Mikkel E.G. Nielson’s editing for The Banshees of Inisherin isn’t showy or ostentatious, but it is essential to conveying the rupture between the two friends at the film’s center – especially in scenes where they occupy the same physical space but are rarely in the same frame, relying on the edit to show their growing enmity. The frenetic and dizzying pace of Elvis’s nonstop propulsion couldn’t have been achieved without the meticulous editing of Matt Villa and Jonathan Redmond, knowing how to subtly tone the rhythms down when needed, only ramp them back up into overdrive. Paul Rogers’s editing choices in Everything Everywhere All at Once are essential to, not just the mood or tone of the film, but the entire narrative as they masterfully cut between every possible life Evelyn (and the other members of her family) could have lived while still managing to craft a heartfelt, emotionally potent adventure. The subtlety in Monika Willi’s editing for TÁR belies the skill it takes to convey so much of the film’s meaning through assembling its visual language – cutaways to brief reaction shots or observational views that put us at a remove from Lydia and distance us from the myth she makes of her own life. We’re often drawn to notice the editing in action films, and Eddie Hamilton’s work in Top Gun: Maverick is solid and dependable action editing that, unlike so much modern action, allows us to clearly follow the characters in geographical space at every point in the film while still putting us on the edge of our seats.
While Mary Zophres’s costume design for Babylon takes real-life inspiration from 1920s Hollywood, she also finds ways to match the film’s “ecstatic truth” by embellishing the costumes to suggest character, as well as the decadence and decay at the heart of the film industry. In Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Ruth Carter continues to build on the work she began in the first film and expands it to include designs for the kingdom of Talokan, crafting a magnificent visual look for each of the characters onscreen. The costumes in Elvis, designed by Catherine Martin, are all painstaking in their detail, recreating the singer’s iconic looks for the screen and surrounding him with character costumes in a kaleidoscope of color. Shirley Kurata’s costumes for Everything Everywhere All at Once run the gamut from Chinese movie star, Peking opera singer, chef, frustrated laundromat owner, to a universe of people with hot dogs for fingers – and each costume not only evokes the lives left unlived, but perfectly encapsulates who the characters are at each moment in the film. With Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris, Jenny Beaven’s costume designs fit the more traditional, lavish period costume tropes, and while they may look gorgeous, there’s nothing especially substantial about the designs other than the beauty of the gowns.
All Quiet on the Western Front covers its performers in blood and mud, making the horrors of war tangible on the bodies of everyone who appears onscreen. The world of Gotham is a shadowy, grimy underbelly of crime and corruption, and the makeup work in The Batman projects this by giving characters a wan look – but let’s be honest, it’s also nominated because of the special effects makeup and prosthetics used for the Penguin. In Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, makeup and hairstyling are used in conjunction with the costuming to build the stunning sci-fi/fantasy worlds of Wakanda and Talokan. Elvis’s makeup team also makes use of a fat-suit and prosthetics to achieve some of their intended effects – and the period styling certainly helped secure its nomination. Perhaps the only reason The Whale was nominated in this category is due to, yet again, a fat-suit and extensive prosthetics for the film’s lead.
The stark horror of the trenches of World War I are meticulously recreated in All Quiet on the Western Front, as are the contrasting luxurious environs for the men who send others off to die. Avatar: The Way of Water borrows heavily from existing Indigenous cultures for much of its new production design, creating a thoughtless hodgepodge of imagery devoid of meaning. Between the lavish Art Deco decadence on display and the early silent film backlots, the production design of Babylon is a rich, layered pleasure to watch throughout. While, once again, there is some historical accuracy in the production design of Elvis (especially in recreating some of the more iconic stage shows), there’s also an aspect of the funhouse mirror that distorts and warps it just so, in keeping with the film’s unreliable narrator. There’s a classical elegance to the designs in The Fabelmans, recreating Spielberg’s childhood homes and schools without a sense of artifice or guile.
The use of sound in All Quiet on the Western Front is masterful – the din of war overwhelms one moment, followed by an eerie quiet and stillness in the aftermath – and it all comes together seamlessly. Avatar: The Way of Water makes solid use of action movie sound mixing, and over the course of its runtime produces a lovely variety of sonic textures. With jump scares, bombastic chase scenes, and your standard fist fights, The Batman is a unique superhero offering and has an unsettling soundscape to match. The sound in Elvis not only includes the live musical performances that make the film come alive, but it also includes the mixing of contemporary musicians with Elvis’s songs and the dream sequence sounds as we see the story through the eyes of Colonel Tom Parker. Roaring jet engines, air passing by the cockpit, the sound of the pilot’s heart beating in their chests – all of these elements help the sound in Top Gun: Maverick keep us enthralled during the film’s spectacular action sequences.
The visual effects in All Quiet on the Western Front are a mix of practical and computer-generated effects, seamlessly integrated to create the necessary scale and atmosphere for the film. The groundbreaking computer-generated effects work for Avatar: The Way of Water created some stunning, photorealistic CGI characters and environments. The Batman also used a combination of practical and digital effects to craft incredible action sequences and a moody, noir-infused Gotham city. The visual effects work in Elvis is used to help fill out the environment, add depth to the crowds, and assist in recreating many of the period details. Top Gun: Maverick also uses an impressive mixture of practical and digital effects to achieve its pulse-pounding action sequences, mixing in real aerial photography with digital explosions and digitally compositing the actors with Navy pilots – among other impressive feats.
