Oscar Tribute-Best Director

Director John Ford holds the record for most wins with 4.

At last years awards show Sam Mendes, winning for American Beauty, became just the 52nd man to receive this prestigious honor. I say man because to date no woman has been so honored, in fact, only twice in the Academy’s 73 year history has a female director even been nominated. The first was Lina Wertmüller in 1977 for Pasqualino Settebellezze followed by Jane Campion for The Piano in 1993. Clearly this category, more than any other, is still completely dominated by men.

More than seventy years ago, at the first ceremony, this award was given for best drama as well as best comedy, the only time it was given to two different movies in the same year. That year Frank Borzage received the dramatic honor for Seventh Heaven and Lewis Milestone won the comedy prize for Two Arabian Nights, beating Charlie Chaplin who was nominated for The Circus. Frank Lloyd won the next year for Divine Lady and in 1931 Lewis Milestone became the first person to win a second time for the World War I classic All Quiet On The Western Front.

A dozen men have now received two Best Director awards, although it is getting harder to do. In the past twenty years only Oliver Stone, for Platoon and Born On The Fourth Of July, and Steven Spielberg, for Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan, have joined this exclusive club. Three men have won more than two. William Wyler and Frank Capra have three apiece but the reigning champion is John Ford with four wins out of five nominations; a truly amazing track record.

Speaking of nominations William Wyler is way out in front with a total of twelve, followed by Billy Wilder with eight, then Fred Zinneman and David Lean both have seven, and Frank Capra and Woody Allen each have six. Alfred Hitchcock and King Vidor share the dubious honor of having the most nominations without a win; both men lost the award all five times they were nominated. Ironically, the two men most responsible for creating the classic image of the motion picture director, D. W. Griffith and Cecil B. DeMille never had the honor bestowed upon them. Griffith was pretty much a washed-up has been by the time the Academy was formed and DeMille did manage to get a nomination in 1952 for The Greatest Show On Earth but he lost to John Ford for The Quiet Man.

Up until the middle of the 1960’s the same small group of directors completely dominated this category. Wyler, Ford, Capra, Wilder, Zinneman, Lean, Hitchcock, Mankiewicz, Kazan, Huston and Cukor. Time after time these eleven men were nominated and won. Between 1933, at the sixth ceremony, and 1966 at the 39th, there were only four years when at least one of those names was not on the list and they accounted for 23 wins. Then in 1967 everything changed. The country and the rest of the world were experiencing drastic growing pains and the movie industry reflected these changes. That year Mike Nichols won for The Graduate and for the next sixteen years the award was won by a different, and in each case a first time, winner. Milos Forman finally broke this streak when he won his second award in 1984 for Amadeus.

Another recent phenomenon has been the emergence of the leading man as director. This really started in 1980 when Robert Redford won for Ordinary People. There had always been actors who directed such as Chaplin, Orson Welles and Woody; but none of them could be described as true leading men. Redford was the first of several who have followed; Warren Beatty won the following year for Reds and in the nineties Kevin Costner, Clint Eastwood and Mel Gibson have added their names to the list. Women have been unable to do the same thing yet it is clear that the most successful female directors thus far, have been for the most part famous actors. Barbra Streisand, Jodie Foster, Penny Marshall and Diane Keaton have really all begun to break down this particular area of the glass ceiling.

One thing is certain, the days when this award was limited to a small group of elite directors is long gone. Today the field is wide open and with the emergence of commercially successful Indies' the competition has gotten fierce. The question of who will win and who should win is what keeps us watching with fascination each and every year.