Oscars

[cos]

I didn't watch the Oscars. Sometimes I see someone say "I give up on the Oscars" after they make some particularly stupid award decision. I really gave up on the Oscars, a long time ago.

Go to this list of Oscars for "Best Costume Design" and scroll down to 1982, where you'll see:

1982: Bhanu Athaiya, Madeline Jones and John Mollo - Gandhi
Albert Wolsky - Sophie's Choice
Piero Tosi - La Traviata
Elois Jenssen and Rosanna Norton - Tron
Patricia Norris - Victor/Victoria

You know what other movie came out that year? This one.

What's the point of an award that doesn't even have a credible pretense of being about merit?

Comments

[badseed1980.livejournal.com]

Do puppet-costumes count as costumes, though?

[ricevermicelli.livejournal.com]

That's what I wonder too. The creature and puppet work on The Dark Crystal was incredible, but it's not costuming in the sense that most people (and evidently the Academy) think of it. Clearly there's a gap in award categories here, but I can't really fault the system for failing to nominate a movie that lots of people would think had no costumes whatsoever for a Best Costume award.

[cos]

Why do you say it wasn't costuming?

I can understand deciding not to consider hand & mechanical puppets, but what makes "puppets" worn by actors & actresses "not costuming in the sense that most people think of it"?

[dilletante.livejournal.com]

well, i have friends who are puppeteers and friends who are costumers, and they tend to talk about pretty different sorts of things. i guess it'd be productive to ask them how they'd categorize "dark crystal"; maybe i will.

i'm sure the academy awards embody all kinds of silly. but looked at as professional awards, it seems to me that giving a high honor in your field to someone whose work is radically different from that of everyone else in the field, has concerns that are completely orthogonal to those of the rest of your field, has little to teach the rest of your field, and is squarely aligned in skills, interests, and aspirations with a different, well-developed and easily-identified field, might not be the best use of anybody's time and energy, no matter how awesome that work might be.

then again, maybe you feel it does have important stuff to teach. maybe it does. *shrug*

[cos]

Well, one thing I've learned from making this post is that some people have the misconception that none of the creatures in Dark Crystal were played by human actors wearing things, when in fact a large number of them were (Skeksis, Mystics, Garthim, Aughra, and IIRC Landstriders, were all human actors wearing things).

[kirin]

Yeah, the Landstriders were based on a pretty amazing stilts system.

I need to watch this movie again. Should round up any local people who've still never seen it and have a showing...

[cos]

Well, it's not like they even nominated it for the "visual effects" Oscar either. But the answer is yes, IMO. I think they hid behind a technicality, so that they didn't have to give the award to anyone outside their little social clique when someone inside the clique could get it.

[badseed1980.livejournal.com]

*shrug*

A LOT of good movies came out in the same year. Competition was fierce. Visual Effects is a category for which it definitely should have been nominated. But it would have been up against ET and Blade Runner, so...no guarantees.

It never would have occurred to me that "costumes" would be a cagtegory for which The Dark Crystal could have competed, myself. OK, so technically there are costume designers involved in the movie, but I wouldn't have expected that a movie in which costumes aren't worn by people would be eligible for the category.

[cos]

They were *definitely* worn by people! There were people inside the Mystics, Skeksis, Garthim, and Landstriders, and possibly others.

Edit: Oh, and I forgot Aughra. Frank Oz played her.

[feuervogel]

Members of AMPAS vote on the Oscars. Just like members of WorldCon vote on the Hugos and members of SFWA vote on the Nebulas. In other words, they're popularity contests.

[yehoshua.livejournal.com]

A fascinating question would be: were they nominated by their studio? As in, before a picture can be considered in any category, they have to be nominated by a member of the Academy, usually someone from their studio or production company or distributor. Did that happen? If not, why not?

[slipstreamborne.livejournal.com]

While I think the clothing worn by the puppets could have qualified for the costume design award, I don't think the puppets themselves can or should be considered "costumes". Costumes are generally seperated from any effect that alters the actual physical appearance of the actor--be it prosthetics (judged under the makeup category) or computer animation (visual effects) or anywhere in between.

Visual effects is probably the best category for puppetry, since it sadly isn't prevalent in film enough to be judged as its own genre. The puppets and animatronics used in films like Alien and E.T. are part of what won them the Oscar in that category, for example.

ETA: Agh, carn't spel!

[cos]

... and ET did win "visual effects" that same year. It wasn't a terrible choice, since it did have great visual effects, but in the same year as the Dark Crystal, it just underscores the omission. Sometimes you can shrug something off on technicalities, but this was just too big to not be completely embarrassing. And as far as I could tell at the time, not only weren't they embarrassed, they didn't even seem to notice that they should've been.

Edit: BTW, I've seen one of the actual Skeksis, at the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta. The clothing on top of the "puppet" portion of of the costume was impressive and elaborate in its own right, more so than anything I saw in Ghandi.

[slipstreamborne.livejournal.com]

Ah, but costuming isn't an equation of more elborate = better. Historical costuming--particularly when you also have to costume a large cast of extras--is requires just as much skill and work from the costuming department as ornate fantasy.

Given Dark Crystal won the BAFTA for visual effects, I think this was less an issue of definition than of how the Academy approaches technical awards (from a quick skim since it's inception it looks like only three films are generally nominated) and how in turn that affects film studios willingness to invest the money needed to front a nomination for less financially succesful films, but this is a problem that affects the awards as a whole.

[soffistique.livejournal.com]

On an unrelated subject, but because it's something you might know something about, do you think that by and large the results of sports contests are legit? (e.g. figure skating, soccer, football, basketball). I ask the question because I know there can be high financial stakes.