So it has come to this: it is down to you, and it is down to me. The final category in our exhaustive Oscars week coverage of arcane design categories: Costumes!
The nominees are:
Alice in Wonderland – Colleen Atwood
The King’s Speech – Jenny Beavan
True Grit – Mary Zophres
I Am Love – Antonella Cannarozzi
The Tempest – Sandy Powell
I am tired of disparaging Alice in Wonderland, so let me just say No and that be the end of it.
I am equally tired of explaining why The King’s Speech is not great art, and the costumes couldn’t have been easier to reproduce, so let me just say Good Try.
And now we come to the real candidates.
I Am Love features costumes in the stylish vein, supplied by an Italian, natch. The clothes are indeed beautiful; do we reward subtle and effective? The age old question. You will have to wait on my answer.
The Tempest was another Julie Taymor “radical” re-imagining. The product was kind of blah, but the costumes were surely inspired. Something to think on.
True Grit featured costuming so lived in, so definitive of character, and so divorced from showy-ness, that it has to be the winner. The over-sized coat of the heroine, Rooster’s billowing coat and distinctive eye patch, and the tastled dandyism of the Texan all put this movie over the top for me. So there you have it! The best of the least appreciated, Basis Design style!
Now enjoy the Oscars, new betting and rooting interests discovered!
