The Furniture: Design Heralds Doom in The Witch

"The Furniture" is our weekly series on Production Design. Here's Daniel Walber...

The Witch has a lot in common with Black Narcissus. I probably wouldn’t have noticed it if the 1947 Powell & Pressburger classic weren’t still on my mind from last week’s column, but it’s very true. Thomasin’s family of fanatical Puritans and Sister Clodagh’s nuns both find themselves on the edge of their known world, motivated by faith to make a new life. Yet both groups are doomed from the start. They’re overwhelmed by their environments and fall in the face of doubt, sexual temptation and the power of nature.

Of course, Thomasin isn’t bedeviled by gorgeous matte paintings of the Himalayas. The Witch was shot in the very real wilderness of Ontario, in the former town of Kiosk. That’s “former” because the population starting leaving after the fire at the lumber factory in 1973. Now there’s just some abandoned railroad tracks and a towering forest. If that’s not the perfect place to shoot a horror film, I don’t know what is. 

The landscape dwarfs the solitary 17th century farm where the bulk of the film takes place. Cinematographer Jarin Blaschke takes advantage of this as frequently as possible. There are countless shots in which the cast seem like helpless children at the mercy of the trees...

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The Furniture: Black Narcissus's Maddening Matte Paintings

"The Furniture" is our weekly series on Production Design. Here's Daniel Walber...

In movies, if perhaps not in life, people can be driven mad by mountains. In films by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, they can be driven mad by paintings of mountains.

Black Narcissus is the story of a group of Anglican nuns who trek up to an abandoned cliffside palace in the Himalayas to establish a new convent. Deborah Kerr, cinema’s most consistent nun, is Sister Clodagh, the young mother superior. Her mission is doomed from the beginning, of course, though not necessarily because the locals reject their presence. Rather, it is the landscape that overwhelms their emotions and breaks their faith and their vows.

Powell and Pressburger did not shoot on location in India, however. The set was built at Pinewood Studios. [More...] 

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The Furniture: Deadpool's Junk

"The Furniture" is our weekly series on Production Design. Here's Daniel Walber on Deadpool, now available on DVD and Bluray

We tend to think of superhero movies as showcases for visual effects. Marvel, for example, has always been stuck in that one particular category at the Oscars. It can be hard to untangle CGI from physical sets, particularly when they're strung together by a deft editor. And if identifying individual elements can be difficult, assigning credit often seems even harder. As such, production design isn’t usually at the forefront of our constant national conversation around the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Yet sometimes, even in the murky waters of big budget spectacle, the physical set outshines its digital embellishment. That’s certainly the case in Deadpool, a superhero action movie that was perhaps forced into more terrestrial creativity by its low budget of $58 million. For context, Captain America: Civil War cost about $250 million. Inevitably some of the film looks a bit cheap, particularly when it comes to the CG. Despite the low budget, the studio still clearly felt some pressure to put on the same bombastic show of digital force that comes at the end of every one of these movies. It's a bummer, frankly, because the physical set could easily have stood on its own.

This final clash between Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) and Francis (Ed Skrein) takes place at a vast junkyard. [more...]

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The Furniture: Joy's Emerald City of Home Shopping

"The Furniture" is our weekly series on Production Design. Here's Daniel Walber on Joy, now available on DVD and Bluray

It seems impossible that production designer Judy Becker has only received a single Oscar nomination, if not supremely unfair as well. At the very least, she should have snagged a second nomination for Carol. Her resume includes such diverse triumphs as We Need to Talk About Kevin, Brokeback Mountain, Shame and I’m Not There, as well as a neat early credit as a set dresser on Spike Lee’s Malcolm X. And so it seems totally appropriate that Becker is the first production designer to merit a repeat appearance in 'The Furniture'.

Becker’s most fruitful collaboration has been with David O. Russell. She's worked on every one of his features since The Fighter and she earned her lone Oscar nomination for American Hustle. Her sets for Joy, particularly the charismatic QVC studio at the film’s core, are among the best design work of last year. They also make quite a one-two punch with Carol, Becker showing a remarkable affinity for the stylistic underpinnings of American shopping. [More...]

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The Furniture: That Hamilton Woman's High Ceilings

It's another episode of "The Furniture," Daniel Walber's new series

75 years ago, the United Kingdom was standing nearly alone against the growing might of Nazi Germany. It remained unclear whether the United States would enter the war. And so, from within Hollywood, Alexander Korda set out to help sway American public opinion toward the Union Jack.

That Hamilton Woman was released on April 30th, 1941. Its propagandistic portrayal of Lord Horatio Nelson and his victory over Napoleon’s navy nearly got Korda into very real legal trouble as a foreign agent. His appearance before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was scheduled for December 12th, but the attack on Pearl Harbor saved the director’s skin. Three quarters of a century later, its reputation rests not on its patriotism, but on its lush melodrama. It continues to enchant as a ravishing portrait of adulterous romance, art imitating the lives of stars Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh. He’s Nelson, she the titular Emma, Lady Hamilton who stole his heart and paid the price. [More...]

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