The most surprising Oscar race in recent memory took another dramatic twist with Alejandro Iñárritu taking aim at Donald Trump after becoming the first-ever winner of back-to-back awards from The Directors Guild of America for the survival drama “The Revenant.”
After the win, the Mexican director told reporters that Trump’s plan to build a wall to keep out illegal immigrants from Mexico would “betray the foundation of this country. The power of this country [the U.S.] relies on diversity.”
Iñárritu also referenced Republican presidential hopeful in his acceptance speech, saying he’d walked through the kitchen of the Los Angeles hotel hosting the ceremony Saturday night. “There [were] more than 120 Mexicans in the kitchen that serve you hot food, and that was the best party I had,” The Wrap reported. “That’s not the people Donald Trump has described at all, let me tell you.”
In an Oscar race that has consistently confounded experts, the DGA win for “The Revenant” now means that for the first time, the three guilds considered the best predictors of the academy vote have each given their top prize to a different film.
Two weeks ago, the Producers Guild of America gave their feature award to the financial comedy drama “The Big Short,” while the Screen Actors Guild gave their ensemble prize (their rough equivalent of Oscar’s Best Picture) to “Spotlight,” a drama about reporters exposing the Catholic Church’s coverup of sex scandals.
The DGA Award has a very high correlation with the Best Director Oscar, with the two awards failing to match only seven times.
Most years, the Best Picture Oscar goes to the winner of the Best Director Oscar, but that hasn’t happened on five occasions since the 2001 ceremonies. Most recently, “12 Years a Slave” won Best Picture in 2014, but the Best Director prize went to another Mexican, Alfonso Cuaron, for “Gravity.”
Iñárritu won last year’s Best Director for “Birdman,” which also took Best Picture. If he wins Best Director, Iñárritu would become only the third director to win back-to-back Best Director Oscars, along with John Ford and Joseph L. Mankiewicz.
But neither they — nor any other director — has directed back-to-back Best Picture winners in the academy’s 88-year history. (And only one film in the past 50 years — “Titanic” in 1998 — has won Best Picture without the screenplay award that “The Revenant” lacks).
This is a highly unusual year, though. The academy is embroiled in a diversity crisis after not a single non-white actor was nominated for a second year in a row. In response, the academy announced it would move some inactive members to non-voting status while stepping up its efforts to recruit younger and more diverse members.
As the most prominent minority member nominated this year, Iñárritu directly addressed diversity in a political context this weekend. It’s fair to wonder whether that will help him make history on Oscar night.
Director Alejandro González Iñárritu criticizes US immigration rhetoric, November 7, 2015