OVP: Best Sound (2023)
The Nominees Were...
Ian Voigt, Erik Aadahl, Ethan van der Ryn, Tom Ozanich, & Dean Zupancic, The Creator
Steven S. Murrow, Richard King, Jason Ruder, Tom Ozanich, & Dean Zupancic, Maestro
Chris Munro, James H. Mather, Chris Burdon, & Mark Taylor, Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One
Willie Burton, Richard King, Gary A. Rizzo, & Kevin O'Connell, Oppenheimer
Tarn Willers & Johnnie Burn, The Zone of Interest
My Thoughts: I am still getting used to the concept of the sound categories being combined. I don't like it (that's why in the My Ballot we are continuing to look at the categories separately), but it does makes things a bit simpler in grading these pictures. In different years, some of these movies would've been a challenge to suss out the difference between mixing & editing, understanding what made one aspect a bit stronger than the other (cause quite frankly, as a non-filmmaker, there are movies where I can't tell if something is an effect or not). But with them combined, we have it easier in just lumping them together-all the sounds count the same.
A good example of this would be Mission Impossible. This film uses a number of different practical stunts (Cruise actually jumped off of a cliff while riding a motorcycle, which is insane & you have to be the level of Tom Cruise famous to be able to get a studio to take that kind of an insurance risk with their leading man), and when it comes to practical stunts, it is a combination of actual sounds and ones that are being manufactured after the effect to punctuate gunshots, punches, & explosions. The film is strong in its fight scenes (particularly the one on the train), but I feel like it over-relies on the score, and it feels a bit generic after seven movies when it isn't getting its "this is the reason we made the movie" sorts of action sequences (again, like the train) brought out into the open.
The Zone of Interest is another film that, honestly, it's hard to tell the editing from the mixing, and you'd be forgiven for not realizing that the movie has both. What you wouldn't be forgiven for is understanding how special this film's sound is. Honestly, if you wanted to have a textbook definition of how sound can truly influence a film, this is it. While Mica Levi's dramatic, electronic score elevates the movie in sequences, it's really in the silence, when we overhear people literally dying across the wall while the main family is displaying domesticity right in front of us, that we get the juxtaposition in Glazer's banality of evil paradox. Brilliant stuff, and totally makes the movie.
We didn't get a musical nomination in 2023, which is usually one of the mainstays of this category, but we did get a musically-inspired film in Maestro. I have been somewhat tough on Maestro throughout these proceedings (if you're a fan of the film, that's not going to get better the further along we go so brace yourself), but I am not blind (or in this case, deaf) to its stronger attributes, and one of those is its sound mixing. The way that we hear a loud, almost cannon-fire look at Bernstein's compositions (think of the famous scene where Bradley Cooper allegedly spent years learning how to compose to get a few minutes of screen time), you understand so much of the character through the overpowering genius of his music. This is well-balanced throughout the rest of the film, where we get conversation that feels tinkling, like in a Douglas Sirk picture.
Loud being good isn't the case for all films, though. I have long had an issue with Christopher Nolan's pictures and their sound design, with some being very strong, but occasionally him having the worst of offenders in movies like Tenet, where there are stretches of dialogue when you literally can't hear the picture. Oppenheimer isn't that bad, but I will own that the overbearing score breaks the sound-it's too loud, and it's too much. It causes some of the bigger explosions to feel like they're playing second fiddle to a cymbal crash, and in a movie where the "big explosions" are important to what's happening in the movie (we need to understand the destruction to get why this has haunted Oppenheimer), this is a risky ball to drop.
The final nominee is The Creator, a movie that would've been a threat to win Best Sound Editing in a different era (I think 2023 is one of those years that the Sound categories split their winners). The movie's reliance on a futuristic world where robots coexist alongside (and are seen as toxic to) humanity is one that needs to have a constant whir of sounds that are not there, and this works really well. The Creator is not a strong movie, but it is one that looks & acts like a prestige Science Fiction thriller, and that includes its strong sound design. You get distinctive aural cues for the robots, and despite none of that being in reality, you never doubt the visual effects are real. That's in part due to the perfect synchronicity with the sound.
Other Precursor Contenders: The Cinema Audio Society (focusing on Sound Mixing) splits its victors between Live-Action and Animated, so for Live-Action we have Oppenheimer beating Barbie, Ferrari, Killers of the Flower Moon, & Maestro, while Animated had Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse victorious over Elemental, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, The Boy and the Heron, and The Super Mario Bros. Movie. The Golden Reel Awards (focusing on Sound Editing) also split between live-action and animated, with Oppenheimer (beating Ferrari, Gran Turismo, John Wick: Chapter 4, Napoleon, & The Killer) and Spider-Verse 2 (atop Elemental, Migration, & Mario) their winners. The BAFTA Awards gave their statue to The Zone of Interest, here against Ferrari, Maestro, Mission Impossible, & Oppenheimer. The Sound categories in 2023 have a shortlist (I always forget this because for years they didn't and also it's for some reason not on the Wikipedia page) and so we know that sixth place was either Barbie, Ferrari, The Killer, Killers of the Flower Moon or Napoleon...and I think the smart money would be on one of the two Best Picture nominees. At the time I predicted Barbie (it has the musical elements that they tend to like), but Killers of the Flower Moon is a smart guess as well.
Films I Would Have Nominated: Like I said, we'll split out the categories between mixing and editing for my nominees, so we'll actually have seven films nominated for Sound in total. One movie that will make both fields, though, and therefore would've had a guaranteed nomination in a combined category like Oscar's, is The Killer, which is a masterful look at how sound can inform the pacing of your film (also, all David Fincher films tend to sound good).
Oscar’s Choice: In maybe the classiest win of the night (and there were a lot of classy wins at the 96th Academy Awards), The Zone of Interest upset and got a victory over Oppenheimer, which was many people's presumed favorite.
My Choice: The only way you beat something like Oppenheimer for a gimme category like this is by being an all-timer, and that's what The Zone of Interest is-it's an extremely worthy first place. Behind it, I debated between The Creator and Maestro, but ultimately picked the SciFi epic for second because I think it has the harder task and makes it more engrained into the movie. Behind these three would be Mission Impossible, and then Oppenheimer.
Those are my choices-how about you? I'm assuming anyone who has seen The Zone of Interest is giving it their vote...right? Why do you think Oscar has moments of such discerning taste, and in other categories they just let the Best Picture winner stampede to the top? And was it Barbie or Killers of the Flower Moon in sixth? Share your thoughts in the comments!
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