On January 8, the Director’s Guild of America announced its nominees for their Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film for 2012. Those nominees are
Ben Affleck – Argo
Kathryn Bigelow – Zero Dark Thirty
Tom Hooper – Les Miserables
Ang Lee – Life of Pi
Steven Spielberg – Lincoln
Of the five, only Affleck is the newcomer, grabbing his first nomination on only his directed film. If nothing else, Affleck has secured himself as a solid director – even if a number of his previous acting choices have been suspect. Kathryn Bigelow, who won a few years ago for The Hurt Locker, grabs her second nomination. Hooper, who won for The King’s Speech, grabs his second, and Ang Lee, who won for Brokeback Mountain and was nominated for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, garners his third nomination.
And then there’s Spielberg who might as well have a seat reserved for him as he earns his eleventh nomination, previously winning for Saving Private Ryan, Schindler’s List, and The Color Purple.
While the directors on this list are well-decorated, some of this year’s crop is a bit wonky. Affleck and Bigelow should be the front-runners here, and Lee’s adroit handling of CGI makes his far from a surprise. In contrast, one of the bigger issues in Les Miserables was the direction – or rather, over direction. The film was inconsistent. The impressive vocals were often drowned by the fluctuation from pure emotion to inorganic emotion. And, unfortunately, Spielberg’s direction in Lincoln didn’t make – or break – the film. That honor belongs, not surprisingly, to Daniel Day Lewis. The direction is far from bad or mediocre, but I never once said, That’s a great shot.
There is also a rather damning prophecy in this list. Historically, the DGA nomination – and subsequent – winner has been an accurate barometer for Academy Award nomination and Winner. Since 1989, only twice has the DGA winner not won the Academy Award (1995 DGA: Ron Howard / 1996 Oscar: Mel Gibson; 2000DGA: Ang Lee / 2001 Oscar Ridley Scott). This portends poorly for notable snubs like Paul Thomas Anderson (The Master), David O. Russell (Silver Linings Playbook), Wes Anderson (Moonrise Kingdom), and Michael Haneke (Amour, though he is most likely the favorite – again – to win the Best Foreign Language Film award).
This list of nominees also bodes poorly for the chances of The Master, Silver Linings Playbook, Moonrise Kingdom, or Amour from winning Best Picture. Since the 1990 Academy Awards, there have only been four splits between Best Director and Best Picture, most infamously when the Alfred Uhry-adapted film Driving Miss Daisy beat out Born on the 4th of July, directed by Oliver Stone, who won both the DGA and the Oscar for Best Director that year. (The others were in 1999 when Steven Spielberg won for director but picture went to Shakespeare in Love, 2001 when Steven Soderbergh took directing but lost picture to Ridley Scott’s Gladiator, and 2006 when Ang Lee won for directing Brokeback Mountain but Picture went to the overly pedantic and white-guilt-ridden Crash.)
One gremlin that could bunk up this mechanism is that, this year, the DGA nominations were released prior to Academy Award ballot submissions. In previous years, the news of the DGA could have a hand in swaying voters who were preparing to cast their ballots. For the 2012 awards, this was – ostensibly – prevented, something that could still earn either of the Andersons, Russell, or Haneke their first top-honor for directing.
