By Isaac Feldberg, news correspondent
As dissimilar as this year’s Academy Award nominees for Best Picture seem on the surface, from ambitious filmmaking experiments like “Boyhood” and “Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)” to innovative biopics like “The Imitation Game” and “The Theory of Everything,” one must admit that it has been an unexpectedly good year for the risk-takers.
Independent filmmakers, usually the individuals most thoroughly rebuffed by the Academy, swooped in to steal nominations from more conspicuous awards players. Sundance darling “Whiplash” (from fresh face Damien Chazelle) and Wes Anderson’s lovably eccentric “The Grand Budapest Hotel” snagged Best Picture nominations, beating out Bennett Miller’s dark drama “Foxcatcher,” Angelina Jolie’s award-friendly biopic “Unbroken” and J.C. Chandor’s dark horse contender “A Most Violent Year.”
Even the most robust of the nominees – Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s “Birdman” and Richard Linklater’s “Boyhood” – came together on the indie circuit, built by directors who took monumental risks behind the camera.
Iñárritu’s film appears to unfold in one unbroken shot, whereas Linklater spent 12 years shooting his film without a completed script nor contracts for his actors. This year, the Academy awarded audacity. In selecting nominees, the two buzzwords were “indelible” and “individual.” The common thread among these filmmakers is that, above all else, they did it their way.
Given that, why did the nominations shake out the way they did?
This year, nothing was on the Academy’s mind more than time. “Boyhood” charts its passage like a flowing river, carrying a child forward through the years as if he’s nothing but driftwood, powerless against the rushing current of his early years.
“The Theory of Everything” chronicles the physical and emotional toll time takes on one uncommonly tenacious romance. The layered flashbacks of “The Grand Budapest Hotel” are just one way in which the film, set in a nation long lost to war, ruminates on time’s far-reaching ravages.
“American Sniper,” “Selma,” “The Imitation Game” and “Whiplash” all reflect another fixation of the Academy’s – topicality. Each film addresses a different, painfully current fear.
“American Sniper” ponders the invisible scars each soldier bears, whether enough is being done to heal those wounds and for what purpose they were inflicted in the first place. The history lessons of “Selma” speak powerfully to a nation that is incensed again by racial injustice in the here and now.
“The Imitation Game” reminds society that monstrous acts against a brilliant, benevolent man were not long ago considered justice due to his homosexuality.
And “Whiplash” asks a country facing the Common Core and the increasing selectivity of college admissions whether there’s a limit to how far teachers can push their students in the pursuit of greatness. In one way or another, each tapped into a separate area of the cultural zeitgeist.
The outlier – and, oddly, the frontrunner – is “Birdman,” a fanciful paean to artists that blends fantasy and reality. Outside of its technical brilliance, “Birdman” connected with voters. Like two of the past three Best Picture winners (“The Artist” and “Argo”), it is about the finesse and frustration of original creation and about how the best actors give themselves over entirely to their roles, becoming all the more tormented for it.
The film’s operatic glorification of showbiz is so amenable to the Academy’s elevated self-image that, were a wild card like “Boyhood” not in the mix, the Best Picture race would already be over.
And yet, Linklater’s cinematic experiment adds unpredictability to the Oscar race. Hollywood adores the director for his vision and 12-year commitment to a project unlike any ever undertaken, let alone successfully executed, and even those who had issues with the finished product can’t deny its singularity.
“Boyhood” is not the best film of 2014 (one could make a case for “Selma,” a stirring drama that, in its masterful connecting of the Civil Rights Movement to current events, both defined the year and was defined by it), but it may be the one that Oscar voters remember most as they glance over their ballots.
Forecasters have been calling the race a competition between “Boyhood” and “Birdman” for over a month now. That seems about right, though the box-office power of “American Sniper” and the awards-bait trappings of “The Imitation Game” make them possible spoilers.
A victory for “American Sniper,” the movie every viewer will know, would (somewhat ironically, given their shared subject matter) help redeem the Academy in the eyes of a public still smarting from “The Hurt Locker” beating “Avatar.” Meanwhile, “The Imitation Game” is the most innocuous choice voters, who sometimes play it safe (think “The King’s Speech”), could make.
In the end, it seems most likely that “Birdman,” with all its bells and whistles, will triumph over its quieter, more lyrical adversary.
There is one certainty in this year’s race, though. “Selma,” unforgivably and inexplicably snubbed for Best Actor, Director, Original Screenplay and Cinematography, may not take Best Picture, but it already has the long game locked up.
Looking back on the race even weeks from now, it will be amusing to the public and deeply embarrassing to the Academy that, after a year in which long-simmering racial tensions finally boiled over into passionate protest, a year when Michael Brown and Eric Garner became household names, it couldn’t get its voters’ heads out of the clouds. Instead of honoring an artful and ardent distillation of the most pressing social issue facing American society, the Academy will applaud one of two winsome, cinematic gimmicks.
Photo courtesy Fox Searchlight Pictures
