OVP: Best Makeup (2003)
The Nominees Were...
Richard Taylor & Peter King, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Edouard Henriques III & Yolanda Toussieng, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
Ve Neill & Martin Samuel, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
My Thoughts: We are going to head into our 2003 lineup this Thanksgiving week (ooph, do I need an extra day off this week!) with some weird synergy. This is our 16th Oscar Viewing Project, and we always start every season with the same two categories, Best Makeup & Visual Effects (we actually do the same order every season unless I feel strongly about the writing categories that year). This is the first year, however, where Makeup and Visual Effects have the exact same list of nominees (I actually think this is the only time this has ever happened). So we will be starting this week with two different angles on the same three films. Let's see if they end up with similar victors, shall we?
Master and Commander is less-discussed now than it was at the time, a movie that was quite celebrated and a pretty sizable hit in 2003 (most assumed it'd get a sequel), but isn't part of the pop culture now like the other two nominees. That's a pity as we'll get into the coming weeks as it's a handsome, methodical movie about the tolls of war at sea. The makeup category for me, though, is subtle but not flashy. There's definitely makeup on display, and I like the grueling way that the artists continually make the men look more peaked, particularly the injured Paul Bettany, the further we get away from shore. It isn't the first thing you'd think when you discuss Master and Commander, but it's admirable & doing what it's supposed to do.
Pirates of the Caribbean, it's hard to believe, was considered something of an unsure bet in 2003. The Country Bears (another movie based on a Disney theme park ride) had just royally bombed, and Hollywood was still reeling from the catastrophic failure of Cutthroat Island, so pirate movies felt like a risky gambit. Of course, this film would reinvigorate Disney live-action and become one of the most successful franchises of all-time. Part of that is due to the makeup. The film brings a heightened realism to the looks of all of the pirates (making them dirty, albeit a pretty dirty in Johnny Depp's case), and giving us ridiculous coifs for Keira Knightley and the other women in the film. It's never too much, and totally helps establish a franchise (one of my favorites).
There are some aspects of Return of the King that feel like cheating here. You're going to find in the next ten weeks as we discuss the final chapter in the original Tolkien film franchise that I need to judge this slightly on a curve when it comes to the technical achievements. After all, we've already had six hours of the makeup effects on-display here, and it'd be a bit of cheating to simply credit it once again for the golden-maned Galadriel or the angel-faced hobbits. But two creations stand out as unique here, and are truly iconic. The first is the transformation of Smeagol into Gollum, a combination of visual effects & makeup wizardry, and the second is Gothmog, the grotesque orc leader who stands out as perhaps the only orc in the films you can readily identify as distinct to this picture. Both are dazzling creations in a franchise filled with remarkable visual effects.
Other Precursor Contenders: BAFTA went five-wide long before Oscar did, and they also included hairstyling years before Oscar had that as part of its calculation. They went for Pirates as the victors here, over Big Fish, Cold Mountain, Girl with a Pearl Earring, and Return of the King. The Saturn Awards (which focus principally on horror, fantasy, & science fiction) gave their trophy to Return of the King, here over The Haunted Mansion, Terminator 3, Pirates of the Caribbean, Underwold, and X2. And 2003 did have a shortlist, so we know that one of the following films was in fourth place: Cold Mountain, The Last Samurai, Monster, and Peter Pan. My gut says that it was probably Cold Mountain, which has a lot of war makeup (always popular), though with this branch it's always hard to tell as 2003 is the rare year where they went with the crowd (usually they're more idiosyncratic than that so Monster or Peter Pan aren't out of the question). At least at the time, it was considered a surprise that Monster missed though its nomination count being so slim...maybe they only liked Theron?
Films I Would Have Nominated: Charlize Theron is a great actress, and gives a strong performance in Monster. She would not, however, have won an Oscar without her makeup team doing an incredible, almost ludicrous job of making one of the world's most beautiful women into a completely different person. That they didn't get nominated alongside her is ridiculous.
Oscar’s Choice: Spoiler alert for the next ten weeks-Return of the King wins every award it is nominated for. I think the question is how often it was even close to losing, and here I don't think it was remotely close-Pirates BAFTA win gives you pause, but I think this was a default checkmark for most AMPAS members.
My Choice: I am also giving this to Lord of the Rings, though it's closer than you'd think as Pirates is deeply iconic, and the start of a franchise so it gets more points for originality (Master and Commander take the bronze).
And those are my thoughts-what are yours? Is everyone okay starting this conversation with Return of the King or does someone want to side with a different picture? How fair is it to nominate sequels to films that already indulged in heavy makeup? And could someone explain to me how they skipped over Monster? Share your theories below!
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