Lincoln dominates Oscar list short on Brits

A day after the British Film Academy surprised the film world by putting Lincoln at the top of its list but snubbing the director Steven Spielberg himself, its American counterpart – the awards giving body that everyone is most eager to please – has included Spielberg on its shortlist for Best Director – an award he’s won twice before – leaving his eponymous presidential biopic clear at the top of the pile, with twelve nominations.

Ang Lee’s production of the supposedly unfilmable Booker-prize-winning novel Life of Pi is next with eleven nominations, followed by Les Miserables and Silver Linings Playbook with eight and Argo with seven.

In an unusually low profile year for British film-making talent, industry watchers in the UK will be pinning their hopes on Daniel Day-Lewis, for his lead role in Lincoln. He faces competition from Australia’s Hugh Jackman, for the British production of Les Miserables, Bradley Cooper for Silver Linings Playbook, Joaquin Phoenix for The Master and Denzel Washington for Flight.

With Les Miserables’ director Tom Hooper missing out on a nod, the only other British interest in the categories that people follow are Aardman’s animated Pirates! film and Adele’s title song from Skyfall, a film largely ignored, despite hopes that it might have been the first Bond film to feature on a Best Picture list. The franchise will, at least, be getting a mention on Oscar night, in the form of a tribute to celebrate its fiftieth birthday.

In the acting categories, it was Silver Linings Playbook that dominated, becoming the first film to secure a nomination for all four awards for three decades, with Jennifer Lawrence up for Best Actress and Robert De Niro and Jacki Weaver nominated in the supporting categories.

The supporting categories are particularly strong with all the men having won Oscars before; alongside De Niro is Argo’s Alan Arkin, Lincoln’s Tommy Lee Jones, Philip Seymour Hoffman in The Master and Django Unchained’s Christoph Waltz.

The 2013 shortlist will be seen as a year remembered as much for its omissions as for those included, with previous front-runner Ben Affleck – yesterday nominated by BAFTA for his directing and acting in Argo – being completely overlooked by the American Academy here in Los Angeles, while Kathryn Bigelow has also missed out for Zero Dark Thirty. The pair, who’ve been recognised by most other awarding bodies, see their places at the Oscars going to Michael Haneke, for his Palme d’Or winning Amour and Benh Zeitlin, whose low-key Sundance winner Beasts of the Southern Wild is the unforeseen success; it has four nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Actress for Quvenzhané Wallis, who was just six years old when she took the part. The youngest nominee will be up against the oldest, Emmanuelle Riva, the veteran French actress, for Amour, which took a total of five nominations; as well as Best Actress, it’s also up for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best Foreign Film – it was submitted as an Austrian film, so as not to find itself up against competition from this year’s other strong French contenders, Untouchable and Rust and Bone, both of which were nominated by BAFTA and the Golden Globes, but neither of which will feature at the Oscars.

More than in previous years, the Oscar shortlist strays from its rivals, with many awards season favourites – honoured elsewhere – failing to make the cut. Some commentators put this down to the earliest ever date for their release, to ensure that voters aren’t influenced by their rivals. But whether or not the Academy’s six thousand voters were thinking more independently this year than normal and whether their nominees are in-line with others or not, it will always be the Oscars that film-makers crave and the audiences and industry follow, so perhaps it will be other awards giving bodies that will have to modify their own choices in anticipation of the Academy’s shift towards art-house over box office, if they want to remain relevant to the Oscar debate.

THE FULL LIST OF 2013 OSCAR NOMINEES:

Best film

  • Amour
  • Argo
  • Beasts Of The Southern Wild
  • Django Unchained
  • Les Miserables
  • Lincoln
  • Life Of Pi
  • Silver Linings Playbook
  • Zero Dark Thirty

Best actress

  • Jessica Chastain – Zero Dark Thirty
  • Jennifer Lawrence – Silver Linings Playbook
  • Emmanuelle Riva – Amour
  • Quvenzhane Wallis – Beasts of the Southern Wild
  • Naomi Watts – The Impossible

Best actor

  • Daniel Day Lewis – Lincoln
  • Bradley Cooper – Silver Linings Playbook
  • Hugh Jackman – Les Miserables
  • Joaquin Phoenix – The Master
  • Denzel Washington – Flight

Best director

  • Michael Haneke – Amour
  • Ang Lee – Life of Pi
  • David O Russell – Silver Linings Playbook
  • Steven Spielberg – Lincoln
  • Benh Zeitlin – Beasts of the Southern Wild

Best supporting actor

  • Alan Arkin – Argo
  • Robert De Niro – Silver Linings Playbook
  • Tommy Lee Jones – Lincoln
  • Christoph Waltz – Django Unchained
  • Philip Seymour Hoffman – The Master

Best supporting actress

  • Amy Adams – The Master
  • Sally Field – Lincoln
  • Anne Hathaway – Les Miserables
  • Helen Hunt – The Sessions
  • Jacki Weaver – Silver Linings Playbook

Best foreign film

  • Amour
  • No
  • War witch
  • A Royal Affair
  • Kon-Tiki

Best animated film

  • Brave
  • Frankenweenie
  • Paranorman
  • Pirates! Band of Misfits (UK title: Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists)
  • Wreck-it Ralph

Best documentary film

  • 5 Broken Cameras
  • The Gatekeepers
  • How To Survive A Plague
  • The Invisible War
  • Searching For Sugarman

Music (original song)

  • Before My Time (Chasing Ice) – Music and Lyric by J. Ralph
  • Everybody Needs A Best Friend (Ted) – Music by Walter Murphy, Lyric by Seth MacFarlane
  • Pi’s lullaby (Life Of Pi) – Music by Mychael Danna, Lyric by Bombay Jayashri
  • Skyfall (Skyfall) – Music and Lyric by Adele Adkins and Paul Epworth
  • Suddenly (Les Miserables) – Music by Claude-Michel Schonberg, Lyric by Herbert Kretzmer and Alain Boublil

Music (original score)

  • Anna Karenina – Dario Marianelli
  • Argo – Alexandre Desplat
  • Life Of Pi – Mychael Danna
  • Lincoln – John Williams
  • Skyfall – Thomas Newman

Adapted screenplay

  • Argo – Chris Terrio
  • Beasts Of The Southern Wild – Lucy Alibar and Benh Zeitlin
  • Life Of Pi – David Magee
  • Lincoln – Tony Kushner
  • Silver Linings Playbook – David O Russell

Original screenplay

  • Amour – Michael Haneke
  • Django Unchained – Quentin Tarantino
  • Flight – John Gatins
  • Moonrise Kingdom – Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola
  • Zero Dark Thirty – Mark Boal

Cinematography

  • Anna Karenina – Seamus McGarvey
  • Django Unchained – Robert Richardson
  • Life of Pi – Claudio Miranda
  • Lincoln – Janusz Kaminski
  • Skyfall – Roger Deakins

Costume Design

  • Anna Karenina – Jacqueline Durran
  • Les Miserables – Paco Delgado
  • Lincoln – Joanna Johnston
  • Mirror Mirror – Eiko Ishioka
  • Snow White and the Huntsman – Colleen Atwood

Best documentary short subject

  • Inocente
  • Kings Point
  • Mondays at Racine
  • Open Heart
  • Redemption

Film editing

  • Argo – William Goldenberg
  • Life of Pi – Tim Squyres
  • Lincoln – Michael Kahn
  • Silver Linings Playbook – Jay Cassidy and Crispin Struthers
  • Zero Dark Thirty – Dylan Tichenor and William Goldenberg

Make-up and Hairstyling

  • Hitchcock – Howard Berger, Peter Montagna and Martin Samuel
  • The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey – Peter Swords King, Rick Findlater and Tami Lane
  • Les Miserables – Lisa Westcott and Julie Dartnell

Production Design

  • Anna Karenina – Sarah Greenwood and Katie Spencer
  • The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey – Dan Hennah, Ra Vincent and Simon Bright
  • Les Miserables – Eve Stewart and Anna Lynch-Robinson
  • Life Of Pi – David Gropman and Anna Pinnock
  • Lincoln – Rick Carter and Jim Erickson

Short film (animated)

  • Adam and the Dog
  • Fresh Guacamole
  • Head Over Heels
  • Maggie Simpson in The Longest Daycare
  • Paperman

Short film (live action)

  • Asad
  • Buzkashi Boys
  • Curfew
  • Death of a Shadow (Dood Van Een Schaduw)
  • Henry

Sound editing

  • Argo – Erik Aadahl and Ethan van der Ryn
  • Django Unchained – Wylie Stateman
  • Life Of Pi – Eugene Gearty and Philip Stockton
  • Skyfall – Per Hallberg and Karen Baker Landers
  • Zero Dark Thirty – Paul NJ Ottosson

Sound mixing

  • Argo – John Reitz, Gregg Rudloff and Jose Antonio Garcia
  • Les Miserables – Andy Nelson, Mark Paterson and Simon Hayes
  • Life Of Pi – Ron Bartlett, DM Hemphill and Drew Kunin
  • Lincoln – Andy Nelson, Gary Rydstrom and Ronald Judkins
  • Skyfall – Scott Millan, Greg P Russell and Stuart Wilson

Visual effects

  • The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey – Joe Letteri, Eric Saindon, David Clayton and R Christopher White
  • Life Of Pi – Bill Westenhofer, Guillaume Rocheron, Erik-Jan De Boer and Donald R Elliott
  • Marvel’s The Avengers (UK title: Marvel’s Avengers Assemble) – Janek Sirrs, Jeff White, Guy Williams and Dan Sudick
  • Prometheus – Richard Stammers, Trevor Wood, Charley Henley and Martin Hill
  • Snow White and the Huntsman – Cedric Nicolas-Troyan, Philip Brennan, Neil Corbould and Michael Dawson

 

Leave a Reply