I know we haven’t even lived through this Oscar telecast, and I haven’t seen Mel Gibson’s film yet, but for those that have, will this film be nominated for Best Film, or any other Oscars next year?
Well, it’ll be nominated for at least I few categories, though I’d love to see it win every category. But Hollywood hates this movie, so frankly it wouldn’t surprise me to see it nominated for none.
No, too many horrible reviews. I’ve seen Oscar nominated movies get some mixed reviews when they were released, but I can’t remember any that got slammed the way The Passion of the Christ has. There seems to be no middle ground with critics, either they loved it and gave it four stars or they absolutely hated it.
BTW, I haven’t seen any indication that Hollywood hates the movie. They certainly love Gibson, which is why he gets away with the kind of rants that come out of his mouth.
It’s conventional wisdom that the earlier a film is released during the year, the lower its Oscar chances. Things that causes a huge sensation in February seem a lot more dim and remote when people are filling in their nomination ballots come December. I can’t recall a recent Best Picture nominee being released earlier than March (Fargo, which didn’t win.) The earliest winner I can think of is Gladiator, which came out in May.
Also, Mel already has a couple of Oscars for Braveheart. So the Academy won’t necessarily feel they have to shower him with more – he’s not due.
Last but not least, the Academy has never been too fond of movies that feature graphic gore.
So it’s possible that The Passion will be overlooked. On the other hand, all that needs to happen for it to do well at next years Oscars is for no other more compelling movies to come out in the intervening months. 
That’s more or less how Gladiator snuck in. (I will note that Gladiator had better reviews than The Passion, though.)
I believe that it is too early to tell, in either direction. It depends on what else comes out this year.
Silence of the Lambs was released in February. That said, I feel confident this won’t be nominated for Best Picture. Maybe technical awards like makeup and costumes.
So, would the script be eligible as best original or best adapted? Either way I think it’ll get a nomination in the screenplay category.
I think the only way “The Passion” would’ve been nominated for anything is if it had portrayed Jesus as gay, a wimp, or handicapped.
I think it’s also probably a shoo-in for Best Foreign Language Film. Which raises the question: Has the Best Foreign winner ever been nominated for Best Picture?
Life is Beautiful?
A film has to have a sponsoring country submit it for consideration for the Foreign Language Film category. Since you won’t find a country that qualifies (it’s a largely American production, with the languages not being “native” to any existing nation), it won’t happen.
Jean Renoir’s La Grande Illusion was the first foreign language film to receive a Best Picture nomination. Since then, Z, The Emigrants, Il Postino, Cries and Whispers and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon have had that distinction (along with the Benigni alreadly mentioned).
I think the only surefire nomination is for Caleb Deschanel’s cinematography. He is revered in the DP community, and has been nominated four times (most recently for Mel’s The Patriot) but has never won. I’m not sure he’d win this time, but my guess that a nod is in the bag.
I haven’t seen the film, but biblical epics have usually had good luck in the Art Direction, Costume Design, and Sound categories, and I suspect Make-Up will also be a real contender.
It should be noted that the last, major, controversial Jesus movie only scored one nomination: Best Director for Martin Scorsese’s Last Temptation. However, Scorsese is Scorsese and Gibson is, well, Gibson. Hard to say this early on.
Nah, except maybe cinematography. Other than that I’m confident in saying no.
Thank you for my “something new to learn for the day”. I had figured that since the category refers to foreign language specifically, that the film didn’t actually have to be foreign. I suppose that since Hebrew is one of the languages used in the film (right?), Isreal could in principle sponsor it, but I agree that that’s not very likely.
The Foreign Film category has some very complicated rules that would make “Passion” ineligible. There are way too many countries involved in the production.
And isn’t the Hebrew that is spoken in the film (which isn’t much, it’s mostly Aramaic) different from the Hebrew spoken today in Israel?
I’m curious then, how did Crouching Tiger make it into the Foreign Language section? (please don’t misconstrue this as a smart-arse post, to my knowledge wasn’t CTHD essentially an American film, despite the largely non-American cast(I originally typed ‘unAmerican’, but then realised the alternate meaning grin).
I’m hoping to be corrected on this >trots off to IMDB<).
Actually, (my apologies for the hijack) what makes a film a ‘foreign film’? CTHD was written by an American, and wasn’t it funded by an American production company? (and yes, I know Lee Ang is Taiwanese, but isn’t he a US resident?).
I’ll stop this mindless hijack now and let ya’ll get back to Passionate discussion. 
It would be a damned shame if this movie wasn’t nominated for Best Picture. I’m not even religious, but as to how someone could deny the import or merit of this film is beyond me. Imho, if it wasn’t nominated that would be one of the greatest Oscar oversights, nay, scandals, ever.
Here are the Academy rules regarding the Foreign Language Film category (not “Foreign Film”). Some highlights:
Although CTHD was co-written by an American, the predominant artistic control was from artists from a variety of Asian countries (it had producing teams both here and abroad). Taiwan submitted it for the Oscars, probably because Ang Lee’s from Taiwan and his two other previous Foreign Language Oscar nominees (Eat Drink Man Woman and The Wedding Banquet) were also sumbitted by Taiwan. However, there were enough Hong Kong production personnel on the film that, if HK had wanted to submit it, it probably could’ve (with the producers’ consent, obviously). Hong Kong submitted Wong Kar-Wai’s In the Mood for Love that year (though it, insanely, didn’t get a nod).
This remains one of the most controversial categories for a number of reasons, but primarily because (1) a country can only submit one film, making it an extremely political process within each country’s industry, (2) there are so many international co-productions that it is often difficult to assign “predominant artistic control” to one particular country, making some notable films ineligible, and (3) the FLF selection committee has such stringent requirements that the membership tends to skew much older and more conservative.
Recent films that haven’t been nominated for Foreign Language Film include Almodovar’s Talk to Her (because of Reason 1), Kieslowski’s Red (Reason 2), and last year’s City of God (Reason 3). Interestingly, all 3 managed to score Best Director & Screenplay nominations despite not making the FLF “cut”.
ArchiveGuy Thanks for that! Most entlightening.
Once again, a reason I love this place!