OVP: Best Sound Editing (2006)
The Nominees Were...
Sean McCormack & Kami Asgar, Apocalypto
Lon Bender, Blood Diamond
Alan Robert Murray & Bub Asman, Flags of Four Fathers
Alan Robert Murray & Bub Asman, Letters from Iwo Jima
Christopher Boyes & George Watters II, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
My Thoughts: 2006 was the first year that Oscar expanded the Best Sound Editing category beyond the 2-3 nominations it'd had for most of its run into a five-wide field. As a result, we began to see how little the Academy could tell the difference between the two categories-four of the five nominees here are from films that we'll see on Sunday in the Sound Mixing category, though in a weird situation that would never happen again, the winner here wasn't nominated for Mixing (and the Mixing winner isn't cited here). With that introduction, let's dive into the weird twin nominations that were enjoyed by a pair of Clint Eastwood pictures.
Flags of Our Fathers is a forgotten film, which is a blessing as it's really bad. This is during the period when Eastwood would regularly dance with Oscar (we'll see his name a few more times for Letters this season), and as a result he got in in a year without a lot of big, splashy epics even if this is not a good picture. But in terms of its sound editing, it's less bad than middling. The film's battle scenes are fine, but they aren't standout, and the crowd scenes are not well done (it does feel like the editors are phoning it in a bit in the scenes where we aren't fighting). This shouldn't be confused with bad, but it's the sort of thing that takes on a lot closer lens when you nominate it for an Oscar, and you realize it's less grand & more just serviceable.
Letters is a much better movie, and its sound editing is superior. More of the film takes place on the battlefield, so there's less to compare to offscreen, and the sound work there is more delicate. I distinctly remember some of the sequences in the caves as being particularly impressive work. The movie knows how to mange its sound better too by taking advantage of quiet. The best parts of Letters from Iwo Jima are the ways that they play with the other side of a story that American audiences (which I am) only really are taught one side of; the sound editors use this by heightening tension that they can't achieve from the better-known perspective. This is admittedly an American worldview guiding this knowledge, but this is my Oscar ballot, and that's what I bring.
Pirates of the Caribbean we've talked about a few times at this point, discussing how the film used its newfound budget to achieve a much grander look at this world. That's very much the case with the sound work. The picture's cannon fire, swords clashing, and splashing waves all feel crisper, bigger, bolder, while we get some new aural tricks, specifically the gigantic wheel lumbering through a tropical forest, which adds to the overall aesthetic of the picture. Yes, there are things here that have been done before (some of the ways that the sound effects are incorporated alongside the iconic Klaus Badelt score are tricks we already know), but this is a solid installment in this series, and a worthy nominee.
This is not the case for Blood Diamond. While I'll read it more to filth with the mixing nomination (actual chunks of dialogue are not audible within the movie), the sound editing isn't much better. The explosions are, well, loud, but there's no tailoring or finesse. We don't glean anything additional from the picture or story as a result of the sound work like we do with Letters, and we aren't operating on a high, fun playing field like Pirates. Instead, we're given a movie that has pretty basic, sometimes fundamentally flawed mixing that has a few explosions breaking it up-Edward Zwick's movies do have good sound work, so I have to wonder if this was just an assumption it was good without stepping back & thinking "maybe this is a lesser output."
The final nomination is for Apocalypto, which is another movie that has better sound editing than mixing, though here the bar starts higher. The editing is good, and the marketplace scene in particular stands out as a crowd sequence that does a strong job of not downplaying the dialogue while still allowing us to get the hustle-and-bustle of the chaotic sequence. I do have to subtract points since the best scene in the film (the ending) is bereft of sound effects, which would've had a greater impact than the score lumbering in, but this is another case of a movie where the sound editing is easier to criticize only because it's in Oscar's good graces, rather than because it's actually poor.
Other Precursor Contenders: The Golden Reel Awards split their categories between live-action & animated, and frequently have a lot of nominated pictures in the running. For Animated Cars bested Flushed Away, Happy Feet, Ice Age: The Meltdown, Over the Hedge, and The Ant Bully, while for Feature Film it was Pan's Labyrinth over Babel, Casino Royale, Children of Men, Curse of the Golden Flower, Lucky Number Slevin, The Black Dahlia, and United 93. Both of those two winners feel like they could be plausible sixth places; Pan's obviously was a favorite with Oscar, while this was the era where Pixar was regularly getting cited for this category.
Films I Would Have Nominated: They both would've been way better than half of these nominees. Pan's, in particular, would've been on my shortlist as it goes beyond simply having quality effects and adds them to the actual story. The same can be said for United 93, which uses the true horror of that event (and the limited but intense effects aboard the plane) to keep you gripping your chair as it slides to its inevitable end.
Oscar’s Choice: In something of a surprise, Letters managed to use its Best Picture credentials to get past both internal competition from Flags and its lack of a Sound Mixing citation to win a trophy, probably over Pirates.
My Choice: I'm...going to do the same thing, giving Letters the statue in a slight bid over Pirates (both are very different movies so it's unusually hard to gage between the two worthy inclusions). I'll follow that with Apocalypto, Flags, and Blood Diamond.
Those are my thoughts-what are yours? Is everyone giving the nod to Letters, or is there a missing movie that should be honored? Does your opinion of average sound work in movies like Apocalypto or Flags become sharper once you throw in the sudden appearance of Oscar? And Cars or Pan's Labyrinth-who was the sixth place finisher?? Share your thoughts below in the comments!
Also in 2006: Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2006
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