Birdman soared again Saturday night when the Directors Guild of America awarded its director, Alejandro González Iñárritu with its top honor, the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film.
“I never expected to be here,” he said in his acceptance speech for the medallion, which was presented by director Michael Mann. Yet it was actually Iñárritu’s second DGA award, and he’d been previously nominated for Babel in 2006.
But Iñárritu was obviously referring to his fellow directors who were in contention, a slate that with the exception of Clint Eastwood for American Sniper, completely mirrors the Oscar nominations for best director—and now Iñárritu is the front runner for that statuette.
The ceremony was hosted by Jane Lynch and held on Saturday night before a crowd of 1,600 people at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles. The show has a unique format amongst other awards galas. Of course there are cocktails and dinner after a red carpet, but each of the feature film directors up for the highest honor has time in the spotlight while being lauded by a high-profile participant involved in their project under consideration.
Eastwood received a standing ovation after he was introduced by Bradley Cooper, who closed his Broadway show “The Elephant Man” so he could fly to LA and participate in the ceremonies.
Actress Julie Delpy introduced Boyhood’s Richard Linklater and Bill Murray gave the remarks for Wes Anderson (The Grand Budapest Hotel), with whom he has worked in seven films.
The Imitation Game stars Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley presented their director, Morten Tyldum via video from London (where the BAFTAs were taking place) and DGA president Paris Barclay handed it to him in person.
It was Lynch’s second year in a row as emcee, and last year she had remarked that she was the first woman to take the reins of the kudocast.
But in many of the other categories that were awarded, which also include television and commercials, women directors ruled.
Transparent’s Jill Soloway, who ironically had just received her DGA card three weeks prior to the ceremonies, won the honor for directing a comedy series for the Amazon Prime show starring Jeffrey Tambor, which has put the streaming service front and center on the awards map with its numerous other honors to date.
“Thank you DGA for this great welcome gift,” she said, while shouting out Lynch for bringing her as a guest to the DGA Awards years ago. “Women who help other women – we just pull each other up.”
Lesli Linka Glatter took the DGA for directorial achievement in drama series for an episode of Showtime’s Homeland entitled “From A to B and Back Again.” She has twice been nominated for Homeland, in 2012 in 2013 as well as receiving a nomination in 1990 for Twin Peaks. Glatter got her first DGA medallion in 2009 for Mad Men.
Another prominent female director, Lisa Cholodenko– known mostly for her feature film work– took the miniseries honors for her direction of HBO’s Olive Kitteridge.
Laura Poitras won the DGA for helming the documentary Citizenfour, about NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.
–Hillary Atkin
