OVP: Best Costume (2012)
The Nominees Were...
Jacqueline Durran, Anna Karenina
Paco Delgado, Les Miserables
My Thoughts: Yeah I couldn't resist-how often do you have two Oscar-winning actresses playing the same character in the same year and yes, nominated in the same category. It should be noted that I also put five of the leading actresses in the respective films in the photos on purpose as well, as Best Costume this year seems to focus primarily on the women in their films, as we got a disproportionate amount of ball gowns to grade.
So it makes sense to head into the world of the Evil Queens first, as they draw an instant line to each other, even with them both in very different "Far, Far Aways." Of the two, Theron's work was considered far superior by critics, and it's quite easy to see why that is. The film took on a more action adventure-y, darker tone (which seems to be en vogue with fairy tales recently), and Mirror Mirror seemed to plop out of the Disney basket of tricks for films.
However, if we're going just based on costumes, I'm going to make the unpopular decision to side against Theron and Atwood's designs in favor of Ishioka's much more whimsical fun. Atwood knows how to dress a queen, and the designs being worn by Theron are beautiful and full of vanity, but the rest of the film falls short in my opinion-there isn't much personality in the rest of the wardrobe-it's as if Atwood wanted to spend her entire clothes budget on Theron, which is understandable but not quite the goal of a costume designer of all of the characters in a film.
The late Ishioka, however, finds fun in all of her characters, though again, we're spoiling the queen with an abudance of birthday-cake covered pastels. The greatness is in the way that all of the wardrobes, with the exception of Snow White's, cower to the Queen-look at how radiantly Roberts character throws on crimsons and salmons, all-the-while knowing that it has no match for Snow White's singular yellow hood or blue-and-orange (LOVE that color combination) dress toward the end.
The other three films don't feature a queen, but one does have a number of princesses, in the home of Anna Karenina. Keira Knightley has become a massive good luck charm in this category, picking up a pair of trophies for her films, as well as another pair of nominations (and this without a single nomination for the Pirates movies here or A Dangerous Method). Clearly, dressing Keira for a part is a good way to get in with Oscar, and Jacqueline Durran, who gave us that iconic green dress in Atonement, knows her measurements by heart after three Wright/Knightley collaborations. Here she gives us some epic costuming-in a film consumed by decadence and fateful decisions, we get to see a group of characters constantly trying to one-up each other, to the point where they are decked in mountains of gowns. It would be overkill if it weren't all so damned beautiful-look at the gorgeous lavenders and burgundies that Knightley is covered in and not be amazed. Honestly, there really was hardly need for sound in what was a strong film; you take away all of the dialogue and you have the best issue of Vogue ever written. In a good way.
Lincoln is one of the few films in the lineup that actually has a predominantly male cast to deck in period costuming (only Sally Field and Gloria Reuben have significant female roles). Still, there's more to life than elegant ball gowns, and Lincoln does do a fine job with period suits and cuts, though I found that Lee Pace's oversized coat and loose bow tie were one of the few male character decisions that really stuck out to me as clever. Field's ball gown, covered in what appears to be off-white roses, is clearly borrowing from the most famous photograph of Mary Todd, though if Johnston was going for authenticity, the sleeves weren't that large and the cut was a bit lower, making the dress unflattering in the film in a way that it never was in real life. This film, unlike Anna, didn't wow me in the same way with its abundance of period garb, even if it was true to its time.
The final film is Les Miserables, which generally would have been a major threat in this category (period piece, four major female characters, and a Best Picture nomination), but for some reason it got fairly lost in the shuffle (likely due to the Anna juggernaut) and never felt like the second place it probably was. The film's makeup we've already discussed as being something of a disappointment, and while there certainly is nothing wrong with this movie's Costuming (the dresses match the landscape-relatively washed out but still with some sense of color at one time), the movie's costumes don't have the "cost" consistency that they should. Look at Samantha Barks, who is largely living in the streets at this point, and yet has perfectly constructed couture (it's ragged, but wouldn't she have torn that dress in an unattractive direction at some point after wearing it so long and singing so often in the rain)? The best looks are actually on the men here-Eddie Redmayne's stuffed coat and in particular Aaron Tveit's rebellious red, with the shirt unbuttoned, adding a bad-boy aspect to his character that the squeaky clean Tveit probably couldn't muster on his own. However, these great outfits don't cohesively make a picture like Mirror Mirror and Anna Karenina, which is probably why this never made a huge indentation here.
So it makes sense to head into the world of the Evil Queens first, as they draw an instant line to each other, even with them both in very different "Far, Far Aways." Of the two, Theron's work was considered far superior by critics, and it's quite easy to see why that is. The film took on a more action adventure-y, darker tone (which seems to be en vogue with fairy tales recently), and Mirror Mirror seemed to plop out of the Disney basket of tricks for films.
However, if we're going just based on costumes, I'm going to make the unpopular decision to side against Theron and Atwood's designs in favor of Ishioka's much more whimsical fun. Atwood knows how to dress a queen, and the designs being worn by Theron are beautiful and full of vanity, but the rest of the film falls short in my opinion-there isn't much personality in the rest of the wardrobe-it's as if Atwood wanted to spend her entire clothes budget on Theron, which is understandable but not quite the goal of a costume designer of all of the characters in a film.
The late Ishioka, however, finds fun in all of her characters, though again, we're spoiling the queen with an abudance of birthday-cake covered pastels. The greatness is in the way that all of the wardrobes, with the exception of Snow White's, cower to the Queen-look at how radiantly Roberts character throws on crimsons and salmons, all-the-while knowing that it has no match for Snow White's singular yellow hood or blue-and-orange (LOVE that color combination) dress toward the end.
The other three films don't feature a queen, but one does have a number of princesses, in the home of Anna Karenina. Keira Knightley has become a massive good luck charm in this category, picking up a pair of trophies for her films, as well as another pair of nominations (and this without a single nomination for the Pirates movies here or A Dangerous Method). Clearly, dressing Keira for a part is a good way to get in with Oscar, and Jacqueline Durran, who gave us that iconic green dress in Atonement, knows her measurements by heart after three Wright/Knightley collaborations. Here she gives us some epic costuming-in a film consumed by decadence and fateful decisions, we get to see a group of characters constantly trying to one-up each other, to the point where they are decked in mountains of gowns. It would be overkill if it weren't all so damned beautiful-look at the gorgeous lavenders and burgundies that Knightley is covered in and not be amazed. Honestly, there really was hardly need for sound in what was a strong film; you take away all of the dialogue and you have the best issue of Vogue ever written. In a good way.
Lincoln is one of the few films in the lineup that actually has a predominantly male cast to deck in period costuming (only Sally Field and Gloria Reuben have significant female roles). Still, there's more to life than elegant ball gowns, and Lincoln does do a fine job with period suits and cuts, though I found that Lee Pace's oversized coat and loose bow tie were one of the few male character decisions that really stuck out to me as clever. Field's ball gown, covered in what appears to be off-white roses, is clearly borrowing from the most famous photograph of Mary Todd, though if Johnston was going for authenticity, the sleeves weren't that large and the cut was a bit lower, making the dress unflattering in the film in a way that it never was in real life. This film, unlike Anna, didn't wow me in the same way with its abundance of period garb, even if it was true to its time.
The final film is Les Miserables, which generally would have been a major threat in this category (period piece, four major female characters, and a Best Picture nomination), but for some reason it got fairly lost in the shuffle (likely due to the Anna juggernaut) and never felt like the second place it probably was. The film's makeup we've already discussed as being something of a disappointment, and while there certainly is nothing wrong with this movie's Costuming (the dresses match the landscape-relatively washed out but still with some sense of color at one time), the movie's costumes don't have the "cost" consistency that they should. Look at Samantha Barks, who is largely living in the streets at this point, and yet has perfectly constructed couture (it's ragged, but wouldn't she have torn that dress in an unattractive direction at some point after wearing it so long and singing so often in the rain)? The best looks are actually on the men here-Eddie Redmayne's stuffed coat and in particular Aaron Tveit's rebellious red, with the shirt unbuttoned, adding a bad-boy aspect to his character that the squeaky clean Tveit probably couldn't muster on his own. However, these great outfits don't cohesively make a picture like Mirror Mirror and Anna Karenina, which is probably why this never made a huge indentation here.
Other Precursor Contenders: The Costume Designers Guild separates its nominees into Contemporary, Fantasy, and Period, the latter two taking almost every slot at the Oscars. With period, Durran was victorious, with Delgado and Johnston being joined by the 1970's duds of Argo (a surprisingly modern choice here) and the sharp colors of Moonrise Kingdom. For Fantasy, both Snow Whites were included (with Ishioka victorious), with the decadent wares of the Capitol in The Hunger Games, the Middle Earth garments of The Hobbit and the reborn characters of Cloud Atlas joining them. Finally, with no Oscar nominees to take the prize, James Bond and his glamorous female companions in Skyfall bested Zero Dark Thirty (huh?), Beasts of the Southern Wild, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, and Silver Linings Playbook (huh again?). The BAFTA's didn't have room for Mirror Mirror, instead favoring the more local Great Expectations (Anna was of course the winner).
Films I Would Have Nominated: In sixth place for the category, my gut is that it was Sharen Davis. Davis, if you may recall, was accidentally "announced" by the Academy leading up the nominations in what some claimed was a slip, but in fact she didn't receive a nomination at all, which is a pity, as the wares in Django had incredible personality and merited inclusion. If Davis wasn't sixth place, something tells me it was Julie Weiss in Hitchcock, though I wouldn't have graded her above any of the five actual nominees (Davis would hit third).
Oscar's Choice: After two misses, Jacqueline Durran finally struck gold with her costuming opus Anna Karenina.
My Choice: Durran is such an easy choice here, it's kind of difficult to comprehend second place, though I am going to go with Ishioka, Delgado, Atwood, and Johnston at the end. Overall, not a truly bad nominee in the bunch, though Durran is the only one hitting a grand slam.
Those are my thoughts-let's here yours. Like Visual Effects, this category seemed like a done deal for both AMPAS and myself, but did anyone out there favor someone over Durran, or is it all just a race for second? Did you feel bad for Davis when she learned that the "leak" was fake, and did you think she should be included? And which Snow White designs were your favorite? Sound off in the comments!
Also in 2012: Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Animated Short, Live Action Short, Previously in 2012
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