Oscar Volleys: The Eye Candy Trifecta
Monday, December 30, 2024 at 3:00PM Taking a break from the so-called “above the line” races, Nathaniel R and Cláudio Alves discuss the eye candy Oscar categories – Best Costume Design, Best Cinematography, and Best Production Design...
DUNE: PART TWO | © Warner Bros.
NATHANIEL: Hi, Cláudio. So this year, for time reasons, the pre-nomination Oscar Volleys are not covering every category and I'm feeling guilty about it. In the 21st century all 20+ Oscar categories have arguably more devout fanbases than ever thanks to the ease of catering to niche interests that the internet, streaming, and social media have all brought. Yet the 'Below the Line' categories are somehow incongruously more disrespected than ever. Consider that the Oscars are now the ONLY major awards show (that's not an exaggeration) that doesn't pretend that craftsmen and artisans are less crucial to making art than actors and directors. Consider that time and again we get these horrid articles from the media about how to fix the Oscars that invariably suggest that they should be more like their less popular counterparts (Tonys, Grammys, Emmys, Globes, etcetera) and ditch the "crafts" or have them on another night altogether without the fanfare. This suggestion has made me redhot with anger from the very first time I heard it and the anger has never dissipated…
Since we share a deep love of the eye-candy categories we'd be remiss not to discuss Production Design, Costume Design, and Cinematography. These categories reward very different things but you wouldn't always know it based on the nominated shortlists in each. History plainly proves that Academy voters don't watch as many movies as cinephiles or critics so it makes a kind of sense that the 'below the line' categories blend together more than they should. I don't want to complain too much about branch voters doing the singularity of their own crafts dirty by NOT watching a wide variety of movies but I do think this inadvertently happens. Last year the Costume & Production Design lineups were identical and Cinematography was a 3/5 match. Two years earlier, Cinematography and Production Design were an exact match with Costume Design playing a 3/5 match. At least we had a little break in-between those years of branches having different opinions when Elvis was the only movie that scored nominations in all three Eye Candy categories!
So, my first two-part question to you is not 'how can we convince voters to watch more movies?' -- you and I are powerless to make that change! -- but to give in (TEMPORARILY) to the fusion and ask this:
- Is there any movie this season that you think deserves the eye-candy trifecta (nominations, not wins)?
- And the opposite. Which movie is has a great shot at landing all three nominations but won't really deserve any of them?
CLÁUDIO: Before I answer those questions I have to say I completely agree with your rant. Part of the reason why I fell in love with the Oscars was how they have always recognized the "below the line" work that's so often ignored in the face of flashier and more famous names. Those suggestions that they cut them always leave me boiling with fury. At this point, it's part of what makes the Oscars so special in the awards landscape. Why throw that away?
QUEER | © A24
Anyway, your inquiry made me curious to see if I would nominate any of this year's films in all three categories. Looking at the "My Oscars" 97-page spreadsheet, I can't say I would. Then again, I'm a big believer in spreading the wealth, so, most years have no such trifecta champion. The last time I would have given the three nods to one single title was Suspiria in 2019, and 2015's Mad Max: Fury Road before that. However, this doesn't mean I would object to some 2024 film nabbing those honors. Within the realm of actual Oscar possibility, I could name Dune: Part Two, Maria, Nosferatu, The Brutalist and The Substance as "eye candy" champions that would leave me quite satisfied. Less likely but no less excellent, we have Bird, Blitz, Longlegs, Queer, The End, The Room Next Door, and even something as low-key as Vermiglio. Some folks keep talking about 2024 as a lackluster cinematic year, but I'm just bursting with love.
But of course, not everything is sunshine and roses. I'm actively dreading the possibility of Emilia Pérez or Wicked getting these three key honors. Nathan Crowley innocent!
NATHANIEL: If Nathan Crowley is innocent (agreed) you'd be okay with a Production Design nod for Wicked? I am not sure what you have against Paul Tazewell's costumes but I'm sure you'll tell me! Anyway, since you looked at your own prizes I thought I should too! Turns out I did this just last season with Poor Things. But only one trifecta title, and Oscar usually has three! Turns out, with a quick scan that happens about every three years in my film bitch awards but only ever for one title; There's usually quite a lot of difference between the categories! In short we both are true believers in spreading the wealth -- I do have to wonder if Oscar voters would be more adventurous with their ballots if they saw as many movies as cinephiles see each year, but maybe not. With so much money and time spent trying to convince them that only 12 movies matter each year, perhaps it would happen to anyone!
GLADIATOR II | © Paramount Pictures
The reason I asked this question is my fear that Gladiator II, Nosferatu, and Dune: Part Two might hog all three eye-candy races. For the record I don't think Gladiator II's pomp and anything-goes circumstance should be rewarded at all. The craft, like Ridley Scott's tone, is all over the f***ing place; chaos reigns. I really don't want to rain on Nosferatu's parade, because I am happy people are coming around to Robert Eggers' highly specific gifts but I honestly think it's the least impressive of his four features thus far -- and by a significant marge too -- in large part because it isn't really bringing anything new to this very well-trod territory! Like where was this energy for The Witch or The Northman which scored zero nods each!?! My grip with Dune: Part Two is only that it's a franchise and I don't want the Oscars to become the Emmys.
Anyway, next topic! Let's talk Production Design first. What feasible Oscar contender are you most excited about in this particular category?
CLÁUDIO: Good question. Three films juggle in my mind as an answer. Still, since Adam Stockhausen (Blitz) and Judy Becker (The Brutalist) already have Oscar nominations under their belt, I'll go with Craig Lathrop's work for Nosferatu. I don't share your mild disappointment with Eggers' latest, partly because I think it's bringing something new to the table. None of the previous iterations of the tale - nor the many Dracula adaptations that bear the name of Stoker's character - engage with the 19th-century specificity of its setting. Murnau's original is a hallucination of shadows and Expressionist stylization, depurated away from the materiality of its supposed 1830s milieu. Herzog's picture appears as a strange mix of contemporary materiality with community theater trappings on top, making the whole thing unravel like a sort of macabre passion play. For the record, I love those movies.
NOSFERATU | © Focus Features
On the other hand, Eggers has emerged as an anti-presentist filmmaker who seems uncommonly interested in confronting the historical past on its own terms, even or especially when it results in alienating spectacles. For the first time, a director is actually doing something with the 1838 timestamp that Nosferatu has worn since its copyright-evading genesis, drawing from a near-archeological evocation of the period and the tensions therein. Lathrop's work emphasizes the contrasts between Central and Eastern Europe, underlining the xenophobic panic that this story has always had, burrowing deep into its human characters' anxieties. And yet, the Germanic sets aren't exactly comforting. Instead, they often strike me as cluttered, almost stifling, with houses built on top of each other, rooms bursting at the seams with knick-knacks, and a comforting embrace that's a tad too tight. Moreover, I appreciate the socioeconomic discrepancies we perceive in Ellen's life story simply through the spaces she inhabits - the aristocratic sprawl of the prologue, the middle-class barrenness of a new married existence versus the higher-class standards of her best friend's domesticity. Also, on a shallower note, the inspiration from Romantic painting has resulted in some tableaux whose floral loveliness makes every interior look like a mausoleum spruced up for fresh burial rites.
But what about you? Which likely contender most excites you in Best Production Design?
NATHANIEL: You always make a convincing argument. Maybe I would have enjoyed the Costumes and Production Design of Nosferatu more if the Cinematography weren't so interested in black and white vibes via color. I realize this is a taste issue more than a quality issue, but we all have our biases. No cinematic antihistamine has ever cured my severe allergy to color cinematography cosplaying black and white film. I blame the Cinema of the Aughts which, with a few blessed exceptions, conspired to equate a drainage of color with thematic import and visual grandeur and I'll have none of that. The amount of cinematography prizes for Nosferatu have rubbed me the wrong way despite the fact that Jarin Blaschke is an exciting DP. But I'm jumping ahead to Cinematography! Let me just back away carefully from the vampir by saying I don't know what I was expecting with Nosferatu but I just found myself wanting to rewatch the previous iteration (the Herzog) or its voluptuous bonkers legitimate cousin (the Coppola) or even its imagined backstory (the Herlige in 2000) while screening it which is never a good sign that you're vibing with a remake. I even saw it in a dark movie theater, so it wasn't the all too common problem of a screener in the living room dampening the immersive power of cinema.
BLITZ | © Apple TV+
You stole my two answers to this question with The Brutalist (how did they make that for only 10 million - everyone who has ever blown a typical Hollywood budget must be deathly embarrassed!!!) and Blitz. The latter is the one I'd like to say a word in defense of. Steve McQueen's latest was greeted with such a shrug and even a few weird "Oscar-bait" sneers (McQueen is too much of an artist to be in the business of chasing trophies as his reason for making something). I'll agree that it's his weakest film though I can't quite put my finger on why that is since so many its elements work. One achievement that time away from it has not diminished is Stockhausen's lucid dream/nightmare(?) excavation of blitzed-out London. He's my favourite living Production Designer and his range remains staggering. There doesn't seem to be a genre, a time frame, an auteur personality, a story mood, or a notch on that impossibly long scale between authentic recreation and pure imagination that he can't occupy and elevate.
But since I set down this ‘feasible Oscar contender' parameter, I just want to shout out a few films with production design choices that elevated them no matter how unlikely they are to land on Oscar ballots for this category: Saturday Night, Queer, A Different Man, Problemista, and The Substance. I've got about 18-20 movies left to see before I feel comfortable announcing my personal nominations and from that batch the ones I'm most curious about in terms of Production Design are: The Girl with the Needle, Memoir of a Snail, and The End.
CLÁUDIO: You bring a worthwhile concept into this discussion - personal taste. As much as we might like to believe ourselves cinephiles capable of appreciating any and all artistic expressions, sometimes one doesn't vibe with specific styles and there's nothing to do about it. De gustibus non est disputandum.
WICKED | © Universal Pictures
That's a bit of my issue with Paul Tazewell's work in Wicked. Indeed, while reflecting on those costume designs, I couldn't help but think of my sartorial aversion to Bridgerton, another exquisitely made wardrobe that is just not to my taste. It's so busy and chaotic, a mass of contrasting colors and prints and overegged ornamentation, that it's like confronting a migraine in fashion form to my poor eyes. I can provide some pointed critique, like the strangeness of breaking dancers' lines with those Shiz uniform stripes that go haywire halfway down the legs. And then there are the Munchkin stylings in "No One Mourns the Wicked," so lacking in a unifying palette that the audience's gaze travels unorderly through the frame without a single place to latch on. The eye has to travel, but good costume design should guide it purposefully. For all of her asymmetries and piled-on decorations, Susan Hilferty's original stage designs for Wicked tended to follow limited color stories from scene to scene, always privileging the principal players and forcing the chorus into scenographic harmony.
As someone who has loved Tazewell's past creations - Hamilton and so many others on stage, The Wiz for TV, Harriet and West Side Story on the big screen - this was a major disappointment. Still, I'd love to see some costumes in person, as I'm sure they make for fantastically crafted pieces, perchance more museum-worthy than movie-functional. Furthermore, I did dig a couple of designs, like Elphaba's last costume with its streamlined silhouette and mushroom texture and Glinda's "Popular" pink peignoir, which worked marvelously with that choreography.
What say you about the season's likely Best Costume Design champion?
NATHANIEL: I see your argument about the visual (and aural!) cacophony of "No One Mourns the Wicked" and I have absolutely no rebuttal. I felt that too. In fact, the opening scene had me convinced that Wicked -Part One would be everything I feared it would be onscreen -- chaotic, loud, garishly ugly, not sufficiently reimagined for the screen, and ultimately unsatisfying being half the story. So, I was ecstatic to be proven wrong by the rest of the film which (mostly) totally worked for me. I even loved the ending against my better judgment (I am so ready for franchise culture to die; movies were not meant to be episodic television). I loved it with a side eye! "Defying Gravity" is hard to argue with on stage or in the film. It's one of those Monuments of Pop Culture that is desperate to mythologize itself. You can feel every button it's pushing, every gear its turning, and every structural beam placed to support the roof.... in order to blow it off. And you don't care at all. In fact, you're rooting for it all the way. Please push my buttons. Please turn those gears. Please raise the roof only to blow through it. Cue hysteria and applause and deep satisfaction as the curtain comes down.
But back to the beginning. That framing device should have stayed onstage. It absolutely does not work in the movie. But for the rest of the movie was very into what Tazewell (and other department heads) were bringing. He wasn't reinventing the Wicked color wheel as he tried with West Side Story -- which I'm thankful for under the ancient proverb 'if it ain't broke don't fix it.' But I did think the amount of texture and the fabric choices, and the variety offered within that pink/green wheel and cartoon parameters of the characters really popped on the big screen. I won't be mad when he wins.
BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE | © Warner Bros.
I'm actually quite curious as to what four movies voters will choose to lose to Wicked. They have a lot of options. The two most likely outcomes are really that they succumb to Best Picture buzz and don't think too hard about their ballots (the result: A Complete Unknown, Conclave, Dune: Part Two, Gladiator II) or that they fallback to legends within their branch that have high profile movies on offer (the result: Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Blitz, Dune: Part Two, Maria). The least likely outcome of course is that they stray from both of those options and instead present a grab bag of time frames, a mix of beloved and less celebrated designers, and pictures with and without buzz simply because they like the work (longshot possibilities: Nosferatu, Saturday Night, Megalopolis, The Substance, The Brutalist, Emilia Pérez, Queer)
In a shocking turn of events I'm not sure I have a solidified set of favorites this year in Costume Design! Mostly I just don't want their lineup to be boring which to my mind is a Best Picture list that only considers authenticity OR general "it's a period-piece!" enthusiasms and lacks in memorable or iconic individual looks. In short, though I think The Substance, is wildly overpraised in a lot of ways, I'd much rather see them recognize Emmanuelle Youchnovski's work on that new camp body horror classic --especially Demi's yellow coat and that out-of-fashion red dress with black gloves -- than give a shout out to the robes and armor of Denzel & Paul in Gladiator II or even Timothée Chalamet's Dylan cosplay via the very talented Arianne Phillips.
CLÁUDIO: I loathe when Best Costume Design gets stuck with Best Picture contenders. After all, the category has such a long history of brilliant lone nominees. It was the only place where recent triumphs like Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris, Cyrano, Cinderella, Mirror Mirror, Jane Eyre, I Am Love, and Bright Star were recognized. Please give us more of that!
MARIA | © Netflix
Right now, I'm not optimistic about this year providing a lone nominee of such unique valor. Indeed, as far as predictions go, I think Atwood is in for her Beetlejuice Beetlejuice costumes, even if she's merely riffing on what Aggie Guerard Rodgers already did in the '88 original. Then there's Jacqueline West, fated to lose for the sixth time with Dune: Part Two and solidify her place as the Diane Warren of costuming. I'm also predicting Gladiator II, though, like you, I wasn't particularly impressed with Janty Yates's efforts this time around. For the fifth nominee, I'm split between Nosferatu's Linda Muir designs and Maria's opera diva glam. Since Massimo Cantini Parrini is a previous nominee, I guess I'm going with the latter. So many sequels, revamps, and reproductions.
This means my personal ballot will have nothing to do with the Academy's quintet. My heart would grow three sizes bigger, Grinch-style, if AMPAS could find it in themselves to honor the grotesquerie of historical fashions Michael O'Connor devised for Firebrand, Milena Canonero's allegorical sci-fi Rome in Megalopolis, Kurt & Bart's character-specific fits for Babygirl, Bajoli's mix of African folklore and theatricality in Omen, or the sensual tailoring that J.W. Anderson brought to Queer. Honestly, let The Substance represent excellence in contemporary costume design, and I'll be satisfied.
THE SUBSTANCE | © MUBI
But speaking of that Hollywood nightmare, I cosign your love for that instantly iconic yellow number. It might be the garment I most covet this cinematic year, give or take a couple of great coats in Nosferatu. Since we're having this volley over the holidays, let me ask you: What costume piece would you like to find under your Christmas tree?
NATHANIEL: I'll take anything Ryan Gosling wears from Sarah Evelyn's inspired work on The Fall Guy, but especially the red jacket that gets such a workout or that white shirt with the dingy worn strappy vest that recalls nothin so much as someone very improbably stylish who isn't bothering to hide that he's recently escaped a straitjacket. I have this theory that Gosling is the male actor that most inspires contemporary costume designers. The supporting evidence is plentiful, I tell ya. Speaking of. I almost said the "I Told Ya" Tee from Challengers, though it's not quite as special since you can literally buy it, it was such an instant hit with audiences.
I also love the mock neck shirts in multiple colors that Mary Zophres put Channing Tatum in as an unofficial uniform in Fly Me to the Moon. Despite her four nominations, Mary Zophres is an underrated designer. Her work doesn't tend to be as showy as some of her peers -- even when she has opportunity to show off -- and that's part of why I like it so much. I love it when a costumer designer has a personality you can track through their movies while also still serving the characters in that movie well.
Okay Cinematography. GO!
A COMPLETE UNKNOWN | © Searchlight Pictures
CLÁUDIO: As long as Wicked isn't nominated, I'll be happy. It's been a while since I've seen a movie's cinematographer work so tirelessly against the project as Alice Brooks did here, no doubt aided a director with very little in the ways of visual panache - sorry everyone, I also hated how In the Heights looked. I would also cringe at nominations for Emilia Pérez's usually brilliant Paul Guillaume and Gladiator II's John Mathieson, but nothing supplants my distaste for the mega musical's lensing. Weirdly enough, I'm not too bothered by the possibility of my archnemesis, Phedon Papamichael, nabbing another nomination for his mantle. Sure, A Complete Unknown lacks engaging or particularly memorable shots, but it's competently presented, and there's some pretty lighting. It's more than I can say about the Trial of the Chicago 7 and Nebraska.
Apologies for going grumpy all of a sudden. Truth be told, there's a lot of cinematographic greatness to admire this year, and some might even end up in the Oscar lineup. Surprisingly enough, that includes a fair share of promising cineastes who have never been nominated. Consider Jomo Fray's radical first-person approach to Nickel Boys, ingenious and technically impressive while also beautiful. I know I won't soon forget the tinsel rain from above or the play with reflections. Lol Crawley's VistaVision spectacle is also worth mentioning, epic in size and scope, in rich color and texture, helping make The Brutalist one of 2024's most impressive achievements in American moviemaking. Stéphane Fontaine could join the Oscar club for his elegant work in Conclave, and the same could be said about Blitz's Yorick le Saux.
CONCLAVE | © Focus Features
Unfortunately, because many of 2024's best-shot films go beyond the borders of English-language cinema, they're likely bound to be ignored. Though, before we mourn those buzzless gems, I'd like to know your take on the category's likely honorees. Does any of them inspire passion?
NATHANIEL: I feel so bad about my reaction about Nickel Boys. In the Best Director volley with Elisa (which I'm typing at the same time as this one) I go into more detail so I'll leave it at that! I thought Yorick Le Saux's work on Blitz was amazing. He's done such amazing work over the years (see also Swimming Pool, Julia, I Am Love, Only Lovers Left Alive, High Life, Personal Shopper) but I'll have to keep fantasizing about his first Oscar nod since no one seems to care about Blitz. Since I don't think Le Saux is going to happen my short answer to your question is.... not really! I expect to be disappointed in the Best Cinematography list this year while also acknowledging that a lot of the films that will be nominated are well shot. For just one example take Maria. You will never find me rooting against Ed Lachmann (bonafide genius!) but I just wish his skills could be in service of a better film. Maria might be a triple threat in these eye candy categories we're talking about and I won't be able to grumble any of those three nominations. But I experienced real aesthetic dissonance watching it; all that beauty and craftsmanship... for this?
I usually have MUCH stronger opinions about this category but this year I'm still going back and forth about my ballot. I believe it's this Maria problem writ large. Fraser (Dune: Part Two), Lachmann (Maria), Fray (Nickel Boys), Guilhaume (Emilia Pérez), Blaschke (Nosferatu)... these are all fantastically talented men (it's still mostly men in this field!) but I either don't love the movie or the potential nomination doesn't excite me for other specific reasons. I have a lot more thinking to do about this category.
VERMIGLIO | © Janus Films
My favourite entirely buzzless achievement in this particular category this season is Mikhail Krichman's glorious work on Italy's contender Vermiglio which will definitely be on my ballot. My jaw was agape. I can't describe why better than Nick Davis already did:
The cinematography by Mkhail Krichman only further excels itself as Vermiglio transpires, toying with blurred-out frame edges and iris effects to suggest a tale as subjectively remembered as it is precisely recorded. Krichman also repurposes the chilly but gorgeous palette of highly reflective blues, silvers, and whites familiar from his Andrei Zvyagintsev collaborations (The Return, Loveless, Elena, Leviathan) into a fresh way to regard the high-up Italian Alps as more than just thick snow cover or rolling greenery.
Given the landscape of contenders this might also be a great time for the Academy to throw a bone to the highly reliable gifted Thai cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom for either Challengers or Queer. Before we hear you bemoan your "buzzless gems" I have one final thought. It's a tiny bit odd to me that I Saw the TV Glow and The Substance and Love Lies Bleeding have been fairly present in the indie or mainstream precursor discussions but you don't hear much about the cinematography by Eric Yue, Benjamin Kracun, or Ben Fordesman, respectively, though all three men were really meeting those movies where they lived or desired to be.
CLÁUDIO: Krichman's work in Vermiglio is indeed superb, combining season-changing idyll with a compositional vernacular of scalpel-like precision. The way Delpero and her DP ration the camera's movement, only letting it loose in specific instances, is one of the year's most inspiring feats of simple yet masterful filmmaking. But speaking of Krichman, he's also doing amazing stuff in Joshua Oppenheimer's The End, transforming light and color within long takes, reflecting the mood swings that can occur within a song's single verse.
ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT | © Janus Films
Those achievements are two of those buzzless gems I hold so dear to my heart. They're joined by Ranabir Das' rhapsody in blue for All We Imagine as Light and the sweaty heat Simone D'Arcangelo brings to Sweet Dreams, the rainy nightmare of Tumbadd giving into otherworldly reds through Pankaj Kumar's lensing. It's criminal how much Dinh Duy Hung's miracle work in Inside a Yellow Cocoon Shell has been forgotten by critics. The same could be said of the black-and-white marvels of Limbo and Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus, Rita's ultra-wide framing, Grimm Vandekerckhove's oneiric purview of Brussel nights in Here (the Bas Devos film, not the Zemeckis!).
You bring up the lack of women in the cinematography field, and while that's true, a remarkable lineup could be built just out of such DPs. Consider Ximena Amann's negotiations of abstraction and visceral realism in Sujo, the unexpected beauty Rina Yang confers to The Fire Inside, how Jeanne Lapoire investigates the darkness of a colonial paradise in Red Island, the summer heat that Maria von Hausswolff synthesizes in Janet Planet's grainy frames. In contrast, you have the chilly winter romance Jin-Pin Yu envisions for The Breaking Ice, the tropical humidity suffusing Hélène Louvart's Disco Boy, the rainbow transcendence Jessica Sarah Rinland finds in Samsara.
TRAP | © Warner Bros.
And yet, despite all these masters of cinema, no DP deserves more applause in 2024 than Sayombhu Mukdeeprom. You already mentioned his Guadagnino double feature, but he also did Shyamalan's Trap, an exquisite-looking B-movie lark full of magnetic images. And then, there's the yet unreleased Grand Tour, the cherry on top of this cinematographer's remarkable year. Just thinking about it, I feel overwhelmed with love.
NATHANIEL: Okay...
*Predictions*
Cinematography Costumes Prod. Design
Brutalist Beetlejuice 2 Brutalist
Dune 2 Conclave Dune 2
Emilia Perez Gladiator 2 Gladiator 2
Maria Maria Nosferatu
Nosferatu Wicked Wicked
Potential Spoilers
Nickel Boys Dune 2 Maria
Gladiator 2 Nosferatu Blitz
Looking over my predictions now they cannot be right since there's not enough similarities between the three categories (as is Oscar's preference) with not a single film managing a nomination in all three categories but five films managing a double (Dune, Gladiator, Brutalist, Maria, Nosferatu, Wicked). But it's hard to know -- any permutation feels possible though surely all six of those titles will show up in at least one of the eye candy categories. The real question is which will manage the triple because at least one of them will! Usually it would be safest to assume that a strong Best Picture contender would get the triple but part of me thinks Nosferatu and Maria are most likely to pull it off and yet neither of them feel like they're nabbing a Best Picture slot.
Ready to wrap us up?
NICKEL BOYS | © Amazon MGM Studios
CLÁUDIO: While I've gotten better over the years, I still think I'm rather shite at predictions, but here it goes.
Best Cinematography
DUNE: PART TWO
THE BRUTALIST
NOSFERATU
NICKEL BOYS
CONCLAVE
Alternatives: MARIA and EMILIA PÉREZ
Best Production Design
WICKED
DUNE: PART TWO
THE BRUTALIST
CONCLAVE
NOSFERATU
Alternatives: GLADIATOR II and BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE
Best Costume Design
WICKED
DUNE: PART TWO
BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE
GLADIATOR II
MARIA
Alternatives: NOSFERATU and EMILIA PÉREZ
Unlike you, I think Dune: Part Two will score in all three categories, and Nosferatu will come close. Then again, looking back on these, I feel I'm being too optimistic. Surely the cinematographers' branch will reject Wicked's catastrophic lensing. Surely there will be opposition to Emilia Pérez's tastelessness. Surely Gladiator II will meet some resistance. Yeah, I sound delusional, alright. But sometimes, with Oscars, it's better to delude oneself into temporary joy rather than give up and be a grump for the next few weeks. In the immortal words of Jinkx Monsoon: Delusion, convince yourself.
THE BRUTALIST | © A24
OTHER VOLLEYS:
Reader Comments (13)
Can I give a shout out to Challengers costume designer for keeping O'Connor and Faist in shorts and the strategically placed towels,have 2 guys ever looked better playing sweaty tenni and for that blue dresss on a never more beautiful Zendaya.
My costume design winner is The Substance for the items you mentioned but also for Qualleys Cinderella style Molly Ringwald prom dress,her 80's inspired spangly leotards,Quaids Colonel Mustard via Willy Wonka ensembles and Demi Moore's old lady drag costume.
Blitz for me has tons of problems and would be on my top 10 worst of the year it's own of version of history is laughable and hypocritical and the british public are treated poorly,if we are and were so bad why does anyone want to live amongst us,almost redeemed by it's cinematography,Ronan is a lead.
Jolie was beautifully dressed in Maria.
Gladiator II must be one of the laziest films of the year in all areas,lots of money spent with no quality control,is this from the same man who made Alien,Blade Runner and Thelma and Louise,it made GI Jane look like it needed a Criterion edition.
How could Joker 2 do GaGa dirty also.
Great read (especially the Nosferatu analysis). However:
Can‘t we say the Deborah Kerr or Glenn Close of costuming instead?
My favorites in that category (so far):
J.W. Anderson, Queer
Buki Ebiesuwa, Femme (eligible, in fact)
Kate Forbes, The Brutalist
Linda Muir, Nosferatu
Paul Tazewell, Wicked
One of my favourite films of the year I saw this week: the 2024 French production of The Count of Monte Cristo. It had the trifecta of Costumes, Production Design, Cinematography. And oh, the joy of a classic novel! Characters, plot, social critique, swashbuckling action, all looking beautiful.
So far, the only Costumes where I thought, well this is special, is Maria. There’s the contemporary clothes of the era, plus the opera costumes (probably better than actual opera costumes), all beautifully lit so you could luxuriate in the visuals. I’d be willing for Maria to have those 3 nominations. Also, Angelina Jolie herself is one of the best visuals ever.
I liked both Dune Part 2 and Gladiator II, but of the 3 nomination categories I think the costumes are fine and appropriate, and the labour and number involved impressive, and the costumes are in service to the film, so okay. I do appreciate a skilled director who knows what they are doing, and who is able to assemble and work with great craftspeople, and I think both Ridley Scott and Denis Villeneuve do that.
I had never seen Wicked before, and while there were things I liked, I thought it was awful looking and haphazardly put together. I never even saw the Munchkin village (or the Munchkins) (and was there some kind of song there?), the school was generic (compare to Hogwarts), Emerald City was generic (it didn’t even have green floors) and the costumes were an undistinguished mash.
Although those familiar with Wicked cite a song, Defying Gravity, I would have liked to have heard this song. For a first- timer, it was the background music to a chase sequence. And don’t even get me started on the cutting away from the one real song and dance sequence with the prince, to look at the set! Now? Really?
I really loved the whole German Expressionism look of Nosferatu, and I liked the occasional Victorian greeting card look, so golden, of the little girls, as contrast. I found it so soothing to see well constructed visuals, beautifully thought out, and extremely evocative. But oddly, I felt uninterested in the costumes.
I liked Blitz as well, for a complete movie, with all the parts present and moved by a sure hand.
I wonder if I experienced many visuals as not quite satisfying because they didn’t have much of a movie behind them. Stories that didn’t compel, actors that made me sigh. But I’ve only seen a portion of this year’s films, so maybe some wonderful surprises are in store.
Nathaniel and Claudio, one question:
What about all the buzz into Giovanni Ribisi debut as DP in "Strange Darling"? Can he make the cut?
Last year I was so horrified with the idea of Barbie winning all the visuals. Time flies!
Tazwell is so good with skirt volumes. Nailed the Anita dress and now he has nailed the pink dress, and he's going to win.
I'm going to throw a bone to three movies that are forbidden to talk about this season:
Folie a Deux- Loved the jail
The Apprentice - Great work showing us the NY of the 70s, 80s, and 90s with very little money, I presume. Mainly offices and cocktail bars.
and my favourite, Kinds of Kindness. Every chapter has its own sytle and it's kind of ugly, and it works.
Felt the same way about the opening Wicked number. These Munchkin costumes were so unappealing. Think the emphasis was on how Diverse the cast was, not the amazement of being in another land. Having never seen the stage musical, I can’t compare if the costumes were enhanced or cheapened.
The Substance-if you just showed a slide of Demi’s yellow coat, filmgoers would immediately know what movie that came from.
@McGill
The relative specificity of Hogwarts is spot-on in your Wicked critique. People who groan and think so little of Harry Potter or Marvel movies see Chu’s film (where he deploys every single one of their tired tricks to lesser, haphazard effect) and rave. I don’t rate any of these movies highly but credit to those other franchises for having a visual point of view and sticking to it.
Take for instance that gorgeous, futuristic, art deco train to Emerald City. It feels like it pulls into the station from a different, better movie. Perhaps from the Oz someone with a higher taste level (a Villeneuve?) would have imagined and created onscreen.
I love reading you two write about viz. More, please!
I must confess I've been avoiding WICKED so far, in large part because of how it looks in previews. Your comments - well, Cláudio's, anyway! - do not reassure me.
Also curious, Cláudio, why the aversion to EMILIA PEREZ's cinematography? Leaving aside other issues with the film, just purely the cinematography. I can't say it would make my ballot in this category but I didn't have a strong negative reaction to its visuals either. I mean, the whole thing does feel a bit disjointed (and I actually enjoyed the film, I suspect more than most folks here), but I chalk that up more to the screenplay and truncated musical numbers.
It's a tiny bit odd to me that I Saw the TV Glow and The Substance and Love Lies Bleeding have been fairly present in the indie or mainstream precursor discussions but you don't hear much about the cinematography by Eric Yue, Benjamin Kracun, or Ben Fordesman, respectively, though all three men were really meeting those movies where they lived or desired to be."
So real. All three of those films make my lineup for Cinematography (and Makeup, for that matter). Especially I Saw the TV Glow. That film pretty much tells its story with cinematography.
Fabio Dantas Flappers -- I think it's excellent work from Ribisi but I don't think he'll get anywhere near the Oscar lineup. He might get a nod in the Spotlight category of the American Society of Cinematographers awards.
McGill and DK -- I think WICKED's vision of Oz is more Disneyland adjacent than Hogwarts. At least, that's what I kept thinking about during the movie, which I just re-watched with my family.
Lynn Lee -- To put it simply, I believe that disjointed nature extends to the cinematography and is exacerbated by it. I enjoyed the use of theatrical conventions - the SUMMER WITH MONIKA style fade to black to isolate the players was very lovely - but they're so often matched, sometimes in the same scene, with some horrendous choice. I remember the unmotivated erratic camera movements in many numbers, the odd decision to frequently lose Saldaña's face in shadow for her first number, and the ugly solution to the three-way sing-song call with those amorphous backgrounds and flat lighting. Most of all, I detested the entire visual conception of the final act. I didn't expect such shapeless nighttime darkness from such a skilled cinematographer. For that sequence alone, EMILIA PÉREZ even lost its edge of (tasteless) uniqueness. It just becomes digital mush on the verge of unintelligibility in that Netflix fashion we've grown so familiar with - a tragedy. Funnily enough, the vaginoplasty number is probably the best-shot thing in the entire movie and the only passage that, in my mind, could warrant cinematography honors.
Here are the films that have won the trifecta
1951 An American in Paris
1952 The Bad and the Beautiful
1958 Gigi
1959 Ben-Hur
1960 Spartacus
1961 West Side Story
1963 Cleopatra
1964 My Fair Lady
1965 Doctor Zhivago
1966 Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
1975 Barry Lyndon
1980 Tess
1982 Gandhi
1983 Fanny and Alexander
1987 The Last Emporer
1996 The English Patient
1997 Titanic
2004 The Aviator
2005 Memoirs of a Geisha
Let me tell you, the costume design in "Challengers" was chef’s kiss. O'Connor and Faist looked amazing in those tennis outfits—and don’t even get me started on the strategically placed towels. And Zendaya? That blue dress was pure perfection. Honestly, has anyone ever looked better playing sweaty tennis?
But if I had to pick a winner, it’s "The Substance." Qualley’s prom dress was like Cinderella-meets-Molly Ringwald—absolutely iconic. And her 80s-inspired spangly leotards? Amazing. Quaid’s crazy Colonel Mustard-meets-Willy Wonka outfits and Demi Moore’s old-lady drag costume just sealed the deal for me. They nailed every look.
Now, “Maria” was a whole other level. The period costumes mixed with the opera attire? Stunning! And let’s be real, Angelina Jolie herself is basically a walking masterpiece. I wouldn’t be mad if this film got three nominations for costumes alone—it deserves it.
We all had a good laugh about “Gladiator II,” though. Like, how did this turn out so lazy? Ridley Scott made Blade Runner and Thelma and Louise, and now this? It’s like they spent all the money but forgot the quality. And then there’s "Dune Part 2," which I enjoyed overall, but the costumes, while appropriate, didn’t stand out. They served the film, but nothing screamed “award-worthy.”
Oh, and "Wicked"—let’s talk about disappointment. I was so hyped, but everything felt generic. Where were the Munchkins? The Emerald City didn’t even have green floors! The costumes were such a random mix that didn’t wow me at all. And that song, “Defying Gravity,” was reduced to background music during a chase scene. Like, come on!
One of my favorites this year has to be "The Count of Monte Cristo." That French production nailed it—costumes, cinematography, production design—all of it. It’s the trifecta of perfection, and the classic story was brought to life so beautifully.
But I’ll throw some love to the underdogs too—“Folie à Deux” for that eerie jail look, “The Apprentice” for capturing NYC’s 70s-90s vibe with what I assume was a small budget, and “Kinds of Kindness” for its bold, ugly-yet-brilliant chapter designs.
This year had its highs and lows, but we can all agree on one thing—great costumes really elevate a movie, and when they’re bad, we feel it. And oh, we had such a fun discussion about this on the WhatsApp Plus 2025 group chat at whatsapp
Last year, we saw Napoleon do really well. I thought that was because it was a well seen film with good eye candy. But I wonder if Apple also played a role in that. I mention this, because I wouldn't be shocked if we see Blitz show up on nomination morning. It's a beautiful film by a respected director. I think if it does okay at BAFTA and guilds, we'll see it translate with Apple behind it.
I thought Maria was well done, but I have trouble seeing it get multiple nominations below the line. I suspect it won't get a cinematography nod (though it looks great) largely because that category aligns with BP contenders. But who knows, Lachman was there last year.