Mexican director Alejandro Inarritu, speaking backstage at the Dolby Theatre after his second consecutive Oscar win for directing, called prejudices about skin color “absurd” and “irrelevant.”
“Still we are dragging this tribal thinking … it seems to me absolutely absurd …deciding destinies of people by the color of their skin,” Inarritu said.
But the director of “The Revenant” said the issue is more complex than it is sometimes portrayed.
“The debate is not only about black and white people,” Inarritu said, offering up “OscarsSoBrown” as a hashtag before going on to cite a near rainbow of colors.
“It’s becoming very … politicized without observing the complexity,” Inarritu said.”This is a multi-mixed country. That is the real power of it.”
Inarritu, who picked up three Oscars last year for directing, writing and producing 2015 best picture winner “Birdman” and won this year for his work on “The Revenant,” was asked which film he preferred.
He said he couldn’t choose between the two, comparing it to choosing between favorite songs.
“I love this film as I love Birdman,” he said.
The filmmaker, who has been both lauded and criticized for grueling conditions on the set of “The Revenant,” said movies allow people to feel emotion without suffering directly.
“Storytelling is a way for us … to feel beautiful and horrible emotions,” Inarritu said.
“It’s a way to control life, to have an oxygen capsule of life without suffering for real,” the director said. “Storytelling is, I think, oxygen for life.”
Backstage earlier, Emmanuel “Chivo” Lubezki, who nabbed a third golden statuette for his work as cinematographer, gave Inarritu all the credit.
“The director is the author of the movie,” Lubezki said.
“I never saw the academy awards as a competition,” the cinematographer said. “It’s more of a celebration of the craft and the art of filmmaking.
“I’m just lucky. It doesn’t mean I’m the best cinematographer,” Lubezki said.
Inarritu said Chivo’s win and his own were for the entire cast and crew.
“When Chivo won, we all won,” because what the cinematographer captured on film was the work of so many others, working for months.
“When I won, we all won,” the director said.
Filmmaking is like life, Inarritu said.
“Everything in life is interconnected and it reflects the efforts of hundreds of people.”
