Monday, January 31, 2005

DGA and Oscar

As Clint Eastwood scoops the award for Best Director at the Director's Guild of America awards for his Million Dollar Baby, it is worth noting the links between the two awards.

According to Gold Derby:
Only two DGA champs failed to be nominated for Best Director at the Oscars: Steven Spielberg (The Color Purple) in 1985 and Ron Howard (Apollo 13) in 1995.
Whilst IMDB identifies the following:
The DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film has nearly always been a perfect forecast of the winner of the Oscar for Best Director. Since its inauguration in 1949 the winners of both awards only differed six times. In 1969 Anthony Harvey (II) won the DGA Award for Lion in Winter, The (1968) while (I) Reed, Carol won the Oscar for Oliver! (1968). 1973 Francis Ford Coppola received DGA's nod for Godfather, The (1972) while the Academy selected Bob Fosse for Cabaret (1972). In 1986 Steven Spielberg received his first DGA Award for Color Purple, The (1985) while the Oscar went to Sydney Pollack for Out of Africa (1985). In 1996 Ron Howard was chosen by the DGA for his direction of Apollo 13 (1995) while Academy voters cited Mel Gibson (I) for Braveheart (1995). In 2001 Ang Lee was chosen by the DGA for his direction of Wo hu cang long (2000) while Steven Soderbergh won the Best Director Academy Award for Traffic (2000). In 2003 Rob Marshall won the DGA Award for Chicago (2002) while Roman Polanski received the Academy Award for Pianist, The (2002).
Even though there has been more discrepancies in recent years, I guess we are odds-on now to see Clint lift the Oscar...?

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