The Hard Sell

Was this really necessary?

I mean they're already going to win a slew of Oscars. (see final predictions and vote on reader polls). Honestly I thought this was a parody of a hard sell Oscar campaign / movie commercial for the first few seconds. My favorite part is either the woman with long hair who actually cries while participating in a movie commercial or the guy in St Louis with the yellow shirt.

The King's Speech reminds us that we're all human.

Uh, I hadn't actually forgotten but... thanks?

Thanks to Glenn for pointing this out. And I know it's splitting hairs but isn't a smidgeon dishonest to claim you're THE most acclaimed movie of the year when another movie has won more prizes than any movie usually ever does and yet another is actually the best reviewed of the year?

Costuming Helena, Finding Sherlock, Winning Oscar

INTERVIEW
As one half of the first costuming team I ever noticed as a young movie fanatic, interviewing JENNY BEAVAN was a special treat. She's currently enjoying her ninth Oscar nomination for her work on The King's Speech. This is her third solo nomination. She and her former partner John Bright costumed the Ishmael Merchant & James Ivory period dramas that I grew up obsessing over: A Room With A View, Howard's End, Maurice and the like. When Jenny and I spoke to discuss her current Oscar run for The King's Speech, however, it was less period drama and more modern comedy. "I'm guessing as to what you're saying" she told me while technical difficulties had us both comically shouting into our phones / computers until the situation was resolved.

We began at the beginning.

Merchant/Ivory is after all, a very good place to start, both for a young film buff in the 80s and a costume designer embarking on a huge career in the movies.  "That was my start in the whole thing," Beavan recalled, noting that the films were great fun to do.

The Merchant & Ivory Days
John Bright's name was peppered throughout her conversation. In fact, she had just seen him earlier that day. I had long wondered why they stopped working together. "We were known as Jenny Bright and John Beavan," she says about their close partnership. "I mean, he is just one of my absolutely best friends and also my most important collaborator. Believe me we're still collaborating. Just not so officially."

As it turns out Bright owns and runs Cosprop, a hugely important costume house which specializes in period wear,  an enormous job in and of itself though he still does the odd film. I mention how much I love his work on the ravishing The White Countess (2005) with elicits a barrage of superlatives from Beavan. "Absolutely brilliant!" 

Howards End (1992), a masterpiece.

We discuss a particular moment in Howards End that I'm very fond of. The Schlegel sisters (Emma Thompson and Helena Bonham-Carter) walking home one evening run into Mr Wilcox (Anthony Hopkins). One can't get enough of the beauty of that movie. The clothes are so modest but there's such sensuality to them and something so resonant and bohemian about the sisters. Beavan credits the screenplay with the specificity that makes character costuming easier and the actresses with the film's modernity.

Beavan, having logged a lot of time in costume dramas, thinks there's real power with staying utterly within period. If you step away from the period, she explains "it looks wrong and then you get a sort of worry in the audience."  Producers, particularly the America ones, she shares, don't like to see hats in the movies. And sometimes you just have to use hats. "Everybody wore hats up until the 1950s in England!" she says with feigned exasperation.

My grandmother would never go out without a hat on. She wouldn't have felt dressed.

After the golden period of the Merchant/Ivory films, Beavan's official partnership with John Bright ended and  the designer got a chance to "fly a bit more my own." That's what one might call an understatement.

READ THE REST for thoughts on Helena Bonham Carter's style, "finding" Sherlock Holmes and more.

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BAFTA Winners & Red Carpet

The British Academy have long since finished handing out their prizes and we're still waiting for BBC America to begin the Broadcast. It's so delayed we may just wait till tomorrow morning to watch it and check out the Grammys instead tonight. Who knows? It's so strange to be denied *live* events on the telly.  If you don't want to know the winners before you see the taped broadcast, skip this post.
The Harry Potter Gang

You already knew that it would be a big night for the Harry Potter crowd, since they were getting a special tribute but it was an even bigger night for Bellatrix LeStrange, our Lady Helena, as she took home Best Supporting Actress for her very popular film The King's Speech. It occurred to me today that HBC, for all the ups and downs of her career, noone but her husband has really been casting her for some time, she's really  sealed her place in history, not once, not twice, but three times over. Other actresses should be so lucky. She's an irreplaceable part of 80s era cinema as a major Merchant/Ivory rep player. She's an irreplaceable part of Tim Burton's filmography (and despite his rocky past decade in terms of quality, that means something). AND she's an irreplaceable part of the Harry Potter franchise which dominated the past decade of film. So, well done HBC.

It was sort of a stealth approach to screen immortality but however you get there...

BAFTA WINNERS
Academy Fellowship: Christopher Lee
Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema: the Harry Potter films
Film: The King's Speech
British Film: The King's Speech
Outstanding Debut: Four Lions, Chris Morris
Director: David Fincher, The Social Network
Screenplay: The King's Speech
Adapted Screenplay: The Social Network
Foreign Film: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Animated Film: Toy Story 3
Actor: Colin Firth, The King's Speech
Actress: Natalie Portman, Black Swan
Supporting Actor: Geoffrey Rush, The King's Speech
Supporting Actress: Helena Bonham Carter, The King's Speech

a major night for the Royal family with both Best Film awards

Music: Alexandre Desplat, The King's Speech
Cinematography: Roger Deakins, True Grit (read the Film Experience interview)
Editing: Angus Wall & Kirk Baxter, The Social Network (read the Film Experience interview)
Production Design Guy Dyas, Inception
Costume Design: Colleen Atwood, Alice in Wonderland
Sound: Inception
Visual Effects: Inception
Makeup and Hair: Alice in Wonderland
Short Animation: The Eagleman Stag
Short Film: Until the River Runs Red
Rising Star Award: Tom Hardy

More dresses? Who do you think is best dressed? (UPDATE: More pictures are coming in so this is just a teensy peak of the fashion)

poll by twiigs.com

I'm glad that Julianne Moore got one more big event this year as a nominee. She looks great. She didn't get to cheer on Annette Bening, though. Aside from the supporting categories -- which were part of the very dominant King's Speech (though strangely technicals like production design & costumes were not) -- the BAFTAs gave us the same crop of winners as virtually everywhere else in one of the most samey-samey years in awards history. It's unlikely that Oscar night will hold any surprises. Hopefully there will be major fashion risks to give us plenty to talk about other than "Which of Colin Firth's major speeches did you like best?" 

How are you feeling about the BAFTA choices? Disappointed? Happy? Empty Inside?

BAFTA Prep, Open Thread

Have you seen these downloadable e-mags from the British Academy? They have beautiful illustrated covers by Adam Simpson, one for each of the Best Picture nominees. I've included three of them here representing... well you can tell, can't you?

Black Swan continues to inspire graphic artists. I think The King's Speech design might be the best of the five designs. It has great composition, cleverly utilizes the memorable Eve Stewart production design, and that blimp heading towards / pointing at the King tells you the thrust of the story. The True Grit illustration is my least favorite of the five but I include it because it made me chuckle trying to reimagine the Coen Bros western as a Disney musical. You know how they do; the heroes/heroines are always standing on those jutting triangular pointed cliffs, singing their hearts out.

Hailee arrives at a pre BAFTA eventWhat would Mattie Ross's "I Want" Song be like anyway?

♪ ♫ Just You Wait, Tom Chaney, Just You Wait
You'll be sorry but your pleas will be too late.
You killed my father, fled the city.
I will avenge him, I'll be gritty.
Just you wait, Tom Chaney, just you wait.

Is that a movie you'd like to see?

Meanwhile, since BAFTA is on tape delay tonight we'll know the winners before we get a chance to see it. (Unless we turn off our computers, which is not something we often do, damnit). And the Grammys are also on tonight. Big awards night.  I'll probably write about the BAFTAs late tonight or tomorrow morning but if you feel like spoiling the winners in this thread, feel free.

P.S. BAFTA promises various footages today, such as red carpet and the like at their official site.

Eve Stewart on "The King Speech" Lacquering, Mike Leigh Yelling and Marlene Dietrich Peeing

How's that for a headline? All that is promised shall be delivered.

I recently interviewed production designer Eve Stewart, currently enjoying her second Oscar nomination for The King's Speech, and it was a completely delightful experience. Some of her spirit must have rubbed off on The King's Speech, which is, whether one is rooting for it at the Oscars or not, a much livelier viewing experience than what anyone might have expected reading a plot description months ago. "If you just hear about it on paper, it sounds..." I begin to admit after becoming acquainted.

"...a bit boring?"  she finishes my thought for me, matter of factly, with no hint of offense. "In the end i just thought 'GOOD GOD!' people are going to be looking at this room for 20 minutes. It better be interesting."

And so it went throughout the interview with Eve Stewart's merry recollections of The King's Speech, the intense work on Mike Leigh films, and her excitement about a new HBO project coming up. Here at the Film Experience we like to begin interviews with behind the scenes movie players by asking them to describe their job.

Moviegoers, including we film bloggers, have differing and sometimes spotty ideas about what each of a film's players bring to the table.

Nathaniel: When I think of production designers and art direction I think of people maybe looking at color palettes, approving sets, looking for props, talking intently to the costume designers. How would you describe what it is that you do?

Eve Stewart: I would describe my job as to support the story visually and to make sure that the world in which the story is set comes to life and creates a 'Bubble of Belief' around the characters which kind of transports the viewer with them.

Nathaniel: When it comes down to the nitty gritty like set constructions and prop work. Do you have a bunch of minions that you're bossing around?

Stewart: Oh I'm really hands on. My team is very small. I did painting at the Royal College of Art. I did opera and stuff like that so I didn't really do the normal film route. So the people I work with are sculptors, painters, fine artists that I've worked with since I was young and they all have a massive role to play.

Nathaniel: Do costume designers report to you since the visual look is your job?

Stewart: They don't report to me but i'm really collaborative.  In the end you are responsible for everything that is seen, all that gets photographed, so you have to make sure it all pulls together. I mean, It's terrible if you're designing a building and it doesn't look like the people live there because you haven't communicated with the costume designer. And also with color, you have to work together and compliment each other.

Nathaniel: The obvious standout set to me is the speech therapist's office, which I like to describe as a "dilapidated diorama"

Stewart: (laughs) Good!

Nathaniel: I love that it feels a bit like a stage. I mean part of that is the way it's shot but it pulls out for us that Logue (Geoffrey Rush) is a theater person at heart.

read the whole interview for more on The King's Speech, her Mike Leigh movies and Marlene Dietrich for HBO after the jump

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