Los Angeles (AFP)

With eleven nominations collected on Monday in total, the film "Joker" by Todd Phillips, with Joaquin Phoenix in the title role, starts at the head of the race for a 92nd edition of the very white and masculine Oscars, which this year should again be criticized for its lack of diversity.

"Joker" is in the running for the categories of best film, best actor, best director, best screenplay and many technical categories. He is neck and neck with three other favorites, "The Irishman", political-mafia thriller by Martin Scorsese, "Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood" by Quentin Tarantino, and "1917" by Sam Mendes, with ten nominations each.

Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt will notably defend the colors of "Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood", Tarantino's ode to cinema and Los Angeles in the 1960s, while "1917", a film about the First World War almost constructed as a two-hour long sequence shot, strong in the purely cinematographic and technical categories.

A notable snub from the American Academy of Cinema Arts and Sciences, which presents the prestigious statuettes: already snubbed during the last Golden Globes, veteran Robert De Niro was not selected. It was up to his accomplices Al Pacino and Joe Pesci to represent "The Irishman" in the category of best supporting male role.

The Academy of Oscars, on the other hand, made a remarkable place for "Parasite", by Bong Joon-ho. Palme d'or of the last Cannes festival, the South Korean film won six nominations, notably in the flagship category of the best film, that of the best foreign film and that of the best director.

Other outsiders include "Marriage Story" (six nominations), with its duo of prominent actors Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson, both selected, "Jojo Rabbit" (six nominations) and "Les Filles du Docteur March" by Greta Gerwig. The latter, however, was not retained in the category of directors, whose women are absent this year, which will undoubtedly cause controversy in Hollywood.

- Five women -

"Unfortunately, there are only five names" in the category of best director "in an incredibly dense year," a member of the Academy told AFP on condition of anonymity before the nominations.

The statistics are stubborn, however. Since the creation of the Oscars, only five women have been nominated as directors: Lina Wertmüller (in 1976 for "Pasqualino"), Jane Campion (in 1993 for "The Piano Lesson"), Sofia Coppola (in 2003 for " Lost in Translation "), Kathryn Bigelow (in 2009 for" Minesweepers ") and Greta Gerwig (in 2017 for" Lady Bird ").

Regularly strangled in recent years for its lack of diversity, the Academy of Oscars is still subject to criticism for its 2020 selection: the black American actress Cynthia Erivo is the only "non-white" artist to have made her way in the nominations, in the category "best actress" for "Harriet", a historic film on racism and slavery in the United States.

Last year, three of the four Oscars awarded to the actors went to "non-white" artists, noted commentators in Hollywood, notably pointing out this year the absence of Eddie Murphy, who made his comeback to the cinema in "Dolemite Is My Name", and Jennifer Lopez, who was eligible for nomination for "Queens".

Former US President Barack Obama still welcomed a nomination, that of the documentary he helped produce, "American Factory", the difficult takeover of an Ohio auto plant by a billionaire culture and the culture shock that ensues.

"This is the kind of story we don't see enough and that's exactly what Michelle and I hope to do with Higher Ground," the production company founded by the Obama couple, he wrote on Twitter. .

France will be represented in the category of best foreign film by "Les Misérables" by Ladj Ly, awarded in Cannes, but also by "I lost my body" for animated films.

The Oscars 2020 will be presented in Hollywood on February 9.

© 2020 AFP