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

[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.