Abe Friedtanzer
This month, we’re taking a look at this year’s Oscar nominees and digging into their past work to find hidden gems that you may have overlooked. Best Production Design includes a diverse array of landscapes, from an ever-changing apartment to a claustrophobic recording studio, from an antique Hollywood to an open desert, to some version of time moving in multiple directions. Here’s a showcase of the masterful talent who helped to create the backdrops and scenery that made their movies so memorable, and other projects they’ve worked on that are absolutely worth checking out.
The Father
Peter Francis
Hidden gem: The Debt
Cathy Featherstone
Hidden gem: Supernova
Mossad agents hunt an escaped Nazi in the past and deal with the implications of their actions in the present, moving between secret locations and public landmarks in The Debt. In a recent release that largely avoided awards attention, Supernova, two partners travel from familiar places to memorable faces as they seek to hold on to something that reminds them of normalcy and happiness.
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (our interview here)
Mark Ricker
Hidden gem: The Way, Way Back
Karen O’Hara
Previously nominated for: Alice in Wonderland (won), The Color of Money
Hidden gem: The Silence of the Lambs
Diana Stoughton
Hidden gem: Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
The criminally underrated ensemble comedy The Way, Way Back brings to life an idyllic vacation summer and the colorful locales that come along with it. The effectiveness of the incomparable thriller The Silence of the Lambs relies greatly on its drab, dated locations and their eerie nature. Me and Earl and the Dying Girl features a strong narrative matched by a marked specificity in the physical creation of each scene.
Mank
Donald Graham Burt
Previously nominated for: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (won)
Hidden gem: The Social Network
Jan Pascale
Previously nominated for: Good Night, and Good Luck.
Hidden gem: The United States of Leland
Another collaboration with director David Fincher, The Social Network, is given an utterly sleek finish thanks to the presentation of all of its emphatic moments and speeches. The United States of Leland makes extraordinary use of ordinary spaces to weigh the impact of relationships and conversations.
News of the World (our interview here)
David Crank
Hidden gem: The Master
Elizabeth Keenan
Hidden gem: Widows
The creepy allure of the cult movement in The Master is made exponentially more hypnotic by the muted colors and backdrops of its settings. Locations and hideouts are key in Widows, heightening drama by inviting action into unexpected places.
Tenet
Nathan Crowley
Previously nominated for: First Man, Dunkirk, Interstellar, The Dark Knight, The Prestige
Hidden gem: The Greatest Showman
Kathy Lucas
Previously nominated for: First Man
Hidden gem: Legally Blonde
A circus is brought to marvelous life in The Greatest Showman, complementing costumes and acrobatics with a dazzling trip back in time. Elle Woods stands out as the brightest and bubbliest person in any room thanks in no small part to the detailed work on whatever it is that’s behind her in any given scene in Legally Blonde.
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