Countdown to the Oscars: Best Production 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 Production Design

The nominees are:

All Quiet on the Western Front

Avatar: The Way of Water

Babylon

Elvis

The Fabelmans

Production design is about creating worlds, whether those are worlds with which we are familiar or worlds we never imagined. The production designer and set decorator and their teams are tasked with making the world of a film’s story feel real and lived in. Sometimes, that means turning back the clock on real buildings and real streets to a time decades before. Sometimes, it’s crafting whole new spaces on soundstages and backlots. And sometimes, they must take you to a place that has never existed and make you believe that it has always been.

The five nominees for Production Design this year cover all of those spaces and more. What will be fascinating to see is what direction the Academy voters choose to take this award as computer-generated imagery becomes ever more integral to the process of building worlds. Will they embrace change as they have a couple times in the past, or will they cling to the brick-and-mortar worlds of old? This year will offer as good a litmus test as any.

Elvis – I think my favorite set in the film is the set within the set – the television studio where Elvis is filming his Christmas special. It is a fun bit of meta-commentary on the cardboard and duct tape on which even very elaborate looking productions are built. Elvis is nothing if not elaborate, and it has the massive, design-intensive sets to prove it, from the carnival at the movie’s opening to the many concert halls and backroom bars to the Las Vegas showroom that serves as the primary setting of the third act.

We mentioned production designer Catherine Martin before in this series. She is also nominated for Costume Design. Here, she shares her nomination with fellow production designer Karen Murphy and set decorator Beverley Dunn. Dunn previously won this award alongside Martin for The Great Gatsby in 2013.

Babylon – As in Elvis, it is imperative that the sets of Babylon highlight the artifice of its world. The point of the film is that the glitz and glamor is only on the surface, and beneath that surface is a bottomless sea of dirt and grime. The sequence that will likely appeal to Academy voters – or truly anyone who has worked on movies in their career – is the scene when we see 30 different movies being shot at once on a single grand stage. That’s moviemaking. It’s just convincing enough that you never question it. Babylon wants you to ask questions.

This is director Damien Chazelle’s first time working with production designer Florencia Martin and set decorator Anthony Carlino. Both previously worked on Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza, among a host of other features, but this is the first nomination for each of them.

Avatar: The Way of Water – In 2009, Avatar won this award, getting a lot of credit for bringing a wholly imagined world to life, the production design taking place almost entirely within a computer. The next year, Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland pulled the same trick. Before that and since that, the Academy has rewarded almost exclusively films that present a tactile universe, filled with wood and steel sets crafted by union hands.

So, it will be interesting to see how voters regard the work of production designers Dylan Cole and Ben Procter and set decorator Vanessa Cole. All are first-time nominees, though they all worked in the art department on the first Avatar film. The world of this film is as stunning as, if not more so than, the first in the franchise. It will simply come down to whether voters feel they have already been there and done that by previously rewarding the creation of Pandora.

All Quiet on the Western Front – Let’s be honest. It’s the trenches. There are tremendous accomplishments all through this film, including the rail cars of the officers negotiating peace and the castle of the mad general who will sacrifice his men to satisfy his pride. But, it’s the trenches. They are hell on earth. Muddy, dank, broken, claustrophobic. They are no place for any living being, and this film makes that clear from the very start.

These are the first nominations for production designer Christian M. Goldbeck and set decorator Ernestine Hipper. Interestingly, Hipper also did the magnificent set decoration for the German-set TÁR this year, as well, a helluva one-two punch on the resumé. War films are very good at getting nominations from a branch that understands the work, but they rarely win this award. Perhaps they are too dark and dreary for voters who prefer big, colorful productions in this category. But, make no mistake, this is a tremendous accomplishment.

The Fabelmans – This is a fascinating nomination to me. By the standards of a Steven Spielberg film, the production design here is relatively subdued, with much of the film taking place in the title family’s home. Compared to recent Spielberg films such as West Side Story, Bridge of Spies, Lincoln, or War Horse (all nominees in this category), there is something that feels a little more minor here, despite wonderful work.

Production designer Rick Carter is a longtime Spielberg collaborator and was previously nominated for his work on Lincoln and War Horse, as well as Forrest Gump and Avatar. He won this award for Avatar and Lincoln. Set decorator Karen O’Hara is on her first collaboration with Spielberg, but she is a previous winner in this category for the aforementioned Alice in Wonderland. She also received nominations for The Color of Money and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.

The final analysis

Ten times in 22 years this century, the awards for Production Design and Costume Design have gone to the same film. Two of those 10 times, Catherine Martin was involved, when she won both awards for Moulin Rouge! and The Great Gatsby. There’s a fair enough chance she wins both again this year, although I am currently predicting Babylon for Costume Design. This one, though, this one feels like Elvis’ to lose.

Two things potentially standing in its way: the Babylon voting bloc and the possibility for the similar accomplishments of Elvis and Babylon to split the vote and pave the way for the computer-generated world of Avatar: The Way of Water to reclaim the crown. Something to think about, though, when considering Elvis vs. Babylon in this category: The last movie to win Best Production Design without a Best Picture nomination was, you may have guessed, The Great Gatsby. Of course, Babylon is the only non-Best Picture nominee in this group.

Will win: Elvis

Should win: Babylon

Should have been here: Athena

A note about my favorite snub: The cinematography of Athena has been rightly lauded, and I myself highlighted it here in my previous piece. However, just as important to the success of this masterpiece of a film is the work of production designer Arnaud Roth and set decorator Jacques Oursin in creating a real, lived-in world, teetering on the brink of chaos. Down every dark hallway and around every corner, there is something to be discovered.

Next time: Editing