OVP: Best Sound Editing (2016)
The Nominees Were...
Sylvain, Bellemare, Arrival
Wylie Stateman & Renee Tondelli, Deepwater Horizon
Robert Mackenzie & Andy Wright, Hacksaw Ridge
Ai-Ling Lee & Mildred Iatrou Morgan, La La Land
Alan Robert Murray & Bob Asman, Sully
My Thoughts: We move into the sound categories for our 2016 lineups, and like most years, we see a plethora of Best Picture nominees. Each year, I'm stunned at how the Oscars will shove as many Best Picture nominees as possible into each lineup, as if going out on your own will suddenly cause panic in the streets (heaven forbid the trophy goes to someone other than the Best Picture contenders). And with this category, we have now come to the point in our write-ups where the tides will start to turn on a movie that we have so far been exceedingly kind toward. Yes, La La Land, it's time to start understanding why you got 2-stars in my initial review.
La La Land's sound design is, for lack of a better word, bad, but that's particularly true for this nomination. In the years since movies like Bohemian Rhapsody have also gotten nominated here, which begs the question-what, precisely, is "sound edited" in La La Land? About the only scene that clearly needs and uses artificial sound is the opening number on the LA freeway, which was actually filmed on express lanes near downtown Los Angeles. However, this scene has truly terrible audio-it's difficult to hear the singers compared to the music, and the additional street noises don't add anything other than a cacophony. For a film where you're trying to make the music stand out, the sound quality is egregiously bad, and in the case of the sound editing, virtually non-existent.
This is not the case for Best Picture nominee Hacksaw Ridge. Unlike La La Land, you can actually find the sound editing here (and not because it's not seamless, but because it actually exists). Mel Gibson's film is actually quite well-constructed from a production standpoint-he knows how to compose an action sequence, and the cascade of bullets during Andrew Garfield's rescue sequence against the alternating shouting & silence (not to mention the score) is perfectly choreographed. The earlier scenes are underwhelming, and kind of make it seem like the only scenes that are worthwhile are the ones where people are dying (and thus all of that character building was for naught), but there's an impressive ambiance in the back half of this picture.
Deepwater Horizon is less exact than Hacksaw. The sound work here is more frenetic, frequently indulging in "loud" more than "precise." The nomination feels like it was given to the film as a way to acknowledge the underwater film-making, which I have to assume is incredibly difficult to convincingly create from an audio perspective (this category is notorious for liking movies taking place on submarines or with large water components), but it doesn't feel particularly cohesive or laudatory-it just feels like we're getting the "most" noise.
Arrival has the most distinct sound work (the aliens and their ships), but that doesn't always equal best-there are times when a movie makes its sound work double for scares or plot points in a way that always feel cheap when you think about it for two seconds. This is not the case for Arrival, though, as it adds mood and ambiance with its whooshes and echoes. The film thus creates a fascinating soundscape, one that gives faceless aliens an identity, but also doesn't get lost when we aren't interacting with the extraterrestrials. Think of the background noises in the party scenes or the specific murmur that permeates the scenes in the tents. This is a movie that cares about its sound work, not just when it's showy but every time the camera is rolling.
Sully is, alas, not such a film. The movie's one great scene is the crash sequence, which is riveting (realistic) entertainment. If it were just this scene, it'd be easy to forgive such a nomination, but the rest of the movie is lazy sound work. The government sequences, with the screeching microphones and obvious crowd sound work is super dull, and occasionally just insulting in trying to get the film's political agenda out. The film shouldn't be getting its citation just for one scene-if it can't do basic excellence in the other acts, then why nominate it?
La La Land's sound design is, for lack of a better word, bad, but that's particularly true for this nomination. In the years since movies like Bohemian Rhapsody have also gotten nominated here, which begs the question-what, precisely, is "sound edited" in La La Land? About the only scene that clearly needs and uses artificial sound is the opening number on the LA freeway, which was actually filmed on express lanes near downtown Los Angeles. However, this scene has truly terrible audio-it's difficult to hear the singers compared to the music, and the additional street noises don't add anything other than a cacophony. For a film where you're trying to make the music stand out, the sound quality is egregiously bad, and in the case of the sound editing, virtually non-existent.
This is not the case for Best Picture nominee Hacksaw Ridge. Unlike La La Land, you can actually find the sound editing here (and not because it's not seamless, but because it actually exists). Mel Gibson's film is actually quite well-constructed from a production standpoint-he knows how to compose an action sequence, and the cascade of bullets during Andrew Garfield's rescue sequence against the alternating shouting & silence (not to mention the score) is perfectly choreographed. The earlier scenes are underwhelming, and kind of make it seem like the only scenes that are worthwhile are the ones where people are dying (and thus all of that character building was for naught), but there's an impressive ambiance in the back half of this picture.
Deepwater Horizon is less exact than Hacksaw. The sound work here is more frenetic, frequently indulging in "loud" more than "precise." The nomination feels like it was given to the film as a way to acknowledge the underwater film-making, which I have to assume is incredibly difficult to convincingly create from an audio perspective (this category is notorious for liking movies taking place on submarines or with large water components), but it doesn't feel particularly cohesive or laudatory-it just feels like we're getting the "most" noise.
Arrival has the most distinct sound work (the aliens and their ships), but that doesn't always equal best-there are times when a movie makes its sound work double for scares or plot points in a way that always feel cheap when you think about it for two seconds. This is not the case for Arrival, though, as it adds mood and ambiance with its whooshes and echoes. The film thus creates a fascinating soundscape, one that gives faceless aliens an identity, but also doesn't get lost when we aren't interacting with the extraterrestrials. Think of the background noises in the party scenes or the specific murmur that permeates the scenes in the tents. This is a movie that cares about its sound work, not just when it's showy but every time the camera is rolling.
Sully is, alas, not such a film. The movie's one great scene is the crash sequence, which is riveting (realistic) entertainment. If it were just this scene, it'd be easy to forgive such a nomination, but the rest of the movie is lazy sound work. The government sequences, with the screeching microphones and obvious crowd sound work is super dull, and occasionally just insulting in trying to get the film's political agenda out. The film shouldn't be getting its citation just for one scene-if it can't do basic excellence in the other acts, then why nominate it?
Other Precursor Contenders: The Golden Reel Awards separate their nominations into three different categories: feature film, animation, and foreign film. The feature film nominees included a couple of the Oscar nominees (victorious Hacksaw Ridge, Arrival, Deepwater Horizon), as well as pictures that Oscar skipped (Captain America: Civil War, Deadpool, Doctor Strange, Rogue One, The Jungle Book). Foreign Language went to the biggest names of the year (winning The King's Choice, Elle, Neruda, The Handmaiden, Toni Erdmann, Under the Shadow), while animated was Moana over Finding Dory, Kubo and the Two Strings, Sing, The Little Prince, The Red Turtle, and Zootopia (bonus points to anyone who can name another animated feature film from 2016 without looking it up). In terms of sixth place, I kind of think I'd go with Rogue One, which has that amazing water sequence toward the end that one would have assumed would have landed it a citation here.
Films I Would Have Nominated: I'd certainly include Rogue One, which not only has that terrific end sequence, but even if you don't love the film (I didn't) it's easy to marvel at some of the action sequences. I would also include Moana, which has some great ocean sequences, and incorporates them with their ocean battles/ballads flawelessly. Finally, I'd make room for Kubo, which feels like an easy call, particularly since we're paying attention to its visual effects to throw in its equally marvelous sound work. This category used to recognize animation-why did it stop?
Oscar’s Choice: Oscar gave the trophy to Arrival, probably at the expense of Hacksaw Ridge which overall had a solid Oscar night performance.
My Choice: I'm also going to go with Arrival over Hacksaw, as it's more consistent and better aids the full story. Behind them it'll be Deepwater, Sully, and La La Land.
Those are my thoughts-what are yours? Are you with with the consensus that you want Arrival, or do you favor the Golden Reel-awarded Hacksaw? Is there any other scene in La La Land with obvious sound editing that I'm missing? And why doesn't this branch nominate animation anymore? Share your thoughts below in the comments!
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