This is another pick between two favorites, though a separate industry award may have given away a surprise finish a month early.
The Fighter brings David O. Russell his first Oscar nomination, in just his fifth feature, fifteen years after his indie debut
Spanking the Monkey. He does have a bit of a reputation for being contentious with his actors on the set, infamously having fights with George Clooney on
Three Kings and Lily Tomlin on
I ♥ Huckabees. Whether or not that reputation is fair or not, certainly
The Fighter seems to have washed away those past sins for the industry. Can't say there is much new on display in
The Fighter, directorially, but the three acting nominations speak to that aspect of Russell's job. He has just about zero chance of winning Best Director this year, but having now broken through into the Academy's good graces he should have more chances in the years to come.
Joel and Ethan Coen are enjoying their third Oscar nomination as Best Director(s), having lost with
Fargo and won a few years ago with
No Country for Old Men. They seemed unlikely names to attach to a Western, even more unlikely that it would be material famously adapted for John Wayne in the 1960s, but somehow they pulled it off brilliantly. There are certainly touches of their trademark style throughout, but it is somewhat muted and appropriate for the genre. The two-headed Coen monster will not win their second directing Oscar this year, but I still find it surreal that they have become Academy darlings all of the sudden. Would have loved to see them recognized for
Miller's Crossing and/or
Barton Fink twenty years ago, but I do love
True Grit and it's cool they made the cut.
Like David O. Russell, Darren Aronofsky started deep in the truly indie world of the 1990s with
π (
Pi), followed by the art house fave
Requiem for a Dream. The Academy didn't nominate him for
The Wrestler two years ago, but couldn't ignore his fifth feature. Whether you like or lump
Black Swan, you can't really ignore it. Highly stylized mixture of backstage melodrama and a horror movie, whatever its faults the film, like the lead character's opening night performance, crescendos perfectly for its finale. It has brought Aronofsky the title of "Oscar nominee", but if he wins this time it'll be a HUGE upset.
This is David Fincher's second nomination, having been here two years ago with
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. The Academy didn't want anything to do with the films that made him one of the hottest directors in town,
SE7EN, Fight Club and
Zodiac, but his teaming with screenwriter Aaron Sorkin on
The Social Network is Oscar catnip. While the directing on display isn't as showy as his earlier films and may not even appear all that special to some eyes, among his peers (and, hopefully for him, Academy voters) it is a very impressive. He is getting a bit of a Kubrickian rep in that he shot as many as a hundred takes of some scenes, but while that may not get him some votes from grips and producers, that drive for meticulous perfection can't hurt his Oscar chances.
The King's Speech is thirty-eight-year-old Tom Hooper's third theatrical feature and first Oscar nomination, though he does have some impressive television credits on both sides of the pond, including HBO's
"John Adams" mini-series. Like Fincher's work this year, there isn't much that is obviously (or distractingly) "directorial" in what is on the screen in
The King's Speech, but it is clearly a very well made film. Win or lose, certainly Tom Hooper is now a Hollywood player and should have some weight behind him when his name is attached to future projects in
Variety.
Both Fincher and Hooper have been splitting most all of the major prizes and awards leading up to the Oscar nominations. The momentum seemed to be swinging Fincher's way...at least until the DGA Awards last night. The Directors Guild of America's annual award is one of the most surefire Oscar predictors since its inception in 1949. In all those decades since, the DGA Award winner has gone on to win the Oscar all but
six times. Six since 1949! That's about as consistent a predictor as you can find, Oscar-wise. But four of those DGA/Oscar splits have come since 1986, and two of those in the past decade. The four most recent splits were 1986's Steven Spielberg
The Color Purple DGA/Sydney Pollack
Out of Africa Oscar, 1996's Ron Howard
Apollo 13 DGA/Mel Gibson
Braveheart Oscar, 2001's Ang Lee
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon DGA/Steven Soderbergh
Traffic Oscar, and 2003's Rob Marshall
Chicago DGA/Roman Polanski
The Pianist Oscar.
Will there be a Hooper/Fincher split this year? Just going by the numbers, no, probably not. If you have an Oscar pool at work or wherever, the smart money is now on Tom Hooper. If he does win, he'll join Danny Boyle and Sam Mendes as Oscar winning British directors, prestigious ranks that also include David Lean, Carol Reed, Tony Richardson and Anthony Minghella.
Reply to Topic
well... 1. You cannot measure a film or a directors impact on an audience. maybe you personally were more effected by Nolan, but there is no credible form of social scientific research that could back up your claim.
