Arthur Penn (1922-2010)
Directing Nominations: “The Miracle Worker” (1962), “Bonnie & Clyde” (1967) and “Alice’s Restaurant” (1969)
Other Oscar History: “Bonnie & Clyde” was a Best Picture nominee, though it lost to “In The Heat Of The Night.” “The Miracle Worker” picked up four other nominations, winning Best Actress and Supporting Actress (but no Best Picture nod). Meanwhile “Alice’s Restaurant” stands almost alone in history by picking up only a Best Director nomination and nothing else.
What Should They Have Won For? Though there are a few other really strong films in his career (most notably “Night Moves,” which we adore, but which is very much not an Academy movie), it would unquestionably have to go to “Bonnie & Clyde.” Sure, Penn might have been borrowing some of his moves from the Nouvelle Vague crowd (he only took the project after both Godard and Truffaut passed), but he unpacks them into a very American setting, giving contemporary energy to the Depression-era tale, and making a truly seminal and game-changing piece of work in the process. People are still cribbing from “Bonnie & Clyde,” and that alone feels like it should be enough to win him the Oscar.
John Cassavetes (1929-1989)
Directing Nominations: “A Woman Under The Influence” (1974)
Other Oscar History: Cassavetes was nominated not just as a director but also as an actor (for “The Dirty Dozen” in 1967), and as a writer, for Original Screenplay in 1968 for “Faces.” He never made it into the Best Picture field, though. Wife Gena Rowlands was also nominated for “A Woman Under The Influence,” and again for “Gloria.”
What Should They Have Won For? Cassavetes was such a pioneer on the indie scene that it’s surprising that he ever came within a sniff of Oscar as a writer or director, but it says something of the experimental spirit of the Academy in the late ’60s and early ’70s that he did pick up a couple of nominations, although it probably helped that he was already a familiar name (and indeed, a nominee) as a character actor. The director’s low-key, low-budget, hand-held work is far enough outside the mainstream that it would be lucky to get a Spirit Award nomination these days, so that he got an Academy nod alone feels like a victory. But it would have been great to see him pick up a statue, given how massively influential he is, and if we had to pick a favorite, it’d be “Opening Night.” Overlooked entirely by the Academy, the tale of an actress on the verge of a nervous breakdown is masterfully made and acted, but the film was attacked by critics at the time, and barely even got a release.
Suggestions for further study if you’re fascinated by this sort of thing include King Vidor (five directing nominations, no wins), great British director Michael Powell (zero nominations), early cinema pioneers D.W. Griffith, the wonderful F.W. Murnau and Chaplin contemporary Buster Keaton—all also with no directing nominations, though in many cases their best work simply happened before the Academy Awards were established. And lastly, less well known perhaps, but notably unrewarded after several nominations are Richard Brooks (three noms), and Clarence Brown (six noms, two coming in the one year, yet still no cigar). Which out of these unlucky fellows do you regard as the most unfairly overlooked in the category? Tell us, in the form of a stern reprimand to the Academy, in the comments section below. —Jessica Kiang, Oli Lyttelton