Charlotte, 69, lands her first Oscar nomination
She leads huge British charge for awards
AFTER five decades in showbusiness, she’s certainly paid her dues.
And last night Charlotte Rampling was finally honoured with her very first Oscar nomination – at the age of 69.
The veteran star led the charge for the British film industry yesterday, joining Kate Winslet, Eddie Redmayne, Christian Bale, Tom Hardy and Mark Rylance on the list of nominees for the Academy Awards.
Rampling got her nod for her role in 45 Years, as a wife whose life spirals out of control ahead of a wedding anniversary. Her inclusion in the Best Actress category comes as a surprise for some, given she was snubbed at both the Golden Globes and BAFTAs.
However she faces tough competition from previous winners Cate Blanchett, 46 – nominated for lesbian romance Carol – and Jennifer Lawrence, 25, in family drama Joy.
Others in the category include Irish-American actress Saoirse Ronan, 21 – who starred in Brooklyn – and bookies’ favourite Brie Larson, 26, for her turn in Room.
The British Film Institute said that homegrown productions are up for 41 awards, around a third of all nominations. However, this includes non-British stars listed for their roles in UK-backed films.
Old Etonian Eddie Redmayne, 34, is up for Best Actor for a second time for his portrayal of transgender artist Lili Elbe in The Danish Girl. It comes a year after he claimed the award for playing Professor Stephen Hawking in The Theory Of Everything.
If he wins, he will become only the third actor ever to claim the accolade two years in a row – following in the footsteps of Spencer Tracy and Tom Hanks.
However, he may find it difficult to beat Leonardo DiCaprio, 41, who hopes to secure his first Oscar win with his fifth nomination.
‘Brits excel in all areas’
He is seen as the favourite for his role in revenge epic The Revenant – which with 12 nods is the most nominated film this year.
Other contenders for Best Actor are Michael Fassbender, 38, for his portrayal of Apple founder Steve Jobs, Breaking Bad actor Bryan Cranston, 59, for the film Trumbo and Hollywood heavyweight Matt Damon, 45, nominated for the thriller The Martian.
Damon will be crossing his fingers for his first acting Oscar, having previously claimed one in 1998 for writing Good Will Hunting.
Winslet flies the flag in the Best Supporting Actress category for her role opposite Fassbender in Steve Jobs as PR guru Joanna Hoffman. The part won the 40-year-old actress a Golden Globe last weekend.
There was more British weight in the Best Supporting Actor section from Christian Bale, 41, for The Big Short – a comedy set during the 2008 financial crash – Tom Hardy, 38, for The Revenant and Wolf Hall star Mark Rylance, 55, for Cold War film Bridge of Spies.
Other British successes included Amy – about the troubled singer Amy Winehouse – which is up for Best Documentary, and Shaun The Sheep The Movie, which is nominated for Best Animation.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which was last year’s most successful film finanailly, is nominated in five categories, including for its music and visual effects.
However noticeable snubs included Sir Ridley Scott, 78, who failed to secure a Best Director nomination for The Martian. His absence prompted gasps of surprise at the Oscar nomination launch.
Also overlooked were Dame Helen Mirren, 70, who many thought would pick up her fifth nomination, and Idris Elba, 43, who was critically acclaimed in Netflix film Beasts Of No Nation. Amanda Nevill, CEO of the BFI, said: ‘What is so thrilling about today’s Oscar nominations is seeing British films and talent included across almost every category, showing that Academy voters have recognised what we already know – Brits excel across all areas of filmmaking, from our celebrated onscreen talent to the creatives. I am over the moon.’ However the awards came under criticism for lacking in diversity as none of the acting nominations were for non-white stars.
This is despite a number of highprofile films with black actors being released over the last year, including Creed, Beasts Of No Nation and Straight Outta Compton.
The Revenant (15) Verdict: Brutal, but beautiful Room (15) Verdict: Gut-wrenching captivity drama
Will Alejandro Gonzalez inarritu’s The Revenant be anointed Best Picture at next month’s Academy Awards, a year after the same honour was bestowed on his film Birdman? Will inarritu, with a Golden Globe already on his mantelpiece and currently in what football pundits call a rich vein of form, also become the first man since Joseph l. Mankiewicz in 1950 to win a second successive Oscar as Best Director?
And will leonardo DiCaprio get his hands on one of the coveted gold statuettes for the first time, after five previous nominations?
These are all valid questions for anyone leaving a screening of The Revenant, and i’m fairly sure that the answer to at least one of them is yes, after the film garnered 12 Oscar nominations yesterday.
But in my mind, as i walked away somewhat dazed by the jaw-dropping cinematic spectacle i’d just sat through for more than two and a half hours, they were supplanted by another, about a bear. There’s a mauling by a grizzly in this film so realistic that even while it is happening, you’re thinking, how did they do it?
DiCaprio plays Hugh Glass, a hairy frontiersman in 1820s Montana, devoted to his son and to the memory of his murdered wife, who is engaged as a guide by a group of trappers and fur traders.
led by the decent Captain Henry (Domhnall Gleeson), most of them are also soldiers, not that their military training comes in particularly helpful when they are savagely attacked by a tribe of what in less enlightened movies were known as injuns, but we know as the Arikara.
The attack comes so soon after the start of the film that the rampaging Arikara practically chase the opening credits off the screen, but soon it is clear why.
inarritu, his film based on Michael Punke’s 2002 novel of the same name, which itself was inspired by a true story, wants to cram in as many tribulations as possible, principally for poor Glass.
When he is not freezing or starving half to death, he is being buried alive, plummeting over waterfalls, cauterising his own wounds, surviving on raw bison liver or cutting the entrails out of a dead horse so he can shelter inside it.
AT One point we see a dramatic avalanche, and it comes as a surprise, practically a plot twist, that Glass is standing a safe distance from it. in truth, however, this is not DiCaprio’s finest screen performance, simply because it doesn’t have to be. What it is, mainly, is a masterclass in pain in all its registers, both emotional and physical, and especially during the encounter with the one creature in the woods more hirsute than Glass himself.
it is a truly extraordinary scene, made almost unwatchably authentic by brilliant computer-generated wizardry. The attack leaves Glass scarcely alive, an encumbrance to the party as they try to stay a step ahead of the Arikara, but Henry insists they must not abandon him.
While the rest of the men continue on their way, two volunteer to stay. One is the good-hearted Bridger (nicely played by rising British star Will Poulter), the other the flint-hearted Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy, in superb dastardly form), whose motivation is far from selfless, and who, as well as wanting to leave Glass for dead, commits a crime for which Glass spends the rest of the film seeking vengeance.
At one level, then, The Revenant, co-written by inarritu with Mark l. Smith, is an uncomplicated revenge western. it is also a story of the bond between father and son.
But inarritu’s real triumph is that he has turned it into more even than that. it’s a mortal tale of Man vs Man, but also