TDK, FYC

Remember when no toga & sandal movie ever triumphed at the Oscars… until Gladiator was nominated for 12, and won 5? Remember when no sword & sorcery movie had ever conjured up squat, until the Rings trilogy nabbed a grand total of 17 out of 30 nominations? No serial killer movie ever amounted to much until Silence of the Lambs crept up and shocked audiences out of their socks. No contemporary crime thriller had won Best Picture since The French Connection — until two reinventions blasted to the top, the past two years in a row.

Just because a movie initially presents itself to the public in the pop-culture surface terms of thrilling entertainment, doesn’t preclude it’s ability to go dark and delve deep. The Oscars have been showing us a revitalized willingness to embrace movies made by a generation of filmmakers who grew up in a age when that same sort of street-smart duality hangs on the walls of major museums (Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat to name two).¬† Over the next few days we can talk about the reasons why The Dark Knight could be the movie to rewrite some outdated Oscar predicting rules. For now, bear with me and consider this list of possibilities:

• Best Supporting Actor ‚Ä¢ Heath Ledger
• Best Cinematography ‚Ä¢ Wally Pfister
• Best Editing ‚Ä¢ Lee Smith
• Best Music ‚Ä¢ James Newton Howard, Hans Zimmer
• Best Art Direction ‚Ä¢ Nathen Crowley
• Best Make-up
• Best Visual Effects
• Best Sound
• Best Sound Mixing

Rationales, after the cut.

ok, those last three or four listed are virtual certainties, and the one at the top is too. Prospects for the other four feel Oscar-worthy to me, but I realize the final tally depends entirely on what competition rises to rival them over the next few months. We have a fairly good idea what’s ahead though, so it’s not unreasonable to foresee nominations in at least three of those five technical categories. Sure, such an impressive collection of nods would stretch a few precedents, but so what?

Here’s how I feel about rules based on patterns of the past: “Things fall apart. The center cannot hold. Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.”

Heath Ledger’s Joker is anarchy incarnate. And The Dark Knight is the best chance in Academy history for a movie based on a graphic novel to be nominated for multiple Oscars (outside the usual 2nd-tier tech categories). If you’re continuing to think of The Dark Knight as a mere “superhero fantasy” then you haven’t seen it yet. Just to name one fascinating aspect among its many deftly polished facets, TDK is an exploration of duality as complex and rich as Mulholland Dr. or Persona. (“Blasphemy!” cry the Bergmaniacs. “Remind me again how many Oscars nominations did Persona receive,” Batmaniacs reply.)

We’ll look at each category individually as we try to decide whether TDK is big nominews or merely nominoise, but enough justification for now. Outlandish expectations, you think? Tell that to Warner Bros when their FYC ads appear next year, suggesting all 9 of these categories — especially when they add Best Director and Best Picture to the mix.