Of all the Guild awards that come out every year the Directors Guild Awards usually guide the way most accurately to some Oscars. They honor the best director for feature narratives in the year and only 6 times since 1948 has their decision not gone on to win the Best Director Oscar also (the most recent being Roman Polanski’s win for The Pianist over Rob Marshall for Chicago in 2003). So this year’s nominations should be looked at extra carefully. The nominees are…
64th Annual DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film for 2011:
Midnight In Paris – Woody Allen
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo – David Fincher
The Artist – Michael Hazanavicius
The Descendents – Alexander Payne
Hugo – Martin Scorsese
This provides some interesting info for the future. The Tree of Life has now been shut out of all of the Guild Nominatinos, making it harder for it to get any major nominations at this point. Michael Hazanavicus is the only newcomer here, everyone else receiving noms for their previous works. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo has also now gotten love from all of the 4 guilds, making it a surefire Oscar contender. And Steven Spielberg’s War Horse didn’t receive a nomination, making its climb for any Oscar love looking much harder.
The DGA will hand out its award on January 28, 2012.
Wayne (6)
John (4)
Mette (4)
Nic Cage (4)
Sebastian (4)
steve (4)
Nick (3)
Chip Lary (2)
Dan (2)
Twitter: NeverTooEarlyMP
January 10, 2012 2:28 pm
The DGA is pretty good at predicting the Oscar winners, but quite often one of their nominees misses the cut. I think it will be Fincher this year.
Since this is for directors only I agree, Fincher is the only odd one out here in favor of another popular director, but he’s also gotten Oscar love for a lot of his recent films so it wouldn’t surprise me. At the same time, Oscars like to pull a fast one and pick a very obscure director every year, and it still wouldn’t shock me if Mallick gets a nod for The Tree of Life even though I know that’s pushing it. But of the above 5 I can almost guarantee all will get Best Picture nods.
Twitter: fandangogroover
January 13, 2012 5:42 am
Interesting list. The Descendents hasn’t opened here yet so can’t comment on that one, of the others it’s a tough call. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo was good not great, not sure it would make my shortlist. That leaves three, I’m leaning towards Michael Hazanavicius but would be happy to see Scorsese or Allen win (both this and the Oscar).
I have a feeling we may see a split this year at the Oscars with Scorsese getting best director and The Artist getting best picture. We will see!