Does Nolan really care about winning an Oscar?

Despite being considered one of the most important contemporary directors, Christopher Nolan has never won an Oscar for directing. His films are among the most innovative and acclaimed of the last decades, but they have mostly been nominated in technical categories. Only in 2018 did Nolan receive a nomination for Best Director for Dunkirk, but the award went to Guillermo del Toro for The Shape of Water. This is a very low number compared to directors of his caliber, such as Alfonso Cuaròn or Alejandro Inarritu. There are various reasons for this, but it also has to do with the fact that, overall, Nolan seems to despise the system that revolves around film awards. Recently, the British director received the César Lifetime Achievement Award, and while presenting it, actress Marion Cotillard, who has worked with him in Inception and The Dark Knight Rises, said: "I will take the liberty of expressing a purely personal opinion that I think will be shared by an infinite number of people. His latest film, Oppenheimer, [...] is a masterpiece - directed [...] by a brilliant director, a brilliant man." This year, thanks to Oppenheimer, Nolan could finally win his first Oscar for Best Director, for which he is nominated alongside Martin Scorsese and Yorgos Lanthimos, among others. Nolan's recent win at the Directors Guild of America Awards (GDA) puts him in a favorable position compared to the others: in the last ten years, it has only happened once that the winners of the two awards did not coincide, also because many GDA voters are also Academy members. Why hasn't Nolan won an Oscar yet? The peculiarity of Nolan is that he is able to make films that are, at the same time, both authorial and entertaining - as in the case of films like Inception or Interstellar. However, this cinematic style has so far disadvantaged him in the race for the Oscars. The Academy members are about 10,000, and due to the high number of voters, it is easier for a conservative film to win rather than an innovative one. Nolan has long been "too authorial and disruptive a figure to please the Academy." Another similar director is Quentin Tarantino, who has also never won an Oscar for Best Director. This year, Oppenheimer is the film with the most Oscar nominations, and among the competing films is Killers of the Flower Moon by Martin Scorsese, another director who has historically not been highly regarded by the Academy - he won only one Oscar in 2006, after about thirty years of activity, and it seemed more like a career award. But there are also very important filmmakers, such as Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick, who have never received this recognition. The same goes for Wes Anderson. A director who for a long time maintained a position similar to Nolan's, straddling both authorial and mainstream cinema, was Steven Spielberg, who did not win his first Oscar until 1993, when he made Schindler's List, considered very much in line with the Academy's expectations. Does Nolan rub the Academy the wrong way? Nolan has a personality that has certainly not favored him in the race for the Oscars, and which is not common in Hollywood in general. He rarely attends the film scene in Los Angeles (which is made up of the same Academy voters) and tends not to participate in their events - unless he is forced to. And even when promoting his films, he keeps a low profile. Finally, he is not used to giving speeches that are capable of stirring emotions or being remembered. When Inception was not nominated for an Oscar, the Daily Beast tried to understand the reason for this surprising exclusion. The news site delved into the matter by talking to a small sample of Academy members: in short, it emerged that his attitude represents everything that actors and directors aiming for an Oscar should never do. One factor that could work in Nolan's favor this year is the fact that, compared to the past, today's Oscars need someone like him. The award and the ceremony are becoming less and less popular: one reason is that the nominated and winning films are no longer the most watched and loved. Starting from the early 2000s, independent films have often won, in some cases very niche ones - like Nomadland. The Oscars have been exclusively competing with films that a large part of the potential audience of the ceremony knows and appreciates. For this reason, the award needs to start awarding someone who, by stepping on stage, can "once again give relevance to the event," and that someone could finally be Nolan.