Oscar Preview: Other Categories

I'm focusing my attention here on the "other" Oscar categories--the ones outside the big six that honor specific aspects of moviemaking, such as cinematography, costume design, and sound effects. Rather than predict what I think will be nominated, I want to highlight a few films that I think deserve nominations in these categories, but might get overlooked for being less typical of what usually gets nominated.

The cinematography, art direction, costume design, and musical score categories are often dominated by sweeping historical epics, films like Memoirs of a Geisha, Pride & Prejudice, The Aviator, and Finding Neverland. Sound mixing and editing, visual effects, and make-up often go to big-budget spectacles such as King Kong, Chronicles of Narnia, Spider-Man 2, and the Star Wars films.

But sometimes an atypical choice might be just what Oscar called for, a film that uses technical mediums to enhance the story in unexpected ways rather than something in-your-face that wasn't at all surprising.

Babel (Art Direction, Sound Mixing, Score)

Sure Babel will probably get lots of nominations, but since it's not a sweeping historical epic or a big-budget action film, it may come up short in these types of categories. That's too bad, because there's some really fantastic work here combining visual and aural elements. Babel's art direction is subtle but very effective--placing actors in four distinctly different environs that are designed so well as to instantly remind the viewer how important setting is to the story of the film. Urban Japan, suburban California, rural Mexico, and Morocco are all rendered as very different places, and this difference is also highlighted by the film's score, which changes thematically to match the country in which the action is taking place.

Babel should also be considered for sound mixing, for it's powerful use of sound to highlight Rinko Kikuchi's character's deafness. There's this fantastic transition where she, after having taken some kind of narcotic with friends, goes clubbing. The sound shifts from the ambient outside noise, to electronic music meant to score Rinko’s mood, then Earth, Wind & Fire’s “September” is mixed in, although muffled at times as if heard from the character’s deaf perspective. All the while the colorful Tokyo visuals are really cool too. Check it out:







Children of Men (Cinematography, Sound, Art Direction)

I’d be surprised if Children of Men doesn’t get Cinematography and Sound nominations for it’s edge-of-your-seat single take action sequences, the car chase near the beginning of the film, and Clive Owen’s rescue of the pregnant girl in the refugee camp near the end. Both are stunning and required an unthinkable amount of setup to get each shot. I read that the car was specially built so that the seats and windows could move out of the way so the camera could go in and out and the actors could move out of the camera’s view when needed. Here’s the rescue scene:







And here’s the car chase scene (warning: it’s pretty violent):







Children of Men is also notable for its art direction, which subtly hints at technological advancement (the film is set in 2027) in realistic ways, without being too advanced. After all, in a post-apocalpytic future the global economy would be dead, and I wouldn’t expect there to be as much advancement.

The Devil Wears Prada (costume design)

To believe that The Devil Wears Prada should be nominated for best costume design (as I do), it’s important to remember that this award shouldn’t be a sewing contest. It always goes to historical epics with lavish costumes—the only film recently nominated with a contemporary setting was Priscilla: Queen of the Desert, and that was for drag outfits. One could argue that fashion is as important of a character in the Devil Wears Prada as Andrea or her mean editor Miranda, and the film effectively uses costuming to convey a lot about the personality of the characters. Most stunning is the montage where Andrea learns to dress fashionably. We see her style change over the course of several outfits; what we don’t see, but should realize, is that she’s not just changing on the outside.

The Queen (make-up)

The make-up award usually goes to some fancy work with prosthetics. But why not honor something a little more simple, but just as effective? Sadly, The Queen isn’t on the shortlist of films being considered here, but why not? Didn’t Helen Mirren look stunning at the Globes this week? Compare that to her frumpy presence in the Queen. She doesn’t act at all like her self (that’s acting), not does she look at all like herself (that’s make-up). It’s very well done.

Flags of Our Fathers (Cinematography, Visual and Sound Effects)

The battle scenes of Flags of Our Fathers are obviously impressive. But some of the non-battle scences use impressive visual effects too, like this scene featuring a crowd-filled, historic Times Square:







There’s also this fantastic shot that at first appears to be soldiers in battle, but then you slowly realize that the bombs aren’t really bombs—they’re fireworks—then the camera pans up to show a stadium full of cheering people, it’s a war rally, not the actual war. Very cool scene.