It’s that time of year when everyone is talking about their favorite films and performances, but not nearly enough attention is given to everything else that we love about the art of movies. We asked our contributors to pick out one tech element – cinematography, editing, score – to praise from 2024. Anything that wasn’t acting. The contributions below highlight some of the most remarkable of the year in cinema, just as essential as any performance. Maybe even more.
Direction, Gary Hustwit, “Eno“
The liner notes to Brian Eno’s groundbreaking 1975 album Discreet Music begin “Since I have always preferred making plans to executing them, I have gravitated towards situations and systems that, once set into operation, could create music with little or no intervention on my part.” The surprisingly lyrical tones of Discreet Music are the result of two tape recorders in conversation, no musician necessary. The first pressings of Eno’s second solo album, the stupendous Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) had a locked groove at the end of side one, repeating the ominous synth-generated cricket chirpings that were a nagging sonic motif on the song “The Great Pretender.” If you never lifted the needle, who knows where the drone might have taken you.
Taking inspiration from his subject, who’s a musician, producer, and all-around post-modern idea guy, filmmaker Gary Hustwit has embedded his digital film with an algorithm that projects a different documentary every time it is screened. This sounds a little overwhelming in theory. But in practice it’s quite a bit of fun, because the topics are so diverse — it’s rarely “this group that I was in” or “and then I wrote,” although those themes do rear their heads. (The group he was in was Roxy Music; and while he’s rarely credited as a writer with U2, he’s a co-producer on some of their most monumental records). It’s more “what if you took this idea and aimed it at what seems a completely inappropriate target,” and that sort of thing. And since every version of the film is anchored by the witty, warm and wise human presence of Eno himself, every version works. – Glenn Kenny
Pierre Olivier Persin, Makeup/VFX, “The Substance”
“The Substance” was a disgusting film—in the best way imaginable. From exploding heads and grotesque creatures to blood-soaked carnage that could even make Quentin Tarantino envious, this movie brought 1980s horror camp roaring back to modern cinema. Despite its $17.5 million budget, the film relies heavily on practical effects rather than digital enhancements. Special makeup effects designer Pierre Olivier Persin proves that practical techniques are far from obsolete.
Taking inspiration from David Lynch’s “The Elephant Man” and David Cronenberg’s “The Fly,” Persin, in collaboration with director Coralie Fargeat, delivere a one-of-a-kind creation: a ‘feminine’ monster, “like an elephant but wearing ballet shoes”. There’s something undeniably special about the tactile artistry of silicone, latex, and carefully applied adhesives. Demi Moore’s monstrous transformation into Monstro Elisasue feels authentic because it was physically real.
Through detailed designed prosthetics and advanced puppetry, Persin brings larger-than-life creatures to the screen while grounding them in reality. He proves to be a master of detail; every wrinkle, hair, and blotch of pallid skin gradually erases Moore’s recognizable features. The glamour is stripped away, and the horror takes center stage.
“The Substance” signals a shift in Hollywood’s approach to filmmaking, championing practical effects and making cinema tangible again. – Brandon Towns
Cinematography, Ranabir Das, “All We Imagine as Light“
With a color palette of plum and lapis and cityscape night photography that shines with nocturnal incandescence, writer-director Payal Kapadia turns Mumbai into a twinkling backdrop for this intimate but sprawling drama navigating the boundaries of romance, race and religion. One of the great “city films” this decade, we watch nurses Prabha (Kani Kusruti) and Anu (Divya Prabha) traverse cramped apartments that overlook the checkered glow of high-rises, take endless journeys by bus and train, and visit food stalls bursting with so much life they evade capture in a single shot. Each is presented with a miraculous sense of place and, and you come to know this city as well as any city can be known through film alone. This immersive logic follows as we travel to a beachside village in the final reel, completing the vivid impression you have lived alongside these characters. Shot digitally but finished with the convincing look of celluloid, Cinematographer Ranabir Das turns all sources of light into glowing halos blooming across the night sky, giving Mumbai the feel of an elemental plane, making what could appear like small dramas – new loves, old sorrows – seem seismic.
There’s a palpable loneliness in these city shots, yet Das’s lens gives constant attention to textures and touch: Prabha’s arms tenderly cradling a rice cooker from a distant husband, or the arousing excitement of Anu’s body pressing into her secret boyfriend on a packed bus. The camera lingers on these private moments of connection in the urban sprawl, giving them space to be felt in a city of ceaseless momentum. – Brendan Hodges
Original Score, Alex G, “I Saw the TV Glow”
For many indie music fans, Alex G has been a staple in the scene for 15 years now. And while he’s leaned on more instrumentation-heavy songs in the past and has always engaged with experimental soundscapes, his first foray with Jane Schoenbrun in “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair” was a marked change of pace. He continues his collaboration with Schoenbrun with his score for “I Saw the TV Glow,” which, like “World’s Fair,” expertly sets the film’s tone. The deep-felt, pervasive sensation of dread looms heavy over us as his music begins to play. It delivers the perfectly biting melody to a film that seeps into our skin.
His role is twofold here, too, as he both scores “I Saw the TV Glow” along with the pivotal series within the film, “The Pink Opaque,” the latter of which adopts a more ‘90s, made-for-TV inspired lilt, without ever sacrificing the underlying unease of the film. The score is elastic and versatile, moving through motions of string-heavy numbers to musical hellscapes that sound as if they were recorded in a trashcan, tinny and unsettling. But it’s the trifecta of “Buried Alive,” “Planetarium (Inside),” and “Planetarium (Outside”) that best showcases his ability to perfectly marry Schoenbrun’s visuals and narrative with his sonic expression. As Maddie’s words about rebirth and transformation hit their devastating peak, reaching out a hand to Owen in a potential, life-altering offering, Alex G’s music hits its devastating crescendo. The score beautifully encompasses the strange and melancholy tonality of the film, playing with form and genre to create something new. – Ally Johnson
Direction, Ivan Sen, “Limbo”
Every so often, I feel the impulse to drown out the voices of the characters and the music, disregard the narrative, and simply appreciate a film for how it looks. “Limbo” is one of those films. Directed, written, shot, edited and scored by Ivan Sen, it has a strong authorial vision. In Sen’s mind, the narrative and visual language are equals. The cinematography is not only there to service the story, but to elevate the film as a piece of art.
The town of Limbo is a place filled with broken people haunted by tragedy. Sen chooses to drain all the color from the yellow or brown color palette one would associate with the desolate southern Australian landscape. Instead, he opts for a washed-out monochrome look. The cinematography is symbolic of life slipping away, of time lost for these trapped characters. It might also be symbolic of the racial tensions between the white Australians and the aboriginal community that scars Australian history and its physical landscape.
There’s a sense Sen shoots his film as if he’s photographing images. It’s by unifying photography and cinema, that he shows his directing prowess. We think of paintings and photographs as being still images, but they actually capture a world brimming with movement and sound set in stillness. “Limbo” is fascinating because it plays with the contradictions of stillness and movement in the photographic and cinematic forms. As a result, there are plenty of shots that could be photographs on display in a gallery. – Paul Risker
Original Score, Kris Bowers, “The Wild Robot”
The animation in “The Wild Robot” is stunning. It has the lushness of an oil painting, but one that moves, talks, and plays music.
There are hardly any words for the first act, leaving Kris Bowers’ score to take center stage. It does so effortlessly in that act and beyond, filling out the lush and harsh world of “The Wild Robot” without taking over. Bad scores become distractions, didactically pushing the audience to feel or react a certain way. Not here. The music supports, helping us understand Roz’s emotional journey from the directive-driven robot to the empty-nest mom. His music helps us feel what Roz is risking: the impossibility of parenting, the joy and the pain of seeing a child grow.
Bowers has had a long and varied career, serving as the composer on productions as varied as the frothy “Bridgerton” and the celebrated/derided “Green Book.” He did the music for Disney’s “Haunted Mansion” flop and the insightful “Dear White PeopleDear White People” series. He’s able to make music that is its own piece of art, while building the vibes, emotional arcs, and sense of place of the workings on screen. “The Wild Robot” shows off his skills, revealing a composer at the height of his craft, deserving of all the accolades. – Cristina Escobar
Art Direction/Production Design, “Memoir of a Snail”
Whenever one watches a stop-motion animated film, it’s dazzling to realize that every single detail on screen was deliberately conceived to occupy its space. Everything is by design, and yet these worlds of tangible sets, props, and characters feel so spontaneously alive. That’s certainly the case in Australian animation storyteller Adam Elliot’s latest tragicomedy about an orphaned woman, Grace (voiced by “Succession“’s Sarah Snook), obsessed with snails (and with collecting anything that bears their image) who was separated from her twin brother as a child. Thousands of miniature objects were painstakingly created to comprise Grace’s growing hoard. There are snail clocks, snail-related books, a snail tape holder, snail figurines, even snail-themed condoms, and everything else imaginable. The sheer volume makes for an imposing feat, but these items, as a collective, are relevant to the psychology of the protagonist.
As the clutter grows, Grace becomes more physically walled in, a manifestation of the emotional shell she’s built to protect herself her from the further hurt. Plenty of the movie’s aesthetic charm derives from the fact that the puppets and everything in the intricate sets—including the amusement park of Grace’s childhood memories and her friend Pinky’s home—wear their imperfections with pride. There are no perfect shapes here, which reflects the winding, unpredictable, and messy turns that life’s Grace (an all of us for that matter) on. More than in most films, the production design in this chronicle of a shelled gastropod communicates more than just a sense of place, but the complicated mental state the peculiar heroine inhabits. – Carlos Aguilar
Cinematography, Jomo Fray, “Nickel Boys”
In 2019 cinematographer, and one-time Ebert Fellow, Jomo Fray told Filmmaker Magazine that his goal is to, “always be compassionate and fully present to the emotional life of each character in every scene.” From Tayarisha Poe’s “Selah and the Spades” to Raven Jackson‘s “All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt” to his most recent work on RaMell Ross‘s “Nickel Boys,” Fray has used that ethos to craft some of the most affecting and innovative films of the last decade. With each new film, Fray and his collaborators push the cinematic medium forward, seamlessly translating the many textures of memory into visuals that seem to elicit all four senses at once.
Fray worked in lockstep with “Nickel Boys” director Ross to bring the sensation of reading Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel to the big screen, and the result is a film unlike any other you’ll see this year. Shot almost completely in first-person from the point-of-view of its two protagonists – Elwood and Turner – Fray’s cinematography is almost a character in itself. Actors Ethan Herisse, Brandon Wilson, and Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor emote directly into the camera’s gaze, their eyes deep pools of pain and joy and hope and love. Shots of Christmas tinsel and crisp white sheets, fragrant oranges and thick cake frosting add more layers to the rich world these characters inhabit, which Fray’s camera wraps in the hazy glow of memories lost and found. Thanks to Fray’s singular artistry, “Nickel Boys” remains the year’s most visually evocative and emotionally haunting cinematic experience. – Marya E. Gates
Costume Design, Paul Tazewell, “Wicked”
“Wicked” is on its way to becoming a cinematic phenomenon and it is in part due to the mesmerizing costume designs of Paul Tazewell. Having designed costumes for Broadway, regional theaters, film and television for over three decades ranging from his Oscar grabbing work in Steven Spielberg’s “West Side Story” to the Tony-winning Broadway production of Hamilton, his creations are currently represented on the great white way in the stage adaptation of Death Becomes Her.
Tazewell’s artistry in “Wicked” is sewn and weaved into every stitch, fabric, swirl and bead. What solidifies his artistry a step above the rest is his respectful homage to every single version of the witches harkening back to “The Wizard of Oz” (1939), “The Wiz” (1978) and the original staging of Wicked on Broadway.
By leaning further into aspects of Gregory Maguire’s novel, Tazewell set to turn the idea of The Wizard of Oz on its head to give us the backstory of who Glinda and Elphaba are through their costumes. He uses intricate details in textures, silhouettes and patterns, spiraled shapes, and even Mother Nature. For Elphaba, using mushrooms, bark, leaves, and other kinds of fungus reflects who Elphaba is, one with the world around her in a manner that will eventually let her fly over it.
Elphaba may be of the earth and Glinda of the air, but Tazewell is out of this world in continuing to forge his own unique creativity with costumes for the silver screen. – Carla Renata
Casting Director, John Papsidera, “Saturday Night”
John Belushi. Chevy Chase. Dan Aykroyd. Gilda Radner. George Carlin. Andy Kaufman. Billy Crystal. Many of the greatest comedians to ever live, all of whom have made indelible impressions on audiences over the last 50 years. Casting an actor to play any one of them in a film would be an unenviable task. Casting all of them? It should have been impossible. But Jason Reitman and casting director John Papsidera nailed it.
Papsidera was also the casting director for “Oppenheimer,” which had the best cast of 2023, and his ability to flawlessly assemble these massive ensembles is one of the great unsung cinematic achievements of recent memory. It’s too bad the newly announced Oscar category for Best Casting won’t be added to the show until next year (for the 2026 Oscar ceremony), because Papsidera would have been a perfect first winner. There’s been much debate about what types of casting work this new category should honor; will voters be more interested in honoring the most stacked ensemble casts, or should it be about the best achievements in casting discoveries? But that debate would be moot with “Saturday Night,” because Papsidera did the year’s best work on both fronts. – Daniel Joyaux
Cinematography, Sayombju Mukdeeprom, “Challengers”
If you want to know why Sayombhu Mukdeeprom is an architect of captivatingly visual storytelling, watch “Challengers” with the sound off. Especially the last 20 minutes. Nothing I could write will prove how imaginative the cinematography is more than silence, but I’ll try. Director Luca Guadagnino, editor Marco Costa, and Mukdeeprom are frequent collaborators—a trifecta—and familiarity catalyzes a form of trust, allowing each individual to execute their visions as artists while contributing to the whole.
Mukdeeprom imbues his scenes with a dolce vita-styled aesthetic—light filtering through hair, multiple camera set-ups making the mundane magnificent, and dreamy golden-tinted saturation—but it’s his POVs that captivate. Where he places us in the scene is an amusement park’s variance of vantage points. In “Challengers,” paralleling the sport of tennis, we dive into scenes, swing around them, dip underneath, volley back and forth, suddenly stop, and sway. Rather than watching from its periphery, it’s a delight to be in a state of action with this film. There are no tricks here. This is the art of visual interest, where eating a churro or getting caught sleeping in your car takes on as much meaning as a match to win someone’s heart. That’s how Mukdeeprom gets to us.
We are never bored with his visuals because he is perpetually interested in how we interface with the story and what it means to see it from the inside. His cinematography is a form of omniscience, a perspective beyond mundanity, and that is its power. – Sherin Nicole
Screenplay, Peter Straughan, “Conclave”
“Conclave” would be utterly enthralling if all it did was take us inside a process that has been secret for hundreds of years (the selection of a new pope). But it does more, making a story of arcane rituals seem vital and universal. The secrecy has helped to preserve the idea that the choice, conducted by the College of Cardinals, is conducted in an atmosphere as sacred as the rituals and traditions of the Church. And yet, even cardinals are human. It should not surprise us that even those who devote their lives to their faith have faults, doubts, jealousies, ambitions, and secrets. We may even find it reassuring. These are the men who take on a near-impossible task. As a character in the film admits, it may be that anyone who wants to be Bishop of Rome (the pope’s formal title) is not right for the job.
Screenwriter Peter Straughan, adapting a novel by Richard Harris, twists the storyline like a Rubik’s Cube. Every few scenes, everything we think we know gets turned around, with developments that raise questions of purpose, honor, and the conflicts we face between our ideals and our reality. The issues are compelling in part because the humanity of the characters is so vividly conveyed. The storytelling is heightened because of the stakes, with stunning cinematography that makes the most of the colors and beauty and history of the setting. Straughan’s screenplay has the beats of a door-slamming farce and some darkly comic moments, but his superb control of tone assures that it never wavers from compelling, authentic, powerful drama. – Nell Minow
Original Score, Clint Mansell, “Love Lies Bleeding”
St. Augustine of Hippo famously said of the divine, “Our heart is restless until it rests in you.” Director Rose Glass’ noir thriller “Love Lies Bleeding” encapsulates that feeling of restless yearning, of being dangerously and tenderly lost in the gaze of another. Kristen Stewart plays Lou, a withdrawn gym owner who falls for Jackie, a bodybuilder who feels tailor-made to fill the void of her affections. The threat of violence is never far behind the two, thanks to the criminal machinations of Lou’s estranged father, Lou Sr. (Ed Harris). The film grounds the seemingly inexpressible love the two hold for each other in the disquietingly tangible: egg yolks, sweat, broken jaws, pierced flesh, and rugs (how else do you hide a dead body?) make up the elements of Glass’ world, and it is Clint Mansell’s dreamy, hypnotic, and at times downright terrifying score that keeps viewers invested in Lou and Jackie’s tempestuous relationship.
Mansell’s score clocks in at a lean eight tracks, but it packs a ferocious punch, often channeling the otherworldly longings of its heroines. It is slippery and elusive, often shifting tempos and instruments in a couple of seconds. Consider the nearly eight-minute opening track, “Louville,” a protracted medley of ambient synths and hypnotic drones. It has its own arc, its crescendo of textures and harmonies mirroring the ways we can get easily lost in new love before it drops to a primal, yet composed howl about two and a half minutes in. It echoes how how Lou and Jackie’s love is complicated through proximity to Lou’s criminal family.
Indeed, the beauty of Mansell’s score is in how it not only encapsulates Lou and Jackie’s combustible dynamic but serves as an echo of what’s going on narratively. This is best exemplified in the standout title track, “Love Lies Bleeding,” which loops in its relentless percussion with heavy breaths and vocalizations from Paris Hurley. It’s as if Mansell has interspersed soundbites of people in the throes of a workout and showcases the ways Lou and Jackie often flirt between safety and comfort and danger.
Love has never felt more like surrender (and vice versa) than in “Love Lies Bleeding,” and Mansell’s score is the spotter to Glass’ muscular and heavy-lifting direction. It captures the tempestuous and elusive nature of craving, love, and lust, holding nightmares and dreaminess in equal tension. – Zachary Lee
Everything, Jeremy Saulnier, “Rebel Ridge”
Jeremy Saulnier writes, directs, and edits “Rebel Ridge,” and that singularity of vision may well be why it’s the year’s best action movie—as demonstrated by my favorite scene, which comes half an hour in. Terry Richmond (Aaron Pierre) has watched the police force of a small Louisiana town seize the $10,000 cash he was carrying to bail out his cousin. He’s burned by the cocky police chief, Sandy Burnne (Don Johnson), who only then bothers to find out who he’s dealing with.
His underling officer reports that Terry was a Marine, specifically a “MCMAP instructor.” “Why don’tcha Google that,” Burnne instructs. Alas, the dodgy wi-fi needs to be restarted — isn’t that always the way — but before it can be restored, Terry returns to the station, accompanied by quietly tense music, and Burnne goes outside to run him off.
The deftness of Saulnier’s edits are matched only by the precision of the shooting; he increases the rapidity of the cuts and movement of the camera as the situation escalates, and it does so quickly once Burnne’s officers discover that not only does “MCMAP” stand for “Marine Corps Martial Arts Program,” but that Terry is literally on the Wikipedia page. And then everything is happening at once; the Marine disarms both the chief and his fellow officer like he’s swatting flies, which he may as well be. It’s a brief sequence, but a bruising and effective one—and the most cinematic use of a personal computer since “Clear and Present Danger.” – Jason Bailey
Cinematography, Marius Panduru, “Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World”
DP Marius Panduru’s work on Radu Jude’s “Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World” is the perfect dance partner for the Romanian provocateur. In this, his righteous follow-up to last year’s propulsive, also-Panduru-shot, “Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn,” Jude levels his savage satirical attention on the madness of the hustle culture, the toxic rabidity of certain dank corners of the social media web (and in particular monstrous Romania-based influencer Andrew Tate), the ever-widening wealth gap and its handmaiden, the attendant rise in white supremacy.
Panduru matches Jude’s wild digressions with matching shots to old, 1981 Soviet-era films; to sudden slow-motion sequences; format mismatches and fine-pixelization – all to represent the chaotic landscape of new media and how for all its stutters now and mad innovation, it still betrays trends from our century and twenty years of cinematic history. The form of the film is the function of it too, to borrow from Marshall McCluhan’s medium being the message – that however we believe our means of storytelling have evolved, our mechanism for receiving that storytelling remains only our human eyes and ears.
Watch when Panduru’s camera stops moving and listens, really listens, during an extended conclusion in which a man’s paid testimony against an insurance company is whittled down until it becomes a commercial for that insurance company. There, suddenly, Panduru’s eye is steady and unsparing in its attention. It says, we’ve had some fun but settle down and listen now before it’s too late. – Walter Chaw
Original Score, Daniel Blumberg, “The Brutalist”
It’s fitting that Daniel Blumberg’s score conveys the emotional journey that Adrien Brody’s Laszlo Toth must be experiencing throughout “The Brutalist.” During the “Overture (Ship),” there are sparse horns that celebrate Toth’s arrival in America while dissonance overlaps with prominent sound. Then, there’s the promise of a glorious future when Toth finally makes his way to “Pennsylvania,” a place where his cousin has provided a place for him to stay and work. Later, on “Erzsebet,” there’s a tinge of sadness over the long-awaited reunion, which becomes even more prominent during the following track, “Handjob.” For wherever there’s hope for Toth, there’s undoubtedly some disappointment right around the corner. The score isn’t only this mixture of hope and dissonance, but there’s also a heavy influence of Jazz as well. In tracks like “Jazz Club,” “Building Site,” and “New York” there’s improvised jazz that exemplifies Toth’s confusion in this new land.
As for Blumberg, he originally got his start in the band Yuck, which originated in London and was influenced by such acts as Pavement and Sparklehorse. I hear influences of acts such as My Bloody Valentine and Sufjan Stevens in Blumberg’s work as well. Blumberg’s soundtrack is as imposing as the movie it’s meant to score–there’s almost an hour and a half of music on the official release. Such a sprawling and epic feature as “The Brutalist” should have a soundtrack as exciting to delve into and Blumberg’s score certainly fits the bill. – Max Covill
Editing, Sean Baker, “Anora”
I like to say that “we’ve all seen long short movies and short long movies.” Time is fluid in a movie theater. If a movie doesn’t work, even at 90 minutes it can feel longer than “The Return of the King.” If a movie is humming, you don’t even notice the length. “Anora” is one of the shortest long movies I’ve ever seen, a film that zips by with such fluid grace that only after it’s over do you realize it’s almost 140 minutes long. It’s almost like a magic trick. And while a lot of elements can be singled out for how this trick is performed, most of the wizardry comes courtesy of writer/director Sean Baker’s editing.
It’s an editorial feat that shifts rhythms and time signatures in a manner that reflects the characters and plot. For the first hour, it’s almost manic, jumping around the whirlwind romance of Anora (Mikey Madison) and Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn) as if it can barely keep up with their lifestyle. Baker’s rhythms reflect the bursting joy of these characters, but he slows down in the centerpiece when the music stops and Ivan’s father’s tough guys come to the house. The midsection of “Anora” is basically one extended masterpiece of a scene, a sequence in which Anora discovers the hard way that the man she’s married is a boy. Baker shifts gears as an editor a final time in the film’s third act, finding the beat in scenes as Anora and the men who have basically kidnapped drive around New York looking for Ivan. These scenes recall great ’80s comedies of doomed dynamics like “After Hours” and “Something Wild.”
A lot of it is there on the page, and the film is nothing without its ace cast, but “Anora” is like great music to this viewer, and it’s the editing that makes it so catchy. – Brian Tallerico
Art Direction/Production Design, Aleksandra Marinkovich, “The Apprentice”
When it was announced that Ali Abbasi was making a film about Roy Cohn and Donald Trump, it felt like a logical next step after his film “Holy Spider.” That film, made outside of Iran but set there, tells an embellished version of the true story of an Iranian serial killer who targeted sex workers. The killer believed himself to be an instrument of divine punishment on the wicked, and when he is brought to trial, it is clear he is not alone in that assessment. Abbasi seems to be fascinated by how national ideology can turn people into monsters, so what better subject for him than Donald Trump? And as Universal Studios taught us in the prewar era, iconic monsters must have equally iconic homes.
The task of production designing “The Apprentice” is a plum assignment. Not only are you tasked with recreating a famous property which is synonymous with one of the most famous men in the world, you are also telling a story that starts in the Nixon era and ends during Reagan’s Morning in America. The person for the job turned out to be Aleksandra Marinkovich. This is her first credit as production designer with 29 art department credits, half of which as art director. One credit that leapt out at me was Guillermo Del Toro’s “Crimson Peak,” where Marinkovich served as a set dresser under the late Thomas E. Sanders, who was also the production designer on “Bram Stoker’s Dracula.”
The lineage is fascinating, even if merely coincidental. Marinkovich’s first challenge in the film is the private club where Cohn and Trump first meet. The light is low, the 1.33:1 aspect ratio means even wide shots are rather limited in scope, but the detail that stood out to me are the velvet crimson drape upholstered walls. We do not see this color again in the film in any significant way. Married with the low light, the club becomes a metaphorical womb from which the Trump we know will emerge.
Roy Cohn’s townhouse is another triumph. It retains its Gilded Age splendor while also having some humanizing touches like the cerulean walls in his nerve center (a calming color we also don’t see again) and in his bedroom a few strategically placed potted plants that are growing wild (try and imagine Trump watering a philodendron as part of his morning routine). The home, which also becomes the site of an infernal bacchanalia, serves to subtly humanize Cohn in a way that will pay off in the second act when his health fades and he loses the power he’s ruthlessly chased his whole life.
We see three of Trump’s homes. First, an apartment that is well located but chintzy and sloppy (his larval stage), then in the early 80s, a soulless white and airy apartment overlooking the park (his cocoon), and finally, the baroque monstrosity of Trump Tower (his final stage). The greatest acts of evil we see him commit on screen are here, between two ostentatious staircases and a huge picture window. It’s like the ultimate stage for this man born to perform.
Trump’s home and his office are dominated by windows. Cohn’s spaces are not. Coen’s sad final scene with Trump at Mar-a-Lago make the resort feel like a last cruel bit of one upmanship as the resort resembles a gaudier version of Cohn’s home. The last scene is crypt-like in its lack of natural light. Trump’s office is all windows, filled with light. The final shot suggests those windows aren’t just about our ability to see bad men planning their nefarious deeds, but a way for them to see us, in the same way the predator sees its prey. – Brandon Wilson
Original Score, Eiko Ishibashi, “Evil Does Not Exist”
Following their collaboration on 2021’s Oscar-winning “Drive My Car,” filmmaker Hamaguchi Ryusuke and experimental musician Ishibashi Eiko reunited, at her initial request, for a project of a different kind. After asking Hamaguchi to create imagery to accompany a new live performance she was working on, to be titled “Gift,” Ishibashi invited the director to visit her at home, two hours from Tokyo, where she lives surrounded by nature. Listening to Ishibashi at work in this mountainous region — and conversing with her about the delicate harmonies present in humanity’s relationship with the natural world — inspired Hamaguchi, in turn, to craft a narrative about a rural community under threat by a glamping development, and eventually to expand it into a feature, with Ishibashi’s music evolving as well to suit the story. The result, “Evil Does Not Exist,” is a film in which sound and image are both interrelated and starkly juxtaposed.
Whereas Ishibashi’s gentle, contemplative score for “Drive My Car” steered the drama through bittersweet passages of melodramatic longing and deep emotional catharsis, her music is arguably even more central to “Evil Does Not Exist.” Establishing its mood of disquiet and ambiguity early with smooth yet subtly dissonant compositions, her score sets mournful strings against enigmatic, electronic tones, evoking not just the flowing energies of wilderness but also its anguish and fragility. Much like Hamaguchi’s images of death and absence—bird feathers, a fawn carcass, blood dripping from branches, tracks in the snow—her music draws lingering unease from our trespass upon nature, at once premonition and lament. – Isaac Feldberg
Makeup/VFX, “Terrifier 3”
It’s been a long, long time since I’ve physically gagged at the movies. My poor partner’s hand had never been squeezed, out of pure fear, so tightly for over 120 minutes; the only solace was found in our mutual shock, exchanged through quick side-eye glances. At times when it seemed comically awful or unbelievable, the violence was so gruesome, I couldn’t do anything except gawk. Who cares about plot development and cohesion when you’re so distracted by the disrespectful dismembering of almost everyone in the movie? As body horror embarks on its renaissance with hit films like “The Substance,” “Terrifier 3” should also receive its flowers for its artful, creative special effects.
After serving as the special effects artists in the first two installments of “Terrifier,” director Damien Leone and producer Phil Falcone brought in additional talent to bring the vision to life for “Terrifier 3.” In the age of A.I. and “amateur” CGI, the infamously low-budget “Terrifier” series shows a deep appreciation and devotion to craft, which pays off in the absolute repulsion it put me through. While CGI is utilized a tad bit more than in the first two films, its minimal use is well thought through to enhance the already graphic, gory practical effects.
Although fear was at the forefront of my mind, I found myself questioning “Who thinks to inflict harm, torture, and terminate in the most obscure ways?” It’s as if the crew took turns completing a custom Madlib exercise co-authored by Jigsaw, Freddie, Jason, and Michael. Together, the filmmakers have truly molded Art the Clown into a master of masochism and sadism. Do not let my disgust deter the overall entertaining execution(s), as it is only a byproduct of the super successful, sometimes soul-shattering, special effects. – Cortlyn Kelly
Art Direction/Production Design, “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga”
George Miller’s latest film, “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga,” does a lot more than merely expand its post-apocalyptic world, and its production design is one of the key factors in its considerable artistic success. Yes, there are indeed many familiar details from “Mad Max: Fury Road,” but these old elements are presented vividly on the screen along with numerous new interesting visions, and production designer Colin Gibson and set decorator Katie Sharrock have a field day here in this movie.
The result is often impressive while also immersing us more into the dystopian background of the film. At the beginning, we finally behold a little precious world which Furiosa misses so much in the previous film. While this bountiful world surely makes a striking contrast to the stark qualities of the outside world, we also come to have more understanding on that devastating moment of hers in the previous movie. We later get numerous details on how Immortan Joe and his cohorts have ruled over many others out there for years, and I particularly like the rapid but detailed sequence showing Furiosa and a bunch of other workers busily making a heavily armed supply tanker from heaps of metal scraps. Fully enriching Miller’s distinctive style and vision from the beginning to the end, the production design of “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” is certainly one of the best ones of this year, and I can only hope that there will be another chance to explore its bleak but undeniably fascinating post-apocalyptic world. – Seongyong Cho
Cinematography, Aaron Morton, “The First Omen”
So few horror movies operate on the logic of the eye. So few directors know that a horror movie’s greatest strength is in deciding what we can see and what we can’t. “The First Omen” is the most impressive horror debut this year because Arkasha Stevenson and her photographer Aaron Morton (who performed the same magic trick when Fede Alvarez made his debut with 2013’s “The Evil Dead”) have considered the look and feel of every space, the dimensions of every nightmare, the weight and heft of every demon and shadow. Their camera shows us enough of the world for it to overwhelm us and our heroine (Nell Tiger Free, proving herself the best young actress in the genre), to seem like too much.
We see everything, the pale light and heat rising from the stones of Rome in the 1970s, and then we’re plunged into darkness and impossible sights. Every cavern, closet, and haunted bedroom is lit for grim definition, for just enough clarity to still feel like the world makes less and less sense the more time we see it through this lens. This is a film that takes the camera’s gaze as seriously as the satanic conspiracy at its core. This movie shows us the world and slowly lets in every horror it can. The camera is in total control, as the world seems in total chaos. – Scout Tafoya
Original Score, John Debney, “Horizon: An American Saga”
In an age where scores are either meant to blend into the background or feel like blaring synth-metal-pop (looking at you, Reznor and Ross), it’s a welcome thing to hear a good old-fashioned burst of orchestral bombast. And so, like so much of Kevin Costner’s traditional Western epic “Horizon: An American Saga — Part I,” John Debney’s score goes back to basics.
With its galloping drums and plaintive French horns, its primary tracks evoke the works of Elmer Bernstein, Bruce Broughton, and John Williams. Its melodies lope along at the speed of a stagecoach, and its more dramatic, action-heavy moments thrum with low bass, tense violins, and snapping drums. It’s lush, full-figured, and complete, a balm for those of us sick of the minimalistic tendencies of most modern soundtracks. But the score’s true highlight is “Horizon Montage Begins / Closing Survey,” a five-minute cue that plays over the sizzle reel montage at the end of “Part I” that teases the intrigue to come for the sprawling cast of characters searching for a new home in the Old West. As flyers are printed advertising the spoils and riches of Horizon to any unsuspecting 49er looking to make their way, Debney’s string arpeggios, sustained horns, and Timpanis build to a beautiful crescendo teasing the operatic proceedings to come. It stirs the blood, and makes you wish “Part 2” would stop moseying so much and get here already. -Clint Worthington
Art Direction/Production Design, “Megalopolis”
Although it polarized critics and was roundly ignored by moviegoers, Francis Ford Coppola’s wildly ambitious, decades-in-the-making “Megalopolis” seems destined to be rediscovered and reappraised in the years to come. As befitting a film centered around an impossibly ambitious architect trying to use his gifts to reclaim his city from the decadence and decay brought on by the corruption of the ruling class, one of the most striking elements on display is the art decoration and production design utilized to bring the central location of New Rome to life.
To realize this future vision of a reimagined New York City, recognizable current-day locations like the Chrysler Building and Madison Square Garden are integrated with the classical architecture of Ancient Rome and futuristic ideas combining technology and biology inspired by the work of designer Neri Oxman. In a number of his past films, Coppola has used design elements to further convey story ideas, and, here, in addition to looking incredible, the settings also serve a metaphorical purpose as well, from the golden tones used to symbolize the wealth and power wielded by those of the ruling class of New Rome and coveted by everyone else to the giant clock facing the sky that makes no sense from a practical standpoint but which proves to be the inspired setting for a key sequence in which two characters begin to fall in love.
Although the film had a notoriously rocky production history—half of the original Art Direction team quite partway through the production—the end result is as striking a vision of the possibilities of the near-future as has ever been put on the screen, one that may one day be celebrated in the same way as the cityscapes posited by the likes of “Metropolis” and “Blade Runner.” – Peter Sobczynski
Production Design, Louisa Schaba, “Universal Language”
In re-imagining Canada’s two solitudes as French and Farsi (rather than French and English), “Universal Language” had to envision a new way of grappling with the Canadian landscape. Set in the depth of winter and split between two cities, Montreal and Winnipeg, the film takes inspiration from Iranian art and cinema to transform Canadian urban landscapes into something more wistful and magical. Sourcing brickwork from across both cities, real locations are seen from new perspectives and in new contexts, which render Montreal’s brutalism and Winnipeg’s suburbanism into something resembling the labyrinthian beauty of Tehran. Scouting, framing and set dressing come together under an umbrella of Louisa Schabas’s incredible production design to create a new cinematic language that draws from Canada’s multiculturalism and director Matthew Rankin’s obsessions.
The effect, rather than destabilizing or discordant, beautifully married disparate elements to create a new whole. As one example, “Universal Language” transforms Tim Hortons, a Canadian-identify signifier that can cynically be seen as an example of the nation’s corporatized identity, into a teahouse – the cool-maroon brand color scheme wraps around the space with new textures and lighting. The familiar coffee chain design is rendered accurately but with more Persian adornments and a more inviting quality. It’s a space that no longer feels cold and corporate but like a home. The transformative effect of the film’s production design achieves an optimism in form rarely seen in any national cinema; one that is lovingly critical but finds pleasure and beauty in the everyday as it imagines a Canada beset by tenderness and difference. – Justine Smith
Sound Design, “Civil War”
Alex Garland’s work, from “Annihilation” to “Devs,” is known for its music as much as for dividing audiences. These scores, which since 2014’s “Ex Machina” have been composed by riveting duo Ben Salisbury and Geoff Barrows, often crescendo into an all-encompassing wave of synths, but in “Civil War,” the music takes a backseat. In doing so, Garland gives way to a bombastic and, at times, grating cacophony of noise. There’s noises, cars revving, gunshots, and drowned-out yelling are frantic, often looming in the background of each scene like an ominous and unnamed presence.
The film’s final act, wherein its group of journalists sprint, huddle, and photograph outside of a crumbling White House, feels like a sequence to which Alex Garland has been building his whole career. The gunfire isn’t merciful; instead, it sheds any sense of control, coming from each direction and smattering off concrete and metal. It often drowns out the commands of the soldiers who bleed in and out of the scene, their voices smothered by an unfaltering heaviness. Once they get inside, the gunfire outside is dull and pulsating, akin to a rapid heartbeat trying to be calmed. The contrast permeates throughout “Civil War,” a film in which sound bleeds in and out quicker than the characters, and the audience can make sense of it. Onslaughts of explosions and gunfire are sharp and terrifying, but the moments of silence are so staggering it feels as if time in the film (and outside of it) has actually stopped. – Kaiya Shunyata
