OVP: Best Art Direction (2002)
The Nominees Were...
John Myhre & Gordon Sim, Chicago
Felipe Fernandez del Paso & Hania Robledo, Frida
Dante Ferretti & Francesca Lo Schiavo, Gangs of New York
Grant Major, Alan Lee, & Dan Hennah, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Dennis Gassner & Nancy Haigh, Road to Perdition
My Thoughts: After a very long break that wasn't really intentional, but which I'm not going to apologize for because sometimes you need a break, we are back into the 2002 Oscar Viewing Project, and hopefully a much stronger cadence on getting these out (for sure we'll start doing these as the most prevalent article series come 2023). We're going to finish up the visual categories today, but if you're new to this blog or to this series, please take a peak a the bottom of the article for past write-ups, including both 2002 races and other contests we've done for Best Art Direction/Production Design.
We're going to start out with Gangs of New York, since Leo is staring at me from that photo right now and because it's inarguably my favorite nomination for the film. We'll get into this more in the coming weeks, but I wasn't a fan of Scorsese's Oscar bid here. The film was released during the period where it was very clear that Marty wanted his own gold statue, deciding not to join Altman and Hitchcock and Kubrick as a Legendary Loser, and was making films that were more in Oscar's wheelhouse. Gangs' production design, though, is both influential and well-crafted. A combination of realism and clearly marching through a set, it feels very suited for the movie, even if the movie itself tries for too much realism (not getting the occasional absurdity that's rooted in Day-Lewis' Bill the Butcher) to get across the claustrophobic point of the docks.
Chicago also plays with realism versus what we'd expect, but here I was less-impressed. For starters, it's not that creative past the opening couple of numbers, with us alternating between a stage & the same Cook County jail set, and there's not much creativity in what's happening. This isn't a bad nomination. I have been ragging on Chicago a bit so far, and that feels like it's not telling an accurate story-I enjoy the movie, but I do think the production qualities are a bit underwhelming save for the iconic costumes. The stage only expands during the "Roxie" number, and that feels odd that they wouldn't play more with that idea. Combine in that most of the prison & courtroom scenes are indistinguishable from other movies, and you've got an okay nomination.
That's also the case for Frida, which at least gets more creative juice out of it, but is ultimately not impressive. There's the occasional odes to the titular Kahlo's paintings, which I enjoyed, but we needed more of that, and too much of the remainder of the film feels like it doesn't have a distinct feel. You look at Gangs of New York and you know exactly what this is about even without the actors onstage...I want more of that with a nomination like this, and that's just not the case for Frida unless Salma Hayek is recreating one of the artist's paintings. Given how many other films about artists like Girl with a Pearl Earring and Mr. Turner would later do this so spectacularly, it wasn't up to par with what was to come.
Road to Perdition is an improvement on something like Frida because the settings tend to enhance the story. Look at how often the film shows desolation through stark sets, with bridges and empty rooms serving as a reminder of our protagonist's lot in life as a hitman who has lost his soul. The production design is aided in an unfair way compared to Chicago and Frida by the gorgeous cinematography, which maybe gives it more credit than it's due (Conrad Hall making your bridge look desolate is definitely giving you a leg-up), but I have to admit that the entire production crew here is helping the story out, bringing it to life.
Our final nomination is The Two Towers, certainly the movie with the most production design of this bunch, and the one is best-remembered. It has to be noted that comparing this movie to something like The Fellowship of the Ring you lose a tiny bit of originality-there's no shock moments like there were with Rivendell or the Shire, and I make a point of not counting unoriginal works when we're reviewing this. That said, the battle of Helm's Deep and its interlocking castles, as well as Rohan and its many horses...it works really well in expanding the universe while never feeling like we're reinventing it. These movies continually outdo themselves in recreating Tolkien's novels.
Other Precursor Contenders: In 2002, the Art Directors Guild was only separating into two categories (Contemporary and Period/Fantasy) so we don't have the 15 nominations we'd have later. Period/Fantasy is almost a perfect recreation of the Oscar lineup, with only Frida gone in favor of Minority Report, while Contemporary gives us the victorious Catch Me If You Can besting One Hour Photo, Panic Room, The Bourne Identity, and The Hours. BAFTA also went for a near recreation of Oscar's lineup, with Frida gone in favor of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, and here it was Road to Perdition that won. In terms of sixth place, I think it was probably The Pianist...Harry Potter missed in every other category otherwise I'd guess it, and while The Hours made it for Best Costume, I think the World War II sets would give The Pianist a leg-up over it (as a general rule there's a lot of crossover between Costume & Art Direction).
Films I Would Have Nominated: This isn't a terrible list, I want to say. Nothing here is embarrassing for the Academy, and I'll be honest on my end-there's so many good nominees in this category that cutting down to just five was a serious challenge. But I'd for sure have included Minority Report in this collection. Spielberg's epic world builds within our own, and looking at it twenty years later it's kind of staggering to see how much he got right (keep in mind that the kinds of electric, Apple-inspired billboards you see in this film were only commonplace in Time Square in 2002, not every mall in America).
Oscar’s Choice: We see a victory for Chicago here, I suspect taking another trophy from The Two Towers, who would finally get Grant Major a trophy for the series in 2003.
My Choice: I'm also going to go with The Two Towers. Even if half of it is unoriginal to the first film, that's still some of the best work of the decade. I'll follow that with Gangs of New York, Road to Perdition, Chicago, and Frida, in that order.
Those are my thoughts-how about yours? Are you with AMPAS in picking the minimalistic sets of Chicago or do you want to go with the maximalist excess of Tolkien on my end? Do you think this is the most impressive technical aspect of Gangs of New York? And was it Harry Potter, The Hours, or The Pianist in the sixth place slot? Share your thoughts below!
Past Best Art Direction Contests: 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020
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