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Oscar Blurbs, Day 2: 𝗕𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗗𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻

The artist formerly known as Best Art Direction was one of my early favorites when I started Oscarwatching, mostly because I didn’t know what art direction was and figured it was just the film that looked the “artsiest”. With a few years under my belt and a category name change, I’ve become a little more attuned to noting the sets, props, and other elements of production design; I am still human, however, and at the end of the day will probably still gravitate toward “artsiest”.

The nominees are
-The Father
-Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
-Mank
-News of the World
-Tenet

In order of personal preference:

5) NEWS OF THE WORLD – The best sets in this film are the ones that Mother Nature herself made, and it’s a testament to the behind-the-scenes crew how they work to complement her work. When we get into the towns, it really can’t help but feel like something out of a ‘50’s western, which would be fine if it were, like, the 50s. S/o to Tom Hanks’ little home-on-wheels.

4) MANK – Reader, I will just tell you right now that while I did in fact watch Mank, I cannot, in fact, remember if I actually watched Mank. Like, did any of us? Is this movie going to exist on April 26th? Will it go the way of The Irishman? Anyway, so most of my comments about Mank will be along the lines of “I remember it having production design” lol. To be fair, this is a film that juggles a range of design-heavy locales including Hollywood movie sets and hotels, Hearst Castle, San Simeon, freaking Victorville, all with the grandeur one would expect of the big studio movies out of the 40s. And sometimes that’s just enough.

3) MA RAINEY’S BLACK BOTTOM – of the three people-talking-in-a-room stage play adaptations that showed up in various categories this year, this one is perhaps the splashiest in terms of design from top to, well, bottom. All the more impressive the impact it makes with the small space it utilizes while still helping set up a clear sense of geography within this recording studio. The glimpses of outside are also lovely. The real production design star, though, is Viola’s cold Coca-Cola, of course.

2) TENET – Tenet came up short in a lot of technical categories that it would have had in the bag any other year had it not been for, you know, gestures broadly. This was the first film I caught in a theater after lockdown when we rented out a theater with some other cinephiles going through withdrawals, and what a resplendent welcome back, however brief, to the big screen it was. The visual splendor plays brilliantly across the big screen and it’s no surprise that, among it, the production design stands out (and indeed, this is the category that has nominated the most Christopher Nolan films). Among the highlights for me are the thrust-stage opera house, the revolving inverters (particularly the one spitting out a line of inverted soldiers), and the completely unnecessary hydrofoils.

1) THE FATHER – I will be gushing more in future blurbs about what a last-minute surge The Father had in my heart, but, damn, if it doesn’t richly deserve this nomination, if not the win. Another people-talking-in-a-room stage play adaptation, what it does with that one room (really an entire London flat) is nothing short of remarkable. Subtle changes from scene to scene and shot to shot illustrate the perspective of a man suffering from progressive dementia, with some changes seemingly happening within the same shot. The production design becomes its own character, an almost sinister and mocking companion to our protagonist, and the deliberate placement of every prop, painting, magazine, door frame, kitchen wall tile heightens the unsettling nature of the narrative. The set dressing in the final scene is just chef’s kiss.

• WILL WIN: Mank – it’s the nominations leader and certainly the “most” production design of the bunch. May be one of the only few places to award it.
• COULD WIN: an argument could be made for any of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Tenet, or The Father; an edge to Ma Rainey for being such a design showcase
• SHOULD HAVE BEEN HERE: Palm Springs (I promise I watched other films!! This film just did Palm Springs [the locale] so right.)