Sunday, January 13, 2013

Ben Affleck: Golden Globe Winning Director, Not Even Oscar Nominated...Is He The First?

Ben Affleck took home the Golden Globes tonight for best director. Having won for Good Will Hunting (screenplay) in 1998, he had only been nominated once after that, as a supporting actor (Hollywoodland, 2007 ceremony). But tonight, he walked away as the Golden Globe winning best director of the Golden Globe best drama.

Since the inception of the Golden Globe awards in 1943, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), has given out an honor for best directing.

The first Golden Globe winner in this category was Henry King for The Song of Bernadette.

Henry King did not win the Oscar that year, instead Michael Curtiz won for Casablanca. Henry King was one of the 5 nominees for Oscar that year, though.

And where Oscar and Globes do not always line-up 1-to-1, it seems to be an oddity that Ben Affleck would win the prize for Best Director at the Golden Globes but not even be an eligible nominee at the Oscars.

A friend asked me if this oddity had ever occurred before.

So I checked:

1951 - László Benedek wins the Globe for Death of Salesman, he isn't an Oscar nominee (George Stevens wins Oscar for a Place in the Sun - he was a Globe nominee)

1956 - Elia Kazan wins the Globe for Baby Doll, he isn't an Oscar nominee (George Stevens wins the Oscar for Giant - he was a Globe nominee)

1968 - Paul Newman wins the Globe for Rachel, Rachel, he isn't an Oscar nominee (Carol Reed wins the Oscar for Oliver! - he was a Globe Nominee)

1969 - Charles Jarrott wins the Globe for Anne of A Thousand Days, he isn't an Oscar nominee (John Schleshinger wins the Oscar for Midnight Cowboy - he was a Globe Nominee)

1983 - Barbara Streisand wins the Globe for Yentl, she isn't an Oscar nominee (James L. Brooks wins the Oscar for Terms of Endearment - he was a Globe nominee)

1988 - Clint Eastwood wins the Globe for Bird - he isn't an Oscar nominee (Barry Levinson wins the Oscar for Rain Man - he was a Globe nominee)

2012 - Ben Affleck wins the Globe for Argo - he isn't an Oscar nominee.


So...here's 2 trends I gather from this list:

1. When Globes dramatically break with Oscar in this regarding it appears that the Golden Globes have awarded "actors as directors" (Newman, Streisand, Eastwood, and now Affleck) in a way that perhaps the academy directors branch is less interested in doing.

2. In years where we see this dramatic break, the eventual Oscar winner was in the Golden Globes pack. In the case of this year only two nominated Golden Globe directors are Oscar nominees (Ang Lee, Life of Pi & Steven Spielberg, Lincoln).*


*Globe nominated Kathryn Bigelow (Zero Dark Thirty) and Quentin Tarantino (Django Unchained) are not Oscar nominees. Michael Haeneke (Amour), David O.  Russell (Silver Linings Playbook), and Behn Zeitlin (Beasts of the Southern Wild) were not globe nominees.

1 comment:

Anthony said...

Fascinating. I knew you'd find the answer.