As we continue looking at the Oscars one category at a time, we move on to one of the most stylish awards, Best Art Direction, awarded to the film that created the best overall visual look and sets. Accompanying our predictions for the Oscar winner are some facts and our favorite and least favorite winners of this category.

Trivia: Five Facts

• Since this category was introduced at the first Academy Awards for 1927/28, there have been 238 Oscar statuettes given out in this category. 163 were for art directors, 75 for set decorators. 36 Set Decorators received only Certificates of Merit from the category’s inception in 1941 through 1954. Starting in 1955, Set Decorators also received statuettes.
• For 24 years, the Academy separated Black-and-White & Color films into two separate categories from 1940 through 1956 and again from 1959 through 1966
• From 1941 forward, only 7 individuals have been the sole winner of the category, sharing the award with no others. Prior to 1941 back to the category’s introduction, 11 individuals won the award.
• Art Direction is one of the most prolific categories. 18 people have received 10 or more nominations. 8 of those have received 20 or more nominations. The top nomination recipients are Cedric Gibbons with 39 nominations, Edwin B. Willis with 32, Lyle Wheeler with 29 and Sam Comer with 26. As for winners, the top Oscar recipients are Cedric Gibbons with 11, Richard Day with 7, Walter M. Scott with 6 and Lyle Wheeler with 5 awards.
• 27 Best Picture winners (out of 81 years) have won the award for Best Art Direction. The last time this happened was 2003 when The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King won.

Predictions

• Avatar (Wesley, Tripp, Wes) (Peter)
• The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
• Nine
• Sherlock Holmes (Peter) (Wesley, Tripp, Wes)
• The Young Victoria

KEY: (Winner Prediction) (Alternate Winner)

The Commentary

Wesley Lovell – Avatar is poised to clean up quite well at the tech awards and this is the kind of big budget, glorious design that this group loves to recognize. But don’t guarantee that based on the Art Directors Guild. In 13 years, they’ve only gotten 7 right. So, their record is about 50-50 in this situation. Avatar may have won there, but the traditionalist-skewing Academy may very well give it to Sherlock Holmes for being more period-based.
Peter J. Patrick – My gut says the striking designs of Avatar but my head says the more traditional work in Sherlock Holmes will prevail.
Tripp Burton – This is a very difficult category to predict. With The Hurt Locker not nominated, this would seem to be an easy win for Avatar. However, I don’t know if the primarily CGI-created sets will hurt it with voters. There is no precedent for the work on Avatar, so it will be interesting to watch this play out. If Avatar does falter here, look for the award to go to the sprawling Victorian sets of Sherlock Holmes, although any of the other four could lay claim to the award.

Our Favorite Winners

KEY:
Appears on Two Lists
Appears on Three Lists
Appears on Four Lists
Appears on Opposing Lists

Wesley Lovell

1. Pan’s Labyrinth (This was a pleasant little surprise for me. It’s dark and desperate, but so lovingly detailed and inventive that I just love every minute of it.)
2. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (Creating the entire fantasy world of J.R.R. Tolkien was a daunting task and the loving detail put into every set, prop and battle scene makes for one of the most glorious representations of a fantasy world ever committed to film.)
3. Gone With the Wind (Recreating Atlanta of the Civil War era was not an easily task. Setting it ablaze was even more challenging. That this is one of many gorgeous and rich sets and designs in this film is testament to one of the best designed pictures ever filmed.)
4. Schindler’s List (Long after the fall of the black-and-white picture, Steven Spielberg’s grayed-out Holocaust drama painstakingly recreated a world of horror and villainy. And that it was so crisply shot helps immeasurably, but it is still impressive work.)
5. Doctor Zhivago (How can you take such a drab, bland environment, drowned in snow and make it feel alive and sumptuous? Leave it to the art directors and set director of this film.)

Peter J. Patrick

1. Black Narcissus (Its great matte painting of the Himalayas has brilliantly fooled audiences for more than sixty years into believing they are actually in India.)
2. How Green Was My Valley (Its stunning replica of the Welsh village, its tiny homes, quaint church and horrific coal mines still impresses nearly seventy years on.)
3. The Thief of Bagdad (A stunning achievement of old world settings.)
4. The Heiress (The whole thing is marvelously laid out, but the best is the house which eerily conveys claustrophobia and loneliness.)
5. Cabaret (From the garish nightclub to the boarding house and every place in-between, the sets seem real and unreal at the same time while constantly providing excitement.)

Tripp Burton

1. Dick Tracy
2. Titanic
3. Star Wars
4. Oliver!
5. A Streetcar Named Desire

Great art direction comes in many shapes and forms. The wild colors of Dick Tracy, mixing the familiar period set with comic book verve, creates a fantastic mood for the film. The sheer size (and ornateness) of Titanic gives it a push here, as does the sheer size (and decrepit nature) of Oliver! Sometimes you have to give credit to the ability to create an entire, imaginary yet lived-in world like Star Wars, and other times you have to credit the creation of a very real, yet lived-in world like A Streetcar Named Desire.

Our Least Favorite Winners

KEY:
Appears on Two Lists
Appears on Three Lists
Appears on Four Lists
Appears on Opposing Lists

Wesley Lovell

1. Gandhi (I don’t see where this fits in this category at all. There may have been period sets, but how is this better than Victoria/Victoria or, especially, Blade Runner?)
2. On the Waterfront (Wharfs are the perfect winners for this category, because you can’t find those anywhere. Whereas at least The Apartment looks lived in, there’s nothing of merit here.)
3. Hamlet (Was it because it was such a massive set or because there wasn’t much competition? Why is hard to answer, but it’s certainly nothing more than a drab, unimpressive large theater stage set.)
4. The Apartment (I can’t begrudge this category wins for smaller films that aren’t bloated period pieces, but nothing about The Apartment really suggests why it should have won.)
5. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (The reason this film, which isn’t bad in terms of Art Direction, is on this list is that it beat out such better films to win the award. There Will Be Blood was easily the best of the competition, but The Golden Compass and Atonment were better than Sweeney Todd.)

Peter J. Patrick

1. All That Jazz (I hated everything about this movie, especially the operating room.)
2. Batman (Too dark.)
3. Dick Tracy (Too yellow.)
4. The Dark Angel (Nothing memorable.)
5. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (Too theatrical.)

Tripp Burton

1. Heaven Can Wait
2. Gandhi
3. Zorba the Greek
4. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
5. Hello, Dolly!

None of the winners in this category are horrible, but some are a little baffling. What in Zorba the Greek or Gandhi or Hello, Dolly! stand out in anyone’s mind? Heaven Can Wait had some great heaven scenes, but the rest of the film is little to look at. Sweeney Todd remains one of the ugliest films in recent years, and the childish sets didn’t help in the least.