The many colours of Academy

Saibal Chatterjee

Roma, with a grand total of 10 Oscar nominations, will be the talking point at the 91st Academy Awards ceremony, but the show might not be only about the black-and-white Mexican film produced, written, shot, edited and directed by Alfonso Cuaron. For one, Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos’ layered costume drama The Favourite, featuring Olivia Colman, Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone (all three nominated), will have as many shots at the statuettes as Roma.

The nominations this year reflect diversity of colour and language and an unusually strong ‘foreign’ accent, nowhere more than in the directing and cinematography categories, where three of the five contenders represent non-English language films or regions. In the best foreign-language film category, one strong challenger — Lebanon’s Capernaum — is by an Arab woman director (Nadine Labaki), another significant Oscar first. She is competing against Japan’s Shoplifters, Germany’s Never Look Away, Poland’s Cold War and Mexico’s Roma.

That apart, Spike Lee has been nominated for the first time for directing —  BlacKkKlansman is the film that has facilitated the breakthrough. This is also the year of Black Panther, the first comic-book movie to earn a best picture nomination, along with nods in six other categories. Black Panther may not win anything, but its inclusion among the eight best picture nominees could serve the purpose of putting at rest the Academy’s plan to introduce a separate Oscar category for the best popular film.

Cuaron, winner of two Oscars in 2014 for Gravity (directing and film editing), is personally nominated in five categories (including directing, original screenplay and cinematography) and his marvelously crafted personal essay about his growing up years in an upper middle class neighborhood of Mexico City is in with chance to win both best picture and best foreign-language film. 

However, the acting nominations for Roma — for Yalitza Aparicio (the first indigenous woman ever in the race for the best actress oscar) and Marina de Tavira (supporting actress) — are unlikely to yield any statuette. In the best actress race, the woman to beat will be the seasoned Glenn Close, nominated for her measured performance in The Wife. 

If the 71-year-old nominated on six occasions fails yet again, it would make her the most nominated actress without a win. However, this year, the only nominee who can run her close is Olivia Colman, chosen for the role of the eccentric Queen Anne in The Favourite. The others in the running are Lady Gaga (A Star is Born), beaten to the Golden Globe by Close, and Melissa McCarthy (Can You Ever Forgive Me?)

While Golden Globe-winner Regina King will have her nose ahead in the best supporting actress contest for If Beale Street Could Talk, the chances of Weisz and Stone (both nominated for The Favourite) and Amy Adams (for the role of Mrs Cheney in best picture contender Vice) cannot be dismissed. Like Glenn Close, Amy Adams (sixth nomination) has never won an Oscar, but there are few actresses in the business today more deserving of an Academy award than her.

Of the 10 actors vying for the Oscars, four (Rami Malek, Adam Driver, Sam Elliott and Richard E. Grant) have never been nominated before. And of the six who have been here in the past, three have gone unrewarded. The ones that have never won a statuette despite multiple nominations — Viggo Mortensen, Willem Dafoe and Bradley Cooper — are in the Best Actor in a leading role category. Mortensen has been nominated for Green Book, Dafoe for At Eternity’s Gate and Cooper for A Star is Born, which is his first film as director. The last-named has, however, been snubbed in the directing category.

Christian Bale, who is in the mix for playing Dick Cheney in Vice, is the only contender among the best actor nominees who has an Oscar behind him — as best supporting actor in 2011 for The Fighter. Interestingly, three of the screen performers among this year’s acting nominees (Bale, Adams and Cooper) were nominated for the same film — American Hustle — in 2014. None managed a win that year. Will they go empty-handed yet again?   

The frontrunner for the best actor Oscar is Rami Malik, born in Los Angeles to Egyptian immigrant parents. He is in the race for playing Queen frontman Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody. He already has the Golden Globe under his belt. As does Mahershala Ali, who won an Oscar in 2016 for Moonlight, becoming the first Muslim actor ever to do so.

Nominated in the best supporting actor category for Green Book, Ali competes against another previous winner — Sam Rockwell, who has earned a nod for his performance as George W. Bush (arguably the most powerful vice-president that the US has ever had) in Vice.

Among the best director contenders are one each from Poland (Pawel Pawlikowski, Cold War), Greece (Yorgos Lanthimos, The Favourite) and Mexico (Cuaron, Roma), besides Spike Lee and Adam McKay (Vice). Similarly, three cinematographers have been nominated for films made in German (Caleb Deschanel for Never Look Away), Polish (Lukasz Zal for Cold War) and Mexican (Cuaron himself). The other two — Irishman Robbie Ryan (The Favourite) and Filipino-American director of photography Matthew Libatique (A Star is Born) complete a strikingly diverse picture.