THE OSCAR COSTUME DESIGN CONTENDERS

The nominees for Best Costume Design for 2011 have been made by the Academy, and the contenders offer an excellent field of choices. The five nominees, as so often happens, are for films taking place in past eras, and two celebrate the early age of film itself. The costumes of the five films are all excellent in their own way, and the popularity of each film will have much to do with which one wins. The costume designer members of the Academy's Art Directors Branch make the nominations, but it's the entire Academy membership that votes.

 

The Artist has gotten a lot of buzz and is riding with strong momentum to pick up major awards. The costume design was done by Mark Bridges, designer of There Will Be Blood, The Italian Job, Magnolia, and Boogie Nights among others. The plot of The Artist begins in 1927 Hollywood, when the flapper era was in full swing. The female lead is played by the photogenic Berenice Bejo, who displays all the pluck and irrepressibility that characterized flapper film stars like Joan Crawford and Clara Bow. In fact Bridges was inspired by the flapper costumes of Joan Crawford as designed by Adrian in Our Dancing Daughters.

 

Mark Bridges did careful research and looked at many actual dresses of the era. But just wearing vintage was not really an option for a variety of reasons, including that the role of a costume designer is to design clothes. Mr. Bridges reinterpreted the clean lines and sexy short skirts of the 1920s into more modern tastes. The straight lines and flattened busts of the 1920s was modified slightly to be more flattering, showing more of the figure in hips, a trim waist, and a defined bust line in the outfits for the sexy Bejo. For the beautiful gown above, Bridges used a gold lame and black satin brocade made into the border of a flapper dress modelled after a vintage original.

The styles of the late 20s changed considerably by the early 1930s. As The Artist itself moves into the 30s, Mark Bridges showed more subtle but noticeable changes in Bejo's outfits. This is when the modern look of glamour really began, and Bridges shows that flair and the increasing status of stardom that the character of Peppy Miler achieves. And the costumes of the falling star George Valentin tell his story equally well, his costumes detriorate as hers become more sophisticated. 

Once upon a time costume Oscars had two categories, one for black & white films and one for color. It was felt then that color costumes had an advantage over the b&w versions. We'll see if this has any bearing today.The costumes for The Artist are in perfect harmony with the story and its characterization. It achieves all the best in what costume design is all about.

Another nominee is Jane Eyre, yes a new version of the novel filmed countless times in movies and TV mini-series. The 2011 version stars Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender, with costume design by Michael O'Connor. O'Connor is very talented and skilled in designing period costume. He won an Oscar for The Duchess (2009).  

O'Connor has designed very period-appropriate costumes for the film. They are not flashy but rather done in a more realistic style using more somber colors and appropriate fabrics.

Mia Wasikowska is pictured above arriving at Rochester's estate. She wears a costume made of a fabric with ribboned patterns, cut and mitered at various angles for an interesting effect.

Michael Fassbender as Rochester and Imogen Poots as Blanche Ingram are shown above. The bold striping on Imogen's dress is beautiful but also shows her off as the more likely choice for Rochester's affection.

Dame Judi Dench plays the role of Mrs Fairfax, wearing a costume appropriate to her older age and station. The costumes of Jane Eyre are expertly designed and made. Movies set in this era always seem to be favored to win Best Costume.

Sally Hawkins is shown as Mrs. Reed.

Madonna directed the film W.E., a double-tiered story like Julie & Julia with the inspiration being the life of Wallis Simpson and King Edward VIII, soon to be the Duke and Duchess of York. The costumes were designed by Arianne Phillips,with the huge task of costuming the role of the Duchess, a famous clotheshorse with impeccable taste and a couturier wardrobe.

Andrea Riseborough plays the Duchess of Windsor, shown above with James D'Arcy as the Duke. The costumes capture the everyday elegance that was part of the Windsor's life. Arianne Phillips went through couturiere Madeleine Vionnet's archive to recreate two actual Vionnet gowns that had been made for the Duchess. Jewelry also made up a big part of the Windsor aura. Real jewels from Cartier and Van Cleef & Arpels were loaned, and even Madonna loaned some of her own jewels in a pinch.

The range of costumes in W.E. was impressive, from the formal elegance and couture inspired costumes of the famous couple to the modern chic costumes worn by Abby Cornish as Wally. Ms. Phillips also had to produce the look of lavishness in the costumes on a tight budget. Nonetheless, some 60 costume changes were used for Wallis, a huge amount in a film.

 

The Elizabethan period is always a popular setting for costume drama. Last year Anonymous
hit the screens with a plot based on another writer having actually written Shakespeare's play.
It was not a hit at the theaters but the costumes were beautifully designed and executed.They were designed by German costume designer Lisy Christl.

Vanessa Redgrave plays Queen Elizabeth, here with Rhys Ifans as the Earl of Oxford. The balloon sleeves and ruff collar are a staple image for Queen Elizabeth, who has been beautifully costumed ever since the early years of cinema.

Rafe Spall is shown above as William Shakespeare, in baggy breeches and an embroidered jacket. Normally Elizabethan films are a shoe-in for Best Costume awards, but the lack of success at the box office and the controversial subject matter make Anonymous a long-shot for the Oscar.

 

Hugo was a real crowd-pleaser and popular within the film community because of its setting at the beginning of cinema and that it was a children's film directed by Martin Scorsese. Three-time costume Oscar winner Sandy Powell designed the costumes, set in the early 20th century. While the costumes are excellently done as would be expected from Ms. Powell, the scope of the costuming was limited and therefore not likely to be the favorite for the award.

Other critically popular films like The Help were not nominated in the costume design category. The period films nominated this year would usually be the favorites for the Oscar.

With its paean to early Hollywood and its beautiful and now fashionable flapper dresses, I would predict The Artist as this year's Oscar winner for Best Costume design.

MGM: BEHIND THE SCENES AT THE FACTORY OF DREAMS

We cherish the directors, admire the screenwriters, and worship the stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood. But then as now, the creation of a film involved the collaboration of many talents. Under the old studio system, these talents were virtually all located within the studio lot, and usually working as regular employees or under contract. In this blog post, we'll visit some of the faces and work-a-day world of this biggest but now long gone factory of dreams: MGM. This will be the first of two or three posts on the MGM Studio lot.

The MGM Studio entrance on Washington Blvd. was an imposing facade. Luckily it still stands today. The studio entrance is no longer at this location, and the studio lot belongs to Sony. In this photo a paper boy waits to sell the afternoon newspaper to the departing cast and crew.

The old front gate was where the guard's office was located. Everybody entering through this gate, especially the actors, were checked-in (remember the scene in Sunset Blvd with Norma at the Paramount gate?).

The Metro Goldwyn Mayer sign was located atop a sound stage on "5th Avenue." The studio lot in Culver City had started as the Triangle Studio - begun by Thomas Ince, D.W. Griffith and Mack Sennett in 1916.  Samuel Goldfish and Edgar Selwyn bought out the studio for Goldwyn Pictures in 1918 (the name an anagram of their two names - which Goldwyn adopted as his own). Marcus Loew then bought out Golwyn, Metro Pictures, and Mayer Pictures to combine them under the management of Louis B. Mayer in 1924.

MGM had always believed in making prestigious movies. They frankly made it a point to hire the best talent they could find. The "production board" above shows some of the leading directors working at MGM in the early 1930s. In the photo is Clarence Brown.

The studio set was a beehive of activity during production. Here on the set of Grand Hotel is a crew that outnumbers the cast. A set usually had directors and assistant directors, cameramen and grips, best boys and script girls, lighting and sound technicians, electricians, gaffers, film loaders, and periodically make-up, wardrobe staff and set dressers. Many more people had already been in involved in preparing the production, and many more to come would be involved in post-production. 

Making films meant making movies on film stock in those days. The processing of the original camera negatives and the making all the sets of film needed for the theaters was done on the lot. The photo above shows the development tanks used to develop film. It looks like a factory, and indeed it was.

The film stock looped through rollers that submerged the film in various developing solutions, fixatives, and cleaners. The film stock moved  through the rollers into various solutions. The steel beam at the top of the photo could raise or lower the rollers and  film stock.

The developed film gets a preliminary inspection.

The slideshow below takes us through some of MGM's departments in 1930s and 1950s. A future post will take a look at the indoor sets used for several classic films. A great book about MGM's backlot is
MGM: Hollywood's Greatest Backlot, by Steven Bingen, Stephen X. Sylvester and Michael Troyan, Santa Monica Press, 2011. It's a great (if melancholy) trip through the history and many outdoor sets of MGM. One thing is clear from looking at these photos - although these artists and artisans created glamour, their working surroundings didn't reflect it.

IT WAS A WONDERFUL LIFE: THE FILMS OF JIMMY STEWART

Jimmy Stewart was as well-loved and as thoroughly trusted an actor as there is ever likely to be. He embodied the all-American ideal, and in his long film career seemed to play the gamut of the American biographical canon. His own contradictions and occasional dark roles were all the more accepted because of this trust. As the American "Everyman," people could see in him their own faults and shortcomings, yet not feel disturbed or find therein anything sinister. He was "the incorruptible American patriot," a persona created and cemented by two Frank Capra films: Mr. Smith Goes to Town; and It's a Wonderful Life. These two films are jewels of American Cinema. And it's Jimmy Stewart's amazing acting abilities and his naturalistic style of playing film roles that makes it impossible to imagine anyone else playing these roles so well. 

One imagines that Jimmy Stewart was born and raised in a small town in Indiana, or on a ranch in Montana - basically a country boy arrived wide-eyed in the city. But he was actually born in the town of Indiana, Pennsylvania, and was a graduate of Princeton University like his father before him, a prosperous merchant. This should not detract from Jimmy's screen persona, though he acted on stage at the university and in New York, his acting style and sentiments seemed always to be naturalistic and genuine. He had joined the Ivy-League University Players acting troupe, where his friends (and roommates) included Josh Logan and Henry Fonda. They were also close to Margaret Sullavan, another member. Henry Fonda was married to Sullavan briefly - Jimmy Stewart carried a torch for her a long time. It was Hedda Hopper who got Jimmy a screen-test at MGM, where he landed a bit-part in The Murder Man, then moving up to play Jeanette MacDonald's wayward brother in Rose Marie. Henry Fonda by this time was already well established in Hollywood, and Jimmy once again roomed with him. One would have liked to be a fly on the wall when they double-dated with Ginger Rogers and Lucille Ball, two of the RKO gals.

Tall and good-looking, Jimmy Stewart had the makings of a leading man and Hollywood star. His film roles were as diverse as his persona: a cadet in Navy Blue and Gold; a jealous murderer in After the Thin Man; a Navy sailor in Born to Dance; a biology professor in Vivacious Lady, and a soldier in Shopworn Angel. But it was Frank Capra that saw in him the straight-forward and earnest patriot and devoted protector of individual freedoms that perfectly fit his ideal actor for the role of junior U.S. Senator Jefferson Smith. Indeed, Stewart's deadpan idealism and ferocious determination as played in the role led to it winning the Oscar for Best Picture, his nomination for Best Actor, and its place as one of the most admired films of all time.

The Philadelphia Story, 1940 is one of those outstanding movies you never get tired of watching. It was the film that brought Katharine Hepburn back into popularity after being labelled box-office poison. As for co-stars Jimmy Stewart and Cary Grant, you couldn't get any better, with Jimmy playing a reporter and mid-list author. It has one of those truly sublime moments in screen acting history, when Cary and Jimmy sit on some front porch stairs after a night of drinking while carrying on a lop-sided conversation. We know Cary Grant could be a great comic, but here we see a glimpse of what Jimmy Stewart could have become given a different set of roles to play.

Photos courtesy of Photofest.

1940 was a good year for Jimmy Stewart. He appeared in two movies with Margaret Sullavan, (and Frank Morgan) both outstanding, and one, The Shop Around the Corner directed by Ernst Lubitsch, is considered a masterpiece. Here Jimmy plays a shop clerk in an antagonistic relationship with a female store employee. She was Margaret Sullavan, who also happens to be his secret romantic pen-pal in this model for several film remakes. Yet the other movie is no less a masterpiece. The Mortal Storm was directed by Frank Borsage and is set in Bavaria during the rise of Hitler. It shows the rising effect of peer-pressure in compromising people's beliefs and the consequences. Here  Stewart plays a German farmer with anti-Hitler beliefs. The movie infuriated Hitler at the time, where all MGM films were subsequently banned.

Jimmy was then cast as a down-and-out author roped into a marriage of convenience with Hedy Lamarr in Come Live with Me, in 1941. In this light romantic comedy, Jimmy seems natural as a mate for Hedy. She was billed as the most beautiful woman in the world, and he was handsome enough to balance out the pairing.

When the U.S entered World War II, Jimmy Stewart enlisted as a private. Since he was already a civilian pilot, he went through extensive training to fly bombers. He was promoted and became a major and Group Operations Officer, flying with his squadrons in German bombing missions and earning a Distinguished Flying Cross and later promotion to colonel. He ended the war as Chief of Staff for the Second Combat Wing of the Eighth Air Force.

The brutal realities of WW II and its aftermath led to new kinds of movies being made in Hollywood. Realistic movies and film noir became popular. Jimmy doubted his own value as an actor given all the sacrifices and suffering endured by so many during the war. But when Jimmy returned to Hollywood he decided that he had enjoyed working with Frank Capra the most and wanted to work with him again. Capra meanwhile had started an independent production company along with William Wyler and George Stevens, Liberty Films. His first big project was to be It's a Wonderful Life in 1946. It has  since gone on to be a true classic and one of the most beloved films ever made, though initially is was not as well received and considered too fantastical in those hard-boiled times. But even Humphry Bogart played it every year for Christmas, crying at every showing.

It's uplifting message has won it a huge fan base. For Jimmy Stewart, it also showed his dark side as a film character as well as his good. It also had another sublime Jimmy Stewart scene - this where he talks on the phone while Donna Reed stands close to him as he realizes before our very eyes that he loves her, and consequently, won't leave Bedford Falls.

In 1950 Jimmy  went back on stage to play an alcoholic who imagines his companion to be a giant white rabbit. He went on to star in the movie version of Harvey in 1950. Also in 1950 Stewart began a new phase in his film career, playing in gritty Westerns directed by Anthony Mann, and later with John Ford. Winchester 73 was the first in 1950, followed by Bend of the River, pictured below. In these films he played reluctant and often compromised heroes. His western cycle actually began with Broken Arrow, directed by Delmer Daves, about a scout who befriends Cochise, and thus works against the viewpoint of the "whites." More westerns were made in this terrific partnership with Anthony Mann: Naked Spur in 1953; Far Country in 1954; and Man from Laramie in 1956. Mann credited Stewart for his dogged determination and attention to every detail in helping make the film a success. One example was in finding just the right cowboy hat for Jimmy to wear in the Winchester 73 - a process that took two months of trial and error.

Besides Jimmy's successful work with directors Frank Capra and Anthony Mann, his films with Alfred Hitchcock brought him true immortality. The first was the dramatic, dark, and under-rated Rope in 1948. Then followed the classic Rear Window in 1954, The Man Who Knew too Much, in 1956, and the enigmatic, psychological thriller Vertigo, in 1958. In Jimmy Stewart, Hitchcock found the perfect foil for his movies - the "Everyman" caught in the web of twisted plots and sinister characters. And with Jimmy there was that extra dimension - the "trusted" and well known actor who was himself capable of acting out his own obsessions, selfish needs, and psychological issues within a film's role. 

With Hitchcock's two films of Rear Window and Vertigo, we see Jimmy playing the role of two physically and psychologically challenged characters. In one he is bound to a wheel chair after falling from a building, in the other he is nearly paralyzed from his fear of heights, at one point wearing a corset from his injury and in the other confined to a mental ward. But both films provide Stewart with the opportunity to dramatize his anguish, his obsessions, and his every emotion including ecstasy through his every facial expression. In the tortured soul of Scottie in Vertigo, Jimmy Stewart reached the pinnacle of his career.

Jimmy Stewart went on to bring more characters to life in films such as Spirit of St. Louis, Bell Book and Candle, Anatomy of a Murder, How the West was Won, and Shenandoah, among many others. He won one Oscar for Best Actor for The Philadelphia Story, and after fifty years of acting won an honorary Oscar in 1985 for the body of his work. Among male actors his work is unsurpassed. This can only be fully appreciated by seeing the gamut of his work over that period. But Vertigo is not a bad place to start - or to end up.