By Robert Goldrich

LOS ANGELES --

The Directors Guild of America added significant awards season weight to Gravity, bestowing upon Alfonso Cuarón the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film. This bodes well for the pull of Gravity at the Academy Awards in that the Guild feature honoree has typically gone on to win the corresponding Best Director Oscar. Only seven times since the DGA Awards began in 1948 has the DGA Award recipient not also captured the directorial Oscar.

However, that rare occurrence is fresh in the industry’s consciousness in that it happened just last year when Ben Affleck won the DGA Award for Argo but didn’t even garner a Best Director Oscar nomination. Still, like many DGA winners, Argo went on to earn Best Picture distinction at the Oscars.

In accepting the DGA Award, Cuarón recalled looking at satellite images of the planet Earth from space. “What you cannot see from up there is this bizarre experiment of nature that is the human experience,” said Cuarón, a first-time DGA winner. “That experiment is what directors try to sort out with our films. Thankfully, that experience is as diverse as the films as these filmmakers make.”

The filmmakers he alluded to were his fellow DGA nominees: Paul Greengrass for Captain Phillips, Steve McQueen for 12 Years a Slave, David O. Russell for American Hustle, and Martin Scorsese for The Wolf of Wall Street. All but Greengrass are nominated for the Best Director Oscar. For the Oscar field of director nominees, Alexander Payne–based on his work on Nebraska–joins Cuarón, McQueen, Russell and Scorsese.

First time’s a charm
In the feature and commercial categories, it was a good night for first-time DGA nominees. Like Cuarón, Martin de Thurah won a DGA Award on his first trip to the nominations circle. De Thurah, whose spotmaking roost is Epoch Films, earned the Best Commercial Director of 2013 mantle on the strength of two entries: Hennessy’s “The Man Who couldn’t Slow Down” for Droga5, New York; and Acura MDX 2014’s “Human Race” for Mullen LA.

In his acceptance remarks, de Thurah said he was honored by the DGA recognition, particularly for “my first pieces in this part of the world.” Indeed de Thurah has made a major splash stateside after first establishing himself in the international ad marketplace.

De Thurah topped a field of commercial nominees which also consisted of: Fredrik Bond of MJZ; John X. Carey of Tool; Noam Murro of Biscuit Filmworks; and Matthijs van Heijningen of MJZ.

Twice honored
Steven Soderbergh topped the DGA’s Movies for Television and Mini-series category for HBO’s Behind the Candelabra, which delved into the relationship of Liberace and his lover Scott Thorson. While he was considered the frontrunner for the DGA Award based on the strong showing of Behind the Candelabra on the Emmy and other fronts, coming as a complete surprise was a second DGA honor for Soderbergh–namely the Robert B. Aldrich Award for service to the Guild.

DGA president Paris Barclay explained that the Aldrich winner was kept under wraps in part because Soderbergh has in the past steered away for being singled out–to the point where has even declined several overtures to appear on the cover of the DGA’s quarterly magazine. Soderbergh has been involved in the Guild on multiple levels, volunteering his time on varied issues and contract negotiations. In accepting the Aldrich Award, Soderbergh explained that when he first started out, he didn’t see the value of being a DGA member. He resisted involvement in the DGA until he came around to realize how much the Guild does for its membership and the industry at large.

Soderbergh, who was first elected to the DGA national board in 2001, served for nine years as DGA national VP before stepping down last June.  Soderbergh was also a founding member of the Guild’s Independent Directors Committee, a chair of the Eastern Directors Council, a member of the Western Directors Council, and he chaired DGA Honors three times.  Soderbergh currently serves on the PAC Leadership Council and the DGA Foundation, and he is co-chair of the Guild’s Theatrical Creative Rights Committee, a position he has held since 2002.

Other winners
Jehane Noujaim won DGA Documentary honor for The Square, which was acquired by subscription service Netflix last year and depicts the Egyptian Revolution beginning in 2011. She noted that the revolution continues and while Egypt had censored her film, it is finally gaining major exposure in her native country via the Internet as of late.

Vince Gilligan, creator of Breaking Bad, won his first DGA Award in Dramatic Series (on his second career nomination) for the finale of the acclaimed AMC series.

Beth McCarthy-Miller topped the Comedy Series category for the “Hogcock/Last Lunch” episode of 30 Rock.

Glenn Weiss topped the Variety/Talk/News/Sport-Specials category for The 67th Annual Tony Awards.

Don Roy King won for the Justin Timberlake-hosted installment of Saturday Night Live which took the Variety/Talk/News/Sports-Regularly Scheduled Program category.

Amy Schatz won the DGA Award for Children’s Programs on the basis of An Apology to Elephants.

And Neil P. De Groot took the Reality Programs category for “The Lost Coast” episode of 72 Hours.

Service and Achievement honors
Besides the Robert B. Aldrich Award for Soderbergh, other recipients of DGA honors for Service and Achievement were:

Lee Blaine–Frank Capra Achievement Award
Given to an assistant director or unit production manager in recognition of career achievement in the industry and service to the DGA. Blaine has worked successfully in the DGA to advance the cause of assistant directors and unit production managers in the commercial production field.

Vincent DeDario–Franklin J. Schaffner Achievement Award
Given to an associate director or stage manager in recognition of career achievement in the industry and service to the DGA.

Shonda Rhimes & Betsy Beers–DGA Diversity Award
In recognition of their commitment to diversity hiring and providing jobs and opportunities to women and minorities in DGA-covered categories.

Rhimes and Beers elicited the loudest applause of the evening when their win was first announced. That ovation escalated upon Rhimes’ acceptance remarks, which included: “We are being given an award for something all of us should be doing anyway. There is such a lack of lack of people hiring women and minorities that when someone does so on a regular basis they are given an award. There shouldn’t need to be an award. The lack of diversity in Hollywood is not because of the lack of talent. It’s because of the lack of access. People hire their friends. If it’s been a white boy’s club for 70 years, that’s a lot of white boys hiring one another. Rock some boats. Something original is what the public is starving for.”

Actress Jane Lynch emceed the DGA Awards ceremony on Saturday evening (1/25) before an audience of more than 1,600 guests at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel.

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