OVP: Best Production Design (2015)
The Nominees Were...
Adam Stockhausen, Rena DeAngelo, and Bernhard Henrich, Bridge of Spies
Eve Stewart and Martin Standish, The Danish Girl
Colin Gibson and Lisa Thompson, Mad Max: Fury Road
Arthur Max and Celia Bobak, The Martian
Jack Fisk and Hamish Purdy, The Revenant
Eve Stewart and Martin Standish, The Danish Girl
Colin Gibson and Lisa Thompson, Mad Max: Fury Road
Arthur Max and Celia Bobak, The Martian
Jack Fisk and Hamish Purdy, The Revenant
My Thoughts: We're going to start the weekend out right by not only having an article, but a return to the world of 2015 (a simpler time...remember when Obama was president?), and finishing off the visual categories for our 8th Oscar Viewing Project. As a refresher, there's links to all of our past contests in 2015, as well as every write-up regarding Art Direction/Production Design, down below. But if you're all caught up, let's dive into this field, which features yet another space-age odyssey competing against a series of period dramas.
In recent years, we've seen space-age pictures, oftentimes more realistic space films, take up this category. Gravity in 2013, Interstellar in 2014, and in the year following 2015 we saw the combo of Passengers & Arrival (we'll get to them at some point in the future). In 2015, however, the big ticket was around The Martian, a film I have to constantly remind myself was better than it seems in my memory (it has such a staid premise, and was considerably lighter than you'd expect). The Production Design, though, I need no introduction to-it's splendid. The actual scenes on Mars, using the expansive vistas of Jordan for its outdoors shots and intimate settings in Hungary for the indoor scenes on the red planet, is very precise and detailed. It says something about the specific use of metal, of sparse but carefully-selected furniture, and for the way the picture is lensed that we totally buy that this is a foreign planet, and perhaps more impressively, that this isn't entirely on a sound stage with CGI carrying the heavy-lifting. Combined with the home shots of the space station (I loved the orderly clean, and that it instantly screams "NASA!" without having to fall too hard on cliche), this is an achievement even if it's not the "pretty castle" sort of look we're used to in this field.
For that we have to move decades into the past and into the Bohemian world of Denmark in the 1920s. There's a lot to find problematic in the frames of The Danish Girl, but the art direction itself is not one of them. The film uses minimalism in interesting ways. Look at the way that the initial apartment feels empty, with so much focus on just the paintings and the clothes, while later on we are invited into a sumptuous, decadent feast of detail, ornate and beautiful as Lili discovers who she truly is. Even the paint and wallpaper start to feed into your imagination and aid the script, giving us an insight into the characters that occasionally even the performances aren't willing to provide. The film arguably loses some focus later on with the choices in the hospital and the parks not being quite as imaginative as what is being created as both characters come alive, and then one is left behind on a journey that's not really hers, but by-and-large there's more than meets-the-eye in what could have just been period porn.
While there's no more British tea room-style work, that doesn't mean that we don't get involved with other eras in this lineup. The Revenant, after all, is about as far back as film typically is willing to go, with an adventure in the 1820's. In some ways this is an interesting take on art direction, and one could argue that the location scouting might need to count here-after all, some of Lubezki's cinematography wouldn't work nearly as well as it did without the beautiful overhead shots of the rivers and cliffs. That being said, mother nature is really the star here, and the backwoods cabins & tents that Fisk & Purdy pull together are not as inspired or as iconic as they probably should be. Jack Fisk in particular has made a career out of designing the outdoors, but this isn't as interesting as some of his other work, and too often we cross the line from simple to just "not there," likely to fulfill Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's desire to make this journey as harrowing and soul-sucking as possible, giving Hugh Glass as little respite as he can.
The final period film is Bridge of Spies, a movie that even just three years later already feels like a "wait-that was a Best Picture nominee?" sort of film. The movie's attention-to-detail is better than The Revenant's, particularly in early scenes like Rudolf Abel's apartment or that great claustrophobic plane scene with Francis Gary Powers (solid work from Austin Stowell there, who was also so terrific in Battle of the Sexes last year). The later scenes occasionally feel like they're sets of a play-I remember thinking that one of the German apartments looked like it had literally never been lived in within a day, as if they hadn't remotely aged the soundstage for that scene, but overall the mood is there in this work, even if it's uneven.
We end with Mad Max: Fury Road, certainly the film in this bunch that has lingered the most in the popular zeitgeist. Unfortunately for this category, though, it's not really the art direction that is bringing you back into the conversation. Like The Revenant, Gibson & Thompson probably deserve some credit for finding a gorgeous desert shot that can absorb the heat of such a movie, but there's very little actual set work here and mother nature is doing most of the work. The cars are interesting, and certainly specific, but they borrow heavily from pre-established Mad Max iconography, and as a result I can't really feel them. The only other interesting additions to the art direction are probably the labyrinths of green plants and lair of Immortan Joe, but this also feels hit-and-miss, with every room full of hydroponics, we also get a half-dozen just empty caves to meander the camera through. Of all of Mad Max's nominations, this arguably feels like the most "nominate your favorite picture" rather than specifically earning it on its own merits.
In recent years, we've seen space-age pictures, oftentimes more realistic space films, take up this category. Gravity in 2013, Interstellar in 2014, and in the year following 2015 we saw the combo of Passengers & Arrival (we'll get to them at some point in the future). In 2015, however, the big ticket was around The Martian, a film I have to constantly remind myself was better than it seems in my memory (it has such a staid premise, and was considerably lighter than you'd expect). The Production Design, though, I need no introduction to-it's splendid. The actual scenes on Mars, using the expansive vistas of Jordan for its outdoors shots and intimate settings in Hungary for the indoor scenes on the red planet, is very precise and detailed. It says something about the specific use of metal, of sparse but carefully-selected furniture, and for the way the picture is lensed that we totally buy that this is a foreign planet, and perhaps more impressively, that this isn't entirely on a sound stage with CGI carrying the heavy-lifting. Combined with the home shots of the space station (I loved the orderly clean, and that it instantly screams "NASA!" without having to fall too hard on cliche), this is an achievement even if it's not the "pretty castle" sort of look we're used to in this field.
For that we have to move decades into the past and into the Bohemian world of Denmark in the 1920s. There's a lot to find problematic in the frames of The Danish Girl, but the art direction itself is not one of them. The film uses minimalism in interesting ways. Look at the way that the initial apartment feels empty, with so much focus on just the paintings and the clothes, while later on we are invited into a sumptuous, decadent feast of detail, ornate and beautiful as Lili discovers who she truly is. Even the paint and wallpaper start to feed into your imagination and aid the script, giving us an insight into the characters that occasionally even the performances aren't willing to provide. The film arguably loses some focus later on with the choices in the hospital and the parks not being quite as imaginative as what is being created as both characters come alive, and then one is left behind on a journey that's not really hers, but by-and-large there's more than meets-the-eye in what could have just been period porn.
While there's no more British tea room-style work, that doesn't mean that we don't get involved with other eras in this lineup. The Revenant, after all, is about as far back as film typically is willing to go, with an adventure in the 1820's. In some ways this is an interesting take on art direction, and one could argue that the location scouting might need to count here-after all, some of Lubezki's cinematography wouldn't work nearly as well as it did without the beautiful overhead shots of the rivers and cliffs. That being said, mother nature is really the star here, and the backwoods cabins & tents that Fisk & Purdy pull together are not as inspired or as iconic as they probably should be. Jack Fisk in particular has made a career out of designing the outdoors, but this isn't as interesting as some of his other work, and too often we cross the line from simple to just "not there," likely to fulfill Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's desire to make this journey as harrowing and soul-sucking as possible, giving Hugh Glass as little respite as he can.
The final period film is Bridge of Spies, a movie that even just three years later already feels like a "wait-that was a Best Picture nominee?" sort of film. The movie's attention-to-detail is better than The Revenant's, particularly in early scenes like Rudolf Abel's apartment or that great claustrophobic plane scene with Francis Gary Powers (solid work from Austin Stowell there, who was also so terrific in Battle of the Sexes last year). The later scenes occasionally feel like they're sets of a play-I remember thinking that one of the German apartments looked like it had literally never been lived in within a day, as if they hadn't remotely aged the soundstage for that scene, but overall the mood is there in this work, even if it's uneven.
We end with Mad Max: Fury Road, certainly the film in this bunch that has lingered the most in the popular zeitgeist. Unfortunately for this category, though, it's not really the art direction that is bringing you back into the conversation. Like The Revenant, Gibson & Thompson probably deserve some credit for finding a gorgeous desert shot that can absorb the heat of such a movie, but there's very little actual set work here and mother nature is doing most of the work. The cars are interesting, and certainly specific, but they borrow heavily from pre-established Mad Max iconography, and as a result I can't really feel them. The only other interesting additions to the art direction are probably the labyrinths of green plants and lair of Immortan Joe, but this also feels hit-and-miss, with every room full of hydroponics, we also get a half-dozen just empty caves to meander the camera through. Of all of Mad Max's nominations, this arguably feels like the most "nominate your favorite picture" rather than specifically earning it on its own merits.
Other Precursor Contenders: The Art Directors Guild gives us fifteen nominees to sort through, in three separate categories: contemporary, fantasy, and period. The category stretched "contemporary" a bit by letting The Martian win the trophy (unless I'm mistaken, we have not landed on Mars, and as a result I don't know that this should be included in such a lineup), besting Joy, Ex Machina (another questionable inclusion), Spectre, and Sicario. For Fantasy, we have Oscar-blessed Mad Max topping Cinderella, Jurassic World, Str Wars: The Force Awakens, and Tomorrowland, while Period film gave their trophy to The Revenant over Crimson Peak, The Danish Girl, Bridge of Spies, and Trumbo. The BAFTA Awards took a bit of their own path, choosing to skip over both The Danish Girl and The Revenant with Carol and Star Wars: The Force Awakens nabbing nominations, though Mad Max picked up the trophy. In terms of sixth place, I'm a bit stumped-I could make the argument for Cinderella, Star Wars, or Carol, but my money is probably on the Disney princess motif, as that is more up their alley and I remember being an odd exclusion at the time.
Films I Would Have Nominated: I surely would have found room for Crimson Peak, which is gargantuan, gaudy, but the sort of house you'd want to spend days in, and Thomas Sanders knows how to lure in your eye. I also would have found time for Carol, whose details are so luxurious, but real. Look at how they manage to make a restaurant or department store so specific (but still "generic") that you can see it and think of first Carol, and then a store you saw in your youth that looks exactly the same. Finally, credit has to go to the creators of Room-the rest of the film isn't quite as sworn to detail, but the fact of "Room" itself being its own character and taking up so much critical plot is so crucial to the story that it's impossible not to applaud their success.
Oscar’s Choice: Mad Max continues its domination of the visual categories, probably just besting The Martian and The Danish Girl, both very much in Oscar's wheelhouse.
My Choice: I'm going to go with The Martian, as I still feel its an underrated film and this is the category that it most deserves recognition (though I would have easily voted for Carol or Crimson Peak if given the opportunity). Follow that with The Danish Girl, Bridge of Spies, Mad Max, and The Revenant.
Those are my thoughts-how about yours? Are you with me that The Martian finds something new to say about the modern era of space travel, or are you doing a battle cry for my dismissal of Furiosa's rides? Do you think the outdoors-focused work of Jack Fisk will ever win him a twin Oscar to go alongside Sissy Spacek's? And why do you think Carol missed yet another category here? Share below!
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