This weekend, Saturday night, the DGA Awards will honor Danny Boyle, Christopher Nolan, David Fincher, Ron Howard and Gus Van Sant. There probably isn’t much to write about here as Boyle has this one in the bag. He has it so much in the bag, in fact, that I don’t even think I’ll run predictions because what would be the point.
The DGA winner almost always goes on to win the Oscar. There have been a few rare instances here and there, enough so that if there is any slippage at all it’s possible it will be seen in the director category. I’m thinking about when Roman Polanski beat Rob Marshall, or Steven Soderbergh beat Ridley Scott. Actually, weirdly enough the Crouching Tiger year Ang Lee won Best Director at the DGAs, Gladiator won Best Picture and Steven Soderbergh, of all people, won Best Director for Traffic, not Erin Brockovich.
When there is a picture/director mismatch, the DGA director will, more often than not, still go on to win the Oscar for Best Director. That is in a year where there is some disagreement going in – – this is not one of those years. In fact, that Slumdog won the SAG and the PGA pretty much cements it. The actors, by all rights, should have picked a film like Doubt or Benjamin Button, where it was an ensemble piece of well known Hollywood actors. But they liked it enough to give it the top prize – that is some seriously unshakable love there.
If Danny Boyle wasn’t winning on Saturday night who would be there to take his place? Christopher Nolan’s win would be unprecedented, I’m fairly certain. So that leaves Gus Van Sant, David Fincher, Ron Howard. It ain’t going to be Ron Howard so that leaves Van Sant or Fincher. I would give the edge to Fincher because of the number of Oscar nominations the film received.
Either way, Danny Boyle is winning on Saturday.
