Oscar Volley: Is production design best or most this year?

Team Experience has been pairing up to discuss Oscar categories. Here's Cláudio and Mark talking Best Production Design. Totally my fault that this went up late but enjoy this digestif since we just talked Best Picture - Editor

CLÁUDIO: Since the start of our new era of an expanded Best Picture ballot, it's become harder and harder for movies not nominated for the big category to win elsewhere. Even so, it's not unusual to see one sole production succeeding against the apparent odds, nabbing a couple of prizes in categories dominated by more beloved titles. This year that could be the case for Babylon in Best Production Design. After its BAFTA victory, I'm inclined to predict the Chazelle's polarizing chronicle of Old Hollywood, but the mightiness of Best Picture nominees Avatar: The Way of Water, All Quiet on the Western Front, Elvis, and The Fabelmans looms large over the race...

MARK: Large indeed. Having (re)watched Babylon, its production values are undeniable. What strikes me about the Production Design nominees this year is the range of in service they are to their filmmakers: the maximalist vision of Babylon and Elvis, the singular dreamscape of Avatar 2, the lovingly rendered world of The Fabelmans, and brutally depicted one of All Quiet on the Western Front. Each has its own bold visual statement to make, none perhaps more declarative than Babylon (other than, of course, the curiously non-nominated Everything Everywhere All at Once). 

And yet—and yet!—never to be underestimated among these is Mrs. Baz Luhrmann, Catherine Martin, and team for Elvis. Consider this: Since her first Oscar nomination in 1996 (for William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet), Martin has missed out on a production design nom only once (for Australia in 2008). She already has won the Oscar twice, for Best Product Design *and* Best Costume Design, for Moulin Rouge! and The Great Gatsby. In short, she hardly ever misses. Methinks it would be foolish to bet against Martin and company for Elvis, which may not score much elsewhere.

Does that mean I’ve counted out All Quiet on the Western Front, Avatar 2 and The Fabelmans? Not exactly (except for Avatar 2), considering the overperformance of All Quiet on the Western Front and Spielbergian magical beauty of The Fabelmans. What say you?

CLÁUDIO: Curious that you think Elvis is unlikely to take many awards because I could imagine a scenario where it's one of the night's biggest winners. Actor, Production and Costume Design, Makeup, maybe Sound? They all feel possible, especially when one considers how, in most of these races, it's the sole biopic.

That's not to say a victory for Luhrmann's retelling of Faust through American celebrity would be a matter of perfunctory namechecking. Martin's work is excellent, selling the artifice as both fantasy and trap, getting drunk on the tackiness while positing iconography as something stifling. For me, the theatricality of Las Vegas is where Martin shines brightest. The way those stage curtains can be a loving frame or a voracious beast is one of Elvis' most striking visuals. It's historical recreation holding hands with operatic myth.

And yet, everything that movie does well in design terms, Babylon does better, if not necessarily bigger. But of course, as much as I want to appeal to Mank and Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood as examples to back up a Babylon victory, those two were beloved by AMPAS in ways that this mess wasn't.  

Awards history is also why The Fabelmans might still have a chance. First, there's the quality of the work - its parade of midcentury homes in flux is masterful, as are the recreations of adolescent moviemaking and humorous turns through scenography. Second, in 2012, Lincoln won despite nabbing only a Satellite to go along with its Oscar. So, could we be headed to another Spielbergian surprise?

MARK: Ooh, I had forgotten that Lincoln won Best Production Design. (I would’ve voted for Anna Karenina or Life of Pi easily that year, but a win is a win.) The Fabelmans is gorgeous in its design elements so in no way out of the running here; out of its seven overall nominations, production design may be its best shot at an Oscar at this point. I wouldn’t be shocked to see it win, though other nominees do seem to have more of the edge.

The only nominee I can’t envision winning here is Avatar: The Way of Water. True, the first Avatar did win this category, yet I don’t see the Academy voting en masse to reward the sequel here. (Visual effects, now that's another story.)

All Quiet on the Western Front could be the little engine that could (but probably won’t) here; its production designer and set decorator, the latter of whom also worked on Tár (wow), are first-time Oscar nominees—as are *all* of the film’s nominees outside score. They’ll be back.

Speaking of score, could Babylon have a better chance to win there than here? I’m not counting it out of course—Babylon did win, after all, at the Art Directors Guild *and* the BAFTA awards last month—but Elvis could come out on top in production (and costume) design, while perhaps falling just short in actor and makeup (both of which The Whale *could* pick up…who knows). Elvis is, as you mentioned, a sight to see.

So are we both leaning toward an Elvis win at this point?

CLÁUDIO: Thank you for mentioning Ernestine Hipper's work in TÁR. I would have loved to see her here for the Fields' movie rather than Berger's war epic. That said, despite my anti-All Quiet on the Western Front ways, it's hard to find major fault with its production design. It's got a concrete POV and executes it well, down to the stark contrast between the worlds inhabited by foot soldiers and politicians.

I don't know if I'd be as quick as you to dismiss Avatar's chances, but the guilds didn't show up for Cameron's film, nor is it being discussed during the voting window. Honestly, though there are two frontrunners here, this is one of those lineups where I could see every nominee taking the trophy. It's a tight race!

In any case, you've convinced me to put Martin as my predicted winner. So my ranking of the titles in terms of likelihood would be:

1. Elvis – they adore Catherine Martin and are very into this movie.
2. Babylon – it has the precursors! But they were cold on the picture.
3. The Fabelmans – could be the place to reward the film if they're not inclined to give John Williams another statuette.
4. All Quiet on the Western Front - the industry loves it SO MUCH. 
5. Avatar: The Way of Water – it's a showstopper, but it already has one Oscar guaranteed with VFX.

MARK: A slam-dunk win in visual effects is one of the reasons I think Avatar: The Way of Water is out of the running here. It’s simply not as novel as the original, or as popular for that matter. It’ll be fine.

My ranking is exactly the same as yours. I see Elvis > Babylon > The Fabelmans > All Quiet on the Western Front > Avatar 2: Electric Boogaloo.

Regardless of who—and which film—wins, one thing we *all* can be grateful for this year is that Best Production Design (ditto Best Editing, Best Makeup and Hairstyling, Best Original Score, Best Sound, and the shorts—animated, documentary and live action) won’t be shunted to a non-televised preshow like last year’s debacle of a telecast. Craft categories and their nominees deserve better/more respect, production designers and set decorators least among them!

CLÁUDIO: Yes! Last year's disrespect towards those categories made it the worst Academy Awards ceremony in my lifetime. I'm so happy everything's back on the main telecast.

Finally, as we wrap things up, would you like to shout out any of your unnominated favorites?

For me, the best production design of the year was all about the character encapsulating spaces of Decision to Leave and the decayed anachronisms of Corsage, Crimes of the Futures' Athenian nightmare where flesh is machine and Bardo's broken opulence in crisis. Gaspar Noé's Vortex wasn't eligible for the Oscars, but it deserves some love, too, just for the way you can surmise a lifetime of shared history from the stuff within the walls of a cluttered apartment.

MARK: Unnominated faves? Why, yes! You better believe I have some.

Besides Corsage and Decision to Leave (both gorge), I’ll throw in Don’t Worry Darling. Now of course the behind-the-scenes drama eclipsed the on-screen drama, but that doesn’t take away from the production design, which was an MCM marvel. I also can’t quibble with Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, putting seemingly *all* of the Netflix’s money on the screen, because its production values are A+. And I, too, was bewitched by the production design in Crimes of the Century. What a weird, wild return to form for Cronenberg & Co. (Still have to catch up with Vortex.)

With that, we’ll see what’s in store at the Oscars Sunday! 

RELATED:

• Oscar Charts
• Oscar Volley: Picture
• Oscar Volley: Director
• Oscar Volley: Actress
• Oscar Volley: Actor
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• Oscar Volley: Supporting Actor
• Oscar Volley: International Feature
• Oscar Volley: Doc Feature
• Oscar Volley: Original Screenplay
• Oscar Volley: Adapted Screenplay
• Oscar Volley: Costume Design
• Oscar Volley: Cinematography
• Oscar Volley: Visual Effects
• Oscar Volley: Best Original Song
• Oscar Volley: Animated Feature
• Oscar Volley: Film Editing

Comments

[TOM]

Have loyal viewers been informed yet if those five ‘boring, unnecessary’ categories like Production Design, Makeup/Hair, Costume Design, etc. have been again relegated to be shown during commercial breaks, then have the winner’s speeches quickly edited as not to ‘bore’ it’s bored audience?

[Wae Mest]

A write-in vote for NOPE.

And the craft categories were not "relegated to a non-televised preshow" or shown during commercial breaks. Your memory is clouded by outrage. The awards were presented and the winners' speeches were shown during the broadcast, albeit in a truncated version. It was bad but not nearly the fiasco some people claim.

[wo pexo]

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