The Best Director of 2011: Sorting the Nominees

Well, I guess they all could have been contenders.

And I say ‘could have’ because this is one of the trickier categories to guess (or second-guess) for this year’s Academy Awards. Best Director of late has been wielded as a conciliatory or consolation prize for the two most prominent Best Picture nominees where the one that doesn’t win the award for Best Picture gets the award for Best Director (remember Brokeback Mountain?).

But this year, all of the frontrunner pictures have been directed by very able minded and artistically superior men (sorry, ladies, no female directors are in the mix this year, it seems). All of the films in question are dramas (sorry, comedy fans, you know your genre will always be second best) so you see the usual suspects getting nominated as the finalized lists begin to roll out: Spielberg, Scorsese, Fincher . . . and just maybe a couple others whose names you may not know but who stand an excellent chance of winning. Names like . . .

Alexander Payne: Mr. Payne, if industry insiders are to be believed, is the one to beat this year. The award, according to some, is his to lose – and the only way anyone sees him losing the award to more seasoned veterans is if The Descendants doesn’t get quite the rousing welcome from the academy as it deserves. It is, by all accounts, an outstanding picture . . . but then again, it does star George Clooney, and as he’s the favorite for Best Actor this year, the academy just might send him home with his first acting Oscar and leave its appreciation for the picture at that. They like to spread the love around, you see: the days when a movie like The Return of the King took home over a dozen Oscars are probably over.

Michael Hazanavicius: You won’t be hearing his name much at the marquee or on any television promos for his film, The Artist. Not because it isn’t worthy of the attention, but because it’s a black-and-white silent French short about the days when silent films went out of vogue and the talkies emerged in Hollywood. Good luck finding it playing in your neighborhood if you’re inclined to gander a peek. Hazanavicius, has, however, earned tremendous praise overseas for his handling of the film and will almost assuredly be nominated when the time comes. It also helps that the film is on virtually every Top Ten list of the year, including those by Richard Corliss, Roger Ebert, Peter Travers and Peter Bradshaw.

Martin Scorsese: Hugo is considered one of the frontrunners for the Best Picture award. Not only is it a sublime motion picture, it’s a movie about the movies, a moving love letter printed on celluloid to Scorsese’s great love: Cinema. Scorsese has been receiving a lot of love from the academy lately (he even won one!) so if he doesn’t win – or even make the nominations cut – it will be because the academy feels he has been handsomely rewarded for all his hard work and brilliance in recent ceremonies. And it just might be time for him to share the spotlight with the others . . . Hey, if Candice Bergen could do it, Scorsese can too.

Steven Spielberg: Confession: War Horse is the movie I am most eagerly anticipating at the cinema this season. Not only do the previews look tremendous, but those who have actually seen the film have been raving about it nonstop . . . so either the hype machine is going at full blast or it really is that good. If it turns out that the film is in fact deserving of all the praise being showered on it, Spielberg will reap the benefit since we all know that any Steven Spielberg picture stars Steven Spielberg, no matter what name appears above the title. A period boyhood drama about a beloved animal companion is also the kind of thing the academy loves to uphold.

David Fincher: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo has opened. It is long and complicated and tedious. It is also, thanks to the man behind the camera, fluid, brilliant and visually stunning to boot. Fincher has a knack for making movies for thinking audiences, and this one will likely put most viewers’ minds into overdrive given how rich and complex the film is. It will surely spur many a philosophical conversation – and Fincher makes sure of it. Will the academy, however, take notice of a man who uses cinema to engage the mind as much as the eyes and the heart? I certainly hope so.

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