anyway.

    (On a side note, it’s worth bearing in mind that they anticipated some tech upsets at last year’s Oscars, such the “The Bourne Ultimatum” for Best Sound and the jaw-dropping VFX win for “The Golden Compass.”)

    Best Cinematography
    “Changeling,” Tom Stern
    “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” Claudio Miranda
    “The Dark Knight,” Wally Pfister
    “The Reader,” Chris Menges and Roger Deakins
    “Slumdog Millionaire,” Anthony Dod Mantle

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  • TECH SUPPORT INTERVIEW: Alexandre Desplat

    Tech Support at In ContentionOver the last several years, Alexandre Desplat has gone from being a relatively unknown (in the United States anyway) French composer to emerging as one of the most acclaimed and sought after commodities in the business today.  Receiving his second Oscar nomination this year for “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” Desplat has continued to cement his place at the top of his field.

    Despite the acclaim, however, he remains very close to his home in European cinema.  “I have tried to keep as much of a relationship as I can with my French directors,” he says.  “I always try to go to do two or three French movies a year.  That’s a lot but I don’t want to lose that.”

    While there are certainly exceptions, there is definitely a difference in the manner that French and American filmmakers approach their work, Desplat says.  Being forced to think differently because of different filmmaking styles helps his creative resources.  “It feeds me,” he says.

    David Fincher’s “Button” posed unique challenges for Desplat.  “It doesn’t have a linear storytelling,” he says.  “It’s a complex puzzle and I’d ask myself, ‘How do you deal with this in music and deal with the main character when he is a passive character?’  It’s not easy to capture in music.”

    Describing the film as a “sound epic,” Desplat notes that the music had to be strong without being overly dramatic or imposing.  It was a crucial demand from Fincher that Desplat says he had to struggle with.

    The composer has worked with some of the world’s top directors in recent years – Ang Lee, Stephen Frears, Jacques Audiard — but despite Fincher’s unique perspective in the wake of those talent helmers, Desplat says certain professional similarities smoothed the journey.

    “He has an amazing quality as a collaborator,” Desplat says. “He’s very demanding but so am I so that’s fine.  He’s very detailed but so am I, so that’s also fine.  He wants his people to bring their own world, talents and colors into the film.  I think that’s the sign of a great director.  All the great directors I’ve worked with know that it is crucial that your creative energy is opened and not just restrained.”

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  • Oscar might go for “Button”

    Cate Blanchett in The Curious Case of Benjamin ButtonThere is no good reason for me to think this, of course.  Call it a gut feeling, but I have a sneaking feeling the Academy might ignore “Slumdog Millionaire,” despite its countless awards, and go for homegrown studio product this year.  Let’s face it, the Academy has proven they march to their own drummer over and over again.

    “Slumdog” has already become a pop culture phenomenon around North America and Britain, making far more money than the filmmakers ever thought it would. Hell, before the festival season started the film was doomed, set for direct-to-DVD distribution.  Yes, Danny Boyle has won the DGA award, a solid predictor, but I’m not convinced.  Hollywood loves to congratulate itself, which we saw in 1997 with “Titanic” somehow winning a record 11 awards over the vastly superior “L.A. Confidential.”  David Fincher’s “Button” has been around for years, waiting for the right director, the right effects, the right time.

    So often in the past the Academy has gone for a film that is conservative and offends no one, ignoring the better work.”Driving Miss Daisy” over “Do the Right Thing” (which wasn’t even nominated), “Gandhi” over “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial,” “Oliver!” over “2001:A Space Odyssey.”  The list goes on and on.  “Button” is a handsomely mounted project, beautifully shot, meticulously crafted, with strong performances from the cast,and rock solid direction from Fincher.

    “Slumdog” may well prevail, but as a devil’s advocate, I am throwing it out there that “Button” could surprise, taking wins for both Best Picture and Best Director.  Am I crazy?

  • You’ve already seen it, but…

    …Jon Stewart really ripped into “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” the other night, as if that’s somehow novel at this stage.  Seriously — Wells, Defamer, Poland, Carr, the vitriol is tired and largely unfair.  The sad thing is, most of the sniping comes — shocker — free of any reasoned debate about WHY “Button” is problematic, a conversation I’d love to have if any of these schoolyard bullies would be willing.  Sadly, none of them seem to be, but it’s not Stewart’s job to be reasonable.  He’s a comedian, after all.

  • 2/5 Oscarweb Round-up

    New Boy• Patrick Goldstein, in a well-reasoned piece that even I — a dedicated Boss fan — can’t disagree with, says Bruce Springsteen “had to stoop to conquer” Sunday night. [The Big Picture]

    • Jeffrey Wells bizarrely reviews Best Live Action Short nominee “New Boy.”  Beware careless spoilers. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

    • Michael Cieply, reports on the on-going discussion of how to handle the Best Original Song performances, from a cost stand-point, of course. [The Carpetbagger]

    • David Carr, meanwhile, in addressing the Christian Bale situation, takes another swipe at “The Dark Knight.”  But he should really watch the film again and understand that the ending isn’t “unsatisfying,” but merely poorly integrated into the whole. [The Carpetbagger]

    • Speaking of Bale, Tom O’Neil wonders if the actor threw away his Oscar hopes for “Public Enemies” by shooting off at the mouth. [Gold Derby]

    • Dave Karger previews Saturday’s WGA awards.  “Milk” and “Slumdog” have it in the bag, right?  Anyone expecting an upset? [Entertainment Weekly]

    • Three weeks in the life of an Oscar ballot. [Little Gold Men]

    • David Fincher: “‘Benjamin Button’ was a semi-confection that became resonant.” [The Guardian]

    • Treading waters we were swimming through back when the film was set for a 2008 bow, Brad Brevet wonders if Stephen Frears’ “Chéri” is an Oscar contender.  Considering it’s Miramax’s best bet, then yeah, it probably is a contender. [Rope of Silicon]

  • 2/4 Oscarweb Round-up

    Angelina Jolie at the 72nd Annual Academy Awards• Patrick Goldstein reports on his self-moderated producers panel from last week’s Santa Barbara International Film Festival. [The Big Picture]

    • The Gurus o’ Gold pick their ones and twos. [Movie City News]

    • Angelina Jolie has, uh…misplaced her “Girl, Interrupted” Oscar. [Daily Telegraph]

    • Tom O’Neil, meanwhile, gives Meryl Streep shit for leaving hers in the bathroom back in 1980. [Gold Derby]

    • David Denby smacks “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” down for good measure. [The New Yorker]

    • Jeffrey Wells is amused. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

    • Mary McNamara talks to “five-time Oscar loser” Kate Winslet. [The Envelope]

    • Susan King does the same with first-time nominee Frank Langella. [The Envelope]

    • And speaking of Winslet, Tim Wilson writes up the box office symbiotism of her films across the pond. [The Guardian]