Interview: Oscar Nominee Arianne Phillips

It's long been my goal to up the visibility of the craft of costume design here at The Film Experience. So when the W.E. team was making the press rounds, I jumped at the chance to talk with Arianne Phillips, who has long been a designer I admire both for her technical and visual invention and for her uncanny ability to hit the pop cultural bullseye with instantly memorable looks whether she's designing for musicians (including longtime collaborator Madonna) or for actors. Her film career took off with the one-two comic book punch of The Crow (1994) and Tank Girl (1995). And it's continued to fascinate through Hedwig and the Angry Inch and on to her first Oscar nomination for Walk the Line (2005).

Arianne Phillips in front of her W.E. costumes. Photo via Society News

She received her second nomination last month for W.E. (2011) which has an absurd amount of use for her skills. In my mind they really ought to have done away with typical star "billing" and listed Arianna Phillips up top. No disrespect intended to Abbie Cornish and Andrea Riseborough, who lead the picture through its double-sided narrative.

Years before W.E. materialized Phillips has been living her own double-sided career "by design". Arianne speaks with a mixture of confidence, sincerity and appreciated bluntness: she agrees that costume designers don't get enough credit calling it an "a gorllina in the room. It's such an annoyance" but she corrects my slight misunderstanding about her past collaborations with musicians. She freelances as a stylist and editor for print photography, concerts and music videos. She doesn't dress stars for events.

a recent Madonna/Riseborough photoshoot styled by Arianne

I do videos and album covers, mostly narrative based: fantasy, illusion and character. It's very connected to film. You're creating the fantasy of who that person is.
-Arianne Phillips on her second career as a fashion editor and stylist.

Continue for... Madonna, Larry Flynt, Biopic & Concert Tour Challenges

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Great Costuming... According to Costume Designers

The Costume Design Guild has spoken! As with all guild awards... it's a combination of "Really?" and interesting "Oh, yeah!" choices.

Clothes Horse Royals in "W.E." via Arianne Phillips

PERIOD FILMS
Mark Bridges for The Artist
Michael O'Connor for Jane Eyre
Sharen Davis for The Help
Sandy Powell for Hugo
Arianne Phillips for W.E.

Good news: I have an interview coming up with Arianne Phillips, who is one of my heroes. And not just because she's worked with Madonna for 15 years or so.  
Notable Omissions: Anonymous, Captain America (unless they considered it a fantasy), My Week With Marilyn, A Dangerous Method, and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.
Oscar transferrence? The costume designers within the Academy, a much smaller number than votes on the guild awards, tend to prefer period work to other types of work so you could theoretically see all of these nominees repeat at Oscar, though Phillips is certainly most vulnerable as her movie is probably the least seen of these. Still royalty porn goes a long way with Oscar voters and Andrea Riseborough looks like she's wearing the entire budget of the film.

FANTASY FILMS
Jany Temime for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Penny Rose for Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
Cindy Evans for Red Riding Hood
Alexandra Byrne for Thor
Sammy Sheldon for X-Men: First Class

Oscar transferrence? I'm guessing the best bet here is Alexandra Byrne for Thor.
Superheroes!: Interesting to see the fantasy category overtaken by superheroes (and yes I include Harry Potter there). I wonder if they categorized Captain America here or in "period"? Either way it didn't manage a nomination.
Strangest nods: Hasn't the Harry Potter cast been wearing essentially the sameish robes for the entire franchise? I have not seen Red Riding Hood so my apologies to Cindy Evans but I found that pink dress with red coat so painful to look at in tandem (even in the space of a 2 minute trailer!)  that my face lost a little of its color reading this nomination. Maybe every other costume in the movie is enticing?

CONTEMPORARY FILMS 
Leesa Evans and Christine Wada for Bridesmaids
Wendy Chuck for The Descendants 
Erin Benach for Drive
Trish Summerville for The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
Manon Rasmussen for Melancholia

Yay! We figured the scorpion jacket would get its due here but it's fun to see my double feature of bridal depression nominated. 
Oscar transferrence? Unfortunately that only happens for contemporary films when the entire movie is about the clothes (see The Devil Wears Prada).
Sigh. REALLY?: The contemporary category is where you often see guilds failing to live up to their duties as awards organization and just grab at whichever FYC screeners they're loving. No offense to Wendy Chuck who has done fun work on several contemporary pictures, not just Payne's movies, but apart from Clooney's hilarious run in inappropriate shoes the costumes aren't contributing a fifth as much to the success of The Descendants (consider it this year's Slumdog Millionaire with bizarre guild triumphs) as say the costumes of Young Adult, Beginners, Shame, Crazy Stupid Love, The Iron Lady (unless they considered that "period"), Martha Marcy May Marlene or The Skin I Live In are to their movies. The contemporary categories are almost always where you see the limits of guild imagination when it comes to defining "awards worthy". It's a fancy way of saying "WE LIKE THIS MOVIE A WHOLE LOT!"

How do you like these nominations and where would your votes go?

Madonna's "W.E." In the Hunt For Oscar

...That's the only possible reason that the Weinstein Company would be interested in distributing her original movie about a woman obsessed with those King's Speech supporting characters, right? Insiders have called it "smart and stylish" and claimed that Andrea Riseborough is Oscar worthy in it.

Abbie Cornish and Andrea Riseborough in 'W.E.'

Perhaps the Weinstein's will do some magic sleight of hand and try to sell it as a revisit. "If you loved the King's Speech, you'll love..."

Please don't be fooled by W.E.'s simply HIDEOUS movie poster, which is floating around the net. This movie could well be very good. Please to remember that The King's Speech also had an absurdly ugly photoshopped teaser poster, too.  W.E. stars Abbie Cornish (in contemporary time) and Andrea Riseborough as Wallis Simpson in ye olden King's Speech times. No word yet on the release date but if we know our Weinsteins it'll be between Thanksgiving and New Year's Eve.

Even if the movie hits AMPAS's sweet spot, the woman behind the film could still be an easy snub. In fact, Madonna has never been Oscar-nominated despite writing the following classic movie songs, nearly all of them better than some of the Oscar nominees in their years.

Madonna in Charge.

"Crazy For You" -VisionQuest (1985)
"Into the Groove" -Desperately Seeking Susan (1985)
"Who's That Girl" and "Causing a Commotion" and "Look of Love" -Who's That Girl (1987)
"Live to Tell" -At Close Range (1986)
"This Used to Be My Playground" - A League of Their Own (1992)
"I'll Remember" - With Honors (1993)
"Beautiful Stranger" - Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999)
"Die Another Day" - Die Another Day (2002)

Arianne & MadonnaThe Academy's music branch hates her but since they have legendarily horrid taste and confounding voting practices, we can't let it bother us too much.

As is usually the case with tricky-to-gauge period pieces, W.E.'s best Oscar bet is probably in Costume Design. Arianne Phillips (pictured left with Maddy) who has worked with the icon quite often and done sensational work on previous films like Hedwig and the Angry Inch, The People Vs Larry Flynt, 3:10 to Yuma and Walk the Line (Oscar nominated) is doing the costumes.

Stay tuned...