I don’t know who would ever be behind an attack on Boyhood. What I do know about people is this: it doesn’t take long for something that’s highly praised to be picked apart. “It isn’t really THAT good,” so the mantra goes. They said it about The Godfather, Schindler’s List, No Country for Old Men, Jaws, The Wizard of Oz – and they’re saying about Boyhood. The trouble is that the Oscar race is like a political election now and there are far too many meddlers getting their hands dirty in service of people who have vested interests, one way or another. Or maybe they secretly like to take the piss out of someone on their way up to the podium – we all know that trolls do it not because they feel they are right but because it feels so good to cause others pain.
Where this piece by Mary Jo Murphy actually reminds me of, though, is the famous quote by Rilke which essentially says that if you are not finding beauty in your own life – do not blame it. Blame yourself. Tell yourself you are not poet enough to call forth its riches. If she can’t see the story in Boyhood, if she can’t recognize the way it is the work of an artist, not the work of a documentarian, that’s fine. Does it really need to be a story in the New York Times the day that Oscar ballots are sailing into mailboxes?
I do not know who pulls the strings but I do know it is ten times worse now than it ever was when I started. Too many people desperate for traffic (not the New York Times of course), too many people indistinguishable from each other and with a news stream that travels like wildfire and eventually trickles down on Oscar voters. That is how it works in politics and how it works in the Oscar race.
Murphy seems upset or miffed that people love Boyhood but don’t lavish the same praise on Up. Well, you know why? Because Up is depressing as shit. It’s about how life comes to an end not with a bang but a whimper. It reminds us all that it passes in the most dull fashion imaginable. It’s interesting in the same way that watching your own face age in the mirror is interesting. That wasn’t what Linklater was doing. He wrote characters who moved through life pinging off various teachers who were there to interrupt the process or inspire him along the way. Each scene is deliberately executed to move the story forward – as the actors themselves age that merely adds more context to the story that’s there.
I have never admired the pettiness that seeps through these silly awards. It always reminds me of the last scene in The Maltese Falcon. All of that fighting over some worthless statue. What I got from Boyhood is far more valuable.
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Well said, Kyle!
This is what annoys me about this whole Awards season shindig. There’s people like Sasha who’ve been apart of the conversation all year round, weighing in on each and every little detail about these films, especially as they come out. We spend months dedicated to the talk of these films, only to have some big named news guys come along and speculate based on the surface of what’s just now being said. Where were all these critics months ago when we were actually talking about Boyhood?? Why now after all this time do they decided to throw in their voice as the know-all, be-all critique just to play the devil’s advocate on something the majority of actual movie enthusiasts have discussed much deeper than they ever dare to go? It’s the Oscars. The worst thing to ever happen to movies. Don’t get me wrong: I love hitchhiking along the road to the Oscars. It’s fascinating to watch a 160 minutes film become a statement in history. It’s just equally frustrating when January comes around and things get political and jaded.
Anyway, let’s focus on something positive. Ethan Hawke was on Charlie Rose last night. He’s very thoughtful and disarming, doing a great job talking about the movie in a substantive manner with a serious journalist.
So who really cares about this silly article.
“The point of the article is that Boyhood is not as “unique” as many people think it is. And is true that Boyhood is not depressing…is much worse…..is boring.”
But not as boring and lacking in uniqueness as this comment.
“If Richard Linklater wins an Oscar in a couple of weeks for directing “Boyhood,” should someone wrest it away and hand it to Michael Apted?”
This is the single dumbest fucking thing I’ve read with regards to Boyhood thus far. And I’ve heard some utter garbage before this.
Funny, I read this piece without having read the original article, and I was like, ‘Who hates Pixar’s Up? But it IS depressing as shit.’
There are so many stupid statements in O’Casey’s article it’s difficult to know where to begin. How about “It’s true that one work is fiction and the other documentary, but in crucial ways it’s a distinction without a difference.” Got that? No difference between docs and fiction films. Or quoting someone who hasn’t seen the movie to tear it down? Or setting up comparisons with “clouds” and Aspiration Day that are imaginary? Or critiquing BOYHOOD because we don’t get to see the lead character age and die? Or that people wouldn’t react the same way to the movie if it had used actors and makeup–missing the whole point of the movie in a breathtaking way?
So Boyhood has nothing original to offer. Neither the plot nor the gimmick. It’s an average movie as I always thought.
Well, personally I think the editing thing is clearer than the production thing, but I can accept others might not.
“Ha, ha! What I meant is that in the same way Boyhood is not a producers friendly movie, Birdman is not an editors friendly movie. :)”
Yeah, of course. They probably cancel each-other out. The DGA and BAFTA will decide… 🙂
The point of the article is that Boyhood is not as “unique” as many people think it is. And is true that Boyhood is not depressing…is much worse…..is boring.
Ha, ha! What I meant is that in the same way Boyhood is not a producers friendly movie, Birdman is not an editors friendly movie. 🙂
“The same argument can be used in favor of Birdman in the Eddies.”
You’re going to have to explain – I have no idea what you mean, though I imagine it’s something simple I’m overlooking. 🙂
Claudiu, btw. The same argument can be used in favor of Birdman in the Eddies.
Yes. But what we need to analyse is the reason why the producers of Boyhood were cut off of the nominees.
Put yourself in the position of a producer, and then ask yourself the following question: In which movie, Boyhood or any of the rest nominees, does my craft, the thing I do for a
living, have a bigger impact? I don’t know the answer for sure, but I suspect—by what I read in the article—that the role of a producer is mininal is an unconventional production like Boyhood–the 12 year in the making is the key factor here.
I know that some of the guild members may take their decisions based on the passion vote. But I also think that some members may vote using purely technical criteria. They may very well represent a small proportion of the total votes. But that’s impossible to know right now.
If G-Iñárritu wins the DGA I’ll concede to you that I was wrong all along, and that the industry is actually embracing Birdman as their favorite movie. But for now, I still find hard to believe that they will turn their backs on Boyhood. We’ll know for sure tonight.
“Could be this the explanation for Birdman’s upset at the PGA?
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/09/movies/awardsseason/whose-baby-is-boyhood-.html?_r=0”
“Six of the 10 films nominated for P.G.A. awards similarly had producers left behind.”
The editing for the entertainment section of the NY Times has been so laughably bad for years that we should not be surprised when they publish more drek. I read the paper every day and do not hate the paper at all, but their writing about movies has been so bad for so long that it calls into question everything I read in the paper as a whole.
It’s a wonder to me that a reporter would put her name on a piece where she is so obviously being manipulated by a publicist. Hungry mouths to feed at home, maybe. Pity rather than anger, but the fact remains that an editor at the Times accepted and posted the story, to the paper’s shame.
Just to prove The NY Times isn’t all bad.
http://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000003489430/our-curse.html
That’s one of the two Polish documentaries nominated for the Oscar this year.
Must be some worry that Boyhood wins DGA tomorrow by whichever campaign planted this.
Argh who cares. I try to focus on the positives.
In fact, it’s as silly as U.S. politics and even the current media beat-up on Brian Williams. Journalistic integrity? Nobody has that anymore. It’s all about doing anything you can to draw viewers “Network”-style, get high ratings, buoy ad revenue. There’s no real straight news, not for years…too much corporate interest invested; the broadcasters are all owned by giant corporations that have sponsors and investors. Things are covered up, not reported on, swept under the rug. Journalists lie, anchors claim they are places they are not, make up stories and angles, they sell false wars and don’t scrutinize when corporate doesn’t allow it. I keep thinking back to Michael Mann’s The Insider, how 60 Minutes wouldn’t report on the tobacco companies. Politicians are bought out by campaign donors and huge companies, to whom they make promises they keep to stay in office. Everything is just so frustrating…there are a bizzilion ways the Oscars could be reformed. But there are too many parts to the puzzle and money invested, a huge media-Academy complex, that this will only get worse.
Who paid Murphy to write the article?
I can’t wait for the instance when it’s revealed that a studio or power player or even better a rival director/producer/actor paid off a journalist to smear a film. It’ll happen…something will happen…so that any legitimacy the Oscars had is gone and announced to the public.
Harvey’s done a lot of press recently, going around saying how his father told him never to play dirty and that he grew up with integrity. He is full of it. Other PR teams have adopted his dirty, bully tactics and the whole thing is just a giant joke now. Too much money is at stake for anything to change; the Academy’s making out big, so they won’t curb smear campaigns or change rules. And millions of dollars go into winning statues that don’t really mean anything if you had your competition destroyed in the media. It’s so silly.
Amazingly nasty piece by someone who isn’t a film critic. I guess this woman only just discovered the 7 Up series and thought “plagiarism”! Surprising nobody at the Times bothered to tell her she was making a fool of herself.
Wonder in whose interest she’s acting? Weinstein or Birdman?
This may backfire as it is so transparently a campaigning hit piece.
Wonder if she knows Linklater is sheltering a convicted murderer in his garage apartment?? Shocking!
This kind of BS article appears at every season. And quite often, it has Weinstein’s fingerprints all over it.
Sasha,
Here’s another interesting piece in the NYT about Boyhood. Could be this the explanation for Birdman’s upset at the PGA?
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/09/movies/awardsseason/whose-baby-is-boyhood-.html?_r=0
Attack on Boyhood??, WTH, Do we read the same article?
More of a praise of the Up documentaries, which deserve it.