Quentin Tarantino discusses Christopher Nolan’s Oscar snub
Quentin Tarantino has amplified the works of many filmmakers from around the world, often advocating for more awareness about world cinema by highlighting artists such as Wong Kar-wai and Takeshi Kitano among many others. However, he has also acknowledged the impact of more popular directors as well.
Among them, Tarantino has singled out filmmaking talents such as Paul Thomas Anderson and Christopher Nolan. He has claimed that Nolan’s 2017 war film Dunkirk was a modern masterpiece that demanded multiple viewings. When he viewed it for the first time, Tarantino felt that it was very overwhelming to process the cinematic spectacle that Nolan had crafted.
Tarantino found Dunkirk to be an immersive cinematic experience, lavishing praise upon all the separate elements such as its music and cinematography. He went as far as to say that Hans Zimmer’s score was so good that it was one of the definitive film scores of the decade – which is certainly hard to argue against.
What surprised Tarantino the most was the lack of wins at the Academy Awards for Nolan. Dunkirk did pick up Oscars in categories such as Best Film Editing and Best Sound Mixing but Tarantino insisted that it was absolutely unfair for Nolan and Zimmer to miss out on the big accolades like Best Picture and Best Original Score.
While discussing the Oscar snubs in a podcast episode, Tarantino elaborated on his comments by stating: “I’m not gonna weigh in on the Academy politics… I was stumped. I think the fact that the score didn’t win was a snub. The fact that he didn’t get nominated for Best Screenplay is a snub. I mean a big snub.”
He revealed that he was completely perplexed when neither Nolan’s screenplay nor Hoyte van Hoytema’s masterful cinematography failed to grab a win. “It’s not storytelling with a pen. It’s storytelling with scissors, it’s storytelling with music, it’s storytelling with images and frankly, to tell you the truth, I can’t believe that his cinematographer didn’t win,” Tarantino added.
Listen to Tarantino discuss the film, below.