This season’s Oscar race for production design pits David Fincher’s mighty black-and-white “Mank” (the Adg period winner) against Florian Zeller’s mind-bending “The Father,” Christopher Nolan’s time-inverted “Tenet” (the Adg fantasy winner), Paul Greengrass’ first western, “News of the World,” and the sweltering Chicago period trappings of George C.
Wolfe’s “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.”“Mank” is the favorite for meticulously recreating the world of washed up, alcoholic screenwriter Herman J.
Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman), who struggles to churn out a first draft of “Citizen Kane.” Oscar-winning production designer Don Burt (“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”) had to think in terms of black-and-white design to authentically return to Hollywood’s Golden Age in the ’30s.
Fortunately, set decorator Jan Pascale used the monochromatic filter on her iPhone for shooting set dressing tests, and that helped shape the palette of warm earth tones.
Unable to shoot at the
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