The Academy Awards Complicated (And Far Too Often Problematic) History With Female Directors: A Forty Year Retrospective

 

Today Justine Triet, the director of Anatomy of a Fall joined an exclusive club. She became only the sixth director in the nearly 100 year history of the Academy Awards to be nominated for direction an international film that received a corresponding nomination for Best Picture. The others include Costas Gavras for Z, Roberto Bengini for Life is Beautiful, Ang Lee for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Michael Haneke for Amore and Bong Joon Ho for Parasite. Triet is the first female director to be nominated for directing an international film since 1976 when Lina Wertmuller became the first woman nominated for directing in Academy history for Seven Beauties. However that film was not nominated for Best Picture.

I mention all of this because I know how Hollywood and the media work and I am certain that Triet’s remarkable accomplishment will, at best, get a few mentions at the bottom of the pages of all of the entertainment journals and websites today, tomorrow and well past the Oscars next month. Because the big story in Hollywood today is how Greta Gerwig was snubbed by the Oscars for directing Barbie even though the film was nominated for eight other awards including Best Picture. The fact that Gerwig was nominated for producing and writing the film will be overlooked in the long saga of how another woman director was ignored. I imagine there will be some who will argue that Triet’s nomination was done so the Oscars could say they nominated a female director but ignore Gerwig. The possibility that Anatomy of A Fall is  a better film will not enter into the discussion at all because everybody saw Barbie and ‘no one’ saw Anatomy of A Fall. That the film took Best International Film and Best Screenplay at the Golden Globes and Barbie was basically ignored by them will do nothing to convince these people of the toxic sexism in Hollywood.

There’s a longer story to be told about the xenophobia that has always plagued the Oscars and has always regulated films that are not made in America to second class at best. I might end up writing that article someday. But the thing is, I am a student of Academy Award history and I also know all too well that these arguments of toxic sexism when it comes to female directors in Hollywood are anything but without merit. And since we have reached what is a dubious milestone in Hollywood history this same year, I think it’s worth discussing the very messed-up history of the Oscars when it comes to female directors, whether it comes to ignoring them out right, the industry’s attitude when they win and how even their victories often come at the expense of other minorities.

In 1983 Yentl was one of the big winners at the Golden Globes. It won Best Picture (Comedy or Musical) and Barbra Streisand made history by becoming the first female to win Best Director.

Streisand’s win was against very formidable competition. Among them were Mike Nichols for Silkwood, Ingmar Bergman for Fanny and Alexander and James L. Brooks for Terms of Endearment. The latter film had won Best Drama, Best Actress for Shirley MacLaine, Best Supporting Actor for Jack Nicholson and Best Screenplay. The fact that Streisand had beaten Brooks was a shakeup to the industry and a Best Director nomination seemed inevitable.

But when the Oscar nominations were announced, Streisand wasn’t nominated. Not just for directing, but anything. She has written, produced and starred in the film and been completely ignored. There had been criticism about Streisand and the movie – critics called it a passion project – but it was impossible to look at it as anything but a personal affront to Streisand and female directors in general.

The idea of the hyphenate was just become popular in 1983 and there were many critics who considered even the men who did these projects somewhat egomaniacal. In the four years prior Warren Beatty had become the first person since Orson Welles to be nominated for starring, writing, directing and producing a movie – twice. But he had won nothing for Heaven Can Wait and while Reds had won him Best Director, in a huge upset Best Picture went to Chariots of Fire. Woody Allen had been getting more recognition in this field; in 1977, he had won Best Director and Screenplay for Annie Hall but when he hadn’t shown up to accept the Oscars, Hollywood took the snub personally. (He was nominated for more Oscar than anyone in history; he never showed up for any of the nominations.) So at the time people might have been more inclined to consider the snubs for Streisand a sign that they believed performers like her were egomaniacs.

That became a lot harder eight years later when she directed The Prince of Tides. Unlike with Yentl, she was nominated by the Directors Guild and because the film was also widely acclaimed it seemed certain that she would get a nomination. The day of the nominations Prince of Tides was nominated for Best Picture and six other Oscars – but Streisand was ignored for directing (and acting, though fewer people noticed.)

This time it was impossible to ignore the sexism involved. And sadly much of this overshadowed what was a more significant accomplishment. John Singleton had become the first African-American ever to be nominated for both Best Director and Best Screenplay. While this was understandably celebrated in many circles, this became part of what would be an unfortunate pattern going forward the next thirty years – the Oscars trading one identity group against another.

Two years later the sexism could not be ignored. When Jane Campion’s The Piano came out it became one of the most acclaimed films of 1993, a triumph for the unknown New Zealand director, the debut of Anna Paquin and the stunning work of Holly Hunter. It was loved by millions. Then the critics awards started to come and the problems started.

The National Board of Review, LA Critics and New York Film Critics all gave Best Picture to Schindler’s List. All three also gave the Best Director and Screenplay prizes to The Piano. This baffled many Hollywood observers  but they were angrier that Steven Spielberg had been robbed rather than The Piano.

This began what became a toxic backlash against both the film and Campion and particular. Even after she became only the second woman in Oscar history to be nominated for Best Director, there was a rage that this upstart young ‘woman’ might take the Oscar from the beloved Steven Spielberg who had ‘paid his dues.’ The arguments had little to do with the quality of both films – both movies are works of art in my opinion – and the level of toxicity and back-scratching that takes place in Hollywood around Oscar season. Campion becoming the first woman to win an Academy Award for writing should have been a significant moment but it was lost in the coronation of both Spielberg and Schindler’s List.

A decade later, no one seemed that upset when Sofia Coppola managed to get nominated for three Oscars for Lost in Translation, including directing and screenplay. And no one objected that much when she lost to Peter Jackson for Best Director – it was Lord of The Rings year and it was Coppola’s second film. In a sense there may have been a certain amount of forgiveness here – Sofia had been ostracized by the community for her horrible performance in The Godfather III. The term ‘nepo baby’ didn’t exist in 1990, but it’s hard not to think of it applying in that case. Sofia Coppola has spent the next decade out of the public eye and was beginning to show promise as a great creative force in her own right. The fact that her second film is considered one of the masterpieces of the 21^st century didn’t hurt.

The independent film industry at this point was beginning to flourish in a way it never had and female directors and writers were getting opportunities that would have been impossible twenty years earlier. This became clear in 2008, when three women were nominated for Best Original Screenplay. Diablo Cody won for Juno, but Tamara Jenkins was nominated for her brilliant dark comedy The Savages and Nancy Oliver for her quiet film Lars and the Real Girl. That same year Sarah Polley made her directorial debut for the brilliant dark movie of Away from Her and was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay. The times were changing.

The next year Kathryn Bigelow finally managed to do what Streisand, Campion and Coppola couldn’t: win an Oscar for Best Director. I have to say even now I’m not entirely sure if Bigelow won the Oscar for other reasons. For one, she was the ex-wife of James Cameron who had been nominated for Best Director for Avatar which had just become the highest grossing film of all time, outgrossing Cameron’s Titanic. Hollywood had been pissed when it his acceptance speech Cameron had shouted: “I’m the king of the world!” Throughout the awards season, The Hurt Locker had won the critics’ awards but Avatar was the popular favorite. Part of me still wonders if they gave the Best Director and Best Picture not so much out of her individual achievement, which was considerable, and as a thumb in the eye to Cameron saying, “these are the kind of films we like recognizing, not the ones you make.”

It did not help that The Hurt Locker an independent film had not been highly regarded by the Spirits, the major awards show for independent films. Neither Bigelow nor the movie was nominated for Best Picture. Indeed, the big winner that year had been Precious, which had taken five Spirits including Best Director and Screenplay for Lee Daniels. Daniels, like Bigelow, was nominated for Best Director, but the film won Best Screenplay instead. Geoffrey Fletcher was the first African-American to win for Best Screenplay, which was also significant.

The next decade showed more significant progress that the Oscars had in the previous eighty when it came to nominated minorities and women in writing and directing awards. But it is worth noting that one still came at the expense of the other – and often no one noticed the exclusion.

In 2012, the Hollywood community was outraged when Argo was nominated for Best Picture but Ben Affleck was not nominated for Best Director. Somehow it was missed that Affleck’s exclusion was just one of several oddities that same year – including that Kathryn Bigelow, who had been one of the heavy favorites for Best Director for Zero Dark Thirty, had also been ignored. I remember many people being angry about Affleck’s exclusion; I don’t remember a similar level of it for Bigelow. Most likely that is because she, like Tom Hooper and Quentin Tarantino, who had also been among the notable snubs, had won before. That year Ang Lee won for Life of Pi, becoming the first Asian to win Best Director.

Five years later Greta Gerwig became the first woman since Bigelow to be nominated for Best Director for her direction of Lady Bird. That she went home empty handed didn’t seem a snub to many but rather the start of a long history. There had been wins of greater significance that same night. Jordan Peele had become the first African-American to win Best Original Screenplay for Get Out and Guillermo Del Toro had won Best Director for The Shape of Water. Del Toro’s win would be  the fifth time in six years a Mexican-born director won in that category between 2013 and 2018: Alfonso Cuaron had won for Gravity in 2013, Alejandro G. Iñárritu had won back to back for Birdman and The Revenant and Cuaron would win again the following year for Roma.

In 2019 things started to get strange. Little Women was nominated for Best Picture but Gerwig was not among the nominees for Best Director even though the film received eight nominations. She lost Best adapted screenplay to Taika Waititi for JoJo Rabbit but the big story that night was Parasite become the first international film in Oscar history to win Best Picture. Bong Joon-Ho became the second Asian to win Best Director and the first to win Best Original Screenplay.

Over the next two years female directors have had incredible triumphs at the Oscars and no one noticed. In 2021, Chloe Zhao became the first Asian-American woman to win Best Director. Emerald Fennell became the first to win Best Original Screenplay. Because we were all in lockdown and recovering from the events of the election and the aftermath, no one was watching the Oscars and those who did were upset that the late Chadwick Boseman hadn’t won Best Actor. The next year Jane Campion finally won Best Director and Sian Heder took Best Screenplay for CODA. All anyone was talking about the next day was Will Smith slapping Chris Rock. People did notice in 2022 when no women were nominated for Best Director and many seemed more upset that Sarah Polley had not been nominated for Best Director for Women Talking. She won for Best Adapted Screenplay, the third consecutive year that happened. Last year was also the year of Everything Everywhere All At Once as well as the greatest year for Asian actors and creative forces in film to that point. I also remember people being pissed that Angela Bassett lost to Jamie Lee Curtis.

The Oscar nominations for this year represent yet another incredibly diverse field, most notably when it comes to African-Americans in acting and writing as well as the first ever nominee of indigenous ancestry. Because these are the Oscars they will point to the level of diversity and inclusion this year. Because this is America there will be just as much written if not more about who is left out.

As a student of Hollywood and the Oscars, I think the former argument holds more merit. I know that given the great love in the industry for Barbie the arguments won’t be made in that sense. It won’t be helped by the fact that this year SAG-AFTRA is giving its lifetime achievement award to none other Barbra Streisand. (You can’t script this kind of stuff.)

I may have sounded like much of this is a critique of how the Oscars works. On the contrary, I believe the last decade has shown many signs of progress that would have been unthinkable when Yentl came out. I don’t pretend there isn’t a long way to go – the Oscars keep slipping up when it comes to diversity in its acting nominees – but it’s hard not to look at the nominated directors and writers over the last fifteen years, not merely when it comes to women but every identity group and not see the slow but the steady hand of progress.

Think of it this way: Martin Scorsese received his tenth Oscar nomination for Best Director for Killers of the Flower Moon. (I’ll be honest that’s still fewer than he deserves, but that’s another story.) When Taxi Driver was nominated for Best Picture, he was ignored for Best Director (not for the first time) for Wertmuller for Seven Beauties. While he might have felt personally upset at being snubbed, he of all people would have appreciated the significance of her being nominated. The industry has changed in many way since his most recent nomination and while he would not like many of them, I think he would consider the progress that we could be arguing about which female director was included and which was excluded something that we could all be grateful for.