Countdown to the Oscars: Best Cinematography

We’re counting down the days until the Academy Awards! We’ll be here, breaking down each of the 23 categories, talking a bit of history, and trying to figure out who is going to win all those gold statues. So check back throughout the next three weeks for Last Cinema Standing’s Countdown to the Oscars.

Best Cinematography

The nominees are:

All Quiet on the Western Front

BARDO, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths

Elvis

Empire of Light

TÁR 

Prior to looking it up, I would have bet money that the 1930 version of All Quiet on the Western Front, directed by Lewis Milestone, won Best Cinematography at the third ever Academy Awards. The film won Best Picture. Milestone won Best Director. But in fact, that was it. The adaptation was nominated for Best Writing, and Arthur Edeson was indeed nominated for Cinematography but lost. The work he lost to: Joseph T. Rucker and Willard Van der Veer for With Byrd at the South Pole.

This is fascinating because With Byrd at the South Pole is a documentary about American naval officer Richard E. Byrd’s journey to the South Pole. In the days before the documentary categories, it was the first documentary to win an award of any kind, and to this day, it remains the only documentary to win Best Cinematography. Edeson was nominated three times but never won, not even for his iconic work on a Best Picture winner you may have heard of: Casablanca.

I share this only because it is rare for a remake of a Best Picture winner to be so heavily involved in the Oscars race (West Side Story just last year notwithstanding) and because I personally find the history fascinating. This year’s nominees include two titans of the form, two relatively unknown quantities, and a woman with a real shot at making history. Let’s start with her.

Elvis – Last year, The Power of the Dog director of photography Ari Wegner became just the second woman ever nominated for Best Cinematography in the 94-year history of the Oscars. This year, Elvis lenser Mandy Walker became the third. Hopefully, this trend continues and the notoriously insular Cinematography Branch will find more laudable work in places it has rarely looked before. 

Walker previously worked with Baz Luhrmann on his downunder epic Australia, so she is familiar with frenetic pace and wandering eye of the director’s filmography. She is more than up to the task of matching Luhrmann’s energy and does everything in her power to craft a unique visual language to capture one of the most unique figures of modern American history.

All Quiet on the Western Front – One of the fun things about this process every year is discovering new and interesting artists in the world of film. I will be honest: I have never heard of cinematographer James Friend nor of any of the 10 other feature films he lensed before All Quiet on the Western Front. He did work on the relatively popular miniseries Patrick Melrose, but apart from that, his list of credits includes films called things like Truth or Dare (aka Truth or Die), Dead-cert (it’s about vampires apparently and is on Tubi), and Stalker (not the Tarkovsky one). 

All of this is to say, nothing could have prepared me for the starkly devastating work he delivers on Edward Berger’s All Quiet on the Western Front remake. It is brutal, troubling work that inserts the viewer right into the heart of darkness. The camera is relentless, charging right alongside the soldiers in every fruitless attempt to gain pointless yards of empty land. ‘Harrowing’ is overused as a descriptor for war photography, but there is truly no other word for it. Hopefully, we see Friend’s name on a lot more features to come.

TÁR – Roger Deakins has more Academy Award nominations in his career than TÁR lenser Florian Hoffmeister has feature film credits. No matter. Hoffmeister’s tightly controlled shots and precise compositions are proof that one need not have a long resumé to produce lasting work. Director Todd Field has often been compared to mentor Stanley Kubrick in the manner in which he composes shots, and TÁR is perhaps the best evidence yet of why those comparisons might be apt. Hoffmeister’s camerawork lends an epic grandeur to the story of Lydia Tár’s fall from grace, suggesting humor and horror in equal measure.

Empire of Light – Deakins’ and Mendes’ last collaboration was the universally acclaimed World War I, single-shot experiment 1917, which came within a hair’s breadth of winning Best Picture and earned Deakins his second Oscar. Safe to say, Empire of Light does not match that film for acclaim or accomplishment. In fact, probably a reasonable bet that this nomination, Deakins’ 16th, can be chalked up almost exclusively to the respect and admiration of the legend’s peers. The work is superb, as would be expected from a master craftsman, and there are some beautifully lit sequences within the interiors of the film’s main set, but on Deakins’ Hall of Fame resumé, this film barely warrants a footnote.

BARDO, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths – Speaking of legends of the craft, Darius Khodji has been making films with some of the biggest names in the business for more than 30 years. James Gray, David Fincher, Michael Haneke, Woody Allen, Bong Joon-ho, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, and now Alejandro G. Iñárritu. Shockingly, this is just his second Academy Award nomination and first since Evita in 1996. It’s about damn time, and if its burden is to be the lone nomination for Iñárritu’s critically underappreciated film, so much the better.

Iñárritu’s last two films both won the Academy Award for Cinematography (Emmanuel Lubezki both times for Birdman and The Revenant, respectively). Not wanting to beat around the bush, Khondji deserves to make it three in a row. The desert vistas, the interior shadows, the experimentation, the long takes, it’s all magnificent. It’s showy without being overwhelming and feels perfectly of a piece with the canvas on which Iñárritu is painting. The work is without equal in this category, and unfortunately, it is probably running in last place behind bigger names and more widely seen films.

The final analysis

Maybe I’m barking up the wrong tree with Elvis. It feels like the kind of movie older Academy voters would enjoy. All the effort is up there on the screen. Elvis Presley is an icon. The performances are great. It’s a big, showy biopic of the sort the Oscars used to reward all the time. So in looking for a movie that is likely to sweep all the crafts awards, I saw Elvis and felt it seemed right. But, All Quiet on the Western Front is right there.

The war film won seven BAFTAs from 14 nominations, a record for a non-English language film. Among those, it was awarded for its cinematography. War films in general have a long history of winning this award, going back to A Farewell to Arms in 1933 and up to 1917 just three years ago. Only three times in the past 50 years has Cinematography gone to a film not in English, the last being Pan’s Labyrinth back in 2006, but the language barrier seems to be breaking down across the membership. Maybe that helps All Quiet.

But, I just cannot get past the nagging feeling that when Everything Everywhere All at Once is not available for the younger voters, the older voters will show out for Elvis. I don’t think it is the best work this year, but if Mandy Walker becomes the first woman in the 95-year history of the Academy Awards to win Best Cinematography, I will stand up, applaud, and say, ‘Hell, yeah. Good for her.’

Will win: Elvis

Should win: BARDO

Should have been here: Athena

A note about my favorite snub: In another universe, Romain Gavras’ Athena would have been a crafts juggernaut throughout awards season. It is one of the most impressively mounted films I have ever seen, and that all begins with Gavras and cinematographer Matias Boucard taking you on a descent into hell with one of the wildest, most jaw-dropping single-take opening sequences you will ever see. The accomplishment here is inconceivable and should be witnessed by as many people as possible.

Next time: Production Design

Countdown to the Oscars: Best Costume Design

We’re counting down the days until the Academy Awards! We’ll be here, breaking down each of the 23 categories, talking a bit of history, and trying to figure out who is going to win all those gold statues. So check back throughout the next three weeks for Last Cinema Standing’s Countdown to the Oscars.

Best Costume Design

The nominees are:

Babylon

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

Elvis

Everything Everywhere All at Once

Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris

My kingdom for a contemporary nominee. Now, technically both Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and Everything Everywhere All at Once are set in the present day, but both are heavily ensconced in the science-fiction and fantasy worlds. I am talking about the millennial-chic ensembles of the Bodies, Bodies, Bodies cast or the sunny island duds of the Glass Onion crew or even the stark formalism of the TÁR designs. Any would be worthy, but alas, the Costume Designers Branch has bequeathed us with the usual set of period and fantasy nominees.

At least these nominees are pretty fun. None of the traditional royal court frocks that while fairly deserving, often litter this category and push out more interesting and eclectic work. Not so this year, as the branch has seen fit to take us from late 1920s Hollywood to 1950s London and France and back to ‘60 and ‘70s America and finally into fantastical parallel universes. Honestly, it is the most fun this category has been in a long time, maybe since 1991, when Bugsy beat out the varied likes of The Addams Family, Barton Fink, and Hook.

Babylon – What a big, bright, bold, beautiful swing by director Damien Chazelle and costume designer Mary Zophres. These lavish threads bring 1920s Hollywood into full color in ways we have rarely seen, particularly with several of the scene-stealing fashions worn by Margot Robbie’s lead character. That red dress on the posters by itself should be enough to etch this film’s costumes in the memories of filmgoers, but the devil, as always, is in the details. And in this film, Zophres fills the screen with details. Every design is meticulous from the leads on down to the background performers in the afterparty from hell.

This is Zophres’ third collaboration with Chazelle after La La Land and First Man. She is probably best known for her work with the Coen Brothers, working on every one of their films since Fargo in 1996. This is her fourth Academy Award nomination and first since the Coens’ The Ballad of Buster Scruggs in 2019. She was also nominated for the Coens’ True Grit remake and for Chazelle’s La La Land, which converted six of its record-tying 14 nominations into wins, but not Costume Design.

Elvis – Interestingly, Babylon kind of out-Luhrmanns Baz Luhrmann in this category in the brashness of its costumes, something for which the director’s films are widely touted. This is not to say that Elvis does not feature some of the director’s trademark fashion choices. Catherine Martin, Luhrmann’s wife, has been his production designer on all of his features and costume designer on all of his features since Moulin Rouge!, so it is safe to say she has put her stamp on his work.

Martin has been nominated for nine Academy Awards overall – four for Costume Design, four for Production Design, and one for Best Picture as a producer on Elvis. All of those nominations have come for Luhrmann films, and she has won four Oscars, two for Costume Design and two for Production Design (for the same two films, it should be noted, Moulin Rouge! and The Great Gatsby). It would hardly be surprising to see her take home both awards again for Elvis.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever – The Marvel Cinematic Universe has garnered 26 Academy Award nominations. Twelve of them have come for the Black Panther franchise (seven for the first film and five for this one). Black Panther and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever are the only MCU films nominated outside the Visual Effects and Makeup categories, apart from a lone Sound Editing nod for the first Iron Man. More impressively, from all those nominations, Black Panther has the only wins, taking home awards for Original Score, Production Design, and Costume Design.

In winning that award, legendary costume designer Ruth E. Carter became the first black woman to win an Oscar in this category (it should be noted production designer Hannah Beachler was the first black person ever to win the Production Design award, doing so for that film, as well). For the sequel, Carter has expanded on the Afrofuturism of the first film to incorporate Mayan and indigenous designs into the costumes of Talokan people. It is visionary work, and it is wonderful to see Carter once again recognized.

Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris – No one told me what this movie was about. I was interested in it when it was in theaters but never made it a priority and didn’t see it until it was nominated for this award. While watching, I realized the entire film is about a nice lady in the mid-20th century who travels to Paris in order to buy a Christian Dior dress essentially from the man himself. There are many fashion walks in the movie, a lot of emphasis placed on costuming, and long stretches where we watch dressmakers work their magic. 

Of course this movie is nominated in this category! I’m not saying it’s not necessarily deserving, but films about fashion often get nominated by this branch, which loves to see itself on screen. And, who can blame them? Case in point, costume designer Jenny Beavan is coming off a win in this category just last year for another fashion-focused feature: Cruella. Beavan has three wins from 11 previous nominations. This is her 12th, and more than likely, the nomination will have to be the reward this time around.

Everything Everywhere All at Once – This film’s genre hopping disguised as universe hopping necessitates a wide range of costumes, from the present-day frump of most of the characters to the elegant, Wong Kar Wai-inspired fashions to the monastic designs of the everything bagel cult. Stephanie Hsu’s misunderstood villain gets the most extravagant fashions, which nominated designer Shirley Kurata intended to subvert and reclaim “Asian-centric tropes,” according to an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. Kurata’s work certainly matches the maximalist style of the whole enterprise while finding subtlety that is sorely lacking in the rest of the film.

The final analysis

You could call this a three-horse race, with Carter hanging in there by virtue of her name and reputation (which is not to say her work is not deserving; it’s just a competitive year). But really, I think this comes down to Elvis and Babylon. If that sounds a little familiar, it’s because in my analysis, the Makeup and Hairstyling category came down to Elvis and The Whale. Be forewarned, a lot of the crafts categories are going to come down to Elvis or something else. It’s all a matter of how much the Academy really just likes Elvis or whether voters will spread the love.

One important thing to note is that unlike other categories, Best Picture heat doesn’t seem to mean a lot to the winner of Costume Design. It’s just as often that a Picture nominee loses to a non-Picture nominee here – far more so than any other craft category. For this reason, I give the slight edge to Babylon, which features the kind of bold, colorful costumes the Academy tends to favor in this category. Carter is a threat, but it’s likely the Academy feels it has already rewarded that franchise with this award and might not recognize everything new Carter is bringing to the table.

Depending on when this award is handed out, this could be a fascinating bellwether for the other crafts categories. Babylon is absolutely in the running for all three awards for which it is nominated, and if it wins here, it could go 3-for-3. If Elvis wins, we could be in for a long night of that film picking up craft award after craft award, a la Dune last year or Mad Max: Fury Road in years past.

Will win: Babylon

Should win: Babylon

Should have been here: Women Talking

A note about my favorite snub: I know I called out a bunch of contemporary designs up top, but I cannot get over the brilliance of Quita Alfred’s costumes in Women Talking. They are so subtle and intricate that they might be easy to overlook, but make no mistake, Alfred’s work is integral to the film’s disorienting, unsettling effect. Beautiful stuff.

Next time: Cinematography

Countdown to the Oscars: Best Makeup and Hairstyling

We’re counting down the days until the Academy Awards! We’ll be here, breaking down each of the 23 categories, talking a bit of history, and trying to figure out who is going to win all those gold statues. So check back throughout the next three weeks for Last Cinema Standing’s Countdown to the Oscars.

Best Makeup and Hairstyling

The nominees are:

All Quiet on the Western Front

The Batman

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

Elvis

The Whale

Remember 2015 and 2016 when Love Larson and Eva von Bahr were nominated in back-to-back years for their work on a pair of popular Swedish hits that most Americans had never heard of? That was cool. Remember Ali Abbasi’s weird little Swedish gem Border in 2018? Also cool. How about last year and the love shown to the long-awaited sequel Coming 2 America? That was neat and out of left field. 

All of this is to point out that this year’s crop of Makeup and Hairstyling nominees feels a little safe, a little traditional. Every one of these films is nominated for at least three awards this year, and two are Best Picture nominees. There is nothing that feels spontaneous or quirky, like in 2020, when Matteo Garrone’s Pinocchio snuck into the lineup. No matter. Just an observation.

As it stands, these nominees reflect a growing trend within the Makeup and Hairstyling Branch of the Academy to favor showy character prosthetics that contribute to a leading or supporting performance in some major way. The Batman, Elvis, and The Whale are all a part of this trend. Four of the past five winners fit this bill, as well, with Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom the exception in 2020. Otherwise, The Eyes of Tammy Faye, Bombshell, Vice, and The Darkest Hour all feature main characters buried under layers of prosthetics. So, let’s start there.

The Whale – The makeup is everything in Darren Aronofsky’s weepy drama. Okay, there is Brendan Fraser giving the performance of a lifetime. But, that performance does not exist without the prosthetic work, which is aided by a lot of CGI. Fraser is not a small man, but the work to transform him into a believable 600-pound man is, pardon the pun, gargantuan. Fraser’s character appears fully nude multiple times in the film, meaning the full-body prosthetics must hold up under scrutiny. More than that, the facial pieces have to bear the weight of Aronofsky’s many closeups without compromising Fraser’s performance. Your mileage may vary, but if the movie works for you, the makeup deserves a lot of credit.

Elvis – From a character makeup standpoint, Baz Luhrman’s wild biopic is The Whale times two. First, there is Austin Butler’s Elvis, which requires a number of subtle facial prosthetics, as well as tremendous attention to detail with the singer’s famously coiffed hair. Second, there is Tom Hanks’ fat suit, as well as the curiously oversized nose prosthetic. There is also a ton of work put into recreating the period-accurate hairstyles of the large crowds in attendance for many of the Elvis shows in the movie. Add all of this together, and for a movie I didn’t like, the work is quite admirable and this nomination well deserved.

The Batman – There is a joke to be made here about Robert Pattinson’s Batman being the first caped crusader to don eyeliner, but we’ll save it for another time. No, much like Batman Returns’ nomination in this category 30 years ago, this is all about the Penguin. This past year, as part of an anniversary screening of Returns, I actually got to see a live demonstration of the makeup, prosthetics, and hair piece it took to transform Danny DeVito into Oswald Cobblepot. It was cool to see and emphasized the work that goes into making these fantasy characters truly spark to life. Here – and I know this is cliche to say – Colin Farrell is unrecognizable as the Penguin. It’s a remarkable transformation that deserves much praise.

All Quiet on the Western Front – Perhaps the most iconic image to come out of this film is that of star Felix Kammerer’s ashen face, caked in mud, delivering that thousand-yard stare. So much of the movie is about the main character’s transformation from eager, fresh-faced youth to that broken, battered man, and the makeup really helps give the audience a sense of where we are in that story. Really, this is the story of all the men maimed and scarred by the war. We see their bruises, their wounds, and their missing limbs, and the cost of the war is made real and tangible. The makeup is haunting and shattering all throughout the film.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever – The original Black Panther film was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture. This one is nominated for five, but only two in the same category as the first feature (Original Song and Costume Design). Makeup and Hairstyling is one of the places the 2018 film missed out, though there were only three nominees in the category that year. The film was part of the final seven-film bake-off, so it stands to reason that with five nominees, it would have been in. The tattoo work alone on the Wakandans and the Talokan people is wonderfully impressive stuff, and similar to The Batman, it is a major lift to bring these fantastical characters into a reality we recognize.

The final analysis

I keep going back and forth between The Whale and Elvis. Based on recent history, either would be a logical winner, and there is very little to separate them. But let’s try.

Going back to 2011, four of the 11 Makeup and Hairstyling winners have been for films that also won a lead performance Oscar (The Iron Lady, Dallas Buyers Club, The Darkest Hour, and The Eyes of Tammy Faye just last year). If we think Butler is going to win Best Actor, then Elvis is a reasonable bet here. In addition, from 2000 to 2018, in every instance when a Best Picture nominee was cited in this category, a Best Picture nominee won the award. This would also point to Elvis (or All Quiet on the Western Front).

However, this is where it gets fun. The past three years have painted a different picture. In 2019, Bombshell beat out Joker and 1917. In 2020, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom beat out Mank. And last year, Tammy Faye beat out Dune. So, Picture is no longer the slam-dunk indicator we would once have considered it. In addition, looking at 2019 again, Bombshell featured a Best Actress-nominated performance from Charlize Theron, but it beat out Renee Zelwegger’s Best Actress-winning performance in Judy in this category. So, even if Butler does triumph in Actor, the Fraser film is not out of the running here.

We also cannot ignore the Academy’s willingness to go with the fun, showy blockbuster in this category, which in this case I believe would be The Batman over Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. More than likely, those two films will split votes, preventing a victory on par with Star Trek, Mad Max: Fury Road, or Suicide Squad. War films do not tend to do particularly well here, and even Saving Private Ryan lost to Elizabeth in this category, so unless All Quiet on the Western Front is going to sweep (like it did at the BAFTAs), it’s probably out of the running.

All of which brings us back to: The Whale or Elvis? If you’re placing a bet, go with Elvis. It is the more beloved film, it is the Best Picture nominee, and it features your likely Best Actor winner. That is the smart way to play this game. But, I just cannot get past the fact that The Whale does not exist without the makeup, and it’s right there, front and center the entire time. What are we doing here if not trying to have a little fun? So, you be smart. I’m going out on the limb.

Will win: The Whale

Should win: The Batman

Should have been here: Babylon

A word on my favorite snub: Damien Chazelle’s Babylon is a rise-and-fall movie that covers years of its characters’ lives and eventually decades. The subtle aging, along with the more extravagant hair and makeup looks that abound – particularly for Margot Robbie’s character – would have been a wonderful complement to the more conventional slate of nominees this year.

Next time: Costume Design