Martin Scorsese Wins Directors Guild Award

For the first time in his career, Martin Scorsese was awarded the Director's Guild of America honor for best direction of a motion picture. Shockingly, the award for directing The Departed was the first win of DGA award after six previous nominations. Martin Scorsese has been at the center of controversy during his career for what has come to be viewed as a concerted snub by Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. But while Martin Scorsese has never won Oscar, it's interesting to note that even directors have been loathe to officially sanction his talents.

The winner of the DGA award is usually placed on the fast lane to an Oscar win since only six times in the history of the award has the DGA winner not gone on to win an Oscar. Considering the Academy Awards resistance to honoring Martin Scorsese, this may be the seventh occurrence. At the same time, however, Scorsese has certain things going for him. Two of the directors nominated for the Director's Guild award were not even nominated for an Oscar-Bill Condon for Dreamgirls and the duo who directed Little Miss Sunshine. It seems highly unlikely, then, that the two directors nominated for Oscar but who weren't nominated for the Directors Guild award-Clint Eastwood and Paul Greengrass-would be able to trump Scorsese at the Oscar ceremony.

The two directors that Martin Scorsese beat out-the directors of The Queen and Babel-seem longshots at best with The Queen being seen as an actor's movie and Babel being seen as too similar to last year's winner of Best Picture, Crash.