OVP: Best Art Direction (2009)
The Nominees Were...
Rick Carter, Robert Stromberg, and Kim Sinclair, Avatar
Dave Warren, Anastasia Masaro, and Caroline Smith, The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus
John Myhre and Gordon Sim, Nine
Sarah Greenwood and Katie Spencer, Sherlock Holmes
Patrice Vermette and Maggie Grey, The Young Victoria
My Thoughts: As we close out
the visual categories, I cannot help but notice that with Art Direction in 2009
there’s no “inexplicable” nominees.
Every nominated film is very clearly brimming with elaborate sets, regardless of
the quality. This isn’t always the
case-I still don’t get nominations like Life
of Pi, and occasionally the Academy goes for something lovely and
minimalist, but this wasn’t the case in 2009. All five of these are very clearly large set piece films
that scream “nominate me!”
The first, and most up Oscar’s alley, is John Myhre’s Nine.
I frequently wonder about what it must be like for crew members who
frequently work with the same director.
Does someone like Myhre actually want to be designing stage-like
setpieces over and over again as Rob Marshall attempts to recreate the magic he
found in Chicago? I’m guessing we’ll find out soon if and
when he signs up for Into the Woods (considering
he’s done every one of Marshall’s films, I assume this is a safe bet).
Either way, Nine’s sets
frequently recall some of Marshall’s signatures. He alternates so often between light and shadow (Dion Beebe,
anyone?) and the sets do that as well in Nine. During Guido’s many dalliances into
fantasy, we see large, decrepit film sets and sand-soaked beaches. I particularly remember the gothic
cathedral meets the Colosseum set design in “Be Italian” as being quite
stunning. In fact, there’s little
to complain about when we’re off on this doomed ship-everything’s a bit claustrophobic, a bit mad.
It’s only when we’re outside of these staged musical numbers that the
work seem less impressive. I
wasn’t as drawn to the room full of reporters or the classic cars or the
constant cobblestones. Any schmuck
can make Italy look mesmerizing-it’s the most beautiful architecture in the
world. Therefore I’m left with a
solid understanding of this nomination, but I won’t fully sign-off on it.
I keep seeing Sherlock Holmes listed
and thinking that we’re about to discuss Jenny Beaven, but instead it’s Sarah
Greenwood, as Beaven was oddly left off the list of nominees over in Costume
Design (this lack of a nomination keeps getting weirder and weirder to me as I
work through the intricacies of 2009 for some reason).
Greenwood has been nominated for Oscar four times now, thanks in large part to
her frequent partnership with Joe Wright (she’s been nominated for three of his
films, this being the only one he didn’t direct). Here, like with Anna and
Atonement, we have some chillingly
realistic portrayals of late 19th Century London. What makes Greenwood so striking is the
dusty, lived-in way she designs her sets-Holmes’s apartment looks exactly how
you would expect, which is something you so rarely see. Frequently in cinema you see either one
extreme (a house designed by Martha Stewart) or another (a house designed by
Fred Sanford)-Greenwood’s sets have all of these dusty little touches to enjoy
and cherish. I know that this is
something we’ve done before (19th Century London being one of the
most frequent locales in period cinema), but it’s still splendid.
Since we’re already in that place and time, I suppose I should venture
over to the designs of Patrice Vermette, a long-time production designer who
scored his first Oscar nomination in 2009 (I feel bad that I usually
acknowledge the production designer and maybe the set decorator-why is it that
one is always more famous and well-known than the other-anyone in the industry
want to address this?). Like
everything in The Young Victoria, I
acknowledge the beauty but leave underwhelmed. There’s something so staid and bland about this film-even
when it’s large and decorated, I never feel any life in the cinema. This, admittedly, is less about
Vermette and more about the lead actors (someone needs to do something about
Emily Blunt’s career and soon), but I just can’t help feeling that everything is pretty
for pretty’s sake. That may go
along with the style of the film (Victoria as an abstract princess), but it
just doesn’t work-the drawing rooms look exactly the same as every other
impressive English drawing room.
Winning an Oscar should be about doing something new, something bold,
something that we haven’t seen before.
You can still light up the screen in a way that we haven’t seen before
with something familiar (I did give this trophy to Hugo in 2011, after all), but I don’t feel that way about Victoria.
I do feel that way, however, about the wild and spectacular world
brought on by Carter/Stromberg/Sinclair in Avatar,
however. Considering the
hesitancy of this branch to venture into animated and visual effects-driven
work, I’m a bit surprised that this won (though Stromberg would go on to win
for a very similarly-animated film the following year). Avatar
is in so many ways a marvel, but the visual effects work wouldn’t be quite
so impressive were it not for this team’s imagination. Stromberg is a divisive figure for some
in art direction (a battle of bold vs. excess), but here he sails to the
moon-the movie’s grand forests, scattered cliffs, and the sea of lush
vegetation is opulent without succumbing to eye-popping or catering to the
gargantuan.
Finally, we end with the team of the tiny Imaginarium, a film that struggled for a distributor and then went
on to score a pair of Oscar nominations (and not even in the most expected category of
Makeup). I should admit that this
film ages better in my mind in terms of quality that I initially remember
it. I distinctly recall enjoying
Ledger, Farrell, and Waits, but the rest of the movie and the overall plot were
a wee disappointment (the fact that a pre-fame Andrew Garfield played a central
role escaped my mind until a year ago when I was looking at pictures of it and
spotted him). The sets, though,
are a triumph-cluttered, on-a-budget but not cheap, they fill up the
imagination with stuffed trunks and Dali-esque dream sequences. The movie is pure Gilliam, and never
goes too far in the real world and continues to push boundaries when we are
being guided into a different consciousness.
It’s a pip.
Other Precursor Contenders: The
Art Directors Guild gives us fifteen nominees to sort through, in three
separate categories: contemporary, fantasy, and period (much the same as the
Costume branch). Like we did for
Costume, let’s start with contemporary because they almost always get the short
shift with Oscar. Here The Hurt Locker succeeded over Up in the Air, Angels & Demons, The
Hangover, and The Lovely Bones (in
what way is that not a fantasy flick?).
For the Period Films, we have Oscar-nominated Sherlock Holmes pulling off a victory over four un-nominated films
(oddly Nine, The Young Victoria, and Imaginarium all missed out with the
Guild): Julie & Julia, A Serious Man,
Inglourious Basterds, and Public
Enemies (the only thing I remember about this movie is Channing Tatum as Pretty Boy Floyd).
Finally, the Fantasy winner was clearly Avatar, with District 9,
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Star Trek, and Where the Wild Things Are all falling behind. The BAFTA’s also stayed quite far away
from Oscar. While they gave their
trophy to Avatar, only Imaginarium (I am STUNNED that Victoria didn’t make it here) joined it
as a nominee-the other three were District
9, Harry Potter, and Inglourious. With so many contenders, it’s hard to
say whether Harry Potter or Basterds was sixth place-my hunch is
that it was one of them.
Films I Would Have Nominated: There’s
so much to love in Inglourious (every
sequence has its own story), and Stuart Craig’s work in the Harry Potter series is marvelously
consistent (this brought us to some dark and magical new places), that I would have made room for both to kick out Victoria and probably Nine.
Oscar’s Choice: They
couldn’t deny the big effects of Avatar,
and Pandora got an Oscar.
My Choice: It has to be Avatar, doesn’t it? Like most of these write-ups, though, I
learn a little bit when I make the argument and I’ll go with Sherlock Holmes, Imaginarium, Nine, and Victoria in the remaining slots.
Those are my thoughts-how about yours? Anyone want to disagree with the group think that gave Avatar the victory? Anyone with me that Victoria was a bit dry for a nomination
and something like Inglourious would
have been better? And what film
had the best Art Direction of 2009?
Share in the comments!
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