Categories One-by-One: Best Director

Mister Tee
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Post by Mister Tee »

Well, for the record, alot of the classics of the 70s could have been classified work for hire as well -- most especially including The Godfather, which Coppola always viewed as the source of money that allowed him to make the films he truly wanted to make. (By the way, I accidentally left Alexander Payne off that 90s list)
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Post by Sabin »

It's not that this current group has longevity, but rather they've conformed their vision to the visions of others. Of these newly establishment tinged darlings (and I take it that Karina is talking about Aronofsky, Fincher, Nolan, Russell), how many of them write? Nolan certainly does, but he does so in between adaptations of books and comic books. Inception is a film he's trying to get done for a decade, and it stands as truly the only film of his original creation since Memento (which itself as a pseudo-adaptation of his brothers' unpublished short story). Russell wrote I (Heart) Huckabees, but it seems as though this was just work for hire. As was The Social Network. As was Black Swan, although by all accounts Darren Aronofsky shuffled writing responsibilities from man to man until he had something that he liked. Nobody look to this grouping of films and respective auteurs and says "Hells, yes. This is what these guys are about!"

Joel & Ethan Coen are the grand old men of the group and True Grit (like No Country before and likely the Yiddish Policemen's Union after) is work for hire, with a Burn After Reading lark and A Serious Man meditation thrown in between.

(Shakespeare in Love is wonderful. The Thin Red Line is better, but like that was going to happen? There a better romantic comedy and a better WWII film in 1998, and because the latter had no chance in hell and Rushmore was barely released in time, Shakespeare in Love is a most deserving winner.)




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Mister Tee
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Post by Mister Tee »

Except for the fact that I think Shakespeare in Love is a wonderful film that's been unjustly dismissed by too many, I could have written most every word in this article. I do think the saddest thing about Harvey Weinstein flogging the sort of likable period pieces he's championed for the past decade is, he initially came along as the guy who was saving us from a steady diet of such films at the Oscars. He's like the charismatic revolutionary -- a Zapata -- who it turns out only wanted to sit on the throne himself.

I think you can make a case that the stretch from roughly '94 through '99 gave us our first taste of the most impressive/innovative directors since the legendary Malibu crowd of he 70s. In addition to the currently-cited directors the article mentions, we also got our first look at Ang Lee, Alfonso Cuaron, Bill Condon, the Andersons Wes and Paul Thomas, the Spike Jonze/Charlie Kaufman tag team. The difference between these folks and the Coppola/Scorsese/Spielberg et al. crowd is, many of the latter made their most prominent films early and too many of them (Bogdanovich, Friedkin, Ashby) fell by the wayside shortly after. This current group has had more longevity -- indeed, seems to be just hitting its stride -- which makes one sanguine about what we might see from them in the years just ahead.

And this is indeed why, for many of us, the prospect of Hooper winning over representatives of this group brings back un-fond memories of John Avildsen or George Roy Hill triumphing back in the day.
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Post by Big Magilla »

From LA Weekly:

Oscar Mild
'90s mavericks may have bum-rushed the establishment, but the more the Oscars change, the more they stay the same
By Karina Longworth Thursday, Feb 17 2011

Paramount, distributor of David O. Russell's The Fighter, celebrated the helmer's Best Director Oscar nomination by placing a "For Your Consideration" ad on the cover of Variety, touting him as "the comeback of the year." It was an odd choice of phrasing, considering that The Fighter, Russell's first feature to net any Oscar nominations, is by far his biggest success. What is he coming back to?

Prognosticators of the Academy Awards, which will be broadcast this Sunday, had presumed that Russell's slot would go to Inception mastermind Christopher Nolan — whom Russell reportedly put in a headlock at a Hollywood party in 2003. Such stories about Russell's bad behavior have overshadowed his films, most of which have drawn mixed reviews and lost money. The Fighter seems less a return than a rebirth: a calculated, successful attempt by Russell to remake himself as a filmmaker capable of working quietly within the Hollywood establishment.

The fact that this problem child is a contender for the highest honor in his field could be taken as evidence that the Academy establishment is changing. Though several Oscar-feted members of the old guard made films in 2010 — Eastwood, Polanski, Scorsese — the Academy ignored them in favor of work by comparative youngsters (at 56, Joel Coen is the oldest director of a Best Picture nominee), most of whom launched their careers at film festivals or via other indie-film conduits.

Six of this year's 10 Best Picture nominees were made by filmmakers who had early career breakouts at Sundance: the Coen brothers in the 1980s; Darren Aronofsky, Lisa Cholodenko and Russell in the '90s; Debra Granik and Nolan in the '00s. Two others, David Fincher and Danny Boyle, who established cult bona fides with late-'90s zeitgeist-definers, have been recognized by the Academy only fairly recently (the former for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, the latter for Slumdog Millionaire). Rounding out the roster are two non-indie newcomers to the race: Lee Unkrich, whose Toy Story 3 was the highest-grossing film of 2010, and Tom Hooper, the 38-year-old British director of The King's Speech with a TV-heavy résumé who enjoys a unique advantage — the full support of Harvey Weinstein.

After several years barely in the game, Weinstein, with The King's Speech, has his first likely Best Picture winner since Chicago (2002).

It may be a return to glory of a sort, but, as with Russell's, Weinstein's very good year represents a "comeback" that reeks of compromise. The King's Speech is closer to the turn-of-the-millennium Miramax pap — think Chocolat — that Weinstein managed to get nominated by his typically aggressive approach than to the risk-taking titles on which he built his reputation (Sex, Lies, and Videotape, Pulp Fiction).

Weinstein's safe bet with The King's Speech arguably shafted his company's two other late-year prestige films, Blue Valentine and The Company Men. A full Weinstein endorsement of Derek Cianfrance's stark, time-fractured marital drama might have challenged Academy members to evolve, the way they did to make room for Weinstein's more transgressive pet projects of the early '90s. Instead, the once and apparently future King of Campaigning got behind the film that conforms to Academy voters' conservative, sentimental tastes.

The combination of Anglophilia, historical "importance" and capital-A "Acting!" makes The King's Speech a likely Best Picture shoo-in, irresistible to the same voting body that fell for the milquetoast charms of 1998's Shakespeare in Love — Weinstein's most controversial Oscar victory.

The comparative quality of much darker nominated films such as Black Swan, Inception and The Social Network might be debatable, but, at the very least, these are cerebral movies built around questionably sympathetic antiheroes, with polarizing conclusions — which likely puts them at a disadvantage. The King's Speech is about the entwined victories of overcoming a personal disability to conquer Nazis, and its uplifting final scenes reliably jerk tears. Academy history suggests that wet eyes are a better guarantor of votes than ambiguous endings — and who's to say that emotional response isn't valid?

But a victory for The King's Speech would still be dispiriting. For all the evidence that 2010's nominees offer that Hollywood has been fundamentally changed by a new generation of auteurs, Academy consensus likely will reward the least innovative, most old-fashioned film — the one that best embodies the middlebrow sensibility that other Best Picture nominees, in the foundational spirit of the indie institutions that nurtured their makers, seem like a defiant reaction against.
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Post by OscarGuy »

I was looking through the final tallies of the Best Picture/Director splits and we may know pretty early whether there is a split incoming. Although plenty of films have won Picture and Director with low total wins, only 1 film has won in a split with more than 6 trophies. If The King's Speech, excluding Director and Picture, has 6 or more, then it should also take Best Director. If it has less, than a split may or may not occur, so your definitive is only if King's Speech isn't cleaning up everything in sight. 5 up to that point will be an iffy position to be in.

And an interesting secondary note, only twice has the film that toppled the Best Picture winner in Best Director won more than 4 awards (Cabaret with 8 in 1972 and A Place in the Sun with 6 in 1951). So, The Social Network would need to have 3 or fewer awards for the night going into Best Director.

2005: 3 - Crash (3 - Brokeback Mountain)
2002: 6 - Chicago (3 - The Pianist)
2000: 5 - Gladiator (4 - Traffic)
1989: 4 - Driving Miss Daisy (2 - Born on the Fourth of July)
1981: 4 - Chariots of Fire (3 - Reds)
1980: 3 - The Godfather (8 - Cabaret)
1967: 5 - In the Heat of the Night (1 - The Graduate)
1956: 5 - Around the World in 80 Days (1 - Giant)
1952: 2 - The Greatest Show on Earth (2 - The Quiet Man)
1951: 6 - An American in Paris (6 - A Place in the Sun)
1949: 3 - All the King's Men (2 - A Letter to Three Wives)
1948: 4 - Hamlet (3 - The Treasure of the Sierra Madre)
1940: 2 - Rebecca (2 - The Grapes of Wrath)
1937: 3 - The Life of Emile Zola (1 - The Awful Truth)
1936: 3 - The Great Ziegfeld (1 - Mr. Deeds Goes to Town)
1935: 1 - Mutiny on the Bounty (4 - The Informer)
1931/32: 1 - Grand Hotel (2 - Bad Girl)
1930/31: 3 - Cimarron (1 - Skippy)
1928/29: 1 - The Broadway Melody (1 - The Divine Lady)
1927/28: 2 - Wings (1 - Two Arabian Nights; 3 - 7th Heaven)
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Okri
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Post by Okri »

Mister Tee wrote:
Okri wrote:
Mister Tee wrote: Okri, is this something I should have known before? Because I don't believe I did.
That sentence parses wierdly.

People don't know who directs TV movies. I'm speaking as someone who generally does know who directs TV movies.

.... heh.
Oh...I read it as, you were someone who directed TV movies. Which was a rather significant detail.
Yeah. I apologize, I didn't realize that until you asked.
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Post by Big Magilla »

Certainly. I was beginning to think ti was going to be Category One and Only Worth Discussing This Year.
anonymous1980
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Post by anonymous1980 »

Would it be all right if I posted the rest of the categories?
Mister Tee
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Post by Mister Tee »

Okri wrote:
Mister Tee wrote:
Okri wrote:it's not like people generally know who directs TV movies (speaking as someone... who does).
Okri, is this something I should have known before? Because I don't believe I did.
That sentence parses wierdly.

People don't know who directs TV movies. I'm speaking as someone who generally does know who directs TV movies.

.... heh.
Oh...I read it as, you were someone who directed TV movies. Which was a rather significant detail.
Okri
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Post by Okri »

Mister Tee wrote:
Okri wrote:it's not like people generally know who directs TV movies (speaking as someone... who does).
Okri, is this something I should have known before? Because I don't believe I did.
That sentence parses wierdly.

People don't know who directs TV movies. I'm speaking as someone who generally does know who directs TV movies.

.... heh.
Mister Tee
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Post by Mister Tee »

Okri wrote:it's not like people generally know who directs TV movies (speaking as someone... who does).
Okri, is this something I should have known before? Because I don't believe I did.
Mister Tee
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Post by Mister Tee »

Okri has it exactly: Hooper is a film neophyte compared to the other four nominated directors, and his degree-of-familiarity is substantially less as a result (I don't think many directors, even those working at the highest-quality television, are viewed at the same level -- few shows have had the critical acclaim of The Sopranos, yet, when its directors made features, they were still viewed as newcomers). Hooper's potential win would be in spite of this, thanks fully to the popularity of his film.

Fincher is obviously not as tight with Hollywood as Ron Howard was, but, then, neither were Danny Boyle, Kathryn Bigelow, Ang Lee or the Coen Brothers. And even if you think most of them were dragged along by their films rather than vice versa, what about Steven Soderbergh? He was if anything less a Chamber of Commerce favorite than Fincher, but won solo.

Not to say I've dropped my skepticism about Fincher winning, but I have to admit I'm surprised at the support he's suddenly getting from odd quarters. Anne Thompson was maybe the loudest of the "No, it'll be The King's Speech" crowd back in November/December, but now she's pitching Fincher.

FilmFan talked in this thread about how The Pianist might have won best picture if it had had more time. I'm always dubious about hypotheticals like that -- there was a similar, widely-held belief that Humphrey might have overtaken Nixon in '68 with more time, but I've heard reputable pollsters say their data suggested the exact opposite, that Humphrey actually was as close as he was ever going to get on Election Day. But, take it as a given: isn't it possible this is the opposite? That the sudden, widespread certainty The King's Speech was the (unexpected) best picture choice might create a before-the-fact sense of buyer's remorse, and cause people to at least offset their choice with a different directing selection?

Or, we're all jerking off, and it'll be the DGA choice down the line, like usual. We'll know in a week. At least it's a race in our heads.
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Post by Okri »

I'm predicting Hooper, but inspite of what I perceive to be a lack of name recognition and respect as directly compared to the other four members of his category. Neophyte is a shorter way of saying that.



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Post by OscarGuy »

I'm sorry, but stage directing and a filmed stage musical do not compare appropriately with a full array of television made for TV movies and miniseries. There isn't much difference these days between TV Movie directors and Film directors. With most of them directing for pay cable, they can generally make feature length productions without the need for generating commercial breaks. You work with the same media, the same types of actors and scripts. And whether common people know who Tom Hooper is, a number of people in the industry probably do. Add to that the fact that he directed a wildly popular film with 12 Oscar nominations, voters aren't going to take that lightly. An actor-turned-director he is not, but I can picture him winning like those other first time directors (Costner & Gibson).

Let's not confuse name recognition and experience.




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Post by Okri »

And Marshall was an acclaimed stage director/choreographer with a TV movie to his name. I think Hooper still qualifies - it's not like people generally know who directs TV movies (speaking as someone... who does).
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