It’s that time of year when the echoing alarm ofOscarnominations triggers industry trades and online publications to issue theirlist of snubs and surprises. In arguably the best year of film since the start of the COVID pandemic, 2023 has enough amazing cinema to populate three Oscar campaigns, so the idea of any film being snubbed from this year’s nominations is inevitable. Certainly, a list of five nominees isn’t enough to include some of the year’s best titles. Some of the notable snubs include Hirokazu Kore-eda’s heartbreakingMonster, the Zac Efron-ledThe Iron Claw, and the refreshing animated featureTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:Mutant Mayhem.
Perhaps the most hotly debated category this year is for Best Director and all the attention is rightfully aimed at the cinematic lightning rod of the Margot Robbie-ledBarbie. As a seething critique of society’s uneven gender structures, Greta Gerwig’s snub at Best Director serves as a metaphor for the bigger conversation within the filmmaking community. Despite the lengthy list of qualified feature films this year, only one of the five Best Director nominees is a woman, withAnatomy of a Fall’s Justine Triet being only the eighth woman to ever be nominated for Best Director after Chloé Zhao and Jane Campion won in back-to-back years. Understandably, maybe most Americans struggle to stand behind a French woman being the tokenized nominee, especially when the highest-earning and easily the most popular American film of the year was directed by a woman.
This year hopefully inspires legitimate conversation surrounding the expansion in the number of nominees in certain categories. Like the decision to expand the Best Picture nominations, other notable categories such as the various acting nominations or Best Director should have the option of nominating anywhere between five and ten films in any given nomination cycle. In a year like 2023, it’s difficult to argue against Martin Scorsese’sKiller of the Flower Moonor Jonathan Glazer’sThe Zone of Interest. But the Academy has a building reputation of nominating women-directed movies for Best Picture andfailing to nominate said filmsfor Best Director. Recent examples includeBarbie(Gerwig) andPast Lives(Celine Song) from this year, Sarah Polley’sWomen Talkingfrom last year, Best Picture-winningCODAdirected by Sian Heder from the year before that, and Gerwig’s 2019Little Womenand Ava DuVernay’s 2014Selmabefore that. Expanding the number of nominees may help prevent this oversight moving forward.
Regardless of the Academy’s nomination shortcomings, Justine Triet’s Best Director nomination is a surprise win in more ways than one. It’s a surprise win for women directors and a surprise win for international feature films. In spite of the divisive conversation surrounding the Oscar nominations, it is important to give films likeAnatomy of a Fallthe flowers they deserve while they hold the Oscar stage.
Anatomy of a Fall Is a Surprise Win for Women Directors
Anatomy of a Fall
As mentioned, Justine Triet is only the eighth woman ever to be nominated for Best Director and the ninth time a woman has been nominated overall, with Jane Campion being nominated twice for 1993’sThe Pianoand 2021’sThe Power of the Dog. Four of the nine nominations have come since the turn of the decade and only one of the nominations came before Campion’s 1993 nomination. To say this moment is rare should not be understated.
For a director who normally ventures into comedy, Triet’s first straight drama has impressed critics as a sharp critique of marriage through the lens of a thrilling legal drama. Women standing up against dominant structures has been a thematic throughline in women-directed movies this year. Gerwig’sBarbiedoes this subversively and quite brilliantly through comedy, while Kitty Green’sThe Royal Hoteldoes this with Hitchcockian suspense. The Ayo Edebiri-Rachel Sennotbuddy comedyBottomssatirically confronts the heteronormative nature of high school rom-coms and Ava DuVernay’sOriginexamines the way caste systems perpetuate oppression. The Judy Blume adaptationAre You There God? It’s Me Margaret.operates from the lens of an eleven-year-old, while Sofia Coppola’sPriscillainvites us into the complicated relationship trapped in Graceland.
Related:Here Are Some of the Best Women Directors Working Today
It’s an even bigger surprise nomination considering Triet was hardly predicted to receive a Best Director nod. Though the film built a strong Oscar campaign in recent months, Celine Song’sPast Livesseemed like the heavy favorite to be this year’s indie Oscar darling. Triet’s nomination speaks to the strength ofAnatomy of a Fall’s Oscar campaign and its meteoric rise to cinematic acclaim. Along with being a win for women directors, Justine Triet’s Best Director nod is also a surprise win for international feature films.
Anatomy of a Fall is a Surprise Win for International Film
As rare as it is for a woman to be nominated for Best Director, it is even rarer for two internationally-produced, non-English language films to be nominated for the same category. France’sAnatomy of a Falland the United Kingdom’sThe Zone of Intereststand as landmarks of Oscar history. This achievement last occurred in 2018 with Best Director winner Alfonso Cuarón’sRomaand Paweł Pawlikowski’s ColdWar. But one would have to go back to 1976 for the last time this happened, when Ingmar Bergman’s Swedish filmFace to Faceand Lina Wertmüller Italian-languageSeven Beautiesboth lost toRocky.
Recently, the Academy has shown a healthy appreciation for international cinema. The 2020s has already seen internationally produced films such as Ruben Östlund’sTriangle of Sadness(2022), Ryusuke Hamaguchi’sDrive My Car(2021), and Thomas Vinterberg’sAnother Round(2020) being nominated for Best Director in their respective years. In fact, since 2010, the only American-born Best Director winners have been The Daniels from last year’sEverything Everywhere All At Onceand Damien Chazelle from 2016’sLa La Land. This bodes well for Yorgos Lanthimos and Christopher Nolan, considering most of those winning directors accomplished the feat with English-language films.
While Jonathan Glazer’s haunting Holocaust examinationThe Zone of Interestsatisfies the Academy’s obsession with war films, it is also a heavy favorite for Best International Feature Film. Like Justine Triet, this is Glazer’s first Best Director nomination with hopes of joining Cuarón’sRomaand Bong Joon-ho’sParasiteas recent films to take home Best International Feature Film and Best Director. But, unlikeThe Zone of Interest, the French filmAnatomy of a Fallwasn’t even chosenas its country’s official submission for Best International Feature.Anatomy of a Fallhas received nominations for Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay, Best Actress, and Best Director purely based on the strength of the Oscar vote and stands as a resounding standard for international films looking to bypass thefaulty nomination process for Best International Featureand to create authentic Oscar buzz which produces deserving nominations across the board.
Related:Most Successful Countries in The Best International Feature Film Oscar Category
Anatomy of the Fall’s Oscar triumph has already arrived through its handful of nominations. The surprise announcement of Justine Triet’s nomination for Best Director should be celebrated as a win for women directors and for international cinema and will hopefully take home a statuette or two. The 96th Academy Awards are set to take place on March 24th with final voting set to begin next month.
