ARE YOU KIDDING ME DGA?

Well, we can assume we now know somewhat how the Oscars will look, and chances are at least one incredibly undeserving nominee will get a nod for direction. As reported everywhere (lets go with indieWIRE; they’re nice) yesterday, the DGA announced the nominees for their annual award. They include Martin Scorsese for The Aviator, Alexander Payne for Sideways, Clint Eastwood for Million Dollar Baby, and two guys who have no right to be in this list. (I’m still, for the moment, going to stay away from the Million Dollar Baby argument which several other film bloggers are not just calling bad but one of the worst films of the year!)

Alright, that may be a little harsh. Finding Neverland is a very good movie, but its flaws were in its direction. Director Marc Forster just doesn’t know how to leave the camera alone when necessary, and with such a magnificent cast, there were plenty of moments when the flash and dash and swirls of his moving camera are distracting rather than meaningful. He did the same thing in Monster’s Ball (I know that puts me in a minority, probably similar to the Million Dollar Baby haters), a movie I absolutely loathed. Again, I think he did a good job overall with this film, but one of the five best direction jobs of the year? You’ve got to be kidding.

Still, give me Forster’s work this year any day over Ray. Ray is really a mess, and Taylor Hackford once again earned the first syllable of his last name. The flaws in this film are obvious and they come directly from the script and direction. The only reason this film is even watchable is thanks to Jamie Foxx’s magnificent performance. He carries the movie and does so fabulously. I’ll also give Hackford credit for at least attempting to approach the storytelling in a somewhat novel way: to have the individual songs drive the story. But Ray also has one of the absolute worst and most abrupt endings that I’ve ever seen onscreen. Ray isn’t a bad film but it’s not a good one either. It’s a movie that should have been great; a biopic about a man whose life story was ripe for cinematic exploitation. And Hackford tried valiantly (for many years with I’m sure a lot of heart) to tell that story in an interesting way, but ultimately he failed.

I wish I could say I was shocked that Michel Gondry did not receive a nomination for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but I’m not. The DGA (which is the director’s union after all) is too conservative and probably too old to truly award a work which is as unique, visionary and revolutionary as Gondry’s. Eternal Sunshine is the kind of film that springs from the mind of a screenwriter and then gets completely enhanced by the interpretation of a director. If anyone thinks that movie would have been the same, regardless of the strength of Charlie Kaufman’s script, or as incredible, had anybody else helmed it (Spike Jonze included), you are sadly mistaken.

In my head, judging the job of a director may not be easy, but it’s relatively simple. Before you accuse me of contradicting myself, here’s what I mean: a film director should first and foremost follow something similar to the ideal “First do no harm.” (Hey, guess what? In checking myself, I just discovered that those words exist nowhere within the actual Hippocratic Oath. Go figure!) While a director is not responsible for writing the screenplay (unless of course he/she has done that as well), it is still the filmmakers job to help the screenplay become as good as it can be. Beyond that, there have been plenty of interesting, good scripts turned into terrible films. That is the director’s fault. If you make a film basically as good as the script on which it’s based, you’re capable, but nothing more.

The great directors are the ones who will always improve on a script. If you read a script and say, “That was OK,” but then see the movie and really like it, the director has done his/her job. Sometimes a great script may not have that far to go, but it would still be easy to fuck it up, and just making a movie competently is no easy task. The Aviator is a film with a little too much going on and severely underwritten characters, but Scorsese makes it more than simply a watchable movie: he made a great movie (even if not a great Scorsese movie – there is a higher standard there). I personally believe the same can be said about Eastwood’s work on Million Dollar Baby. The film’s script isn’t a mess, but it is a bit trite and filled with cliché. (I for one, however, did not find it predictable, and was happy with many of the questions left unanswered.) It’s tone and visual style are fantastic though, and it’s in the shooting and the editing that you can see what Eastwood at the helm accomplished. The script isn’t a mess by any means (like Ray or Collateral), but it needed improvement from the production phase, and it received that.

See, the rules really are simple. Great direction isn’t about being flashy or showy or epic (and by that reasoning, only Payne’s nomination truly stands out), not that there’s anything wrong with any of those qualities, but it all depends on what’s right for the film; what will make that script better than it was on the page. If the DGA is supposed to honor the best of its member’s work, they’re missing the boat this year.