LOS ANGELES - The candy-colored love letter to musicals “La La Land” landed a record-tying 14 Academy Award nominations on Wednesday, while a notably more diverse field of nominees brushed off two straight years of “OscarsSoWhite” backlash.
“La La Land” matched “Titanic” and “All About Eve” for most nominations ever, earning nods for best picture, stars Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling, its jazz-infused songs and its 32-year-old writer-director, Damien Chazelle.
“I’m in Beijing right now. This only adds to the disorientation,” Chazelle said by phone. “All that I have in my head is ‘thank you’ a million times over.”
In stark contrast to the last two years of all-white acting nominees, seven actors of color were nominated out of the 20 actors. A record six black actors were nominated (“Fences” stars Denzel Washington and Viola Davis, Mahershala Ali and Naomie Harris of “Moonlight,” Ruth Negga of “Loving” and Octavia Spencer of “Hidden Figures”), as was Dev Patel, the British-Indian star of “Lion.”
A trio of acclaimed films led the overhaul, foremost among them Barry Jenkins’ luminous coming-of-age portrait “Moonlight.” Its eight nominations, including best picture, tied for the second most nods. Denzel Washington’s fiery August Wilson adaptation “Fences” and Theodore Melfi’s crowd-pleasing African American mathematician drama, “Hidden Figures,” were also showered with nominations, including best picture.
Nine films out of a possible ten were nominated for best picture. The others were: Denis Villeneuve’s cerebral alien thriller “Arrival,” Kenneth Lonergan’s New England family drama “Manchester by the Sea,” the West Texas heist thriller “Hell or High Water,” the “Lion,” and Mel Gibson’s World War II drama “Hacksaw Ridge.”
The biggest surprise of the morning was the strong boost of support for Gibson, who had long been shunned in Hollywood since an anti-Semitic tirade while being arrested for drunk driving in 2006 and a 2011 conviction for domestic violence. Along with the best picture nod, Gibson scored an unexpected best director nomination. Gibson, whose ninth child was born Friday, said in a statement that nothing was more exciting than hearing the nominations read while holding my newborn son.”
“Arrival” tied “Moonlight” for the second most nominees with eight nods. Yet its five-time nominated star, Amy Adams, was left out of the competitive best actress category.
Instead, Meryl Streep, whom President Donald Trump recently derided as “overrated,” landed her 20th nomination. Her performance in “Florence Foster Jenkins” was among the best actress nominees that included Stone, Natalie Portman (“Jackie”), Ruth Negga (“Loving”) and Isabelle Huppert (“Elle”). Also left out was Annette Bening for “20th Century Women.”
Best actor favorites Washington, Gosling and Casey Affleck (“Manchester by the Sea”) were joined by Garfield and Viggo Mortensen (“Captain Fantastic”). Along with Ali and Patel, the best supporting actor nominees are Lucas Hedges (“Manchester by the Sea”), Michael Shannon (“Nocturnal Animals”) and Jeff Bridges (“Hell or High Water”).
In the foreign language film category, Maren Ade’s Cannes sensation “Toni Erdmann,” from Germany, was nominated alongside Denmark’s “Land of Mine,” Sweden’s “A Man Called Ove,” Australia’s “Tanna” and Iran’s “The Salesman,” from Asghar Farhadi, whose “A Separation” won the award in 2012. - AP
