The year of 2014 brought so many amazing films to the world. From Alejandro González Iñárritu’s “Birdman” to Richard Linklater’s “Boyhood” to Wes Anderson’s “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” 2014 was a great year for the world of cinema. This is a blessing, but also a curse when it comes time to decide who deserves the Academy Awards. With so many amazing films, the case can be made for any of these films to win Best Picture. Along with that, Iñárritu, Linklater and Anderson all have compelling cases for who deserves to win. It is for this reason the Academy needs to split the award for best director between the three of them.
This is a ridiculous idea, I know, but it has happened in the past, albeit between two films instead of three directors. In 2013, “Zero Dark Thirty” shared the Best Sound Editing Oscar with “Skyfall.” This was the sixth time this incident had happened, most notably in 1969 when Katharine Hepburn and Barbra Streisand shared the Best Actress award. There is a history that suggests, while my scenario is hugely improbable, it is still somewhat within the realm of possibilities.
That being said, the reason I think the Academy should split the award three ways is because it is unthinkable to leave out any of these three directors for their accomplishments on their respective projects.
Linklater might have the strongest case for best director. He did, after all, film a movie over 12 years. He worked for a couple weeks every year, requiring tremendous talent to keep the story organized enough to be coherent by the end. Almost nobody else could possibly match the effort or love that was put into the making of “Boyhood.” Linklater put all he had into this project, and he did something unique, which the Academy tends to favor when it comes time to pick who will go home with statues this upcoming Sunday.
On the other hand, Iñárritu, in his fifth feature film, directed what is considered by many as a masterpiece. He filmed the movie in a pseudo-continuous take, which required not only the technical aspects of the films to be perfect, but also the acting. He had the actors doing takes for 10 minutes on average, once peaking at 15 minutes. On top of this, he pieced the film together so it looked like the film had been shot all at once without any cutting. To do this requires tremendous skill. The most notable director to successfully do this was Alfred Hitchcock in his film “Rope.” Invoking the same level of mastery, Iñárritu pulls it off perfectly.
To make the already competitive race even more complicated, Anderson turned in “The Grand Budapest Hotel” for this year’s Oscars. Anderson received his first best director nomination after making what is highly touted as one of the funniest films of the decade. This film is Wes Anderson doing what he does best. I am personally glad that he is finally receiving some recognition from the Academy past his writing for some of his previous films, along with being nominated for Best Animated Feature for “Fantastic Mr. Fox.”
With all three directors coming into the Oscar’s on high tides, it is going to be a close race to see who is named best director. Many point to Linklater’s win at the Golden Globes as a sign of things to come. Others look at the Screen Actors Guild awarding “Birdman” with Best Ensemble cast as a nod toward Iñárritu’s directing. And then there are some who look at the fact that the Academy has finally nominated Anderson as foreshadowing to his win. The sad news is that only one faction here will be right. Or will it?
While highly improbable, this year’s crop of directors deserve to have the award split between the three of them. All of them did something that is just as deserving of the award as the others, and it would not be fair to ignore the achievements of any two of them. Given the Academy’s lack of ties between nominees, it is ridiculous to believe that all three will receive the same number of votes this time around, which is rather unfortunate. In all likelihood, only one will win. Most likely, “Birdman” director Iñárritu will take home the statue while Linklater snags the Oscar for Best Picture. At least that is what many pundits are predicting to happen on cinema’s holiest night.
Who knows, though? The Oscars are known to be full of big surprises. I just hope this year, we will get the biggest surprise of them all.
