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Directing: Iñárritu To Double Dip?

The directing race was shaping up to be a very difficult call on Oscar night, but it has since congealed somewhat. The nominees are Alejandro González Iñárritu for The Revenant, George Miller for Mad Max, Adam McKay for The Big Short, Tom McCarthy for Spotlight, and, surprisingly, Lenny Abrahamson for Room. The big miss, of course, was Ridley Scott for The Martian, who people thought could get a career award. And, if you ask me, Todd Haynes should have also been here for Carol.

In any case, the race began with people wondering whether the Academy would reward Iñárritu two years in a row. That has only happened twice in Oscar history and the last time was in the 1950s. So... a while ago. Meanwhile, both McKay and McCarthy made solid movies, but neither appears a strong directorial achievement. Pundits thus fell back on George Miller as the “auteur” of a visionary type movie. But, this was critics and pundits talking themselves into what they wanted to happen, not what would happen. Despite having won there just last year, Iñárritu won DGA, becoming the first person to do that in back-to-back years. He won BAFTA next (and he also won The Globe, as I predicted). As we have discussed, winning the DGA guarantees you a Best Director Oscar every time in the last 13 years, except the year of Chicago. To pick against that stat seems suicidal.

Could the Academy seek to bolster a potential Best Picture win by Spotlight or The Big Short? Yes. Could they think that Miller deserves some recognition despite the lack of “snob appeal” factor over Mad Max? Yes. But could they just look to The Revenant’s narrative that it was made under brutal conditions, that Iñárritu had to basically torture his cast and crew to put together a project of the scale in which he envisioned it? Absolutely. And will they stop themselves simply because he got one last year, in particular given that he has come back and made a movie of even greater scale? I don’t buy that.

You can certainly discount the BAFTA and Globes Director wins by Iñárritu to the fact that he did not win last year there, and they wanted to make it up to him. But the DGA win cannot be so easily explained. It’s not a lock by any means, but this race appears to be increasingly over…

Updated Best Director rankings are here.

Will win: Alejandro González Iñárritu, The Revenant
Could win: George Miller, Mad Max

Best Picture is next.

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