The Furniture: 10 Favorite Sets of 2020

"The Furniture," by Daniel Walber. (Click on the images for magnified detail)

Our year in review list-making continues but this is not a “Best Production Design” list. The thing about production design is that it's hard to compare. Obviously all films are collaborative, but at least in such Oscar categories as “Best Original Score” and “Best Actress” you’re focusing on the work of easily identifiable individuals. “Production design” is the combined achievement of a whole slew of production designers, art directors, and set decorators, and more.

But beyond that, different productions task designers with using wildly different tools. How do you compare sets built on a soundstage to the careful decoration of a real historic home? The physical sets of period pieces with the digitally-conceived spaces of science fiction? Animation! It’s dizzying.

So herewith this is a list of ten favorite movie sets of 2020, using the loosest definition possible. It’s in alphabetical order, because ranking is stressful. Enjoy...

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The Furniture: Ellen Revolts Against the Upholstery in Leave Her to Heaven

"The Furniture," by Daniel Walber. (Click on the images for magnified detail)

This week marks the 75th anniversary of Leave Her to Heaven, a technicolor noir blockbuster with set decoration so opulent, you will find yourself shouting at the upholstery.

It has other virtues, of course: Gene Tierney’s wickedly genre-shifting performance, Leon Shamroy’s shadow-wielding cinematography, Vincent Price’s height, etc. But the last time I watched it, I couldn’t take my eyes off the sets. The film takes place in a fever-dream of post-war prosperity before the fact, an endless parade of over-decorated vacation homes.

Frankly, it should have won the Oscar for Best Art Direction - Interior Decoration, Color...

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The Furniture: Ammonite's Many, Many Fossils

"The Furniture," by Daniel Walber. (Click on the images for magnified detail)

Fossils! They’re cool.

In Ammonite, they’re also a metaphor - a simple one, I’d argue. To be frank, I found the 19th century seaside lesbian paleontology drama to be a bit dull, throwing quite a bit of symbolism up on the screen without ever making a real case that this director needed to make this film about these women.

But I did quite enjoy the sheer number of visual cues, some of which do work quite well. Victorian women, the film suggests, were like fossils. Society confined them to small, dim spaces where they slowly ossified...

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The Furniture: The Nest and Its Not-Haunted House

"The Furniture," by Daniel Walber. (Click on the images for magnified detail)

Don’t marry an investment banker!

This, as far as I can tell, is the central message of Sean Durkin’s The Nest. And it’s good advice! Rory O’Hara (Jude Law) is a Gordon Gekko without any of the charm, a stiff Englishman determined to perform his financial success in front of a vaguely imagined audience of the rich and powerful. His wife, Allison (Carrie Coon), is miserably along for the ride. It’s a period piece, but it’s laser focused on toxic aspects of our culture that certainly haven’t gone away. The ‘80s never ended, not really.

And so we watch as Allison and her two children are dragged from their house in the US, already their third home in 10 years, and across the pond to an enormous old mansion in Surrey. Rory’s determination to make it big back in the UK upends everything, from Allison’s equestrian interests to their daughter’s gymnastics. I bring this up because it’s one of our few glimpses at the life before, represented in wide spaces like the sun-dappled walls of the stable and the well-lit, colorful gym...

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Daniel Gives Thanks, 2020

Somehow it’s November! Any retrospective look back at 2020 is surreal, particularly given that this feels like the 9th month of March and we're speeding into another lockdown here in New York City. But I suppose the year really is almost over! So here are some of the movie and TV-related things I’m thankful for this year.

• The opera-obsessed hotel clerk in The Whistlers

• Taco Chronicles on Netflix, which is addictive and charming, and which has turned me into a Lady Tacos de Canasta superfan

• This couch in Shirley:

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