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

[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...