‘Birdman’ Captures Best Picture Oscar
LOS ANGELES – For the third time in four years, Hollywood’s top honor went to a story mostly about itself: “Birdman” won best picture at the 87th Academy Awards on Sunday night.
Despite relatively meager domestic ticket sales of $37.8 million, “Birdman” had been the favorite to win best picture, having swept the top prize at banquet after banquet leading up to the Oscars.
Minutes before, Alejandro G. Iñárritu had won best director for “Birdman,” which also collected Oscars for best original screenplay and the cinematography of Emmanuel Lubezki. “Tonight I am wearing the real Michael Keaton tighty whities,” Iñárritu said, a joke about the long Broadway walk Keaton, the star, takes in his skivvies during the film.
“Birdman,” about a washed-up actor’s comeback bid, followed two other Hollywood-related winners: “The Artist,” which won in 2012, was the bittersweet story of a silent film actor seemingly left behind by Hollywood’s transition to sound. The next year, “Argo” won with its reality-based tale of a hostage rescue that used a fake film for cover.
Still, no one film this year achieved critical mass in a year that saw all eight of the best picture nominees leave with at least one Oscar.
As expected, Julianne Moore won best actress for her faltering college professor with early-onset Alzheimer’s in “Still Alice,” and Eddie Redmayne won best actor for his portrayal of Stephen Hawking in “The Theory of Everything.”
“I will be its custodian,” an over-the-moon Redmayne said of his statuette. “I will polish him. I will wait on him hand and foot.”
One of the year’s smallest films, “Whiplash,” with just $11.3 million in ticket sales, became one of the night’s biggest winners, stealing the editing award from presumably stronger competitors like “Boyhood” and “American Sniper.” A dramatic thriller set in a music school, “Whiplash” also collected prizes in the supporting actor and sound mixing categories.
Backstage, Tom Cross, the editor of “Whiplash,” marveled that only a little over a year ago, he and the film’s director, Damien Chazelle, had been telling each other: “Wouldn’t it be great if this movie got into Sundance?”
“The Grand Budapest Hotel,” a whimsical period caper, won four Oscars, with support coming in the crafts categories. It lost the original screenplay race, however, to the four writers behind “Birdman.” Best adapted screenplay went to Graham Moore for “The Imitation Game,” keeping that film – nominated in eight categories – from being shut out.