U.S. Designers Want to Alter Oscar Pattern : Movies: Some say the academy overlooks costumes for ‘reality’ films in favor of those in period pieces. Their proposal? Create two awards.

When Albert Wolsky collected an Oscar for his costume designs in “Bugsy” at the 64th annual Academy Awards presentation in March, he was the first American designer to receive the prize in 12 years.

Wolsky also received an Oscar for his designs in the 1979 film “All That Jazz.”

But for all Wolsky’s glory, it can be lonely at the top.

Among the men and women who work as costume designers in Hollywood, there is a growing sense that their work is being overlooked and ignored by academy voters.

Their rumblings of discontent are now starting to be heard. Many of the most important designers working today not only want their achievements to be recognized for artistic merit, but they also have serious practical considerations as well. The Costume Designers Guild reports a 40% unemployment rate among its 275 members, the highest in 10 years, due largely to the increase in films made in right-to-work states or out of the country--places where workers are less likely to join unions.

For the last decade or so, Oscars for best costume design have consistently been awarded to period spectacles that have been set and filmed in Europe or Asia, including “Tess” (costumes by Anthony Powell, 1980), “Fanny and Alexander” (Marik Vos, 1983), “Ran” (Emi Wada, 1985) and “The Last Emperor” (James Acheson, 1987).

The days when such Hollywood designers as Irene Sharaff, Helen Rose and the great Edith Head (who earned a record eight Oscars) dominated the field are long over. Today, designers say, movies made in the United States don’t have much of a chance of winning awards for costume design. For that matter, neither do guild members, who are primarily American. (The guild lists only five foreign members, four from Britain, one from Australia.)

Hollywood churns out mostly contemporary “reality” movies in which the costumes, if done well, often go unnoticed.

“I can’t possibly compete (with costume spectaculars). That’s the rub,” said New York-based Jeffrey Kurland, who has designed costumes for Woody Allen movies, including “Crimes and Misdemeanors,” “Alice” and “Shadows and Fog.”

“In most modern films, we’re all working so hard and nobody knows the difference,” he said. “As a costume designer, my concern is nailing those characters for the actors and for the audience. And if you do your job well, no one notices you. How can a movie like ‘Crimes and Misdemeanors’ be compared to ‘The Last Emperor’?” Kurland says.

To correct the imbalance, many designers, including Kurland, are suggesting that there should be two awards: one for period and fantasy design and a second for contemporary design.

Indeed, there is a strong precedent for introducing a second category at the Academy Awards. When costume designers were first recognized at the Academy Awards ceremony in 1949, two awards were handed out: One was for best costumes in a black-and-white film, the other for best costumes in a color film. In 1958, the rules changed and only one award was handed out. Two years later, a second award was reinstated. Then, in 1968, the black-and-white category was finally done away with.

“There’s no reason why two categories can’t be instigated again,” said Los Angeles designer Ellen Mirojnick (“Wall Street,” “Basic Instinct”). “Times have changed. Hollywood doesn’t make period pieces every day of the week, and with the economic climate of our country, who knows if they’re going to make period pieces in the future?”

Wolsky, the outgoing chairman of the Costume Designer Award Rules Committee at the academy, said the concept of reintroducing a second award has not yet been formally raised.

“But it’s an interesting point,” he said. When two awards were previously given, he points out, contemporary and period costumes were almost always recognized de facto. “The black-and-white films ended up being modern, and the color films ended up being costume epics or musicals. It was almost automatic.”

Critics of this practice say that the Academy Awards show is too long already, but more to the point, that it would be impossible to distinguish a cutoff between contemporary and period costumes.

Said designer Elois Jenssen (“I Love Lucy,” “Private Secretary”), vice chairwoman of the Costume Designer Award Rules Committee: “It doesn’t wash. I just don’t know where you draw the line. 1900? 1925? Really, it’s how important the costuming is to the film that counts.”

For his part, Wolsky remains undecided.

“I don’t know what the answer is,” he said. “The problem is, I’m the first American designer to win in 12 years, and I’m also the last one. What that says is that the major costume work is being done in Europe. Whether we need another Academy Award is not necessarily the issue. The issue is that modern design is not being recognized and people take it for granted. How do you educate and make people see it? I don’t know.”

The concept of movie costuming has changed from the days when clothing was a major attraction of a film and costume designers were household names.

“Movies were the visual image of the ‘30s and ‘40s,” said Edward Maeder, costume curator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. “Everybody knew who Adrian, Travis Banton, Walter Plunkett and Edith Head were. Even as late as the ‘60s, Edith Head was famous because she was a guest on Art Linkletter’s TV show all the time.”

Today when fashion is defined by many sources--in magazines, on MTV and on the streets--movies generally provide a mirror image.

As Los Angeles retailer Madeleine Gallay puts it: “There’s hardly any excitement in movie fashion, except for hair, makeup and bodies. After ‘Terminator 2,’ everybody realized they needed Linda Hamilton’s arms.”

Said Joan Kaner, senior vice president and fashion director of Neiman Marcus: “I don’t think since ‘Annie Hall’ have movies been a strong influence. Movies are no longer a consistent form of inspiration.”

But designers say their purpose is rarely to create “pretty clothes.” Among last year’s films, for example, few would argue that Los Angeles designer Elizabeth McBride’s down-and-dirty costumes for “Thelma & Louise” were any match in the ooh-and-aah department for the fastidious mid-19th-Century silks of “Madame Bovary,” designed by Corinne Jorry in Paris. McBride was not nominated; Jorry was.

Yet, as designer Wayne Finkelman (“For the Boys,” “The Two Jakes”) suggests, McBride created a definitive image for protagonists Thelma and Louise. “If ‘Saturday Night Live’ would do a comedy spot on ‘Thelma & Louise,’ they’d paint the scenery like the Grand Canyon and put two women with sloppy clothes in a car. The movie had a look, and that doesn’t happen overnight,” Finkelman said.

Furthermore, many designers contend that costuming a contemporary picture is far more complicated than costuming a period one.

“I have now done a huge period movie, ‘Charlie,’ ” said Mirojnick of the yet-to-be-released film biography of Charlie Chaplin, “and I can tell you contemporary films are much harder. There is no research you can do in the library. For ‘Charlie,’ which ran from the mid-teens to the ‘70s, there were blocks of research to see what clothing people wore. In contemporary films, you are basically creating a character who lives in a time and place, so you are creating history. In 20 years, people will look back on these films and say, ‘That was how it was then.’ It’s a very big responsibility you have in creating a particular truth.”

San Francisco’s Aggie Guerard Rodgers (“Grand Canyon,” “Beetlejuice,” “The Witches of Eastwick”), who received an Academy Award nomination for her period costumes in “The Color Purple,” said that although she is “very, very proud of that movie,” she would have loved to have been nominated for “Beetlejuice.”

“I always felt it was overlooked,” she said. “The clothes were far-out and progressive. But it’s not the kind of movie that the older members of the academy might nominate.”

Academy members also didn’t take notice of the men’s power look that Mirojnick created for Oliver Stone’s “Wall Street.”

“I remember the year I did (the film) and wasn’t nominated, Oliver Stone said, ‘You got robbed,’ ” Mirojnick said. “The clothes embodied a time and a climate, but ‘The Untouchables’--basically a movie with all male characters as well--was nominated. It just happened to take place in a different period in time.”

And the Winners Are Traditionally, the costume design Oscar goes to a period film designed and shot overseas. The exception: Albert Wolsky, who won a costume design Oscar for “Bugsy” this year and for “All That Jazz,” a 1979 contemporary American film.

FILM DESIGNER(S) YEAR Bugsy Albert Wolsky 1991 Cyrano de Bergerac Franca Squarciapino 1990 Henry V Phyllis Dalton 1989 Dangerous Liaisons James Acheson 1988 The Last Emperor James Acheson 1987 A Room With a View Jenny Beavan and 1986 John Bright Ran Emi Wada 1985 Amadeus Theodor Pistek 1984 FannyandAlexander Marik Voss 1983 Gandhi John Mullo and 1982 Bhanu Athaiya Chariots of Fire Milena Canonero 1981 Tess Anthony Powell 1980 All That Jazz Albert Wolsky 1979

Source: Motion Picture Almanac

DAVID KISHIYAMA / Los Angeles Times