14 DAY TRIAL // Officially, Chris Nolan is the biggest snub at this year’s Academy Awards, the nominations for which were announced earlier this week. The Hollywood Reporter has an explanation for why the Academy went – again – out of its way to ignore one of the most talented and original directors of our time.
With no less than 8 nominations for “Inception,” one of the best received films of 2010, director Chris Nolan did not receive a nod for his work in the Best Director category.
The film got nods for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay, but Nolan did not get the recognition he was due as a director.
What’s worse, as we also noted on a previous occasion, this is not the first time that the Academy turns its back on Nolan either – but this time, the fans are truly outraged by the omission.
THR says that one possible explanation for the snub could be that, because his work is also a huge hit with audiences, Nolan is more easily identified as a “commercial” director, in the sense that he makes movies devoid of soul.
Clearly, this is far from the case, but it’s what the Academy seems bent to believe. This happened with “Inception,” “The Dark Knight” and “Memento,” so it’s not like there isn’t a history there.
“The Academy has a mysterious aversion to Nolan. The Dark Knight’s 2008 snub for best picture was a main cause for the switch from five to ten noms,” THR writes.
“The Directors Guild nominated him for Memento, Dark Knight, and Inception, but the more elitist Academy directors branch, about 1/38th as big as DGA, has what one Academy member terms “a [grudge] against him,” the report further says.
In fact, it’s critically acclaimed composer Hans Zimmer, who did the score for “Inception,” that points to an obvious connection between Nolan’s commercial success and how he’s being treated by the Academy.
Because a film like “Inception” broke records at the box office, the Academy instantly declared that it was less art, had less soul, therefore it was less worthy to be considered among small-budget releases like “The Kids Are All Right,” “Winter’s Bone” and “The Fighter,” Zimmer believes.
“Inception is a mind-bending, Borges-like art film, but it’s perceived as a summer blockbuster. ‘It wasn’t the year for rollercoaster blockbusters,’ says an Academy member,” THR writes, confirming Zimmer’s words.
“Inception has soul, but even Marion Cottilard’s haunting performance as Leonardo DiCaprio’s lost love got overlooked. The film was seen as a tech exercise, a heartless head trip during a year when top contenders fight tooth and nail to be seen as having ‘heart’,” THR goes on to argue.
“‘People’s empathy buttons were pushed,’ says Granik of her film [Winter’s Bone]. It would appear that Academy people unfairly thought Nolan was just punching buttons on a machine,” the e-zine further notes.
In doing so, it wronged one of the most talented people in the industry.