The Award Season is getting warmed up, and the movie I’ll be pulling for this year (so far) is Richard Linklater’s intimate family story, Boyhood. Last night the film won three awards at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director (Linklater) and Best Supporting Actress (Patricia Arquette).
The film is unique-literally; nothing has ever been made quite like Boyhood. More than just an experiment, though, the film is also moving in its portrait of coming-of-age, and executed flawlessly. Like all artwork, it isn’t perfect (this is a sound critique), but with Boyhood comes a rare opportunity for critics and prize-givers (even you, Oscar), to celebrate a truly original piece of film art.
Yesterday, Ethan Hawke, who plays the occasionally present father in the film and has worked with Linklater on several projects-including the Before Sunrise series-spoke with Vanity Fair about Boyhood.
The film was made over the course of twelve years, and it’s completion and release, was a “minor miracle,” according to Hawke. For such a strange project to be conceptualized and committed to, not only by actors (there were no contracts because a 12-year contract with a 7-year old actor is not legal) but by funders as well, is quiet exceptional. “Not only is it the most special experience of my film career,” said Hawke, “but it always will be.”
Hawke also comments about the seeming ordinary-ness of Richard Linklater’s stories, and his success in a time when films generally feature the glamorized lives of superheros. “We go see these superhero movies as if our lives are so mundane. And Rick’s movies don’t need to hyperbolize life.”
On that subject, Hawke joked: “Patricia and I often think it would be nice to be in a hit movie where the director did glamorize you a little more. So you didn’t look so goddamn ordinary.”
