Mr. Allen disagreed. “Woody felt that you didn’t really have to know those people to appreciate the film,” said Ms. Aronson, who is his sister. He may have been right. The movie has been the top grossing film of Mr. Allen’s directing career, and on Tuesday, when the Oscar nominations were announced, it earned four nods, for best art direction, director, picture and original screenplay (his 15th nomination in the writing category).
But the movie almost didn’t get made; shooting in France was too expensive. So Mr. Allen shelved the script until the French government passed a film tax credit. Production began in Paris in 2010, and “Midnight in Paris” had its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival last May.
“The Artist,” a French film shot in the United States that is part of this year’s wave of cinematic nostalgia, , also struggled to find financing. “The meetings were very short,” said the producer, Thomas Langmann. “Each time we say, ‘It’s silent and black and white,’ they said, ‘Well, what’s your next project?’ ”
In the end Mr. Langmann, who grew up immersed in classic movies as the son of the French filmmaker Claude Berri, staked his own millions on “The Artist.” He was rewarded with 10 Oscar nominations, including one for best picture.
Each season the nominations are unveiled with the pomp and ceremony of a royal event; months of buildup have the precision — and sometimes the cost — of a political campaign. But many films that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences winds up honoring had a near-miss path to the screen, built on serendipity, determination and, most often, leaps taken. It’s a reminder that even in the technologically advanced, highly manipulated and demographically parsed moviegoing era, filmmaking may not be that far removed from the classics that this year’s nominees often refer to.
That’s the theme that the Academy wants to underscore, anyway. With the slogan “Celebrate the movies in all of us,” meant to summon our collective memories of cinema; an online and billboard campaign featuring seminal moments from films like “Sunset Boulevard” and “Driving Miss Daisy;” and Billy Crystal hosting the ceremony, Feb. 26 could be a pretty retro Oscar night.
But the Oscars have to strike a tricky balance, between nostalgia for the kind of communal cultural event that is rarer and rarer in these multiscreen days, and the unexpected turns that draw viewers into the telecast. That’s where the nominees and movie back stories come in.
Neatly combining wistfulness and surprise is “The Tree of Life,” Terrence Malick’s sweeping story of Americana (and Earth), which earned a spot on the best-picture list and nods for Mr. Malick and his cinematographer, Emmanuel Lubezki. The new rules about how to tabulate the best-picture candidates, meant to reward films that voters were passionate about rather than ones they merely liked, may have been most beneficial to “The Tree of Life,” which had art-house and critical currency. (“So far one movie is overshadowing everything else for me, and that’s ‘Tree of Life,’ ” the director Wim Wenders, an Academy member, said a few weeks before the nominations.)
The new voting system also seems to have helped usher in “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close,” Stephen Daldry’s critically panned film. Gasps were heard in the press room when it was called as a best-picture nominee on Tuesday, but Mr. Daldry has a perfect track record with the Academy: Each of his three previous films (“The Hours,” “The Reader” and “Billy Elliot”) received Academy recognition.
Max von Sydow, the 82-year-old star of films by Bergman and William Friedkin, among many others, received only his second Oscar nomination ever, as supporting actor, for his turn as the mute companion to the boy in “Extremely Loud.” (In a move that is both classy and canny Mr. von Sydow sent a handwritten note expressing his gratitude to the Academy. “I don’t know what to say,” it read.) His nomination adds some tension to the supporting actor category, where Christopher Plummer, another 82-year-old showbiz veteran receiving only his second Oscar nomination (for playing a gay dad in “Beginners”), was generally considered the front-runner.
It’s no secret that the Academy sometimes bestows its admiration years late and for a body of work rather than for a particular project. (See: Scorsese, Martin, and “The Departed.”) So here is Gary Oldman, generally acknowledged to be one of the greatest actors of his generation, receiving his first Academy nomination, for his turn as a cold-war-era spook in “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.”
That evocative adaptation of that John le Carré’s novel also found a place on the best adapted screenplay list (with a nomination for the writers Bridget O’Connor and Peter Straughan), a distinction that eluded “The Help.” This even though that film, directed by the newcomer Tate Taylor from a screenplay he based on Kathryn Stockett’s best seller, made the best-picture list and had the biggest box office of any of the other major nominees. (Aha: surprise.)
Voters did recognize the performances in the “The Help,” from the leading actress Viola Davis and her simpatico co-stars Octavia Spencer and Jessica Chastain, now competing against each other for best supporting actress. A favorite throughout awards season, Ms. Davis has impressed with seemingly off-the-cuff speeches that tie together the civil-rights struggles of “The Help” and the unlikelihood of getting a film with a multiracial cast made.
Her competitor and sometime co-star Meryl Streep, a best actress nominee for her portrayal of Margaret Thatcher in “The Iron Lady,” has also repeatedly paid tribute to her fellow performers, a gracious-off that, along with the presence of the repeat nominees Glenn Close and Michelle Williams, makes the actress race one of the most interesting. (Then again, Ms. Streep, the most nominated actor of all time, might as well be her own category at the Oscars.)
In the acting and other major races the Academy favors period films as usual. Entries like “War Horse” are clearly historical, and though seemingly contemporary, both “Moneyball” and “Extremely Loud” take place in the recent past. That leaves “The Descendants” as the only best picture nominee set in the present. It too had an unusual path to the screen: It joined the writer-director Alexander Payne and, making their feature-film debut, the writing team of Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, comedians who met at the Groundlings in Los Angeles. They labored to make a film that was dulcet yet funny, in the style of the kitchen-sink 1970s films that Mr. Payne loves. (All three are up for adapted screenplay.)
With acknowledgement in bellwether categories “The Descendants,” “The Artist” and “Hugo” are the most heavily favored for the top prize. By marrying 3-D technology and a story about the origins of cinema, Mr. Scorsese’s “Hugo,” which led the field with 11 nominations, probably comes closest to embodying the Academy’s message. The cast of children, dogs, and — as Mr. Scorsese has noted — the mischievous Sacha Baron Cohen, made it a challenge to produce. “We were a little afraid when we started, because none of us knew the 3-D process and it was our first digital film,” said Thelma Schoonmaker, the editor and a nominee for “Hugo.”
Ms. Schoonmaker, who has worked with Mr. Scorsese for most of her career, winning Oscars for “Raging Bull,” “The Aviator” and “The Departed,” said that a win for “Hugo” would feel extra special. “For us it’s a very joyous thing, if we can open more minds to the great films that have come before us,” she said.
“The fact that people go away from it with this great feeling,” she added, laughing, “is very different from what our films usually do.”
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