For everyone who’s unhappy that Greta Gerwig didn’t get an Oscar nomination today, I have a good theory for what happened.
Gerwig also didn’t get a BAFTA nomination. But guess who did? Justine Triet, the French director of “Anatomy of a Fall,” who received a surprise Oscar nomination today. BAFTA — repping lots of non American voters — has quietly become a bellwether.
Triet’s BAFTA nom should have been a good predictor for the Oscars. There is now a huge foreign membership for the Academy Awards. And they are voting in foreign films for Best Picture and Director nominations.
How else to explain the big changes in the last few years? “Parasite” won, then “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” No one you know voted for the latter film. No one you know even liked it. But outside the US, I’ll bet those Academy members would have a different story. “EEAAO” was a ‘foreign film.’
This year, three of the nine Best Picture nominees are technically “foreign films” — “Past Lives,” “Anatomy,” and “Zone of Interest.” They are somewhat in English, but about Americans. This is extremely unusual, but it’s been a trend coming for a long time.
Greta lost her spot to Justin Triet. We knew three of the five Best Directors slots were already locked up with Martin Scorsese, Christopher Nolan, and Yorgos Lanthimos (who morphed from being a Greek filmmaker to an American/British one 9 years ago).
That left two spots, and they each went to “foreign films” — Triet for “Anatomy” and Jonathan Glazer for “Zone of Interest” (which I think is ridiculous). Those two cut out Gerwig and probably Alexander Payne. Those two– Triet and Glazer — overlap with the Oscars.
The Academy is changing, kids. You better change with it!
