“The
Dark Knight Rises” probably has the best chance ever for a superhero
film to rise into the best-picture mix a tFebruary’s Oscars. The film is
the last in a celebrated trilogy that elevated comic-book movies to
operatic proportion, and Hollywood likes sending finales out with a
lovely door-prize (Peter Jackson’s first two “Lord of the Rings” films
were Oscar also-rans before the trilogy’s conclusion won best picture).
It
has the weight and scope — and then some — of 2008’s “The Dark Knight,”
the “Batman Begins” sequel whose snub in the best-picture field helped
prod the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to expand the
category to more than five nominees.
And
in the snub department, academy voters are not likely to forget that
Batman boss Christopher Nolan, one of modern Hollywood’s true
innovators, has yet to be nominated for best director. So there could be
an “oops, sorry about that” sheepishness among Oscar types working in
both Nolan’s and the film’s favor.
Nolan
doesn’t feel snubbed that “The Dark Knight” was overlooked for best
picture or that he missed out on a directing nomination for that one and
his 2010 thriller “Inception,” a best-picture nominee. He actually sees
a one-of-a-kind honor in the way his films have played out over Oscar
season.
“Look, the idea, the fact
that people have talked about ‘The Dark Knight’ as being a key reason
why the academy changed their rules and expanded the field is just a
huge honor for the film, in a weird way,” Nolan said.
The
rules now allow for as many as 10 best-picture contenders. Opening next
week, “The Dark Knight Rises” may just speak for itself as a work of
high costume drama — albeit superhero costumes — that’s worthy of show
business’ highest honors, no matter how many nominees there are.
The
film is gorgeous, sharply written, briskly paced despite an epic
running time approaching three hours. The characters have depth and
pathos, and the drama feels far richer than the usual
hero-saving-the-world saga. The action reflects our own hard times as a
masked terrorist lays siege to the masses in a sort of perverse Occupy
Gotham City movement that pits the comic-book world’s 99 percenters
against the rich and rapacious.
“I’m
not saying this as a cast member. I’m saying this as a member of the
academy. So far, it’s the best film I’ve seen all year,” said Anne
Hathaway, who plays master thief Catwoman in “The Dark Knight Rises.”
'‘He’s transcended the genre now. I think he’s shown that a comic-book
movie can actually be epic, extraordinary cinema.”
So
that’s one Oscar vote already from past best-actress nominee Hathaway.
Round up the rest of Nolan’s key cast and the film’s got even more
academy backers: four Oscar winners — Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman,
Marion Cotillard and Batman himself, Christian Bale — and another
longtime awards season oversight, Gary Oldman, who finally got his first
nomination last season.
That’s
half a dozen big names pulling for “The Dark Knight Rises.” Sure, it’s a
tiny fraction of the academy’s nearly 6,000 members. Yet when that many
great actors sign up for a superhero flick, it must be something
special.
They and co-stars Tom
Hardy and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, two of Nolan’s “Inception” colleagues,
deliver superb performances in a genre whose characters often act more
than a little campy.
That has been
the difference in Nolan’s Batman films. Characters wear silly
disguises, but it all feels real — so real that Heath Ledger
posthumously won the supporting-actor Oscar as the Joker in “The Dark
Knight,” playing a madman hidden behind makeup that looked like a melted
ice cream cake.
Nolan “takes it
seriously and he treats the characters like human beings, not as
caricatures, and he treats the world as a real place,” Gordon-Levitt
said. “He walks that line of delivering you a spectacle but not talking
down to you.”
It’s not as if the
academy has disrespectedNolan’s films. He’s been nominated himself three
times, for the screenplays of “Inception” and his 2001 breakout hit
“Memento,” as well as best-picture as a producer on “Inception.”
Nolan’s films have received 21 nominations — including eight each for “Inception” and “The Dark Knight” — and won six Oscars.
“Regardless
of whether ‘The Dark Knight’ was nominated or not, we had nothing to
complain about,” Bale said. “I don’t think Chris would be complaining
whatsoever. I think he’s doing very well.”
The
Directors Guild of America, whose awards contenders usually are a close
match for the Oscar directing field, has nominated Nolan three times,
for “Memento,” '‘The Dark Knight” and “Inception.”
Hathaway
thinks it’s a huge oversight that Oscar voters have yet to follow suit
but that “it’s probably just a matter of time” before Nolan wins his
Oscar. “I hope it happens with this one,” she said.
Nolan’s
not fretting over his Oscar prospects, though. He knows it’s a
different kind of film — smaller, more intimate drama — that usually
dominates at the awards. He’s actually quite pleased at how his movies
have fared during Oscar season.
“The
academy’s been incredibly good to me and my films, and it would be
churlish of me to complain,” Nolan said. “Really, we’ve been honored by
the academy in more kinds of different ways, and very importantly to me,
Heath Ledger winning the best supporting-actor Oscar. These are things
that mean a lot to me.”
Still, wouldn’t it mean more to win that directing Oscar himself?
“That
would be terrific, but at the end of the day, they owe Stanley Kubrick
and Alfred Hitchcock a lot more than me, you know what I mean?” Nolan
said, citing two Hollywood greats who never won the directing prize.
“It’s kind of like, get in line.”
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