OVP: Best Costume (2003)
The Nominees Were...
Dien van Straalen, Girl with a Pearl Earring
Ngila Dickson, The Last Samurai
Ngila Dickson & Richard Taylor, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Wendy Stites, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
Judianna Makovsky, Seabiscuit
My Thoughts: I have been writing this series for nearly a decade now, and so I know the beats of each of these categories that I've lived through quite well. It goes without saying that Best Costume Design will always indulge in period garb. With the exceptions of The Devil Wears Prada and La La Land no contemporary film this century has been nominated for Best Costume Design, which is a really criminal affair (for comparison sake, we've hit at least 10 such films in our "My Ballots" and we will hit another in eight weeks when we finish off 2003). So we are once again going to get into a sea of period costumes, and the fantasy film that would defeat them all.
The Return of the King we've discussed quite a bit and one of the main discussion points about the film is that we should really only be using new aspects here for a lot of the technical awards. That gets much trickier when it comes to the costumes, because unlike makeup & visual effects (and next week, art direction), the costume design in this film really doesn't change that much. Most of the costumes we've seen some variations on in past films, and while they're glorious (that needs to count for something), not many of the costumes are particularly noteworthy in the way they were in Fellowship. Arguably the most iconic look from this film that is added is the "King and Queen" costumes worn by Aragorn & Arwen, which did become genuinely synonymous with the franchise, but I will note that Return starts out in a vulnerable spot here.
Arguably its biggest competition (for me) would be Girl with a Pearl Earring. Dien van Straalen's recreation of the Vermeer look on Scarlett Johansson is brilliant, not just because she looks like the original painting, but because it's recreated flawlessly (the makeup is also spot-on, so kudos to that team). Everything about Girl, though, is giving us great costume work. I loved the occasionally unkempt looks of some of the clothes, making it look like people had actually worn them rather than just sitting around in perfect plaster, and the gaudiness of some of the high-and-mighty figures in comparison to Johansson's Griet. It's a well-done movie (and an underrated one, for those who are only aware of it being a major early film for Johansson).
Ngila Dickson in 2003 was definitely hedging her bets when it came to this category, because she had not one but two nominations. Her second nomination came from another epic battle film, The Last Samurai, a film that I'd say could not get made today due to its troublesome politics, but didn't Matt Damon do something VERY similar a couple of years ago? Like Girl, hair-and-makeup is helping a lot here (I would argue that this is maybe Tom Cruise's sexiest movie star mode with shoulder-length hair that looks like he's 22 when he's actually 40...and he pulls it off), but the costumes are very pretty. Unlike Return or Girl, they aren't defying convention but they are doing their job, particularly Cruise's primary shades-of-brown armor suit.
This cannot be said for Seabiscuit. I'm not going to have a lot of compliments for this largely-dismissed (in retrospect) Best Picture nominee, and part of that is that it feels so generic. You can see that in the costume design. With the exception of Tobey Maguire's red-and-white jockey uniform (which is more iconic because you constantly see it than because it's super well-done), there's nothing in this film that feels distinctive or special. You take any look that Elizabeth Smart wears in this movie & take it out of place...you'd never identify it as Seabiscuit. Specific looks isn't a requirement (the costumes should be story-building and realistic as well), but compared to something like the exactness of Girl or the movie magic of Return...this doesn't compare.
Master and Commander is better, but largely in the same boat (pardon the pun). I want to add in more from the realism quotient here-the costumes feel like they're progressively getting grungier, progressively getting more worn the longer the movie goes on and they don't feel pristine (this ain't what Master and Commander might have been in the 1950's), but they also are repetitive. With little action on land, there's not a lot to these costumes other than a version of the same naval uniform. Yes, Paul Bettany allows for a bit of flavor with his looks, but we don't have the character work that makes some of the best designs for me (think what Sandy Powell does in Martin Scorsese's pictures) sing onscreen. It's just in-the-middle.
Other Precursor Contenders: The Costume Designers Guild was still combining Period & Fantasy together in 2003 (they would eventually separate the two), so we have Return of the King besting Pirates of the Caribbean, Seabiscuit, and The Last Samurai, while for Contemporary Design we had A Mighty Wind (kind of an inspired choice if you think about it, even if it's a bit of a cheat since some of the gags are flashbacks to a different era) beating out Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, Kill Bill Volume 1, and Legally Blonde 2: Red, White, and Blonde. BAFTA favored Master and Commander over Cold Mountain, Girl with a Pearl Earring, Return of the King, and Pirates of the Caribbean. I think the gut instinct would be to give the sixth place title to Pirates both because it would become the most significant iconography of the year & because it dominated the precursors, but I think it was Cold Mountain. This is more up Oscar's speed, Cold Mountain did well outside the top prizes, and it's designed by longtime Oscar favorite Ann Roth (it also helps that Cold Mountain would've been a worthy nominee).
Films I Would Have Nominated: Contemporary costume design deserves its place to shine too, and if you can name me a costume from 2003 that has had a longer cinematic shadow than Uma Thurman's skin tight yellow jumpsuit in Kill Bill, I certainly can't.
My Choice: Giving you a preview of what's to come, there are only a handful of races Return of the King is not the current OVP frontrunner in (though it is currently losing at least one race that I'm wrestling with a lot internally), and Costume Design is one of the places it should've been vulnerable. But against this competition, I can't quite pull the trigger for Girl with a Pearl Earring which is very strong but not as consistent as Return so I'll give it to the Tolkien saga. Third place is Last Samurai, followed by Master and Seabiscuit.
And now, of course, it's your turn. Are we all keeping to Middle Earth, or will someone venture into one of the other worlds? Will a contemporary film design ever win Best Costume Design again? And was it Pirates or Cold Mountain that was in sixth place here? Share your thoughts below!
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