Why did this happen? For Martin Scorsese, it is certainly not the first time, and neither for Bradley Cooper.
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| Oscars 2024: Killers of the Flower Moon, Maestro, and Past Lives didn't even win an Oscar |
In the aftermath of the 2024 Oscar ceremony there is a big celebration for Oppenheimer, whose 7 golden statuettes did not come unexpectedly but still cheered up the shy Christopher Nolan and the fabulous Cillian Murphy and Robert Downey Jr. Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone were also happy with the four awards to Poor Things!, as well as the other winners, from Hayao Miyazaki for The Boy and the Heron to the screenwriter of American Fiction Cord Jefferson, from the director of The Zone of Interest Jonathan Glazer to Justine Triet for Anatomy of a Fall.
Amid this jubilation, there are some who, however, did not toast and, perhaps without being seen, did not go to sleep happy, because agreed, the debate is not about tastes and the important thing is to participate, but, considering especially in the case of Killers of the Flower Moon, which aspired to the beauty of 10 Oscars, a question will have arisen to Martin Scorsese: is it worse to have many nominations and not even win an Academy Award or not to have any and avoid a more or less bitter disappointment?
And Bradley Cooper, who invested so much in his biopic on Leonard Bernstein, what did he think when he saw Cillian Murphy in seventh heaven? We cannot answer these questions, nor are we allowed to know the voters' opinion regarding Past Lives, which made us shed warm tears with his impossible love for him.
Killers of the Flower Moon: 10 Nominations
Like The Zone of Interest and Anatomy of a Fall, Killers of the Flower Moon premiered at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, only it wasn't in competition, so we can't make comparisons. Scorsese's blockbuster, however, had already achieved two victories in the 2024 awards season. The excellent Lily Gladstone, a native American, had in fact won both the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Drama and the Screen Actors' Guild Award for Best Leading Actress. Instead, even though the film is about an ethnic minority decimated by a white man, the Oscar is on the shelf above Emma Stone's fireplace, who already has one (for La La Land).
And if anyone is still surprised by the lack of nomination for Leonardo DiCaprio, the conspiracy theorists have promptly brought up the so-called "Scorsese curse". In fact, two other films by the director obtained 10 nominations and remained empty-handed: The Irishman and Gangs of New York. For The Aviator and Hugo Cabret, the number of nominations rose to 11, but the Oscars won five in both the first case and the second. Now, even if Killers of the Flower Moon is not a perfect film, it is certainly much superior to Hugo Cabret, which many consider Martin's least successful work. Martin only triumphed once as best director: the year was 2005 and the film The Departed, was also the winner of the Oscar for Best Film.
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| Image Credit: Apple TV+ |
Maestro: 7 Nominations
The second "loser" of the titles nominated for the 2024 Oscar for Best Film was Maestro by Bradley Cooper, the actor's second directorial. Cooper was nominated several times for his acting, and the nomination was always well deserved: for example, how can we deny his great skill in Clint Eastwood's American Sniper? For A Star is Born, Bradley competed in both Best Director and Best Actor in a Leading Role. Unlike Martin Scorsese, he hasn't had a single victory, and maybe he's feeling a little frustrated right now. Maestro could have won 7 awards from the gentlemen of the Academy.
In our opinion, the most deserved was the Oscar for Best Leading Actress for Carey Mulligan, who never misses a beat, but the competition this year was fierce. The film, better in the first part in black and white than in the second in color, is a project that BC cared about very much. The problem perhaps, fake nose aside, is that a celluloid homage to a national monument like Bernstein's required greater artistic maturity. Not that Bradley Cooper's territory necessarily has to remain the dramatic love story peppered with duets with Lady Gaga, but this time our guy bit off more than he can chew. Obviously, this is our thinking and not a revealed truth.
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| Image Credit: Netflix |
Past Lives: 2 Nominations
Past Lives is a great film, and in fact, the US review site Rottentomatoes gives it a 95% fresh (good) rating. Its value appears even more commendable if you consider that it is a first work, directed by the Korean-Canadian playwright Celine Song. Past Lives also caused a sensation at Sundance and the last Berlin Film Festival, also due to a certain grace and delicacy that is typical of oriental cinema. The yearning is not that of In The Mood for Love, from which the film stands out above all for its female protagonist. The theme of nostalgia remains and we talk about being divided between one's origins and a country of choice like the United States.
Furthermore, there is the famous choice that determines everything, just like in Sliding Doors, except that we only see one life, but this does not take away the question "What would it have been like if instead?" continues to resonate. There is probably a very specific reasoning behind the lack of Oscars for Past Lives, or rather the Academy's desire to say to Celine Song: "Hey, you were good, keep going and we'll see you again in the next few years". Past Lives, in our opinion, could have triumphed in the Best Original Screenplay category if it had not had the fearsome, terrible, and magnificent The Zone of Interest as a competitor.
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| Image Credit: A24 |
