The dust has settled on this year's Oscars for a while, but some of the aftermath is still stirring in Hollywood today. One of them is the Best Makeup and Hairstyling Award won by the controversial work "The Substance".
Originally, it was a happy event for everyone in the crew to win the award. However, Frédérique Arguello, a Frenchwoman who participated in the production of the film, could not be happy at all. She insisted that she was the head of the hair department of the film and should have won the Oscar. However, her hair assistant Marilyne Scarselli, who was also from France, snatched away the fruits of victory.
In fact, as early as a week before the Oscar awards were announced, Aguello had publicly exposed the matter, claiming that she was forced to leave the crew due to health and family reasons after working on the film for five months. However, the film was nearing completion at the time, with only the last three weeks of work left, and the rest were some less important scenes, so her assistant Marilyn Scaselli was responsible for the hairstyle.
Scaselli disagrees with this statement. She claimed that as early as the beginning of the filming, the heroine Demi Moore was unwilling to work with Aguero because of a problem with a wig; after that, it was her nominal assistant who was responsible for Moore's hair design, including her exaggerated special hairstyle in the finale, which was the fundamental reason for her nomination. She also said in an interview with the media that Aguero's recent harassment of her has seriously threatened her career. "The situation is very, very bad. She is trying to destroy my career in Paris. All the hairstylists in Paris have killed me on Facebook and various social media platforms. This is really a bad situation for me and my career." Scaselli also revealed that Frederick Aguero also commissioned a lawyer to call her and bring her a letter. As for the content of the letter, it is actually a combination of soft and hard tactics, threats and inducements, to persuade her to give up her eligibility to compete for the Oscar.
Starring Demi Moore
According to her resume, Frederique Aguelo has been in the industry for more than 30 years. She has worked as a hairstylist in French blockbusters such as "Unemployed", "Kiss of the Dragon", "The Departed", "The Gentlemen Thieves", "District 2", "Taxi 4" and "See You in Heaven". In addition, she has also participated in the filming of Hollywood movies such as "Marie Antoinette" and "One Day". She has profound experience and extensive connections. She is by no means comparable to her compatriot Marilyn Scarselli, who has been in the industry for more than ten years but has been more involved in French TV series and independent films in the past.
However, Marilyn Scaselli has received support from the film's creators. Just last week, Nicolas Royer, the producer of "Something Substantial," wrote a letter to the Association of Production Managers to recognize Marilyn Scaselli's award. In this open letter to the 110 members of the association, the producer clarified: "Both Frederick Aguello and Marilyn Scaselli served as chief hairstylists in this film. Frederick was more involved in the styling preparation and part of the filming, while Marilyn worked more with the special effects makeup team and was responsible for the hairstyles of the two heroines." In addition, he also emphasized that it was the Oscars who made the decision on the nominees, not Scaselli himself, so no one should attack Marilyn Scaselli anyway, "this approach now is like lynching her."
In fact, like many Oscar-like awards, the nomination scope for the Best Makeup and Hairstyling Award is limited to three people, generally three supervisors in the crew who are responsible for special effects makeup, traditional makeup, and hairstyling. However, nowadays, the production of a movie involves a myriad of processes and a large number of professional teams. Even the person in charge sometimes exceeds the number of nominations given by the Oscars. Internal conflicts like "Something Substantial" have occasionally occurred in the past, but in most cases they were resolved internally, and few people would make the conflicts public and completely tear each other apart.
Behind the scenes makeup photos of "Something Substantial"
In addition, as the producer said, who gets nominated and who is excluded is decided by the executive committee of the makeup and hairstyling section of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the organizer of the Oscars. Every year, they will decide which three people can represent the film to receive the nomination based on the award materials submitted by each film and the various media interviews that are made public. The specific process of this procedure is not open to the public. Only when the nomination list is announced, the specific people involved will know whether they have won or not.
This year, the nominees for "Something Substantial" were Pierre-Olivier Persin, the special makeup effects designer, Stéphanie Guillon, the main makeup artist, and Marilyn Scaselli, the main hairstylist. Earlier, there were media reports that the film's distributor, Mubi Films, tried every means to include Frederique Aguero, but rules are rules, and the Oscars did not make an exception for the film.
The official Oscars social media account posted the three winners of the Best Makeup and Hair Design award: Stephanie Guillon, Marilyn Scaselli and Pierre-Olivier Persin (from left to right).
However, the problem is that Frederick Aguello is indeed the head of the hair department of the crew of "Something Substance", and in terms of position, Scaselli is just her assistant. At the previous British Academy Film Awards, "Something Substance" also won the Best Makeup and Hairstyling Award. Because there is no limit on the number of nominees for this award, four people including Aguello were nominated and all went on stage to receive the trophy. Therefore, regarding this matter, most of the Hollywood media that have paid a lot of attention believe that this fact is unfortunate, and the "culprit" is the Oscars that set the harsh rules of the game.
Four people, including Frederick Aguero (second from left), received their trophies at the British Academy of Film Awards.
As film critic Sarah Shachat said, special effects makeup and hairstyles are one of the key factors in "Something Substantial", and it can even be said that they are the most important factors in the success of the film. If the two hairstylists involved were responsible for the early and later hairstyles of the two protagonists, then they should be a whole and cannot be separated, nor should they be separated.
It is worth mentioning that at the Oscars ceremony, when it was announced that "Something Substantial" had won the award, the above three people went on stage together and each received a little golden man. Then special makeup effects designer Pierre-Olivier Persin delivered an acceptance speech on behalf of the three people. He thanked director Coralie Farria, starring actors Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley, distributor Mubi and the entire crew, but did not specifically mention Frederique Aguelho.
Margaret Qualley
