Holy Snub, Batman!

Every year, it seems, the big news resulting from the revelation of the Oscar nominations is who didn’t get nominated, not who did. This year the lack of a nomination for The Dark Knight in the Best Picture race has created a firestorm in the blogosphere, with fanboys beating their breasts and wringing their hands. That the movie that “replaced” the Dark Knight is deemed to be The Reader only adds fuel to the conflagration, as it’s yet another example of Holocaust-themed cinema being exalted beyond what it probably should. In Oscar prognostication, ignore the “final solution” at your peril.

After doubting it since the movie’s opening this summer, I finally came around to thinking The Dark Knight would get nominated, especially since it picked up nods from the Producer’s Guild, the Director’s Guild, and the Writer’s Guild (and let’s face it, the screenplay wasn’t its strongest suit). But I think finally the voters couldn’t see themselves casting a ballot for a movie about a man who dresses like a bat. Perhaps the camp stigma of the sixties’ TV show still lingers, or maybe it’s just history: in the 81 years of the Oscars, only four movies from the large genre known as “speculative fiction” have gotten nominations for the big prize: Star Wars and the three Lord of the Rings pictures. The latter three had the aura of literature, while Star Wars holds a singular place in movie history. Or maybe, just maybe, the voters didn’t think The Dark Knight was all that good.

The Dark Knight wasn’t totally snubbed: it received eight nominations, but the only one in a “major” category was for Heath Ledger, an absolute solid lock to win. In a morbid coincidence, his nomination came on the first anniversary of his untimely death, which surely must be bittersweet for his family.

The other interesting aspect of the nominations is the surprise that Kate Winslet, when the dust settled, had one nomination, and it was for The Reader, not Revolutionary Road. I think one or both of two things happened: she received votes for her role in The Reader in two different categories, lead and supporting, and since the rules prevent an acting nominee from being nominated for the same performance in two categories (which did happen with Barry Fitzgerald from Going My Way in 1944); and that her performance in Revolutionary Road did make the top five, but a performer can not be nominated twice in the same category, and since she obviously received more votes for The Reader, that’s the nomination she got (this may have paved the way for Melissa Leo, who may have actually finished sixth). Only PriceWaterhouseCoopers knows for sure.

A few other interesting tidbits: Werner Herzog received his first-ever nomination after a long peripatetic career. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button received 13 nominations, one off the all-time record. If it wins the top awards, it could garner quite a bushel full, since it’s technical proficiency bodes well for it winning some tech and design awards. Stephen Daldry, nominated for directing The Reader, has helmed three movies, and he has won a directing nomination for all three. Surely that is unprecedented. Not nominated: Bruce Springsteen, Woody Allen, or Clint Eastwood, who could have been nominated for all sorts of categories (including score and song). The Israeli film Waltz With Bashir was nominated in the Best Foreign Language category, which usually turns its nose at edgy films (Bashir is an animated documentary) but did not get nominated in Animated Feature, which is more likely to honor films of the type (Bolt was deemed better). Go figure.

I’ll have articles on my predictions in the coming weeks, but right now it’s a race between Benjamin Button, which is the conventional Oscar bait (mawkish, bland entertainment) and Slumdog Millionaire, a crowd-pleaser to be sure, but with a largely non-Caucasian cast (which would make it a first). The biggest clue will be the result of the Director’s Guild. The winner of the DGA almost always the winner of the Oscar, and the winner of the Director Oscar is almost always the director of the Best Picture winner (although in the past ten years or so that statistic is running at about fifty percent).