Best Achievement in Makeup and Hairstyling Symposium
The Oscar Week consists of panels and symposiums hosted by the Academy in the days preceding the Awards.
Those events focus on the work of the Oscar® nominees in seven categories: Documentaries - Short Subject and Feature, Shorts - Animated and Live Action, Animated Feature, Makeup & Hairstyling, and Best Foreign Language Film.
Most of the nominees speak about their arts and crafts and experiences, making those remarkable films worthy of nomination.
At the Academy, every branch has specific guidelines to nominate a particular film accordingly to its achievements.
The Oscar had the Best Makeup & Hairstyling category for decades in the early 1980s. Before that, the Academy gave two Honorary Awards: One in 1967 to William Tuttle for “7 Faces of Dr. Lao,” and the second one toJohn Chambers for “Planet of the Apes” in 1968.
The Makeup & Hairstyling category is relatively new, and it was established until the year 1981. The Academy honored the work of Rick Baker for “An American Werewolf in London” as the first Makeup Oscar winner.
Since then, three outstanding films have been chosen each year: A time-period piece, a contemporary work, and a Sci-fi/fantasy project.
Every year, the Academy’s Makeup Branch values the quality of a single character's work or the task done by the entire cast in production to nominate a film for the Best Makeup and Hair Styling.
For example, the branch celebrated the job done in the characterization of Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher in “The Iron Lady” (2011), Salma Hayek as the iconic Mexican painter Frida Kahlo in “Frida” (2002), Marion Cotillard as the legendary French singer Edith Piaf in “La Vie en Rose” (2007), and Gary Oldman as the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in “The Darkest Hour” (2017).
The epic productions that gained the Academy’s recognition in recent years are: “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” (2003), “Mad Max: Fury Road” (2015), and “Suicide Squad” (2016).
Fantasy films get the voters’ attention as well. They recognized the past work of Guillermo del Toro in “Pan’s Labyrinth” (2006), “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (2008), and “Star Trek” (2009).
One of the best female-driven thrillers of the year!
“Destroyer” is a remarkable, superbly acted – good-cop/bad-cop story that punches the spectator to the edge.
Nicole Kidman delivers the most challenging job of her career.
Nicole moves out of her comfort zone to play this unemotional character with subtle intensity as a true virtuoso. To play the antihero in this film was a risky choice for a movie star of her caliber.
The story begins with a gruesome crime scene at the LA River. While the good cops investigate the incident, Erin Bell (Kidman) approaches under the influence. She is a middle-aged, beat-up, alcoholic LAPD undercover cop.
At that moment, a blast from the past connects her with an obscure passage of her life – a job she worked for the FBI while hanging with the Gangs of LA.
She gets involved in a particular operation with her partner agent Chris, played by Sebastian Stan (“Avengers: Infinite War,” “I, Tonya”). He left her pregnant, addicted, and in distress. In exchange, Erin destroyed his life ruthlessly.
Years after, the gang members regroup and plan their next heist.
Driven by revenge, Erin follows them covertly. She wants to hunt them down and also finish her world of madness. Far from redemption, Erin destroys everybody’s lives, including her own.
She tries hard to set things right and to spare her neglected daughter Shelby (Jade Pettyjohn) from the same fate. While sitting in a cheap restaurant, in the most painful moment of the film, Erin says, “You can be better than me.”
“Destroyer” is stimulating, satisfying, and unpredictable. The suicidal intentions and turbulent past of the main character could be a big turndown for many viewers, but for others like me, it’s not a big deal.
Similar behavioral patterns can be found in other masterworks like David Cronenberg’s “History of Violence” in 2005, Mike Figgis’ “Leaving Las Vegas” in 1995, and Brad Anderson’s “The Machinist” in 2004.
Nicole’s performance as a policewoman is brutal.
Affected by the excellent characterization of her hyperrealistic makeup, she is moved internally by the well-written script.
In a Q&A at the Beverly Hills Academy, Nicole said, “The makeup is external and internal.” Not only because of her extraordinary physical transformation but for her broad spectrum of emotions.
During the “Eyes Wide Shut shooting,” Stanley Kubrick taught her to adjust herself accordingly. That is why she was able to work professionally in some of the most dangerous, smelly, and scary places in Los Angeles.
Karyn Kusama, director, Destroyer. Photo courtesy of Oliver Carnay
Karyn Kusama’s direction is brilliant! She previously worked on other notable films such as “Girlfight” and “Æon Flux.”
For Kusama, making this movie was vital because she connected its narrative with the story of abuse and implausible damage.
“Destroyer” is considered a low-budget film. Therefore, the director knew how to be meticulous with each aspect of the production and paid attention to every small detail.
The producers said shooting in LA is expensive, but with everyone’s collaboration, the experience was effortless. The shooting schedule flowed harmoniously, regardless of the harsh locations outside LA areas, such as the desert near Palm Springs, Long Beach, East Hollywood, East Los Angeles, and Downtown.
The producers proudly added that audiences would be amused to see some parts of LA never shown in movies before --- The exciting and somber atmosphere of the film is comparable with other cop movies shot in LA like: “Internal Affairs” 1990, “Unlawful Entry” 1992, “Dark Blue” 2002, and “Training Day” 2001.
The director’s goal was to make the audience get close to Erin’s unique personality, and to the bold choices she makes, in a like manner, how she will break with the vicious circle she lives in, symbolically speaking.
To avoid altering the director’s vision, Nicole let the chair-woman work freely without her own input. “Moulin Rouge” star connects with the New Yorker director immediately. She knew of Kusama’s sensibilities and abilities to tell a story superbly.
Writers and life partner Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi (“The Invitation,” “Clash of the Titans,” “Crazy/Beautiful”) love to chronicle LA stories on the screen. The writers wanted to organically tell the embarrassing story of a woman who lived intensely in every facet of her life.
The film goes back and forth seamlessly thanks to the editor Plummy Tucker who found a way to make the story believable at a perfect pace.
No matter how obscure and violent someone’s past is, challenging realities make us feel optimistic about the future.
“A Son of a Man” is an extraordinary, mystical journey to the heart of Ecuador’s wilderness. A breathtaking experience.
The architects of this ambitious film, Jamaicanoproblem and Pablo Agüero, found a way to express themselves through the arts by shooting their movie without a script, actors, lighting, or special effects.
They wanted to move further away from the “Dogma Movement” filmmakers and to work on their real story with real people, without falling into the documentary genre. The filmmakers wanted to create a new genre by combining documentary and fiction, yet featuring real-life characters in real situations, interwoven with their amusing histories in their exuberant land.
“A Son of a Man” vividly recounts the lives of three generations of a wealthy Ecuadorian family. The characters connect with their heritage, descendants, and nature.
This unbelievable story is told through the eyes of young Pipe, the nickname for Luis Felipe Fernández-Salvador y Boloña.
In this “wild new adventure.” His son Pipe will try to reconcile old disagreements between his father and his deceased grandfather.
In Latin America, people with money send their children abroad to study. In Pipe’s case, his father had him studying at the Shattuck-Saint Mary’s School in Minnesota, where our story begins.
Luis Felipe Fernández-Salvador y Campodonico orders his son Pipe to return to join him for an ambitious expedition in search of the lost treasure of the Inca Emperor Atahualpa.
Upon arrival, Pipe notices the sharp differences between the USA and his homeland. What he finds even more startling is to see “Men with Guns” guarding the gate of his father’s estate. Inside the family’s library, young Pipe sees many pictures of his grandfather’s past glories. They include moments when he was named the most muscular man on earth and when he was John Wayne’s best friend in California.
To get to the Incas’ treasure, they have to uncover four stations – the final destination is the one marked with the shape of “Atahualpa’s Tear” - a mythical land. Discovering that place is like seeing a glacier in the jungle.
Pipe’s Captain America jacket represents the strong influence of Western culture in the so-called “New World” in South America.
The father thinks out loud: “My son, you are not my son. If you think that because you came out of my sperm, you are my son, you are wrong. ‘A son of man’ is not born... it becomes one.”
The fight between the West and the New World is represented through symbolism. The conflict between the conquistador Francisco Pizarro and the Inca emperor Atahualpa has repercussions in the present.
The legend says, “Only a dead man can see Atahualpa’s eye.”
The presence of the German actress Lily van Ghemen is exquisite, and she plays Lily or “La Rubia.” Her beauty can be compared with the exquisiteness of Elena Rojo, a Mexican performer who played Inez in Werner Herzog’s “Aguirre, the Wrath of God,” An influential 1970s film.
“A Son of a Man” is fascinating visually speaking, but it needed some trimming and smoother transitions to make its storytelling more fluent and less artsy.
The raucous music, combined with the gorgeous cinematography, heightens the film’s magical realism. Among the authors in the magic realism genre, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Alejandro Jodorowsky, and Arturo Ripstein are notable. In their masterworks, they sought spiritual answers to man’s mission on earth.
In World Cinema, we can find other brilliant productions exploring the New World, such as “The Mission,” “Cabeza de Vaca,” “The Fountain,” “The New World,” and, more recently, Colombia’s Oscar nominee “The Embrace of the Serpent.”
According to the filmmakers, this ambitious production was created with love and took ten years.
“A Son of a Man” represents a healing process - a catharsis to exorcize the commanding presence of the director’s father... a man who influenced him and many more people in his home country.
In a conversation with Luis Felipe Fernández-Salvador y Campodonico in Westwood, California, he revealed his ambitious attempt to create a new genre in Cinema by producing, at his own expense, an epic film.
Luis Felipe is a visionary artist who never attended film school. He only wanted to make a fantastic movie about the history of his homeland and his family, and to give the Ecuadorian people a well-deserved place in Cinema.
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