The DGA vs. the Academy
Katharine Hepburn, Rossano Brazzi in Summertime
In 1948, the 12-year-old Directors Guild of America (DGA), then known as the Screen Directors Guild (SDG), began handing out yearly achievement awards. George Sidney, Frank Capra, Delmer Daves, John Ford, H. Bruce Humberstone, Irving Pichel, Norman Taurog, and, ex-officio, Guild president George Marshall took part in the initial Awards Committee, which selected the Directors Guild Award honorees.
Before 1970, the Guild’s yearly list of finalists consisted of a variable number of directors, usually more than five. From 1970 on, when the Directors Guild began restricting its list of nominees to five directors per year, a DGA nod has usually translated into an Oscar nod. There have been, however, quite a few exceptions to this rule. In fact, to date only four times have the DGA choices fully matched the Academy’s shortlist: 1977, 1981, 1998, and 2005. (A DGA win has usually translated into an Oscar win as well; the exceptions are here.)
Generally speaking, non-American and less commercial films tend to fare better with the Director’s branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) than with the Guild, probably because of the sheer number of voting members in the DGA. For comparison’s sake, the DGA boasts about 13,000 voting members while the Academy’s considerably more elitist Director’s branch has less than 400. The Guild’s membership includes motion picture and television directors, first and second assistant directors, unit production managers, technical coordinators, tape associate directors, stage managers, and production associates.
The larger the voting body, the more mundane — or more mainstream, if you wish — are the choices. That also explains why the likes of Federico Fellini, Ingmar Bergman, and Krzysztof Kieslowski have received Oscar nods for best director without ever coming out on top. (Every Academy member — currently about 6,000 of them — is entitled to vote for the winner.)
Since 1970, a mere ten directors of (at least mostly) non-English-language films have received DGA nods. (Eleven if you include Bernardo Bertolucci for Last Tango in Paris [right, with Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider], which has a sizable amount of English dialogue.) During that same period, 21 directors of non-English-language films received Academy Award nominations. (Twenty-two if you include Bertolucci and his Last Tango.)
Additionally, directors of English-language — but non-American — films tend to be better liked by Academy members. Paul Greengrass (United 93, UK), Atom Egoyan (The Sweet Hereafter, Canada), Peter Cattaneo (The Full Monty, UK), Ken Russell (Women in Love, UK), Jim Sheridan (My Left Foot and In the Name of the Father, UK/Ireland), John Boorman (Hope and Glory, UK), Chris Noonan (Babe, Australia), Peter Yates (The Dresser, UK), Laurence Olivier (Hamlet, UK), David Lean (Summertime, UK, top photo), John Huston (The African Queen and Moulin Rouge, UK), Hector Babenco (Kiss of the Spider Woman, Brazil), and Kenneth Branagh (Henry V, UK), among others, were left out of the DGA shortlist but received Academy Award nominations.
Cult or semi-cult faves like David Lynch (Blue Velvet in 1986, Mulholland Dr. in 2001), Robert Altman (Short Cuts in 1993, Gosford Park in 2001), and Woody Allen (Interiors in 1978, Broadway Danny Rose in 1984, Bullets Over Broadway in 1994) are better liked by the Academy’s Director’s branch (the aforementioned titles were all nominated) than by the Directors Guild (none of the aforementioned titles were nominated).
Ralph Fiennes in The Reader
The same can be said about controversial box-office disappointments like The Last Temptation of Christ (an Oscar nod for Martin Scorsese in 1988), The People vs. Larry Flynt (Milos Forman in 1996), Vera Drake (Mike Leigh in 2004), and The Reader (Stephen Daldry, 2008), none of which was to be found in the DGA’s list of nominees.
On the other hand, DGA members are big fans of Steven Spielberg, who has garnered 10 nominations (versus six Oscar nods), including three wins (versus two Oscar wins).
That said, there have been a few instances when DGA members went for a less commercial name while the Academy’s Director’s branch opted for the big box-office guy. The most egregious example is probably the Academy’s 1971 best director nod for Norman Jewison for his bloated musical Fiddler on the Roof, while the DGA nominated Robert Mulligan for his touching, small-scale Summer of ‘42.
In an even stranger twist, Academy fave Woody Allen was somehow left out of the 1979 Oscar shortlist even though he did receive a DGA nod for Manhattan — one of his best films.
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Tags: Academy Awards, Bernardo Bertolucci, Classic Movies, David Lean, David Lynch, DGA Awards, Film Awards, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Steven Spielberg, Woody Allen
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