The DGA Awards were handed out last night, and Clint Eastwood took home the top honor for
Million Dollar Baby...which will likely mirror the upcoming Oscar result as well.
It used to be almost a lock that if you won the DGA the Oscar would be next. But in recent years that hasn't been as true. Two of the past four have been different outcomes: in 2001 Ang Lee got the DGA for
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon while Soderbergh got the Oscar for
Traffic, and in 2003 Rob Marshall won the DGA for
Chicago while Polanski won the Oscar for
The Pianist.
But before these last four years where it's been a 50/50 proposition, all the winners of the DGA from 2000 to 1990 mirrored the Oscars with the single ecxeption of 1996, when Ron Howard won the DGA for
Apollo 13 but Mel Gibson won the Oscar for
Braveheart. In the previous decade from 1979 to 1989, the winners of both awards were the same except for 1986, when Spielberg won the DGA for
The Color Purple and Sydney Pollack won the Oscar for
Out of Africa.
What hardly anybody ever notes is that the Director's Guild of America has snubbed Martin Scorsese even more than the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has (six DGA noms vs. five Oscar noms as director). And while the mainstream taste of the larger Oscar voting body is frustrating but almost understandable on some level, that other directors in his own profession have consistently chosen to honor other filmmakers has always struck me as odd. Scorsese has gotten DGA nominations for
Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, GoodFellas, The Age of Innocence, Gangs of New York and
The Aviator with no wins. The losses for
Raging Bull and
GoodFellas were the same as the Oscars, with Redford and Costner nabbing the top honor instead.
So....yeah. It's still a two-horse race between Eastwood and Scorsese for the Oscar this year, and while there will definitely be some career acheivement sentimental votes cast for Marty I don't think it'll be enough to push him past Clint.