OVP: Best Art Direction (2010)
The Nominees Were...
Robert Stromberg and Karen O'Hara, Alice in Wonderland
Stuart Craig and Stephanie McMillan, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1
Guy Hendrix Dyas, Larry Dias, and Doug Mowat, Inception
Eve Stewart and Judy Farr, The King's Speech
Jess Gonchor and Nancy Haigh, True Grit
My Thoughts: We're at the last of the visual categories for the Oscars, and will soon be in the music and sound, but first we must dissect the castles, outhouses, flats, boardrooms, and mushrooms of the Art Direction category, and why don't we start out with the oddest of the bunch, True Grit?
I say oddest because I never 100% understand large, outdoor pictures getting nominated for Art Direction. I get that they will have to construct a bit of nature, and "less is more" and blah, blah, blah, but art and set design, whether it be digital or physically made, is about creating, and nature has already been created, and so the benefits that come with nature in Cinematography seem to lose a bit of steam when they hit the outdoors. The film does of course have the town to contend with, but aside from the overstuffed sleeping quarters of Rooster Cogburn, the outhouse, and the courtroom, all-in-all this is a pretty basic set, and not something that I'd consider at the top of my Art Directing reward list.
Going from sparse to overflowing is once again Alice, which you cannot quite say is lacking in the world of art direction, as we are barraged with brightly colored worlds from the imaginations of Burton, Stromberg, and O'Hara. What it is lacking is restraint. As was mentioned in the costumes and the visual effects, there is a glut of imagery coming so fast and hard at you that you don't really have time to process it. There are things to recognize here, of course: taken individually, the table of the Mad Hatter or the Red Queen's castle are both strewn with delights, but there comes a point where you just have too much. It doesn't give you time to really genuflect on what is happening on screen before you have to move onto something else (it's like cinematic ADD). This isn't entirely Stromberg and O'Hara's fault (it's more on Burton), but that doesn't mean that their madcap sets aren't contributing to the problem. The film has a lot of merit, and I definitely considered it for the top trophy, but when you're getting down to the very best, you get to nitpick, and so they don't quite make it to the top of the pedestal.
Inception, which returns to us once more, finally gets a category where you don't have to distinguish visual effects from the real, as we can encompass both here, and boy what a sight to behold this movie is. I adore the many nuances of the film-the way that the inception room, where all of this magic is happening, is a busy cluttered mess (would you be cleaning there, or would you be mining your dreams?). I love the way that each level of the inception has its own distinctive feel, always true to itself, but littered with little touches (don't you love the design of the chairs in the top picture?). The film takes precious care in alternating between the busy sets (the beautiful streets of Paris) and the more staid surrounding (the snow-capped final stage of the inception). It also helps quite a bit when the film actually makes the art direction a plot point, with Ellen Page's character essentially our on-screen art director, creating dreams for us to peruse. Overall, while I had problems with Inception's lack of focus and plot holes, I cannot say that I felt one smidge of regret for loving the set design.
Stuart Craig, who has been here before, was once again nominated for his work on the sets of Harry Potter, and as I've mentioned in the past, I have trouble separating whether I should recognize only the new or the entirety of the world of Hogwarts, for Craig has been nominated for these films before and not everything onscreen is unique to this picture. However, there's still much to marvel at here, including the expanded look into the Ministry of Magic, as well as a more intimate tour of the Weasley house. The thing that makes Craig's designs so incredible is the amount of detail and nuance he puts into making the books come alive. He doesn't just stop at the highlights or the things the camera is going to obviously notice, but instead litters the background with magic that you're only going to see for a second. He knows the difference between creating a set and a home that people will live in, and prefers the latter, which adds richness to the overall story.
Stewart and Farr also know how to do this, and the best part about The King's Speech set design is the apartment that we see Geoffrey Rush's Lionel Logue living in, and we get the great sight gag of the King of England in such a common and dusty surrounding. It's a great juxtaposition between the beautiful halls of Buckingham Palace and the homes of the Windsors. The film never quite leaps in the way that Anna Karenina did recently, where you are so impressed by the interaction with the lived-in sets that you forget you've seen English aristocracy and their beautiful homes a million times before, but it doesn't fall into the trap of being dull and lifeless with the sets either (like, say, W.E. a year later with the exact same surroundings). It's the sort of set that mandates an Oscar nomination, even if it probably didn't need one when you really think about it.
Going from sparse to overflowing is once again Alice, which you cannot quite say is lacking in the world of art direction, as we are barraged with brightly colored worlds from the imaginations of Burton, Stromberg, and O'Hara. What it is lacking is restraint. As was mentioned in the costumes and the visual effects, there is a glut of imagery coming so fast and hard at you that you don't really have time to process it. There are things to recognize here, of course: taken individually, the table of the Mad Hatter or the Red Queen's castle are both strewn with delights, but there comes a point where you just have too much. It doesn't give you time to really genuflect on what is happening on screen before you have to move onto something else (it's like cinematic ADD). This isn't entirely Stromberg and O'Hara's fault (it's more on Burton), but that doesn't mean that their madcap sets aren't contributing to the problem. The film has a lot of merit, and I definitely considered it for the top trophy, but when you're getting down to the very best, you get to nitpick, and so they don't quite make it to the top of the pedestal.
Inception, which returns to us once more, finally gets a category where you don't have to distinguish visual effects from the real, as we can encompass both here, and boy what a sight to behold this movie is. I adore the many nuances of the film-the way that the inception room, where all of this magic is happening, is a busy cluttered mess (would you be cleaning there, or would you be mining your dreams?). I love the way that each level of the inception has its own distinctive feel, always true to itself, but littered with little touches (don't you love the design of the chairs in the top picture?). The film takes precious care in alternating between the busy sets (the beautiful streets of Paris) and the more staid surrounding (the snow-capped final stage of the inception). It also helps quite a bit when the film actually makes the art direction a plot point, with Ellen Page's character essentially our on-screen art director, creating dreams for us to peruse. Overall, while I had problems with Inception's lack of focus and plot holes, I cannot say that I felt one smidge of regret for loving the set design.
Stuart Craig, who has been here before, was once again nominated for his work on the sets of Harry Potter, and as I've mentioned in the past, I have trouble separating whether I should recognize only the new or the entirety of the world of Hogwarts, for Craig has been nominated for these films before and not everything onscreen is unique to this picture. However, there's still much to marvel at here, including the expanded look into the Ministry of Magic, as well as a more intimate tour of the Weasley house. The thing that makes Craig's designs so incredible is the amount of detail and nuance he puts into making the books come alive. He doesn't just stop at the highlights or the things the camera is going to obviously notice, but instead litters the background with magic that you're only going to see for a second. He knows the difference between creating a set and a home that people will live in, and prefers the latter, which adds richness to the overall story.
Stewart and Farr also know how to do this, and the best part about The King's Speech set design is the apartment that we see Geoffrey Rush's Lionel Logue living in, and we get the great sight gag of the King of England in such a common and dusty surrounding. It's a great juxtaposition between the beautiful halls of Buckingham Palace and the homes of the Windsors. The film never quite leaps in the way that Anna Karenina did recently, where you are so impressed by the interaction with the lived-in sets that you forget you've seen English aristocracy and their beautiful homes a million times before, but it doesn't fall into the trap of being dull and lifeless with the sets either (like, say, W.E. a year later with the exact same surroundings). It's the sort of set that mandates an Oscar nomination, even if it probably didn't need one when you really think about it.
Other Precursor Contenders: The Art Directors Guild, much like the Costumers, separates their categories into Period, Fantasy, and Contemporary, so all five of the eventual Oscar nominees made it in with fifteen nominations to give away. The Period category rewarded The King's Speech as expected, with room for Robin Hood, Get Low, Shutter Island, and True Grit amongst the nominees. With no contemporary films to select from Oscar's nominations, the ADG went with the Best Picture nominee Black Swan as its top draw, giving The Fighter, The Town, 127 Hours, and The Social Network nominations. And finally, for Fantasy, in what may have been a bit of an upset, Inception actually beat Alice in Wonderland and Harry Potter, with TRON: Legacy and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader amongst the also-rans. The BAFTA's also went with Inception as their top choice, and skipped Harry Potter in favor of Black Swan. Though Black Swan seems to have been the obvious sixth place, my gut is telling me that it's too modern to have made it, and I am guessing that Shutter Island and the legendary Dante Ferretti was the just miss.
Films I Would Have Nominated: Speaking of Ferretti, and Shutter Island in general, why was there absolutely no love for Marty's Departed follow-up? I know that he had just cruised through the Oscars, but it's a far better film than Hugo the next year and I adored the colors, the way the movie walks the line between extremely real and just a hint of out-of-place with the sets, much the same way the characters in the film approach reality.
Oscar's Choice: Oscar went with the excesses of Alice over the proper decorum of The King's Speech and the mind-bending twists of Inception.
My Choice: A fairly strong endorsement from me goes to Inception, which doesn't have the detriments of "too much" (silver medalist Alice) and "been there" (bronze medalist Harry Potter). Finishing out the list would be The King's Speech and finally True Grit.
We are now done with our visual categories, so where are you at? Did you agree with Alice or were you like me and wanted Inception? Where do you think the best place to put Shutter Island into the 2010 Academy Awards would have been, if at all? And can someone explain to me the reasons for True Grit's inclusion here?
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