OK, first of all this year the five Best Director nominees match up with the Best Pictures. This is actually
not a common occurrence at the Academy Awards. Since 1965 this is only the
fourth time the two categories match up. It happened at the 1965 ceremony, the 1982 and 2006. If you think this would make it more likely that then the Director and Picture winners would also match, again you'd be wrong. In 1965 they did (George Cuckor/
My Fair Lady) but '82 it was split (Warren Beatty,
Reds/
Chariots of Fire) as was 2006 (Ang Lee,
Brokeback Mountain/
Crash).
Secondly, I'll go through my annual Director=Picture spiel. It used to be rare that the Best Director was not also Best Picture. From 1968 to 1998 it happened only four times: In '68 (Mike Nichols,
The Graduate/
In the Heat of the Night), 1972 (Bob Fosse,
Cabaret/
The Godfather), 1982 (Warren Beatty,
Reds/
Chariots of Fire) and 1990 (Oliver Stone,
Born On the Fourth of July/
Driving Miss Daisy).
So, four times in thirty years ain't a lot. But then came the more recent Oscar history. From 1999 through 2008 the Best Director and Best Picture have been split four more times: 1999 (Steven Spielberg,
Saving Private Ryan/
Shakespeare in Love), 2001 (Steven Soderbergh,
Traffic/
Gladiator), 2003 (Roman Polanski,
The Pianist/
Chicago) and the aforementioned 2006 (Ang Lee,
Brokeback Mountain/
Crash).
So from four in three decades to four in nine years. Will it be a fifth in ten this year?
Stephen Daldry and
The Reader getting noms for both Director and Picture was a bit of a stunner Thursday morning. But this is already Daldry's third nomination, getting previous nods for
Billy Elliot and
The Hours. Considering these are the first three feature films he has ever directed, that is damned impressive. I'll have to research it, but I can't think of any other director who has done that, certainly none in the post-Studio System era. But despite this amazing bit of trivia, I don't think anybody would list him among the top two or three directors working today. I doubt he would even be mentioned in most people's top twenty or even fifty. But here he is. I think he has absolutely zero chance of winning this year, but I'm going to have to start figuring him into my pre-Oscar predictions. His next project is going to be an adaptation of Michael Chabon's Pulitzer Prize winning novel
The Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. So maybe the fourth time will be the charm?
This is Ron Howard's second nomination as Best Director. It should be his third but somehow even though he won the DGA Award for
Apollo 13 he wasn't even nominated at the Oscar's (the year Mel Gibson and
Braveheart won). Of course Ronny won the Academy Award for
A Beautiful Mind, as did the film for Picture. I suppose he has more of a chance of winning than Daldry this time, but not much more.
Frost/Nixon is well made and showcases a couple of top-notch performances, but it and Ron just plain are not going to be given Oscar gold.
Unlike Daldry, who even with his consistent Oscar nominations is not a known commodity in the business, the name David Fincher has been something special for quite a while now. That this is his first dance at the Oscars is silly but typical, and his earlier genre films aren't the "usual" Oscar fare. I happen to like
Benjamin Button a lot, but even its detractors have to admit it is an extremely well crafted bit of cinema. If you don't connect with it I think it's probably fault of the something in the story and script, not Fincher's demonstrable skills behind the camera. Since Christopher Nolan didn't make the cut, it is Fincher and
Button that is the most ambitious and technically complex of the entries. I think that's going to get Fincher some votes, whether or not those same people vote for
Button as Picture.
Gus Van Sant was nominated once before, for
Good Will Hunting (the year of the
Titanic juggernaut). After reveling in the independent film world that thrust him into the mainstream. He took that newfound clout for one of the oddest moves in recent decades: an often shot-by-shot remake of Hitchcock's
Psycho. He lives here in Portland and I've run into him a couple times at screenings around town, but I haven't yet mustered up the courage to ask him WTF that was about. Bar bet, is my guess. After the inevitable critical and popular failure of that project he made
Finding Forrester, which is a nice if unremarkable Studio pic. From there he really went back to his roots, experimenting with tones and styles in a series of indie projects that not only alienated whatever
Good Will Hunting fans were left but even puzzled some who adored
Drugstore Cowboy and
My Own Private Idaho. When he signed on to
MILK it was definitely a return to the mainstream, being a big biopic with an acknowledged great actor with a prime release for awards consideration, but unlike
Psycho and
Forrester there is no hint of selling out or subverted passion for cinema. The hubub over California's Prop 8 underlined the relevance of Harvey Milk's story and gave it an extra immediacy it probably wouldn't have had three or four years ago. Everything clicked for Van Sant this time. But is it enough for an Oscar win?
Danny Boyle's
Slumdog Millionaire is by far the most satisfying stand-up-and-cheer flick of the year, and like Van Sant he didn't really have to change his style or sensibility from his earlier works that built his reputation in making this crowd-pleaser. In fact it is because of his editing and visual style that
Slumdog doesn't come off as a sentimental bit of hokum, but feels like a fresh, fun ride. The question is, even with the enormous goodwill the movie has and it clearly being the one and only pure "entertainment" among the nominees, is it going to garner the Oscars for either Best Director and/or Best Picture?
I actually smell another split coming this year. Despite all the love I think that
Slumdog isn't going to make it and that David Fincher is going to
just beat out Van Sant in this category. But it's the closest three-way Director race in years, as I see it. Usually it comes down to two viable candidates, but Howard and Daldry are the only two I count completely out of this one. The only real "surprise" in this category the past couple decades was when Polanski won over Scorsese and Rob Marshall (and Daldry). I don't think we're in for another shocker here, but I do feel Fincher is going to win out this time.
But that's only my guess.