At age 82, Max von Sydow was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for this film, becoming the second oldest man to be nominated for a male acting Oscar. von Sydow was aged 82 years & 289 days whereas the record holder was Hal Holbrook aged 82 years & 339 days nominated in the same category for Into the Wild (2007), beating him by just 50 days.
Oskar was obsessed with an image of a man falling (jumping) to his death who he believed to be his father. Message #6 flashback shows Oskar staring at the phone while his father asks "are you there?" over and over. The line goes dead we see the tower crumble on the TV and Oskar realizes his father has died. So he must have known his father died when the building came down, he did not jump and cannot be the falling man.
Oskar wakes to the sound of an analog alarm clock. The time on the clock says 6:00, but the little hand that indicates the alarm time says 7:00 (at around 5 mins).
What's the significance of the images of a man falling at the beginning of the movie?
A
This is a series of photos taken by Lyle Owerko depicting a man falling from the World Trade Center after it was attacked on 9/11, itself a reference to Richard Drew's photo The Falling Man). The images are shown in reverse order, implying that the man is falling upwards back into the tower, thus symbolizing Oskar's desire to reverse time and save his father. The same images make up the last 15 pages of Jonathan Safran Foer's novel, upon which this film is based.