An Oscar and BAFTA Film Award winner in 2012 for his costume design in Michel Hazanavicius’ The Artist, Mark Bridges now finds himself again in the awards conversation, this time for the Paul Thomas Anderson-directed Inherent Vice (Warner Bros.), which is currently nominated for the Critics’ Choice Movie Award for Best Costume Design. This marks Bridges’ second career Critics’ Choice Award nomination from the Broadcast Film Critics Association–the first came in 2012 on the strength of The Artist, for which he wound up winning the award. Bridges also has garnered five Costume Designers Guild Award nominations over the years–for the TV series Six Feet Under and the feature films Blow in 2002, The Fighter in 2011, The Artist in 2012 and Silver Linings Playbook in 2013.
Back in 1995, Bridges began his costume design collaboration with Anderson, designing Hard Eight. Their next work together was the lauded Boogie Nights followed by Magnolia, Punch Drunk Love, There Will Be Blood, The Master and now Inherent Vice, billed as a “surf noir” based on the novel of the same title by Thomas Pynchon.
An American crime comedy-drama–often with tongue firmly planted in cheek–Inherent Vice is set at a time of transition in Los Angeles, with the 1960s’ vibe slipping away as more of a self-centered “Me Generation” mantra starts to take hold in 1970. Joaquin Phoenix stars as private detective Larry “Doc” Sportello who is investigating the disappearance of his ex-girlfriend’s beau.
Bridges said one of the prime challenges was “representing Pynchon’s words and trying to bring them to life in the flesh. Also having worked with Paul [Thomas Anderson] for 20 years, he has a sensibility of things having to be very real. So we’re working with far out descriptions from Pynchon which still must feel real and not take us out of the moment–the moment being in 1970 with an overtone of the ‘60s. That transitional time in society and fashion was really fun, especially in Los Angeles which was different from New York and London.”
Bridges’ modus operandi with Anderson is to initially put together a look book. “I did a story in pictures of what There Will Be Blood could look like,” recalled Bridges. “Paul had been working on the script for a couple of years and said he needed to see what it would look like. That helped him in the creative process. I would bring him images. He would say yes or no in terms of the direction he wanted to go. He would say ‘let’s try this for this character and this for another character.’ That same process applied to Inherent Vice with one major difference. For some characters, Pynchon had very specific descriptions. He writes a lot about atmosphere and that often includes how people present themselves. At the same time, we didn’t follow every description. When a description gets a bit too hilarious, we pulled it back. We would pick and chose what we decided to take from Pynchon and filled in the blanks–all with the intent of having the work fit the canvas.”
And there were times when there was a blank canvas to fill for a character, an example being Doc’s frequently consulted maritime lawyer Sauncho Smilax (portrayed by Benicio Del Toro). “There was no description so we had to create,” recalled Bridges. “We made him ‘lawyerly’ but in sync with the time period.”
Helping to define and reflect a character through his or her attire can entail delving into sociological aspects. Bridges cited as an example Coy Harlingen (portrayed by Owen Wilson), an undercover sax player who, for unknown but suspect reasons, faked his own death and is hiding out with a band in Topanga Canyon. “I look at the age of Owen’s character during the film’s time period and then calculate when he would have been born and what the influences on society were at that time. When you can pinpoint that he would have graduated high school after World War II, you uncover a whole other layer of who that person is. You are constantly trying to balance telling a story with who these characters are. You have to be careful not to be taken out of the story by what you choose to do in clothes.”
Bridges recalled that he initially came together with Anderson “in typical Hollywood fashion. He was doing his first film and someone recommended me to him. I went in for a breakfast meeting and liked his script which at the time was called Sydney. It was ultimately released as Hard Eight with a cast that included Gwenyth Paltrow and Samuel L. Jackson. We had $10,000 for the clothes and we screened dailies on a sheet in a production office. It was a lot of fun and I enjoyed the experience on Hard Eight. Less than a year later, Paul came to me with the script for Boogie Nights. For Paul, the rest is history.”
Boogie Nights went on to earn three Oscar nominations in 1998: Best Original Screenplay for Anderson, Best Supporting Actor for Burt Reynolds, and Best Supporting Actress for Julianne Moore.
As for what’s next for costume designer Bridges, 50 Shades of Grey directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson is scheduled for a Valentine’s Day release. “No matter what the material, I’m telling a story with characters and clothes,” said Bridges.
And this past summer, Bridges did Untitled Rock ‘N’ Roll Project, a Martin Scorsese-directed pilot for HBO centering on a record company in NYC in the early 1970s.
Alexandre Desplat
Composer Alexandre Desplat adds this season’s awards contenders The Imitation Game, Unbroken and The Grand Budapest Hotel to a filmography already highlighted by six Best Original Score Oscar nominations, starting with The Queen in 2007 and continuing with The Curious Case of Benjamin Button in 2009, Fantastic Mr. Fox in 2010, The King’s Speech in 2011, Argo in 2013, and Philomena in 2014.
Desplat shared with SHOOT his experiences on The Imitation Game (The Weinstein Company), his first collaboration with director Morten Tyldum. The film stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Alan Turing, a computer pioneer who broke the Nazis’ elaborate secret communication code, an accomplishment which Winston Churchill heralded as the single greatest contribution to helping to win World War II. Turing’s historic story is also a personal tale as he was a closeted gay man at a time when homosexuality was criminalized in the U.K. He was prosecuted for his sexual orientation and committed suicide in 1954.
Tyldum observed that the real-life story gave all those involved in The Imitation Game a sense of purpose–and for that matter was a catalyst for their participation to begin with. He cited as an example Desplat, whom Tyldum described as “an incredible composer who is so busy and hard to get. I remember him telling me the story was inspiring and ‘I want to be a part of it.’”
Desplat noted, though, that it wasn’t a given that his schedule could accommodate The Imitation Game. “When I was first asked, I was not free,” he recalled. “I was working on Unbroken. Suddenly my work on that film was postponed a little bit and I had a window of availability. I called back the producer [of The Imitation Game] and was able to take it on. I loved the story’s strength and intelligence. Alan Turing is the hero most people don’t know about. And when I saw how Morten had directed the film, I felt it was so beautiful, so strong and so impressive. I’m happy I could do it. It’s a wonderful story. The movie has all the qualities you would want. It’s an epic story that is also very intimate and restrained. It’s a story that’s tragic but which also has humor. Benedict Cumberbatch’s performance is stunning. I spent three weeks on the score, completely immersed in the characters.”
Regarding his approach to The Imitation Game, Desplat said, “The deadline was crazy. I had three weeks and the creative aspects were very challenging. There were so many elements in that film: the central figure of Turing, his tragic personal life, his humor, World War II itself, he and his team working to break the code. There were so many layers. I simply wanted to make sure I would not overwhelm the film with the music. Rather than overplay the drama, the tragedy, I wanted the music to reinforce every element. The story has a complex chronology, with a brilliantly written screenplay by Graham Moore. He and Morten played with flashbacks in a way that is very smart. There are flashbacks and flash forwards. I wanted the score to support the continuity needed for that back and forth.”
This is the eighth in a multi-part series with future installments of The Road To Oscar slated to run in the weekly SHOOT>e.dition, The SHOOT Dailies, SHOOT’s January print issue (and PDF version) and on SHOOTonline.com. The series will appear weekly through the Academy Awards. The 87th Academy Awards nominations will be announced on Thursday, January 15, 2015. The Oscars will be held on Sunday, February 22, 2015 at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood and will be televised live by the ABC Television Network.
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