News about the Oscar results are by now all over the Internet, and while I’m pretty happy The Artist got the award for Best Costume Design (costumes by Mark Bridges), I’m even happier that two Italians, Dante Ferretti (production designer) and Francesca Lo Schiavo (set decorator) won the Oscar for the Best Achievement in Art Direction for Martin Scorsese’s Hugo.
Interestingly enough, the films that got most awards were conceived as tributes to silent movies and early cinema and this should maybe prompt us to sit down and think if, in the last few years, we have maybe put too much emphasis on visual stimuli, privileging the image over the word and nurturing skilled and talented digital mavericks, while neglecting the art of screenwriting (who knows, maybe one day we will be intravenously injecting digital images like in a dystopic sci-fi film).
Lo Schiavo dedicated the Oscar to Martin Scorsese and Italy, and it’s somehow important that 50 years after La dolce vita got an Oscar for the Best Costume Design, there is still some Italian talent on the stage of the Academy Awards.
Taken from Brian Selznick’s novel/graphic tale The Invention of Hugo Cabret, Hugo moves from a mysterious automaton to tell the story of cinemagician George Méliès. Both the threads - the world of the automaton and of horology and the visions created by early film director Méliès - are very inspiring from a visual point of view.
The sets are often complicated structures with tunnels, staircases and ladders, elaborate gears, springs and wheels, while towards the end the director attempts a reconstruction of Méliès' film sets for several films including A Trip to the Moon and Jack le Ramoneur (well done to Ferretti and Lo Schiavo for recreating the latter plus Méliès studio so well - compare the second picture in this post with the second picture in this post).
Machinery ticks throughout the film, punctuating it and giving it rhythm, linking frame after frame (it could be an interesting comparison with fashion since creating a collection means linking one design to the other in a cohesive and coherent way).
Méliès already appeared in quite a few posts on this site and I hope that his magic, this film and its sets will prompt some fashion designers to rediscover him in their own works.
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So glad Hugo won! such a gorgeous film, reignited my passion for cinema.
Posted by: Hannah | February 27, 2012 at 11:47 AM