Face Off: Celebrating Oscar Winning Movie Make-Up

By Michael Lyons

There’s an old Hollywood cliche: a director yells “Make Up!” and in walks the make -up artist with a powder puff.

As stereotypical as that may seem, it does illustrate just how important make-up artists are to the creation of a movie.

They’re so important that the Academy Awards specifically created a category to honor them in 1981.  Now called, “Best Makeup and Hairstyling,” this category honors those artists who not only create creatures, but also bring the past to life and can use their talents to alter the appearance of an actor or even age them by them thirty years.

Movie Make -Up effects can definitely vary, as shown in some of this year’s Oscar nominees; from the subtle prosthetics of “Bombshell” to the clown face of “The Joker,” the films are all the perfect example of the subtle and not so subtle impact make-up can have on a film.

With the 92nd Oscars this Sunday, it’s the perfect time to look back and celebrate some of of the milestone Academy Award winners for Best Make-Up.

“An American Werwolf in London (1981).  The very first winner in this category is still a movie that contains some of the scariest, most disturbing and best make-up effects every created for a film.  The werewolf transformation scene is still an absolute stunner.  

No mystery that these effects were created by Rick Baker, the master of movie make-up, whose name would become synonymous, not only with movie make-up, but in this category as well.  With “Werewolf,” Baker would snag seven Oscars before his retirement in 2015.

“Dick Tracy” (1990).  Only make-up could have brought the caricature-like villains of the “Dick Tracy” comic strip to life.  Pruneface, Flattop and the others were compliments of make-up artists and winners John Caglione, Jr and Doug Drexel’s.  Their work enhances the colorful, “Sunday Comics” look of the film.

“The Nutty Professor” (1999).  Another Rick Baker win, (with his collaborator David LeRoy Anderson) this one allowing Eddie Murphy to play seven different roles.  This one is significant as it not only allowed Murphy’s talents room to, literally, expand, but is also that rare comedy that won in this category.

“The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship off the Ring” (2003).  How do you create an army of Orcs and bring the world of J.R.R. Tolkien to life?  Make-up...and lots of it.  The first of director Peter Jackson’s trilogy is landmark in so many ways and the make-up from Peter Owen and Richard Taylor was an epic part off these epic films.

“Darkest Hour” (2017). Gary Oldman won the Best Actor Oscar for transforming into Winston Churchill in this film.  In his acceptance speech, he thanked Kazuhiro Tsuji, David Malinowski and Lucy Sibbick, who had won the Oscar for their make-up work that had made the actor’s astonishing transformation possible.

With computer graphics making everything possible and now a part of almost every film, movie make-up may seem somewhat outdated (computers can now “de-age” an actor and make them look decades younger), but film fans know that the artistry and reality of make-up truly is one of film’s very special effects and worthy of Oscar gold.

Sources:

Wikipedia