Speaking About Decor: Is a Good Decor Invisible? - Text 2
In France, for Raymond Bernard’s Le joueur d’échecs (1926), Cinémagazine remarked that “if we consider that the total surface area of the decors reached 120,000 square metres, we can see the importance that construction and various applied arts have taken in erecting them.”[3] In La Petite Illustration, Robert de Beauplan raved about the battle in Pierre Marodon’s Salammbô in 1925, which was created with “an abundance of means about which one might have thought until now only the Americans were capable... But even more impressive is the recreation of the palace of Hamilcar: it covers an area similar to that of the Place de la Concorde, and its four terraces, connected by monumental staircases, rise forty metres off the ground.”[4] In 1928, F.W. Murnau lamented the fact that
people perhaps came to feel that they were not being treated fairly unless they saw a city burned down or five thousand extras all in wigs and costumes on the screen at the same time… I think that audiences are getting tired of crowded sets and involved plots. It is like eating too much cake. I think they would like to see something simple and real. I think that in the film of the future the story itself will be more important than splendid sets and costumes.[5]
This wrangling amongst critics and filmmakers in the 1920s, pitting spectacular decors against “simpler” decors, would be echoed in discussions around digital decors in the twenty-first century, when extensions created by computer only prolonged “for” and “against” arguments. In the mid-1950s, however, the discussion took a new turn with the rise of the French New Wave.
“We must abandon too-costly studios,” François Truffaut declared in 1958. “We must shoot in the street and even in real apartments: unlike Clouzot, spreading artificial grime on decors and planting them in front of five sinister-looking spies, we must film more substantial stories in front of grubby real walls.”[6] Max Douy would read into this, and denounce it, “Down with decors and pasteboard. The New Wave will not shoot in studios.”[7] The discussion grew and spilled beyond the New Wave, with French production designers defending their profession in an open letter published by Le Film français[8] in November 1971 in response to an article in Le Monde on 7 October which discussed the closing of film studios.
This rare speaking out in public by film professionals focusing on the role of the film studio is indicative of the profound changes underway in the profession and the downgraded position of the production designer on the film set. The reason Trauner remains still today a production designer “in the news” is because he is the heir to this period. The period just beginning does not place the decor crew in the spotlight. This reduced visibility is also the product of a kind of watchword which is nevertheless contested within the profession: a good decor is a decor not seen, at least in “traditional” narrative cinema. The consequence of this idea, set out by Trauner and taken up in many other more contemporary interviews,[9] is clear: because the decor is not seen, one does not talk about it. At the same time, however, the César Award for best decor was created.[10] This award is voted on by one’s peers, as the films in competition in the category are “chosen by every voting technician in the Academy affiliated with the professions production designer and set decorator.”[11] Of the forty-five statuettes awarded from 1976 to 2020, two thirds, or thirty, were given to historical films (or films requiring historical recreations) whose production design was clearly visible to the general public. Eight science fiction or fantasy films have also won the award, with the seven remaining films pertaining to a variety of genres (dramatic comedy, drama, western, crime film, etc.). In this way the César Award indicates the difficult balance between a decor which should not be seen as such in these fiction films and yet is part of the image and, in its less “camouflageable” forms, commands the viewer’s attention. Statistically, the decor of a “contemporary film” has little chance of winning a César Award, even if the creative work that goes into it is as important as on any other. Even as making-of films and websites devoted to film professions proliferate and provide greater visibility to them, to speak of a film’s decor remains a rare event, tied to film genres and associated in this case with the costume designer and visual effects professions.
