OVP: Best Sound Editing (2012)
The Nominees Were...
Wyle Stateman, Django Unchained
Eugene Gearty and Philip Stockton, Life of Pi
Per Hallberg and Karen Baker Landers, Skyfall
Paul N.J. Ottosson, Zero Dark Thirty
The boom, pow, hiss, and snap of the movies belongs to the Sound Editors, and so it always seems appropriate that this category falls to a more technical field, typically leaving out the Best Picture nominees in favor of the train chases, plane crashes, and screeching brakes that fill late summer action films.
Except, for some reason, in 2012, when four of the five nominees were Best Picture nominees, and the fifth was definitely in contention for a nomination (can you imagine if the race was ten-wide how much push there would have been for Skyfall to make it into Oscar's good graces?). Was this a case of particularly sound-driven Best Picture nominees, or was it a case of laziness on the part of the branch. Let's find out!
The first nominated film we'll encounter is Skyfall, since I've already talked about it, and because it's the only one of the five films to fit into this category in a traditional way. Not that James Bond fits into Oscar well (AMPAS has been notoriously stingy with England's Deadliest Weapon, and their complete snubbing of the even better Casino Royale was a travesty in 2006). The film has some great effects sequences-the rickety tops of the Grand Bazaar during that terrific opening chase, the later explosion heavy scenes at Skyfall-they all add up to some strong work. Hallberg and Landers, who are sound editing institutions at this point, know how to keep their sound editing choices smart-we oftentimes see the build-up to a sequence, rather than just a seres of explosions, and hold back when necessary to create atmosphere onscreen (think of the ominous way they let Thomas Newman's score take the reigns during some scenes). Less is usually more.
Paul N.J. Ottoson certainly understood this, and showed it with the way he skillfully handled the soundwork in Zero Dark Thirty. The film gets better with further distance from it, and that particularly holds true for the noises we're hearing onscreen. I love the way that we are so built up to the two great explosion sequences with Jennifer Ehle-in one case, we know what's coming and in the other we're fairly oblivious. Yet both times the sound editors pop right in there, giving us a skillful and large explosion to grapple with, to wrap our heads around. The final sequence, so genius as they slowly march toward the inevitable climax, really sells the sound editors on the way that it catches the tense whir of the helicopters as the audience breathlessly awaits the inevitable.
Life of Pi, which has become much more of a piled-on loser than I anticipated when I started 2012's articles, is toward the middle of my respective sound editing ballot. The great clasp of the storm aside, I just don't see a lot of mesmerizing work being done by the sound editors in this film. The movie is reliant so heavily on constant waves lapping, and the occasional roar of a tiger or hyena, but it seems like this was nominated more because Pi was a Best Picture nominee with sound effects, rather than because it was a great sound effects film. Best Visual Effects doesn't always equate to Best Sound Effects, and the dearth of great pop and snap in Pi is a testament to that fact.
Django Unchained is also a bit of a headscratcher, perhaps even more than Pi. Unlike Pi, which at least has the difficult canopy of a fake ocean and fake animals to deal with, Django is reliant solely on guns and explosions in its sound editing arsenal. As any number of politicians and critics can tell you, guns and explosions are a dime-a-dozen in the movies, and Django never really rises above to give us something special out of its shoot-em-up thriller. The film's sound mixing was considerably better (though oddly it missed a nomination in that category while being successful here.
Finally, we have Argo, our Best Picture winner who does indeed have a number of moments heightened by sound editing. Actually, scratch that, it has one moment heightened by sound editing. The great sequence with the plane taking off, and the whiz of the jets and the racing car is all great, but it doesn't justify the most throwaway of all of the nominations here. We are left with a film that definitely has sound effects, but they're hardly a driving point of the film, and this seems like far too much of a "ratchet-up-the-vote-count" nomination that could have been filled with something worthy.
Other Precursor Contenders: The Golden Reel Awards separate their nominations for Sound Editing between animation and live-action cinema, so we had A Cat in Paris, Brave, Frankenweenie, The Lorax, ParaNorman, The Pirates! Band of Misfits, and Rise of the Guardians all taking a backseat to the visual world of Wreck-It Ralph (those video game sound effects would admittedly be a hard thing to pass-up). For the feature length films, Skyfall remained on-top, with Argo, The Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Django Unchained, Life of Pi, and Prometheus all settling for a nomination. Overall, it feels like The Avengers or The Dark Knight were probably in sixth, but I wouldn't completely rule-out Lincoln (they love to overnominate a Best Picture, and it's the only remaining one that had prominent sound effects) or Brave (Pixar has historically done marvelously here).
Films I Would Have Nominated: Since there are three films that I clearly want out of this race (Skyfall and ZDT may not 100% be in my Top 5, but I think they're worthy nominees), I should propose three here. I'll start with Brave and Wreck-It Ralph, both of which prove that the real winners in Sound Editing are those that make the offscreen magic of animated films, as both are teaming with fun and inventive digital jumps and soaring arrows. For the final nomination, I'd probably go with The Dark Knight Rises, which egregiously got nominated for no Oscars, and deserved at least a couple, and for the opening plane sequence alone, should have been in this category.
Oscar’s Choice: In what was clearly the most stunning moment for awards nerds of all of last Oscar season, this category resulted in a tie, as both Skyfall and Zero Dark Thirty landed a win.
My Choice: I am not giving myself the option of a tie, however, and must choose between the two, and I think that the slightly more sophisticated work being done in Zero Dark Thirty gives it the trophy, with Skyfall taking the silver, and Life of Pi, Django, and Argo falling behind, in roughly that order.
And what are your thoughts? How would you have broken the tie for the Academy, or did you prefer the other three nominees? Why does Pixar have such a brilliant track record here, but not other animated films? And which film had the best sound editing of 2012?
Also in 2012: Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Animated Short, Live Action Short, Previously in 2012
Also in 2012: Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Animated Short, Live Action Short, Previously in 2012
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