I had planned to write a full-blown rant about the numerous blind spots and errors of judgment in this morning’s Academy Award nominations, but at this point I’m too tired and resigned to summon up the necessary fire.
It also occurred to me that I should take some inspiration from the character at the heart of the snub that personally pained me the most: Poppy, the eternal optimist embodied by the luminescent Sally Hawkins in arguably the year’s finest performance. When she loses her bicycle at the start of “Happy-Go-Lucky,” she laughs it off and moves onward. I suspect her reaction to this morning’s disappointing news would be much the same — as ours should be as well. It’s not life or death. It’s the Oscars.
Nonetheless, given that I’m nowhere near as well-adjusted as Poppy is, I can’t quite let this morning’s proceedings go by without commenting on the major opportunity that the Academy sadly and short-sightedly let slip through its fingers. And yes, I am talking about “The Dark Knight.”
As I have stated before on these pages, I’m not one of the “Dark Knight” die-hards. While a stunning feat in many areas, I thought it had some critical flaws in its narrative construction and (occasionally) its technical execution that kept it at a comfortable distance from my own list of the year’s ten best. In short, I’m not a fanboy.
And yet, I’m dismayed that “The Dark Knight” has been denied a berth in the races for Best Picture and, even more surprisingly, Best Director.
Why? Because I recognise that Christopher Nolan’s film represents a rare confluence — alchemy, even — of achievements that only comes along once in the bluest of moons. Here we had a populist-leaning entertainment that was formally and thematically ambitious, grandly entertaining and strikingly beautiful, a showcase for both inspired performing and the finest craftsmanship the industry had to offer.
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