Natalie Portman made her feature-length directorial debut two years ago with A Tale of Love and Darkness, an all-Hebrew adaptation of Israeli author Amos Oz's autobiography. Very few people know this film even exists, but those who have seen it regard it as being a sign of better things to come for Portman as a director. Several years before that, Portman went to bat for Patty Jenkins to be the director of Thor: The Dark World and thus become the first female director of a big budget comic book movie. When that fell through due to "creative differences," Portman more or less became a contract hostage on the film. The Dark World ended up being so bad Marvel later made a sequel that openly mocks it. Patty Jenkins made Wonder Woman. I think you know how well that worked out.
It is with all of that mind that I cue up the following insta-viral clip from last night's Golden Globes:
Portman just said on live TV what the internet had been screaming about for a month. In a year with more worthwhile female nominees for Best Director than usual, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association saw fit to nominate five dudes. Sorry Jenkins ( Wonder Woman), Dee Rees ( Mudbound), Greta Gerwig ( Lady Bird) and Kathryn Bigelow ( Detroit). Not a single one of you did a better job than Christopher Nolan ( Dunkirk), Steven Spielberg ( The Post), Guillermo del Toro ( The Shape of Water), Ridley Scott ( All the Money in the World), or Martin McDonagh ( Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri). Apparently.
Which...fine. In any other year, this could be dismissed as simply the Globes being the Globes and written off in the "why should we bother getting worked up about the stupid Golden Globes anyway?" tone we always seem to forget. These awards simply reflect the subjective opinion of a bunch of random foreign journalists. Plus, to be fair you can make a fair argument for all 5 of their nominees just as you can for the women (and men; sorry, Paul Thomas Anderson and Edgar Wright) they snubbed. That's simply the nature of the awards season.
However, in the past when awards have been all white or all dudes or both the argument has been to point the finger back at the industry producing the product. Awards shows celebrate the best of the best, and if women and people of color aren't given a chance to make movies then the awards can't celebrate their work. That doesn't mean the awards bodies can't try harder, as the Academy has with its historic push to diversify its membership post-#OscarsSoWhite. But, in truth, there's only so much they can do.
But then Jordan Peele made Get Out. Greta Gerwig made Lady Bird. Patty Jenkins made Wonder Woman. Kathryn Bigelow made Detroit. Dee Rees made Mudbound. You can't just rubber stamp all of them because they fit a socially conscious quota for your awards show. The work has to warrant the recognition, which is why Will Smith's truly mediocre Concussion went mostly ignored two years ago. But the steadily growing numbers of critics awards and nominations flowing Get Out, Lady Bird, Wonder Woman, Detroit, and Mudbound's way validates their work. Heck, Gerwig was named Best Director for Lady Bird by both the National Society of Film Critics and National Board of Review mere days before the Globes last night. If nominated by the HFPA, she still might have lost to Guillermo del Toro, who delivered a lovely speech and is as worthy a nominee as anyone for Shape of Water, but she would have at least been at the table.
Then there's this: As Barbra Streisand called out before giving the Best Drama award to Three Billboards, it's been 34 years since a woman won Best Director at the Golden Globes (which she did for Yentl in '84). Including Streisand, there have only been five women nominated in the 75-year history of the show. They are, in chronological order:
- Streisand (Yentl and The Prince of Tides)
- Jane Campion (The Piano)
- Sofia Coppola (Lost in Translation)
- Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty)
- Ava DuVernay (Selma)
That's at least more progressive than the Academy, which has only seen fit to nominate 4 women for Best Director since 1929:
- Lina Wertmuller (Seven Beauties)
- Jane Campion (The Piano)
- Sofia Coppola (Lost in Translation)
- Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker) - the only winner
The Directors Guild of America hasn't been much better, nominating just 6 women for Best Feature Film Director since 1948:
- Lina Wertmuller (Seven Beauties),
- Barbra Streisand (The Prince of Tides)
- Jane Campion (The Piano)
- Sofia Coppola (Lost in Translation)
- Valerie Faris (Little Miss Sunshine, along with co-director Jonathan Dayton)
- Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty) - the only winner, for Hurt Locker
So, basically, it's been the same exact women for the same exact projects except Lina Wertmuller was snubbed by the HFPA, Valerie Faris by the HFPA and Academy, Streisand by the Academy, and DuVernay by the Academy and DGA.
If you expand beyond Portman's gender-specific dig, the Globes don't have a great history with nominating black directors either, just Spike Lee ( Do the Right Thing), Steve McQueen ( 12 Years a Slave), DuVernay and Barry Jenkins ( Moonlight), none of whom won. Snubbing Jordan Peele looks especially egregious in that light, especially since the HFPA oddly decided to categorize Get Out as a comedy.
Worth remembering: The Globes don't "predict" the Oscars. SAG, the Producers Guild, and DGA do. So, Peele and Gerwig are still considered serious contenders for Best Director while Jenkins and the rest are long shots.
Who would you nominate for Best Director this year, regardless of race or gender? Because, personally, I don't understand why there hasn't been more love for Edgar Wright's spectacular work on Baby Driver. And what did you think of Natalie Portman's dig and Ron Howard's poor, awkward laugh? Let me know in the comments.
