Hooper Wins DGA. In Other News, The Fat Lady Sings
Sunday, January 30, 2011 at 7:36AM 
Who'da thunk it? I realize some people predicted that Tom Hopper would win the Directors Guild of America prize for The King's Speech but these predictions were surely made in panic, given the obvious Oscar love for the film on nomination morning. But I mean a week ago who would have suspected that his able direction of British actors in a light royalty drama would be heading into the Oscars looking like a sweeper, even for direction, even with an overdue genuine giant of the industry leading like David Fincher (The Social Network) leading up until now. Not me. I'll be the first to admit it.
I'll also come right out and say that I don't understand it. Fincher captured lightning in a bottle; Russell resuscitated a tired genre with humor, humanity and noisy originality; Nolan displayed skyscraper sized ambitions and vaulted technical obstacles; Aronofsky went for broke, chasing his ballerina's madness in his own inimitable way. What did the Director's Guild see in Hooper's work that surpassed these achievements? I'm genuinely curious.
The King's Speech is well directed so this isn't the travesty of a situation like Ron Howard beating four auteur legends for his own muddled work on A Beautiful Mind. But it's still... well... "people just love this film," one must admit, shrugging one's shoulders and calling it a year for a cute British triumph-over-personal-adversity film.
Next up: Winning SAG tonight (live blogging right here starting at 7 PM EST), BAFTA soon and then on to 8 or 9 Oscars apparently (sigh). The night we wait for all year just got super monotonous 28 whole days in advance.
DGA, Directors, Oscars (10), The King's Speech
Reader Comments (55)
I liked TKS and would even defend Helena winning supporting actress, but I just don't see this film's direction as a winner, especially given this stiff competition. Obviously they're enjoying something safe over Harvard chicken pranks and bi-curious ballerina horror shows. We'll see though...maybe this will backlash yet again by Oscar night.
This reminds me of the tennis scorecards (I just finished watching Australian Open tennis) where they rate each player on a bunch of categories. If you've ever used this method of "choosing" you know that's its not necessarily the best person chosen.
Say they had categories of:
1) Clearness of exposition, narrative retains interest
2) Is personal style distinctive AND filmic?
3) Do actors look BETTER here than in their other work?
4) How shopworn is the genre? And do we like the genre anyway?
5) How soon will this film be dated? How soon will we be laughing at how outmoded it is?
Already you can see that these aren't the right questions or enough questions, but that's typical of many forms of group decision making. The Australian Open scorecard at least has a box for "intangibles". Sometimes I think just picking what you like is just as good a decision because all those intangibles come into play. (Although quality of discernment can certainly be improved with analysis and practice).
THE KING'S SPEECH will get 12 Academy Awards making new awards' record. :P
I completely forgot the DGA had TV Directors and Tom Hooper is a TV Director. The Academy does not.
Since I haven't seen TKS yet (I'll get to it by Oscar night), I can't comment on Hooper's worthiness, but I've always felt that The Social Network was a lot more Aaron Sorkin's picture than David Fincher's. Sorkin was at least as prominent as Fincher, if not more so, in the publicity surrounding TSN's opening last fall. Think about it: how often do you see the screenwriter, as opposed to the director, so prominently associated with a film? Probably not since Paddy Chayefsky and Network—maybe Affleck & Damon with Good Will Hunting. (They were also the stars, so it's hard to separate that out.)
I would not at all be surprised at a split: Hooper wins Best Director, TSN wins Best Picture.