Last week, Entertainment Weekly confirmed with Warner Bros. that the studio would be campaigning for a nomination for Heath Ledger specifically in the supporting actor category, putting to rest all the speculation and suggestions that he could contend for the Best Actor Oscar. Now all the awards pundits seem to agree that Ledger is a definite lock for a posthumous nomination. As for The Dark Knight’s hopes for other categories, though, it’s still up in the air as to how many nominations the comic book movie might garner.
While its predecessor, Batman Begins, only received one Oscar nomination, for Wally Pfister’s cinematography, there’s at least some likelihood that The Dark Knight could be recognized in as many as a dozen categories. That’s about as many as it’s legitimately eligible for, anyway, and in a year that keeps looking slimmer and slimmer in terms of Oscar-worthy pictures, there’s no reason to completely deny The Dark Knight’s full capability. Unfortunately, it’s a popular genre picture, so regardless of how critically acclaimed it is, and regardless of how the Academy has historically lauded similar titles, there will be a lot of doubt and debate concerning this movie’s prospects all the way up until January 22, when the nominations are announced.
Yesterday, John Foote of In Contention, commented on the increasing chances of The Dark Knight in such a lackluster Oscar season. In some ways, though, it’s not just about onetime Oscar hopefuls turning out to be hopeless; it’s also the constant problem of so much Oscar bait being held away from viewers and voters until the last possible second. Even those films that end up being fairly good can be disappointments after so much premature awards season hype. Sure, audiences have short attention spans and typically a film released midyear is easily forgotten by voting time, but a movie as memorable, as successful and as well-made as The Dark Knight can come out in the summer and easily be in the forefront of voters’ minds as an easy and deserving fallback. Therefore so many Oscar bloggers shouldn’t suddenly be surprised to see that The Dark Knight’s hopes for multiple Oscar nominations is “brightening” or “shaping up.” It’s always been a contender. Let’s break down its chances, category by category, after the jump:
Best Picture
The greatest difference in opinion among the experts so far is with the movie’s chances in the Best Picture race. The majority consensus seems to be that The Dark Knight has little to no shot at the top award (apparently only The Hollywood Reporter’s T.L. Stanley and Rolling Stones‘ Peter Travers are seriously considering it), primarily because it’s a superhero movie. However, deserving or not, there’s really no viable argument against the plausibility of a Best Picture nom. Rather, the movie’s chances for inclusion in the category already outweigh its chances for exclusion. And as more Best Picture hopefuls are either released to underwhelming response or pushed back to 2009, the balance in The Dark Knight’s favor only increases.
So what if there’s never before been a superhero comic book movie up for Best Picture (despite Superman being far more deserving than An Unmarried Woman)? The Dark Knight still could fall in with that ever-increasing list of genre flicks, including Star Wars and the Lord of the Rings movies, which have shown us that quality fanboy fodder is also capable of appealing to the Academy. And while it’s true that box office success doesn’t necessarily translate to Oscar contention, The Dark Knight has the right combo of being the biggest moneymaker and one of the most critically acclaimed films of 2008, which was hardly the case with another high-grossing blockbuster Best Picture, Titanic.
It’s believed that if the Academy does nominate a box office winner with critical acclaim, they’ll go with Wall-E, because they’ve nominated an animated feature for Best Picture in the past. But that thinking goes against the whole present logic of the Oscars. There will never again be an animated feature up for the top award as long as the Best Animated Feature category exists. That award was pretty much conceived for the purpose of sidelining films like Wall-E in order to give them separate recognition. If the Academy isn’t going to nominate something as brilliant as Ratatouille for Best Picture, they’re not going to nominate Wall-E either.
On the other side of the argument, there’s just as much of a mistaken defense for why the movie will be nominated. Contrary to some early conjecture, though,The Dark Knight’s chances aren’t improved at all by the fact that the Oscar ceremony needs a ratings boost. Sure, a Best Picture nom for the film would be great for the Academy in terms of telecast viewership, but it’s probably not permitted or likely for the show’s producers to encourage Academy members to vote for more popular fare.
Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay:
If The Dark Knight does receive a Best Picture nomination, it will be one of those occasional cases where the director is not nominated. Due to a sometimes-problematic issue of having different people voting for different categories, The Dark Knight’s flaws will be clearer to the filmmakers who pick the nominees for Best Director, and so Christopher Nolan will be excluded there (although Awards Daily still has him as a front runner anyway). However, Nolan and his writing partners, Jonathan Nolan and David S. Goyer should have a decent shot at the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for their success at turning a superhero comic into a realistic film with a smart, topical, complex and fairly original story.
Acting Categories:
As for the acting awards, The Dark Knight can really only count on Ledger’s nomination. The film lacks any substantial female performances, and despite the fact that Christian Bale seriously deserves an Oscar nomination and despite the belief that he puts more into the Bruce Wayne/Batman character than is necessary, it’s simply not his time. If there is any other actor besides Ledger worthy and at all probable to receive a nomination, it’s Gary Oldman, for Best Supporting Actor, but there’s not much likelihood that Academy voters would water down Ledger’s lauds like that.
Technical and Craft Categories:
Finally, with the tech and craft categories, Pfister should very easily pick up another nomination for his cinematography work, while The Dark Knight is expected to better Batman Begins‘ Oscar glory by turning up in both the sound categories. Score and Editing are total longshots, despite their respective talent’s past Oscar success. And as much as makeup and costumes are significant to the film, The Dark Knight may only be a dark horse in those categories. Still, it’s probably about time the Academy ignored its period piece tradition with the latter category and took notice of Lindy Hemming’s accomplishment of making superhero movie costumes that are more realistic and believable than the typically flashy, costumey costumes of the genre. The film even reflexively addresses the issue of plausible and practical superhero wear in the real world.
Then, of course, there’s the other craft categories that could suffer from the film’s efforts to be more natural than most comic book adaptations. Best Art Direction? Not enough obvious design there. Best visual effects? The Dark Knight could be one of the rare genre movies nominated for Best Picture that doesn’t place in the effects category, due to its lack of showy CG work. Like In Contention’s Gerard Kennedy, I won’t be shocked if the film manages an effects nomination simply because it’s so respected, but the odds are mostly against its modestly functional effects spectacle.
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