The Art Directors Guild is pretty helpful when it comes to the Oscar, but unfortunately they have three awards: contemporary art direction, period art direction and fantasy art direction. This year, they awarded The King's Speech and Inception in the latter categories, and those two films are arguably going toe-to-toe for the Oscar?
What's a predictor to do?
The King's Speech certainly didn't fare will at the BAFTA, winning only one tech category (Original Score). Inception beat it there, which maybe puts it as the frontrunner for this category despite the Speech's overall frontrunner status.
But thinking about recent Oscar history in this category: Avatar, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Sweeney Todd, Pan's Labyrinth, Memoirs of a Geisha, The Aviator, The Lord of the Rings, Chicago, Moulin Rouge, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
One of them is science-fiction. One is fantasy (sort of, Pan's Labyrinth has fantasy and period production design). The rest are purely period. So does that give King's Speech a leg-up despite losing the BAFTA? Maybe not.
Inception may be a science-fiction film, but its design looks very contemporary. It's a very elaborate film in that it builds these spaces that the camera then manipulates. I think it has a bit of a nudge because so much of the movie is traditionally constructed -- they built the rotating hallway, they dressed the hotel rooms, they designed the mountain hospital fortress for the climax and the castle at the beginning. As much as Inception is sci-fi, it's firmly grounded.
I personally give Nolan's film the edge because I think the Academy loves The King's Speech, but they also marvel at Nolan's accomplishments. And yet -- Nolan was not nominated for director and Lee Smith was not nominated for Best Film Editing. That tells me that they respect Inception without loving it.
Art direction is a pure coin-flip this year. Both films are respected enough, and both of their deigns have been honored consistently.
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