Ten nominations for The Artist
The French silent film is up for a record-breaking number of Oscars in next month’s awards
FRENCH silent, black and white film The Artist is Oscar-nominated in an extraordinary 10 categories.
The film has already won Best Actor at Cannes for Jean Dujardin and three Golden Globes - Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy, Best Musical or Comedy and Best Original Score – is nominated for awards including Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress (Bérénice Bejo), Best Director (Michel Hazanavicius) and Best Picture.
No other French film has ever had so many nominations (next most was Amélie with five) and should it win the most prestigious Best Picture Oscar, it would be the first French film to do so.
French films are most usually to be found in the Best Foreign Language Film category, where France is the most frequently nominated, with non-English films rarely nominated for other awards (though Grand Illusion and Z were nominated for Best Picture in 1938 and 1969 respectively).
However the fact The Artist is silent, apart from a line of dialogue at the end – in English – is thought to have given it a more universal appeal. Its setting in Hollywood at the crucial moment of the change from silent films to the “talkies” has also been appreciated in the USA as a tribute to its own film history.
At this year’s Oscars only Martin Scorsese’s Hugo has more nominations, with 11.
Dujardin is up against the likes of Gary Oldman, Brad Pitt and George Clooney for the Best Actor award.
