Outstanding Directors SBIFF 2015

Outstanding Directors Event in Arlington theater is to Award the Oscar nominated Directors of 2014, that they did a fantastic job. Damien Chazelle for Whiplash, A Self-taught writer-director Richard Linklater for Boyhood, Bennett Miller for Fox-catcher and Laura Poitras for the documentary Citizen Four.

Each of the director’s film has a very unique style. My favorite out of the five is Richard Linklater, the director from Boyhood. He also made the before sunrise, before sunset, before midnight trilogy. Boyhood is the movie that took 12 years which broadly considerate as a big risk. During the interview, they was teasing him about the reason to hire his own daughter for the role is being afraid of she might quit before the movie is done.  In fact, his daughter also the actress Lorelei Linklater who asked once when she was 10 years old. She was wondering “can my character just die”? some may critic that Boyhood doesn’t really have a story. He defend himself that he loves simple storyline because he couldn’t understand stories that are too complicated without his daughter to help. It once again substantiated that  film can be done in so many different way, there is no one way to do it.

“Damien Chazelle for Whiplash, the story of a young jazz drummer’s obsessive effort to achieve greatness and his maniacal band leader.” during the talk, he was asked”why do you want to make a film like this?” he said, “oh I had a drum teacher once, and that’s it.” It’s so fascinating to hear such a young director/writer (30) who can create such a great piece of art with prestigious casts.

Unsurprisingly, during those interviews of each director, they all have mentioned that at least of their film has made, the story is basic on his own experience. I completely agree. If you have never experienced love, how can you show what is love, if you have never experienced pain, how can you show what is pain. I guess part of being a director is to go explore your life, doing something crazy and fun, so you will have some materiel draw from life.