Monday, January 06, 2014

OVP: Art Direction (2009)

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!


Past Best Costume Contests: 201020112012

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