The critics may have taken Baz Luhrmann's “The Great Gatsby” to task when it was released last summer, but the film is having the last laugh after a nice box office haul and a few scattered wins on the awards circuit.
Production and costume designer Catherine Martin won Oscars in both categories Sunday night for the film's opulent threads and sets. She pulled the same feat 12 years ago for her work on husband Luhrmann's “Moulin Rouge!”
Martin spoke with HitFix earlier this year about her philosophy when approaching costumes for film. But she deferred their perceived success to the actors wearing them. “If you look at the best models in the world, or the actors that promote product, they're bringing something extra to the product,” she said at the time. “It's not just, 'I'm slim, I'm beautiful.' It's actually pushing the envelope. It's selling the dream. It's allowing you to believe that there are possibilities that you cannot envisage that go with the sweater or the woman's purse or whatever it is.”
Meanwhile, “Dallas Buyers Club” added to its on-going tally with a second prize on the evening, for the makeup and hairstyling on display in the Best Picture nominee. The team of Robin Mathews and Adruitha Lee had a mere $250 budget for their work, but they pulled off transformative looks that, together with the physicality of Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto, certainly made for the most realistic of the nominees in the field this year.
“I really throw myself into the research,” Mathews told HitFix in a recent interview. “It had to be pure realism – that's how Jean-Marc shoots.”