Despite Best Picture Nomination, Ben Affleck Receives No Oscar Nom For Best Director Or Actor

It’s always interesting (read: a little sad and stupefying) when a film can get nominated for Best Picture, but not get a nomination for the director… who is essentially responsible for making the film worthy of a Best Picture nomination in the first place. But that is exactly what happened to Ben Affleck for Argo this year. Not only that, he played an lead role in the film – and received no best actor nomination. So how does that happen?

Fair or not, the lack of a ‘Best Actor’ nomination is a little easier to explain. A best actor nomination is fiercely competitive, and this year there are a lot of stron contenders. This year, the nominees for best actor are Day-Lewis (“Lincoln”), Hugh Jackman (“Les Miserables”), Denzel Washington (“Flight”), Joaquin Phoenix (“The Master”) and Bradley Cooper (“Silver Linings Playbook”). Best Actor roles often favor strong physical transformations (Lincoln), (and no one is going to argue Day-Lewis’ nod)  or a broad emotional journey within the film. Affleck’s character in Argo, while extremely well played, remained largely composed and controlled during as the story unfolded. Compared with the journey of Joaquin Phoenix’s broken down, cult-programmed character in “TheMaster” and Bradley Cooper’s tortured soul in “Silver Linings Playbook,” and Denzel Washington’s substance abusing pilot in “Flight,” Affleck’s “Argo” character appears largely subdued. Hugh Jackman’s “Les Miserables” character required a stronger physical range. It’s fairly easy to see that Affleck might not get enough votes here.

But as you can see the number of nominations for Director and Motion Picture differ – so it’s easy to see that some directors will be left empty handed. Not only is it surprising that Afflect was overlooked in the director category, but perhaps even more so that Les Miserables director Tom Hooper was also left without a nomination.

Best motion picture of the year

• “Amour” Nominees to be determined
• “Argo” Grant Heslov, Ben Affleck and George Clooney, Producers
• “Beasts of the Southern Wild” Dan Janvey, Josh Penn and Michael Gottwald, Producers
• “Django Unchained” Stacey Sher, Reginald Hudlin and Pilar Savone, Producers
• “Les Misérables” Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Debra Hayward and Cameron Mackintosh, Producers
• “Life of Pi”Gil Netter, Ang Lee and David Womark, Producers
• “Lincoln” Steven Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy, Producers
• “Silver Linings Playbook”Donna Gigliotti, Bruce Cohen and Jonathan Gordon, Producers
• “Zero Dark Thirty”Mark Boal, Kathryn Bigelow and Megan Ellison, Producers

Achievement in directing

• “Amour” Michael Haneke
• “Beasts of the Southern Wild” Benh Zeitlin
• “Life of Pi” Ang Lee
• “Lincoln” Steven Spielberg
• “Silver Linings Playbook” David O. Russell

So what can we learn from these two categories – and the nominations as a whole? When it comes to Best Picture, it might be easy to assume that Lincoln, which leads the pack with 12 nominations, may edge out Les Miserables, which received 8, and received a Director snub. But now, the voting starts fresh… Les Miserables could very well come up from behind and take the top prize.  (All that said, my money is on Lincoln.)