A New Wave Of American Directors

An American New Wave? Snubs for Clint, Scorsese, Stone and Spielberg make way for a generation whose collective voice is emerging

- Stephen Galloway

A funny thing happened on the way to this year’s Oscars: A whole swath of veteran directors dropped out of contention, and a fresh batch of filmmakers stepped in to take their place.

Overlooked were such heavyweights as Oliver Stone, Martin Scorsese, Robert Zemeckis, Clint Eastwood and Steven Spielberg — each a giant with a new film in theaters (respectively, Snowden, Silence, Allied, Sully and The BFG). Instead, the Academy named four first-time directing nominees — Damien Chazelle (La La Land), Barry Jenkins (Moonlight), Denis Villeneuve (Arrival) and Kenneth Lonergan (Manchester by the Sea) — and one veteran, Mel Gibson (Hacksaw Ridge).

Think this is just a quirk? The Directors Guild of America was even more extreme when it unveiled its feature nominees. Of the five, only Garth Davis (Lion) had been nominated for an earlier DGA award, and that was in television, not film.

What this suggests is not simply a bias toward youth in an industry that often has proved ageist as well as sexist, but also possibly a seismic shift, as the filmmakers who came of age in the 1970s and 1980s begin to pass the baton to the next generation.

Every year the Oscar nominees seem to include a few fresh faces. But this is the first year in recent times that the Academy has highlighted so much new talent — men (no women, alas) who largely are at the beginning of their careers and certainly at the beginning of their Academy experience.