It’s not a rule by any stretch of the imagination, but USUALLY when a person wins the Best Director Oscar, the movie he/she directed also ends up taking the Best Picture Oscar. So Ang Lee wins best director… but Brokeback Mountain didn’t take best picture. What gives?
I’ve gone on record and said I thought Brokeback was an overrated film… and yet I also said that I had no problems with the fact that Ang Lee took best director. So a Movie Blog reader asked me a very fair question the other day. He asked me “And if the Academy are so infallible when it comes to Crash, why did Brokeback win Best Director?”
Here’s my answer to that question. It may not be a very good answer (most of my answers are never any good), but it is how I see it. So here it goes:
Think of it in terms of a sports analogy (John and his bloody sports analogies). You have one coach who has a team made entirely up of all-star players. His team goes on to win the championship. On the other hand, you have a second coach who has a team that finished in dead last in the previous year, but he took them to the championship game with year (and lost). Who wins the “Coach of the Year” award? The guy who won the title with an all star team or the guy with a much less talented team but made it to the finals anyway. USUALLY the award goes to the second coach (in sports anyway).
I personally thought Ang Lee did as good of a job telling the story of Brokeback Mountain as could possibly be done. It wasn’t (just in my opinion) nearly as strong of a story as most of the other nominated films, and he didn’t have the same calibre of talent working with him as some of the other films either. Make no mistake about it, Brokeback Mountain was a HARD story to tell, and Ang Lee did a great job with it.
So no, Brokeback Mountain was not the best film of the year… but yes… I do think Lee deserved the best director nod. But that’s just all my opinion. Your thoughts?
