As predicted, Jane Campion won the Best Director Oscar during Sunday’s 94th Academy Awards ceremony for her intricate work on the psychological neo-western “The Power of the Dog.” (See the complete Oscars winners list.) Campion is now the third female to win the directing prize following Chloe Zhao for “Nomadland” (2020) just last year and Kathryn Bigelow for “The Hurt Locker” (2009) a dozen years ago. In the entire history of the Oscars, Campion is the only woman to be nominated twice in this category, following her first bid for “The Piano” (1993).
During her Oscar acceptance speech, Campion thanked her cast and fellow producers as well as Netflix’s “whole awesome team.” “Thank you, academy, it’s a lifetime honor,” she declared after being presented the trophy by Kevin Costner.
The only other women to be nominated for the Best Director Oscar are Lina Wertmuller for “Seven Beauties” (1976), Sofia Coppola for “Lost in Translation” (2003), Greta Gerwig for “Lady Bird” (2017) and Emerald Fennell for “Promising Young Woman” (2020). The academy is clearly making strides in the right direction, as six of the eight female directing bids all came within the past two decades.
“The Power of the Dog” entered the 2022 Oscars as the nominations leader with 12 bids, three of which were for Campion. Besides directing, the New Zealand filmmaker was also up for Best Adapted Screenplay and she shared in the Best Picture citation with fellow producers Tanya Seghatchian, Emile Sherman, Iain Canning and Roger Frappier.
The Netflix film ended up winning tktk Oscars on Sunday night. It lost the others to tktk.
