By John H. Foote
For just the second time in history a woman has been awarded the Best Director Award from the Directors Guild of America as Best Director. The winner is Chloé Zhao for Nomadland.
Previously the only woman to win the prize had been Kathryn Bigelow in 2009 for The Hurt Locker. Bigelow was nominated again three years and should have won again for Zero Dark Thirty (2012).
The DGA usually means that the winning director will win the Academy Award for Best Director, though there have been exceptions to that rule. This year’s Academy Awards are such a mixed bag it is near impossible to say who will win and who will not.
Nice to see Zhao win, she made a powerful fine film.
John H. Foote is a well-recognized Canadian film critic/historian who has been an active critic for 30 years. His deep love for the movies began at a very young age. He began his career as co-host of the popular TV show Reel to Real where he remained for nine years. While on TV he began dabbling in education, eventually ascending to Director of the Toronto Film School, where he also taught film history. After leaving the college to care for his wife, he returned to teaching at Humber College where he taught both Film History and Method Acting Theory. John has written two books: “Clint Eastwood – Evolution of a Filmmaker” and the upcoming “Spielberg – American Film Visionary”. He is currently working on two books, one about the films of the seventies and another on the films of Martin Scorsese. Through his career he has worked in TV, radio, print and the web. John has interviewed everyone in the industry (more than 300 interviews) except Jack Nicholson, he says sadly. Highlights include Martin Scorsese, Tom Cruise, Meryl Streep Robert Duvall, Jane Fonda, Francis Ford Coppola and Kathryn Bigelow.
