Richard Linklater Has A Bold Idea Of How To Fix The Very Broken Oscars

Every year the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences try to fix the Oscars, and every year they somehow make it worse. They’ve tried removing hosts (if not of their own volition). They’ve tried making it more serious. They’ve tried making it less serious, only for it to result in violence. Who on earth can save the Oscars Maybe they should look to one of the winners.

In a new interview with The Daily Beast, Richard Linklater — the beloved filmmaker who scored a trophy for Boyhood a handful of years back — opened up about the ceremony that no one seems to like anymore. And he had some ideas on how to fix it. Instead of not airing certain awards and generally exuding self-hatred, he thinks they should go the other way.

“I wish they’d get more hardcore,” Linklater said. “There were two ways to go, and instead of reaching out to a younger audience just get more rigorous. Don’t pander. Don’t cut categories and say, ‘Well, nobody cares who edits.’ Bullshit. The industry should! And they do.”

The filmmaker argued that the Oscars have been self-hating for a while now, pointing out they moved the lifetime achievement awards to a separate, non-televised ceremony. “You’d see Satyajit Ray or Robert Altman, and they’d be a part of it, and it was a highlight to see the aging filmmaker come up and get their honorary Oscar,” he recalled. “It was a beautiful moment and usually the person would die the next year, so it was almost a curse. But to me, that was one of my favorite moments, and they said, no, we’ll just kick that to the Governors Awards.”

Indeed, what could have been a big, actually heartwarming moment — Denzel Washington giving a lifetime achievement trophy to Samuel L. Jackson and getting a massive bearhug in the process — happened two days before the telecast, only getting love on social media. But clearly the minds behind the Oscars know what they’re doing.