Nickel Boys deserved an Oscar nomination for Best Picture

When it comes to Oscar nominations, the Academy often gets it wrong. I’m not going to waste too much time lamenting all the ways awards voters have screwed things up, because I think it’s common knowledge at this point that the Oscars are more often than not about rewarding the most deserving art of the year. Instead, films that get nominated (and win) often do so thanks to heavy campaigning by studios and PR people. News bias is also a big problem – films shown to voters at the end of the year tend to get all the glory, while films released earlier are overlooked. Additionally, anonymous voters will consistently admit that more often than not they tend to vote for movies their friends worked on instead of things that actually deserve credit. With all that in mind, I try not to let Oscar snubs get me down.

“Nickel Boys,” RaMell Ross’ adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s novel, is arguably one of the best movies of 2024. And yet I was fully prepared for the Academy to overlook it, primarily because it really It looks like the folks at Amazon MGM Studios have done a poor job of promoting the film. So it was a pleasant surprise to see the film receive a much-deserved Best Picture nomination when the nominees were announced (you can find the full list of nominations here). And yet “Nickel Boys” was still the subject of a fierce rejection: it was ignored for a nomination for best cinematography. Again, I’m trying not to get too upset about Oscar dirt. But I have to ask: how the hell could this happen? If any movie from 2024 deserves a nod for Best Cinematography, it’s “Nickel Boys.” What cinematographer Jomo Fray does on the film is nothing short of amazing, and the film voting department of the Academy should honestly be embarrassed not to give Fray a nomination.

When it came time to adapt Whitehead’s novel, which is about two young black teenagers locked away in a brutal Florida reform school in the 1960s, director RaMell Ross decided to shoot the entire film in POV, similar to a technique he used for his documentary film. Hale County this morning, tonight.” While some people might consider this approach a gimmick, it works elegantly in “Nickel Boys.” As Ross told EW“That challenge elevated the imagery and concept to be even more humanistic.” The end result also feels completely unique and unlike any film you’ve seen before. To be clear, “Nickel Boys” is not the first film to use a POV style. The 1947 film noir “Lady in the Lake” is shot in POV style, as is the goofy 2015 action shoot-em-up “Hardcore Henry.” And yet Ross, working with cinematographer Jomo Fray, often feels like he’s inventing something new here.

The film accustoms us to its style from the jump, showing us the early years of protagonist Elwood as he grows up in the Jim Crow South. We get glimpses of Elwood reflected in windows and other objects, but it will be a while before we finally see his full face. This happens when the film suddenly switches perspective from Elwood to Turner, another student at Nickel Academy. When this happens, “Nickel Boys” often cuts back and forth between the two perspectives (while occasionally cutting forward in time and also integrating other types of media, like film clips and websites). All of this works to put us fully in the headspace of the characters and to experience the world of the film as they experience it. It never feels like a gimmick, it just feels real.

To achieve the look of the film, the actors often had cameras strapped to their bodies. But there was more to creating the film’s POV style than simply pointing and shooting. talking with Film independentFray said that when he and Ross talked about the film’s visual style, “it wasn’t a POV as much as it was what we call the ‘feeling image.’ Fray continued:

“It was an image that felt connected to a real body, a real body that had real stakes, and a body that navigated a society in a system that was inherently hostile to their existence. We wanted the image to should be immersive, to be inside the scene and even try to get rid of even the layer of dissociation that the audience is traditionally allowed to have with more traditional 3rd person cinema We wanted to invite the audience into the body of a young black boy there navigating the Jim Crow South.”

All this raised questions about how to manage this. As Fray put it: “(I)f we shoot a perceptual perspective, what is an establishing shot? What is a cut? What is a transition? How do you move through space? How do you move through time? Is this a memory? Or is that real life happening to a character and we’re just going between the moments that are most important to them?” Besides all this, Fray added that “The gaze could never be ahead of the action. It always responded to action.”

All of this could have gone horribly wrong, resulting in a film that felt, well, gimmicky. And yet “Nickel Boys” soars to incredible heights through the power of its imagery. Not drawing attention to it via an Oscar nomination is a huge disappointment. But whatever: despite this oversight, I’m convinced that “Nickel Boys” will remain something important – and groundbreaking. Time will be kind to the film, even if the Academy wasn’t.