Kazuo Ishiguro joins rare Oscar club with nomination for ‘Living’
The extremely small group of Nobel laureates who have earned Academy Award nominations grew today by 50%. Kazuo Ishiguro, one of the world’s most feted contemporary writers, earned his first Oscar nomination for his adapted screenplay for the film “Living,” which also earned a Best Actor nomination for Bill Nighy. How many other Nobel prize winner have pulled off this feat? And will it help Ishiguro pull off a victory in this competitive category?
Ishiguro is now the third winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature to earn an Oscar nomination. The first was George Bernard Shaw, who received the Nobel in 1925 for, in the words of the Nobel committee, “his work which is marked by both idealism and humanity, its stimulating satire often being infused with a singular poetic beauty.” He won the Best Screenplay prize in 1939 for adapting his own play “Pygmalion,” sharing the Oscar with Ian Dalrymple, Cecil Lewis, and W. P. Lipscomb.
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Over 70 years later, Bob Dylan completed this nifty duo of awards but in reverse order. In 2001, he won the Oscar for Best Song for “Things Have Changed” from the film “Wonder Boys.” In 2016, he shocked the literary world when he received the Nobel. The committee wrote that they were bestowing the honor upon him “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.”
Now Ishiguro becomes the third. He received the Nobel just six years ago — incidentally one year after Dylan — with the committee saying that “in novels of great emotional force, [he] has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world.” For the Oscar nomination, he adapted the film “Ikiru” by director Akira Kurosawa, becoming the first Nobel laureate to earn the Academy Award nomination for adapting somebody else’s work; Shaw earned his bid in Best Screenplay at the 11th ceremony, which was a category of adapted works distinct from the Best Original Story race. Ishiguro has also received BAFTA, Critics Choice, and USC Scripter nominations for his work on “Living.”
WATCH our exclusive video interview with Oscar nominee Bill Nighy (‘Living’)
Ishiguro’s stature could certainly help in him the tough competition for Adapted at this year’s awards. It would be a boost he likely needs, too, as no adapted screenplay has taken home the Oscar without at least a Best Picture nomination, if not a win, since 2000.
Nine of the past 22 years, the Picture winner has taken home this trophy too, including “CODA,” “Moonlight,” “12 Years a Slave,” “Argo,” “Slumdog Millionaire,” “No Country For Old Men,” “The Departed,” “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King,” and “A Beautiful Mind.”
The other 13 winners in this category were at least nominated for the top honor; those include “The Father,” “Jojo Rabbit,” “BlacKkKlansman,” “Call Me by Your Name,” “The Big Short,” “The Imitation Game,” “The Descendants,” “The Social Network,” “Precious,” “Brokeback Mountain,” “Sideways,” “The Pianist,” and “Traffic.”
According to our earliest Oscar odds, “Women Talking” leads the race, followed by “All Quiet on the Western Front,” and surprise nominee “Top Gun: Maverick.” All three are Best Picture nominees. “Glass Onion” and “Living” round out the category.
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