OVP: Best Production Design (2022)
The Nominees Were...
Christian M. Goldbeck & Ernestine Hipper, All Quiet on the Western Front
Dylan Cole, Ben Procter, & Vanessa Cole, Avatar: The Way of Water
Florencia Martin & Anthony Carlino, Babylon
Catherine Martin, Karen Murphy, & Bev Dunn, Elvis
Rick Carter & Karen O'Hara, The Fabelmans
My Thoughts: We are finishing off the visual categories today with Production Design, and like Best Costume before it (these two are always grouped in my mind as they used to be the same branch for voting, and as a result much of Oscar history is if you get in for one, you get in for both), this is a solid lineup. Oscar was helped in large part by many of the Best Picture nominees leaning in on the epic angle, which is generally the way Oscar heads with this category.
For example, All Quiet on the Western Front does a decent job of recreating the cavernous aspects of World War I. Cinematically, the calling card for WWI films is usually around the trenches-they are the motif most frequently associated with depictions of the war. This film adds sort of a labyrinth effect that I quite liked, as if the war was almost a maze. I still feel like this isn't quite as inventive above-ground as, say, 1917 a few years back (which I gave this trophy to), but it definitely looks good onscreen here.
Elvis plays the riskiest game of the bunch, veering into flights-of-fancy about Elvis the myth even though we're meant to be in a world of reality. The film relies heavily on visual effects for its production work, and while this can add to the ambience, it sometimes shows the seams (you can tell, for example, that the crowd scenes are not actually large crowds, partially because the art direction comes across a bit phoned in). This is nitpicky, and the 1970's Vegas recreations are fun, but in a world where production design is almost as much a visual effect as the actual sets, you have to dock if one is off.
After all, Avatar: The Way of Water is almost exclusively in the production designers' imaginations, and so the marriage between production & visual effects could not be more crucial. Thankfully they work perfectly here. The move to the water world in the sequel allows for more creativity than even the original (which also looked gorgeous, and if you look at the bottom of this page where I list past contests, you'll find I gave it my prize). The realism is all there, but honestly it's the cities on the ocean, looking like we're in Fiji at an elaborate, White Lotus-style resort, that make it really feel like it's its own world.
Babylon is also doing some marriage between visual effects, but the practical sets are the most impressive here, and it looks spectacular. Babylon is a movie that deserved a better audience (I thought it was great, if admittedly the kind of movie that audiences simply don't have patience for anymore), and part of that was that it looked incredible. The depictions of Old Hollywood before the age of sound are marvelous-particularly points for the sweat coming off of the scene where Margot Robbie goes to "college" as well as the large field where multiple movies are being made at once. I thought it looked great from start to finish.
Our final nominee is The Fabelmans, which is maybe the oddest on-the-surface given it's recreating scenes of domesticity against gorgeous movie sets and fantastical far-off planets. But I like that they recognized this movie. The way that we get a very realistic depiction of the 1960's (the school dance scenes clearly were shot on-location, but looked great), in addition to the way that Carter & O'Hara make sure that so much of the film looks both realistic and like we're in a movie (since Sammy increasingly wants to see the world as a movie) is subtle, top-notch work.
Other Precursor Contenders: The Art Directors Guild separates their awards into three categories-Contemporary, Fantasy, & Period. Fantasy went with Everything Everywhere All at Once, besting Avatar 2, Black Panther 2, Nope, & The Batman, while Period went with Babylon atop All Quiet on the Western Front, Elvis, The Fabelmans, and White Noise. Contemporary rarely gets its due, and admittedly none of these translated to Oscar with Glass Onion winning over Bardo, Bullet Train, Top Gun: Maverick, and Tar. BAFTA picked Babylon against All Quiet on the Western Front, The Batman, Elvis, & Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio (which won the Animated Feature category at the Art Directors Guild awards). In sixth place, I must brag and say I called all five of these nominees (one of the only races I did that in 2022), and so I'm going to stick with my sixth place prediction of Black Panther, given it won Best Costume & those usually go hand-in-hand.
Films I Would Have Nominated: White Noise is a film that doesn't always work. Based on a novel that felt (when I read it) pretty much unadaptable, it doesn't translate properly to the screen. But the set decoration, a nightmarish spin on life in the 1980's (particularly the dilapidated wonder of the supermarket) is the sort of nomination that Oscar should occasionally grant, because it'd give it a lot more cool points.
Oscar’s Choice: In one of the biggest shocks of the evening, All Quiet on the Western Front took the prize as part of a mini-sweep, besting Elvis and Babylon.
My Choice: I rarely do this, but I'm going to give Avatar: The Way of Water the same trophy I gave the original in 2009-it's just too good to ignore. Behind it is Babylon, The Fabelmans, All Quiet on the Western Front, and Elvis, in that order.
Those are my thoughts-how about yours? Do you want to stay on Pandora with me, or do you want to take a detour into mainland Europe circa 1917? Did Babylon have a chance here after its box office tanked? And for the second year in a row, the Costume winner didn't show up here-is the corollary between the two starting to wane? Share your thoughts below!
Also in 2022: Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Previously in 2022
Past Best Art Direction Contests: 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021
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