OVP: Best Makeup & Hairstyling (2020)
The Nominees Were...
Marese Langan, Laura Allen, & Claudia Stolze, Emma
Eryn Krueger Mekash, Matthew Mungle, & Patricia Dehaney, Hillbilly Elegy
Sergio Lopez-Rivera, Mia Neal, & Jamika Wilson, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
Gigi Williams, Kimberley Spiteri, & Colleen LaBaff, Mank
Mark Coulier, Dalia Colli, & Francesca Pegoretti, Pinocchio
My Thoughts: We are going to begin our conversation about 2020, as we do every season, with Best Makeup & Hairstyling (fun fact, or at least "fun" fact-every season of this series goes in the exact same category order). Unlike a lot of the categories we'll profile this season, this is one of the few lineups that doesn't really read as "this happened during the pandemic." While I don't agree with all of these nominations (we'll get there in a second), none of these outwardly callout as being movies that signal a weak field, and honestly this is one of the better lineups that happened for Oscar's tech categories in 2020.
Arguably the most surprising inclusion a year out is Pinocchio, and it really shouldn't be. Somehow the second film version of Carlo Collodi's classic tale to star Roberto Benigni (the double take I did when my brother informed me of its existence, and I was like "no...that already happened" is still one of the bigger WTF moments I've had in a while), the movie's plot doesn't work, and it gets too bogged down in the grotesqueries of this world. But we don't judge categories like this on whether or not we liked the movie, and I loved the Makeup work here. The realism of the wooden puppet is extraordinary, as are characters like the Cricket & the gigantic Snail. They don't make a lot of sense, but they are clearly a storybook vision, almost as if they are carved out of wood in front of us, and it gives the film the right aesthetic...if only it had lived up to it.
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom has less showy makeup (none of the rest of these rely upon traditional transformative prosthetics in the way we frequently see in this category), but it's still critical to the plot. Viola Davis's fake teeth & constant sweatiness is filled with the kind of character detail I glom onto (I am always about aiding the story & the director's vision when it comes to a tech category). The rest of the makeup work is just okay, though. Ma Rainey is one really impressive effect and that's all it needs (we don't need to gild the lily), but if you're competing for the very best, it's hard to compare that with Pinocchio just because the latter's makeup is so critical to the entirety of the film.
A competitor that battles on equal footing would be Emma. This is more of a hairstyling nomination than makeup, which I applaud (too often makeup gets the credit even though both get title billing since 2011). I loved the way that Emma's signature hairstyle never shifts, but feels both a little bit much & immaculate. It's also a great touch to see how certain women try to emulate her (but never as successfully), considering everything about this movie is brought back to the titular Miss Woodhouse. Everyone in the film looks divine & perfectly matches the movie's style.
Mank is the other nominee here who could fall into the "pretty people being pretty" category. Here we have a lot of Old Hollywood glamour on display, and given the disadvantage of playing in black-and-white the makeup & hair teams do a really good job of giving us touches to the character. I love the way that Amanda Seyfried's Marion, the "kept woman" who doesn't entirely know her place, keeps subtly shifting her hair scene-by-scene, always a silly version of glamour that feels like a cross between real stardom and a slight lack of confidence. It's character-buiding stuff, and more than any of these movies the film knows how to world-build by making all of the background players feel like they've also spent hours in the makeup chair, getting everything about Fincher's epic just right.
Our final nominee is Hillbilly Elegy, which is the least of these movies in terms of its overall quality, though as I said with Pinocchio, that shouldn't be a total fault of the movie in this category's discussion. What is, though, is that much of the makeup look centers around the continual transformation of junkie Amy Adams and Glenn Close in a fright wig & glasses. These aren't bad looks, but they read as inauthentic when everyone else is sporting standard-issue makeup. Like the movie itself, the director is so lost when he doesn't center the story principally on these two actresses that it makes what should be pretty solid reinventions of movie icons into something that stands out as "look at Glenn Close in that wig." As a result, it takes away from the realism the picture is striving toward.
Other Precursor Contenders: As I will say many times throughout the coming weeks as a reminder, the eligibility windows here are very strange, and so I'm going to read the nominations verbatim from BAFTA while noting it's difficult to understand what was & wasn't eligible at a given award. BAFTA gave its trophy to Ma Rainey, besting The Dig, Hillbilly Elegy (while this is totally plausible as an Oscar nominee even in a normal year, in a traditional season this very American story would've had zilch shot at a BAFTA citation), Mank, & Pinocchio, while the Saturn Awards didn't actually get held during the year (they ended up being delayed for two years due to the pandemic), so the only Makeup nominee from the calendar year for 2020 was Bill & Ted Face the Music (which lost to Rise of Skywalker). 2020 did have a bakeoff, so we know that Birds of Prey, The Glorias, Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey, The Little Things, or One Night in Miami was in sixth place. My guess is that Birds of Prey was probably in sixth place-the previous movie in the series Suicide Squad won this category, and it was a showier film (I'll totally buy the arguments that the kooky Makeup branch would've gone for Jingle Jangle though just to mess with the Academy if you want to make it).
Films I Would Have Nominated: Like I said, this is a pretty good list and most of it will end up carrying to my personal favorites (more than virtually any other 2020 category). That said, I would've surely found room for The Personal History of David Copperfield, which does great things with incorporating modern flares while also having a realistic look at a 19th Century London (and Dev Patel looks fantastic).
Oscar’s Choice: Ma Rainey took this one, probably over Pinocchio or Mank. I think if more people had seen Pinocchio it would've had a better shot, but in this exhausted Oscar season mostly frontrunners won.
My Choice: I am going to counter the Oscars and give this one to Pinocchio, which I think is an extraordinary, sometimes ugly but always fascinating, vision. Behind it I'll pick Emma, Mank, Ma Rainey, and Hillbilly Elegy (in that order).
And those are my thoughts-what are yours? Are you sticking with Viola's fake teeth or do you want to join me in Roberto's second try with the puppet? Why do you think 2020 was the rare year where this category favored glamour over showier nominations like Birds of Prey? And did anyone actually watch Jingle Jangle? Share your theories below!
No comments:
Post a Comment