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Outtakes: Oscar Winner Catherine Martin on the Nexus of Costume and Production Design

May 6, 2015 By Thelma Leave a Comment

Baz Luhrmann and wife -- CATHERINE MARTIN!!! -- at the Met Gala

Baz Luhrmann and wife — CATHERINE MARTIN!!! — at the Met Gala

Despite hubby Baz Luhrmann and the preening, prawning Gatsby of Leonardo DiCaprio, Costume and Production Designer Catherine Martin squeezed two Oscars out of that sad puppy. And I doubly respect her. When we talk about women in Hollywood, sometimes we overlook the crafts where women dominate, like costume design and casting. I recently wrote a Tribeca Film Festival preview piece for Variety and interviewed Martin at medium length. We only used one quote about New York. No worries. That’s the collaborative process. But here are the outtakes from that interview — and they’re fascinating.

Me: How rare is it to be both production and costume designer – and how do the two influences each other in your work?

Catherine Martin: When you live it, it’s very difficult to imagine another way of being, and you don’t think of
yourself as a rare bird. I think one of the great advantages for me, in terms of being a costume and production designer is you get to harmonize how the costume and set work together in a very instantaneous and very real way.

Leo the tasty macaron in a vivid example of Martin's complementary production and costume design.

Leo the tasty macaron in a vivid example of Martin’s complementary production and costume design.


Can you address ways in which your costume design has influenced contemporary fashion – and, how, inversely, in films like The Great Gatsby you researched the historical period and then creatively reinvented the looks in collaboration with you husband, Director Baz Luhrmann, and his thematic re-imagining of the period?

CM: Oh my goodness, this is a very complicated question. I think you never go into a work, thinking very much about how you’re going to influence someone, rather you go into a work trying to understand the director’s vision, the vision of the author, the lives of the characters, and if they fit in historical context, what existed at the time, what were the signs and symbols that the clothing of the time captured, what do they say to the contemporary audience when you saw someone walking down the street. So I think very much one of Baz’s focuses on all the films is to really examine in the fullest possible way, how it felt to be a character in a period that you’re exploring, how it felt to wear their clothes, how it felt to walk in their shoes, and those signs and symbols that those garments gave off to their contemporaries. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Movies & TV, Oscar Race Tagged With: Australians, Baz Luhrmann, Catherine Martin, Costume Design, Jazz Age, Leonardo DiCaprio, Marriages, Production Design, The Great Gatsby

“J. Edgar” gets Hoovered

November 8, 2011 By Thelma Leave a Comment

Clint Eastwood, J. Edgar Hoover, Leonardo DiCaprio, forbidden gay love, blame the mother

Leo: desperately seeking seriousness

Do you hear that sound, like ice cracking in Antarctica? That’s the impact of Oscar hopes — for Warner Brothers, for Clint Eastwood, for Leonardo DiCaprio — being dashed on the shore of reality. Oscar insiders across the country have returned to their abacuses to rejigger the odds in the top five, as J. Edgar fails, albeit nobly, on the big screen at 137 minutes of wrong-choices and self-aggrandizement.

The opening scene, with Leo as ancient FBI honcho J. Edgar Hoover (1895 – 1972) inspires snickers. I apologize to the man in the screening room who shushed me; I couldn’t help myself. The make-up is just that bad. Here’s a part that Jack Nicholson could play — or Eddie Murphy in the latex to transform him into an old white man from Coming to America. If that had been the movie’s only problem — is there a Razzie for worst make-up? — then the snickers in the theater would have quieted, and the snores that soon erupted from my neighbor’s gaping mouth would never have occurred.

The central flaw to this big budget “behind the music” style biopic is Milk Oscar-winner Dustin Lance Black’s script. It tells every thing and nothing about the man. With an abundance of voiceover, it narrates the story, shows the story, explains the story as if it were a Weekly Reader expose.

Yes, it addresses Hoover’s homosexual tendencies, his rumored cross-dressing, but those scenes arrive late and are few and far between, and overwrought. Let the guy have a kiss, an urge, a spot of warmth — but, no, [Read more…]

Filed Under: Criticism, Movies & TV, Oscar Race Tagged With: Armie Hammer, Clint Eastwood, homosexuality, J. Eggar Hoover, Judi Dench, Leo, Leonardo DiCaprio, man-on-man kiss, Naomi Watts

Oscars 2012: Best Actor First Look

September 15, 2011 By Thelma 1 Comment

OK, we’re just out of Toronto (at least I am). It’s a crap shoot as to who will make the best actor shortlist — but it’s not as much of a crap shoot as it was a week ago. This is going to be one very hot race. So, let’s start off with the shoe-in:

1. George Clooney, The Descendants

2. Brad Pitt, Tree of Life or Moneyball

3. Jean Dujardin, The Artist

4. Woody Harrelson, Rampart

Woody Harrelson,Robin Wright,Cynthia Nixon,Ben Foster,Oren Moverman,James Ellroy,Hot sex,The Messenger

5. Leonardo DiCaprio, J. Edgar

And don’t forget:

6. Michael Fassbender, Shame

7. Gerard Butler, Machine Gun Preacher

8. Dominic Cooper, The Devil’s DoubleDominic Cooper,The Devil's Double,Best Actor,Oscars 2012

9. Paul Giamatti, Win Win

10. Gary Oldman, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

11. Ryan Gosling, Drive or The des of March

12. Tom Hardy, Warrior

 

Filed Under: Celebrity, Movies & TV, Oscar Race Tagged With: Brad Pitt, Dominic Cooper, Drive, Gary Oldman, George Clooney, Gerard Butler, J. Edgar, Jean Dujardin, Leonardo DiCaprio, Machine Gun Preacher, Michael Fassbender, Moneyball, Oscar Race, Oscars 2012, Paul Giamatti, Rampart, Ryan Gosling, Shame, Soldier, Spy, Tailor, The Artist, The Descendants, The Devil's Double, The Ides of March, TIFF11, Tinker, Tom Hardy, Toronto International Film Festival, Tree of Life, Warrior, Win Win, Woody Harrelson

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