OVP: Best Sound Mixing (2018)
The Nominees Were...
Steve Boeddeker, Brandon Proctor, & Peter Devlin, Black Panther
Paul Massey, Tim Cavagin, & John Casali, Bohemian Rhapsody
Jon Taylor, Frank A. Montano, Ai-Ling Lee, & Mary H. Ellis, First Man
Skip Lievsay, Craig Henighan, & Jose Antonio Garcia, Roma
Tom Ozanich, Dean Zupancic, Jason Ruder, & Steve Morrow, A Star is Born
My Thoughts: For those keeping track, we are officially at the halfway point of our 2018 Oscar Viewing Project. Next week we'll hit some of the big awards (including Animated Feature & International Feature Film), but today we're going to conclude our look at the aural categories with Sound Mixing. Like in past years, we have only one film that we didn't already discuss on Monday for Sound Editing (links to all past contests at the bottom of this article), so we'll begin there.
A Star is Born is not the sort of movie that typically lands for Editing (though Bohemian Rhapsody winning there makes me wonder why), but it is the type that gets in for Sound Mixing. After all, musicals are a regular feature in this category, and the movie does have some great sound moments. "Shallow," in particular, is a perfectly executed scene, and a lot of that is driven by the mixing (making sure select moments are too loud or playing with what we can't hear). The rest of the film never captures that magic, though, oftentimes sounding pretty generic or overly similar from scene to scene. It's not a bad nomination, it just feels like a predictable one.
This is also the case with Black Panther. I feel like in the first five weeks of these write-ups I'm giving off the impression that I don't like Black Panther, which is not true (you'll see on the My Ballot that it's going to show up multiple times). But I'm not blind to the parts of the movie that aren't special, and its sound work is some of that. The score felt generic to me, even if it's well-integrated, and the fight scenes aren't as mesmerizing as we saw even in a film like Avengers: Infinity War. The performances, the art direction, the costumes, quite frankly the writing...that's where Black Panther truly shines, not in its middling sound composition.
A reason to be a little more critical of Black Panther is that a movie like Roma proves that you can have flawless sound even if its not an action or effects film. Alfonso Cuaron's movie received a lot of plaudits for its cinematography, but its greatest achievement might well be the way it sounds. Every scene feels authentic and raw to the picture. Think of the rescue sequence at the beach or the opening water against the garage floor-it's organic, feeling like you're transported to this different era, and it's played for full effect in every scene. There is not one moment in Roma that doesn't feel cohesive & part of the rest of the movie. I'm so glad Oscar recognized this despite it not being an obvious nominee on paper.
First Man is more obvious as Oscar bait, but its nomination is still a blessing. One of the ways I judge sound mixing is if they can handle loud sequences or sequences where there's a lot going on, but you can still audibly make out the dialogue. Unless it's a plot point, dialogue should always be something you can suss out (the whole point of the movie is to hear what the actors are saying), and First Man does that beautifully when it could've been easy to just be like "I guess you can't hear cause it's loud." First Man also does better than any of these movies at putting its iconic score into the film, never overpowering it but letting it soak into the picture.
You've got a catchy musical, a classic action film, a landmark period piece, & a space odyssey all ripe for the plucking...so of course Oscar went with a night of karaoke. Or, rather, not even karaoke as Rami Malek isn't singing onscreen in Bohemian Rhapsody. I understand the logic of this win more than its victories in Sound Editing & Mixing. It is a musical, there's definitely sound mixing happening. But when you actually watch the movie, it never feels like they're doing much more than turning on Queen's Greatest Hits and pressing play. There's not the challenge (or thrill) of live audio like A Star is Born comes with, and none of the non-musical scenes read as anything more than dialogue onscreen. I try my hardest to not let my feelings of a movie's quality interfere with what I think of the picture itself, but here I don't have to-there is no element other than the songs themselves that works about this picture, and those aren't the genius of anyone involved in making this actual movie.
Other Precursor Contenders: The Cinema Audio Society splits their categories between Animated and Live Action. For Live Action the winner was Bohemian Rhapsody (I want to read a paper about the awful collective groupthink around this movie at some point), besting A Quiet Place, A Star is Born, Black Panther, and First Man, while Animated Feature went with Isle of Dogs over Incredibles 2, Ralph Breaks the Internet, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and The Grinch. The BAFTA's picked Bohemian Rhapsody for their victor, here over First Man, Mission: Impossible-Fallout, A Quiet Place, and A Star is Born. In terms of sixth place, it's A Quiet Place-it placed in both precursors, it was nominated for Sound Editing-this was a slam dunk, and probably a very close call.
Films I Would Have Nominated: Cold War is a jewel when it comes to its sound design. In a similar way to Roma making every noise and utterance count, it does so beautifully, having us feel the passage of time through its musical interludes and strong balance between silence & sparring dialogue.
Oscar’s Choice: It was Bohemian Rhapsody, and it won by a landslide so let's just get on with our lives.
My Choice: I'm going to go with Roma over First Man, though either one would've been a home run victory in this category. Behind them we'll pick A Star is Born, Black Panther, and Bohemian Rhapsody.
Those are my choices-how about you? Are you with AMPAS jamming to the oldies or do you want to join me over in Team Roma? Do you think that A Star is Born might have won this in a world where everyone didn't go gaga (pun intended) for Bohemian Rhapsody? And just how close did A Quiet Place get here? Share your thoughts in the comments!
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