Honorary Oscars: Owen Roizman and "Tootsie"

We're revisiting work from this year's Honorary Oscar winners. Here's Eric Blume on cinematography Owen Roizman

Sydney Pollack’s 1982 movie Tootsie is one of my all-time favorite films. It's a perfect treat to revisit when you need to feel like there’s hope in the world.  Despite many viewings, I’ve never truly contemplated the cinematography by one of this year’s Honorary Oscar recipients, Owen Roizman.

Tootsie marked Roizman’s fourth of five Academy Award nomination (the others are The French Connection, The Exorcist, Wyatt Earp and Network).  It’s not the kind of work that typically generates an Oscar nomination. Indeed, the competition that year (Gandhi, Das Boot, E.T., and Sophie’s Choice) were the more magical, lyrical, expansive sort of films that are usually recognized in that category.

But Roizman’s contribution to Tootsie is gigantic, key to the film’s tone and success. It's also an excellent example of how many careful, intelligent decisions go into a more typical, mainstream film and the difference they can make...

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Honorary Oscars: Agnès Varda's Cléo from 5 to 7

We're revisiting work from this year's Honorary Oscar winners. Here's Salim on Agnès Varda...

What's good?

When most people look back on the French New Wave, it’s unconsciously seen as a boys’ club, especially of the Cahiers du Cinéma clan with Godard and Truffaut. That’s unfortunate when a chapter in film history feels marginalizing and the masculinity in the French New Wave movement can end up nondescript.Much thanks for Agnès Varda then, representing both the literary Left Bank wing of the French New Wave and the feminine voice she brought to the fray.

While her directorial debut La Pointe Courte predates and even informs much of the French New Wave proper, Cléo from 5 to 7 is essentially the work that broke that glass ceiling and introduced a new sort of perspective into the one of the most radical movements in film history.

And the brilliant thing is how unassuming Cléo from 5 to 7 is about these things. Not TOO relaxed, mind you...

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The Furniture: Grotesque Extravagance in Fellini's Casanova

"The Furniture," by Daniel Walber, is our weekly series on Production Design. You can click on the images to see them in magnified detail. Since the Honorary Oscars are handed out next week, here's a Donald Sutherland film for you!

Federico Fellini didn’t much like Giacomo Casanova, the famously amorous subject of his meandering fantasy-biopic. The director may not have liked Donald Sutherland, either. The actor was required to shave his head and sport both a false nose and a false chin to play the long-winded lover. The costumes aren’t especially flattering either. Fellini’s Casanova is an erotic descent into Hell, a grotesque pageant of 18th century moral abandon. It frequently borders on the disgusting.

It was also on the edge of Oscar’s attention, sliding into only two categories. While Fellini’s Casanova did win for its costumes, its production design missed out entirely. Anyone betting that year would likely have lost money; La Dolce Vita, 8 ½ and Juliet of the Spirits were all nominated for both.

Though this sexualized panorama thrilled the costume designers, it may have shocked too many art directors. Like Sutherland’s performance, it’s proved to be a bit too much for the Academy. That’s a shame, because the contribution of legendary designer Danilo Donati is dazzling...

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Honorary Oscars: Charles Burnett's "Killer of Sheep"

We will be revisiting work from this year's Honorary Oscar winners. Here's Tim on Charles Burnett...

For most of its existence, the 1977 Killer of Sheep existed more in the realm of legend than concrete film history. It was made for a paltry $10,000 by director-producer (-writer-cinemtographer-editor) Charles Burnett as his master's thesis project in UCLA, taking five years to complete. Owing to the substantial expense of securing rights to the music Burnett wished to use, the film was never able to acquire distribution, and for nearly thirty years remained more talked about than seen, though it was fiercely admired by those lucky ones who had attended a screening. It was inducted into the National Film Registry in 1990, but still could only be found mostly by accident, as it flitted around the film underground on increasingly degraded 16mm prints.

In 2007, 30 years after the film was completed, the UCLA Film & Television archive finally took steps to secure the future of the film, creating a new 35mm print from the 16mm negative. Milestone Films secured the music rights for $150,000, and the film finally had its first commercial release, to enormous critical acclaim. Burnett had never stopped working, but the restoration of Killer of Sheep unquestionably brought his reputation to new heights. It's hard to imagine him receiving his honorary Oscar this year without Killer of Sheep having so triumphantly risen from the ashes.

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Honorary Oscars: Agnès Varda's "The Gleaners & I"

We will be revisiting work from this year's Honorary Oscar winners. Here's Chris on Agnès Varda...

Agnès Varda is getting some long-overdue recognition this year. With prominent profiles being written with the coming of her Honorary Oscar and the release of her documentary with photographer JR Faces Places, you could practically call her a cineaste’s It Girl. While this recent film is earning her new fans enamored with her unique point of view, they will find something equally as layered and holistic in 2000’s The Gleaners and I.

The documentary begins as a study of modern day gleaning, the ancient practice of searching harvested fields for leftover crops - but it quickly becomes so much more...

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