DGA Preview – Directors Matter

ENTER OUR CONTEST!

For 82 out of 86 Oscar years the directors have controlled the way Best Picture has been handed down. They matter. They are what the Academy was built to do: professionals deciding the best of the year. The entire Academy has looked to them for guidance in almost every year of their existence.  Yet this year, suddenly, they don’t matter. What they think doesn’t matter. They are being passed over.   I have to say, that blows my mind just a little.

14,500 DGA members thought Ben Affleck, Kathryn Bigelow and Tom Hooper should join Ang Lee and Steven Spielberg as the Best Directors of 2012.  But their nominations came out after Oscar ballots had already been turned it. Without the DGA to guide them the directors branch at the Academy did what they wanted to do: they picked the five films they thought were the best of the year: Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln, Ang Lee’s Life of Pi, David O. Russell’s Silver Linings Playbook, Benh Zeitlin’s Beasts of the Southern Wild, and Michael Haneke’s Amour.

Why does it matter that the directors decided on five different films to win if the whole Academy gets to decide, you might ask? We might be heading into an era where it no longer matters at all. After all, the Oscar race has morphed into a flea circus and the race itself has begun to resemble a reality show, like Dancing with the Stars or the Amazing Race;  You have to win the moment by having a compelling “Oscar story.” An Oscar story isn’t: Kathleen Kennedy the most nominated producers in the history of the Academy has never won an Oscar, Steven Spielberg bringing a beloved project to the big screen after 13 years, or that movie about ideas earning an unbelievable $170 million.  An Oscar story sure to capture Hollywood’s attention is “Ben Affleck didn’t get nominated for Best Director.”  It is art imitating life because Argo is about Tony Mendez who did a great thing then didn’t get recognition for it. Rewarding Affleck is like rewarding his character and believe me, that is irresistible.

In an ordinary Oscar year, we pundits would simply look at the two who were nominated by both the Academy and the Directors Guild to find our DGA winner.  But one of those snubbed directors was a movie star.  So when he got snubbed it felt to many as if someone they knew had gotten the shaft.  The sting from that was palpable throughout the awards scene — suddenly, Argo was seen as the favorite.  It helped that the other “Middle East movie” had been swift-boated right out of the Oscar race.  That makes this year not an ordinary year and it’s probably why Ben Affleck will win on Saturday.

Whether he wins or not is beyond our control.  Whether he should win or not is not up to us to decide.  That won’t stop us from taking sides and building our case. For my money no one directed a more important, brilliantly made, resonate film as Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln.  Right after Lincoln is Life of Pi and Zero Dark Thirty, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Amour and then Argo.  But that doesn’t mean I didn’t love Argo — it just means Lincoln is the greater achievement, whether it set the fanboys’ pants on fire or not, whether it appeals to every person in every country or not.

But I know there’s mostly nothing that can stop momentum like this, not even having the lack of a Best Director nod.  It helps that Argo the movie is full of likability.  Likable characters, likable stories – America, more specifically HOLLYWOOD, as likable heroes.  In Zero Dark Thirty we must deal with our ugly selves and the darker aspect of our history. In Argo no such dilemma exists — America does the right thing. Movies do the right thing. Movies are good for the world. Movies can save the world.

Argo is involving and suspenseful, funny and satisfying. The acting is great, the writing tight and full of wit — it makes audiences feel like Hollywood insiders — we get the jokes about associate producers and the Golden Globes and Argofuckyourself! It’s full of memorable lines like “This is the best bad idea we have,” and its star is Ben Affleck.  Lock and load.

So why then did the directors branch of the AMPAS choose other films?  What about Argo made the directors not want to award it?  Sure, it lacked an “Oscar story” early on but the movie was still the movie.   It could be that they assumed Affleck was a done deal so they’d put their votes elsewhere.  It could be that they genuinely liked Amour and Beasts of the Southern Wild more. It could be that some of them really just don’t like Ben Affleck or it could be that for Hollywood insiders Argo isn’t as funny as it is for Hollywood outsiders. Moreover, it does have the line, “you can teach a rhesus monkey to be a director in a day.”

The heart and soul of the Best Picture race has traditionally been nestled in the Best Director category. Right behind that is usually screenplay and editing. From the looks of it, Argo is about to take all three.

Affleck has another thing going for him.  If you look at the past winners for the DGA you’ll see that they have often picked first-timers to win, going back to 2008:

Boyle – Slumdog
Bigelow – The Hurt Locker
Tom Hooper – The King’s Speech
Michel Hazinavicious – The Artist

Ben Affleck is the only first timer in the DGA lineup. If you couple that with his likable movie, his Oscar snub and his likable personality you get “most likely to win.”   But you have to kind of feel sorry for him. If his film wins Best Picture he’s always going to be that guy who won without a director nomination. He already has one Oscar at home for screenwriting and he’ll win one again for producing so it won’t be a total wash, but without the support of the directors branch his film and his win will always look less-so.  Until this year, Driving Miss Daisy was looked upon as the most unworthy winner in the past few decades.  It is only this year that it’s being trotted as a good thing, having won without that director nomination.

Moreover, Driving Miss Daisy was criticized for being a softie version of Do the Right Thing, a film that really WAS snubbed by the Academy, most undeservedly.  Driving Miss Daisy was Do the Right Thing lite as Argo is Zero Dark Thirty lite.  Despite how enjoyable and funny Argo is history will not take to it kindly, I don’t think.  I might be wrong about that but time will tell.

It is a lament that Argo, like many of the films up for Best Picture, put women in traditional roles — wives or girlfriends. It’s even worse in Argo because men really do all the “serious” work. Women are to be protected from harm but they don’t seem to think for themselves. One of the great things about Lincoln, Zero Dark Thirty, Beasts of the Southern Wild and even Amour is that the female characters are vital and important. They don’t exist as non-people. It is not Argo’s job to fix sexism in our world. But I can’t help but wish Best Picture of the year didn’t feature such stereotypes.

The only upside to all of this is that there are a few more weeks of this madness and then we can put the dog and pony show back in its cage.

Predicted winner: Ben Affleck, Argo
Might win: Steven Spielberg, Lincoln
Should win: Steven Spielberg, Lincoln

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