Best Director
Joe Carnahan, The Grey
Steven Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower
David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook
Quentin Tarantino, Django Unchained
Lana Wachowski, Tom Tykwer, and Andy Wachowski, Cloud AtlasÂ
I am often annoyed by the academy’s insistence to simply repeat their Best Picture nominations in the Best Director category – a great movie and great feat of directing are sometimes two different things – but for me, this year is a case where that mindset actually applies. I really do believe that my five favorite films of the year are the five most impressive directorial feats I saw in 2012. Cloud Atlas, for instance, is primarily an achievement in directing, as the vision and ambition on display in every frame of the film stems from Tykwer and the Wachowskis’ incredible capacity for cinematic craftsmanship. One could say the same about Joe Carnahan and The Grey, as the film’s stark and haunting evocation of death and danger in the Alaskan tundra – as well as a razor-sharp sense of dread and tension – demonstrates remarkable directorial aptitude.
I absolutely adore the way David O. Russell directed Silver Linings Playbook, relying on immersive, instinctual aesthetics and creating a very palpable, immediate sense of community and setting. Steven Chbosky’s work on The Perks of Being a Wallflower is less obvious – the film is not, by its very nature, a visual powerhouse – but considering that one of a director’s most important (and overlooked) tasks is managing actors, Perks certainly deserves a nod. Comprised mostly of young adults performers, the film is one of the best-acted of the year, and when one combines Chbosky’s guiding hand for performance with his wonderful ear for music and remarkable eye for recognizable and relatable world building, I believe he is a clear inclusion.
But just as I feel Django Unchained towers over all other films this year, Quentin Tarantino’s typically expert direction is easily the best work in the field. Tarantino’s films have always featured top-notch technical credits across the board, and Django is perhaps the best example yet of the man’s ability to coax tremendous work out of his cinematographer, editor, production designer, actors, etc. The movie looks and sounds great across the board. But the main reason Tarantino is, to my mind, America’s best modern director is that nobody else working today has such a clear and profound handle on mise-en-scene. When Tarantino wants to take us to another place, or evoke a particular genre, or suggest character and thematic points through a film’s setting, he simply does it better than anyone, and while Django Unchained is, like all the director’s films, clearly in love with the history and potential of the cinematic medium, no other film this year swept me up so entirely in its own production.
Dream Winner: Quentin Tarantino, Django Unchained
Tough Omissions: Kathryn Bigelow, Zero Dark Thirty; Rian Johnson, Looper; Sam Mendes, Skyfall; David Chase; Not Fade Away; Steven Spielberg, Lincoln
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