So today, the Oscar nominations were announced and one name I was sure would make the list would be Christopher Nolan for Best Director. Oscar doesn’t give nominations to newcomers but after Dark Knight and Memento, I thought he’d finally get a nomination. Instead here are the directors that are up for the running:
Darren Aronofsky for Black Swan (2010)
Ethan Coen, Joel Coen for True Grit (2010)
David Fincher for The Social Network (2010)
Tom Hooper for The King’s Speech (2010)
David O. Russell for The Fighter (2010)
Out of the 5 directors, I’d have taken out Russell. The Fighter was cliche’d and carried by the casts’ performance while Inception had a gripping story that was well executed.
Nolan on the shoot of Dark Knight
Here are the 3 reasons why Christopher Nolan was nominated for best director for Inception:
1) Story – In the first ten minutes of the film, the audience already accepts the idea of the dream world. The rules of the dream is explained later on but viewers don’t question the concept behind it. Which leads me to the different stages of dream. We could’ve easily been confused which dream we were in but Nolan made sure that we understood what was going on. Let’s not forget the open-ending that so many people talk about. Some say it could be a gimmick but Nolan gives you enough clues what the ending should be. For a movie that’s suppose to be really confusing, Nolan made the audience care enough about Leo’s character that it became Twitter’s third most talked topic in 2010.
2) Special Effects – Majority of Inception’s budget of $160 million could’ve been used for special effects but Nolan instead used the budget on actors and shooting on real set locations. When a filmmaker is given an unlimited budget, it can go to hell. Look at Transformers 2 or Matrix 2 and 3. Filmmakers forget about the story and started focusing on the wow factor. Then you’re end up with an emotionless movie. With Inception, Nolan only used CG whenever he had to (city rotating, decayed building). With the lack of CG in the movie, we instead focused on the story and characters.
3) Editing – Inception wasn’t nominated for editing either and this might be the reason why Nolan wasn’t nominated for director. Editing and direction goes hand in hand and the Oscar probably didn’t appreciate the former. I’ve always loved Nolan’s editing and Inception was no exception. He has these sequences where the music plays while a person narrates and you’re just bombarded with cool scenes. In Inception, he did it when the dream world was explained but then he tried something new, just music along with scenes. These can be seen in the climax as the characters get out of the dream and also in the end. Nolan had to have these scenes planned before the shoot so it can be edited easier. Which means, Nolan already knew the vision of Inception on his mind before making the movie.
While Dark Knight had some inconsistencies to be nominated for best direct, Christopher Nolan should’ve gotten it for Inception. He created a movie that was well thought out. Nolan could’ve been tempted to use much more special effects but he restrained himself and focused on classic filmmaking. I’m sure Nolan won’t be nominated for Dark Knight Rises because of the comic book genre but let’s hope it’ll be as good as Inception.
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richie
Jan 26, 2011 -
the movie is cool indeed.
it is reasonable for him.. 😉
Lili
Feb 28, 2011 -
100% agree Nolan should have won either for best director or best picture. I could not believe King’s Speech won anything more than best actor. Nolan was robbed !!
Bassbait
Sep 10, 2011 -
The three rebuttals to your arguments
1 – story sucked. Sorry to say, but the characters weren’t standing out in any way. The dream world is explained really easily, as if the story’s dialogue was just made to explain the story. Literally NOTHING was left to the imagination. It was ALL covered. Even the ending? There’s a simple logical point why the ending is a cop out – if he WAS in a dream, his wife would have WOKEN HIM UP FROM IT. His wife is dead, there’s no debate because it makes absolutely no sense why he would still be in a dream if his wife could have waken him up. And for a film that’s supposed to be confusing, it was really easy to follow, but I didn’t want to because it made everything boring.
2.Special effects doesn’t get you a director’s oscar. 2001 is an example of that. Sorry to say but the Oscars simply don’t give a crap how cool your film looks when they nominate you for oscars, otherwise they would have awarded 2001 the best director over freaking Oliver Twist. Maybe I’m just hung up about that injustice…
3.The editing sucked and highlighted why the story was so terrible – the ending multiplication effect. Each scene towards the end left you on the edge of your seat OVER AND OVER, so by the end, you’re exhausted, your suspension of belief is shattered, and your care for the movie is dissolved. There’s no fun in 4 separate climaxes that all conclude with people just standing around. The climaxes are all basic crappy action movie climaxes, but the fact that they keep swapping emotions and set pieces so fast ruins everything. It really highlights how boring the concept of “dreams within dreams” is, ESPECIALLY because the dreams are basic bad-guy dumb action movie places without any real surrealism to it.
I mean, I didn’t hate Star Wars Episode 1, but do I think George should have won best director? NO! Because that movie was terrible and terribly directed. It had good special effects, but that means NOTHING.
Here’s how he should have properly edited the film to work – Set up each layer of the dream to be it’s own segment of the film. In other words, you start with us on the first layer, and STAY THERE until the ending of that scene – as in once the van falls off the bridge, you move to the next layer in the dream. In the second dream, tension has cooled off and we see them exacting that layer of the plan up until the point where the charges near the elevator are about to go off, and THEN you move on to the snowy area. At that point you swap between TWO climaxes – that is to say, you switch between Limbo and the 3rd layer, NOT ALL FOUR LAYERS. It’s boring if we get 4 different climaxes at once. So instead you build up to a logical SINGLE climax…
AND THEN, after all of that, you have them falling out of the building in limbo, blowing up at the snowy area, flying through the elevator, and then the van landing in the water. All of that at once, instead of spread out over a super long period of time.
Finally, the climax doesn’t even make logical sense – in each layer, the layer before’s physical dimensions are affected by the previous one.
So, because the van is tumbling, the 2nd layer is ALSO tumbling.
So, because the 2nd layer is tumbling, the THIRD LAYER HAS TO TUMBLE TOO. Because the 2nd layer tumbling should be affecting the physical dimensions of the 3rd layer. So essentially, the tumbling van would affect the hotel which would then affect the snowy area. It makes logical sense but you have to think about it for it to make sense.
Art by bruc – Pearltrees
Dec 14, 2011 -
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