7. Cloud Atlas Gets Completely Shut Out
There have been a few times where I have been aghast at a film not receiving any nominations whatsoever. A masterpiece like Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain comes to mind, but the one that is truly shocking occurred just last year, when the Wachowski Bros. and Tom Tykwer’s sprawling epic Cloud Atlas was left completely out in the cold on the morning of the nominations. It’s a film that was big, bold, and very ambitious, reaching heights that few films dare even to reach for, and it succeeded better than any could have possibly expected. Unfortunately, the film had been given mixed reviews by critics, with some hailing it as a masterpiece while others found it too confusing (“unwieldy” as the Rotten Tomatoes consensus says), but most who watched it found it to be a rewarding experience.
As for my own experience with the film, I must admit, the first time I saw it I had liked it, but not loved it. It’s a lot to take in on one sitting, a lot to digest and mull over. What do the multiple storylines have to do with each other? What is the significance of the actors playing multiple characters? What’s with the birthmarks? What are the directors trying to show with these various bizarre tales? However, after thinking about it a long time and seeing the film again, I came to realize its brilliance. Here was an incredible set of stories of the oppressed and their oppressors sprawled across centuries, one linking to the next through various artifacts and themes. These three directors/writers took a huge gamble putting together a film this complex, and while the Cloud Atlas barely managed to eke out a profit from its worldwide gross, what they accomplished in terms of cinematic storytelling far outweighed the monetary gain.
There are easily cases to be made that the film should have been nominated for Best Picture, Best Director(s), Best Adapted Screenplay, and several of the smaller categories, including Best Film Editing, Best Cinematography, Best Visual Effects, Best Production Design, Best Costume Design, Best Makeup, Best Score, Best Sound Editing, and Best Sound Mixing. It certainly would have been a better choice than most of what was actually nominated, including the eventual Best Picture winner Argo.
The reason as to why it was shunned was more than likely the same reason that some critics didn’t completely hail it as the masterpiece it is. Like many of the critics, Academy members were probably left too confused to know what to make of it (like other sci-fi films in decades past). However, that doesn’t seem to explain why it would be ignored in all of the technical categories as well, unless they were just left feeling so confused by it that they felt the need to shun it everywhere. Whatever the reason, Cloud Atlas remains a masterpiece that will continue to be discussed and analyzed long after Argo and many of the other nominees that year are forgotten.
