‘Birdman,’ Keaton take top honors at Spirit Awards

SANTA MONICA, Calif. – A day before it may soar at the Oscars, “Birdman” spread its wings at the 30th Independent Film Spirit Awards, winning best picture, best actor for Michael Keaton and best cinematography.

The elegantly stitched together backstage comedy came away the big winner at the annual pre-Oscars afternoon celebration of independent film on Saturday. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s “Birdman” won over what many consider its stiffest competition, the 12-years-in-the-making “Boyhood,” though that film’s maker, Richard Linklater, still took the directing honor.

As Hollywood has increasingly devoted itself to global blockbusters, the Spirit Awards – once a casual indie appetizer to the Oscars – feels more and more like the center of the industry, or at least a more idealized version of it. Set in a beachside tent in Santa Monica the day before the Academy Awards are held across town, the Spirits – broadcast live this year for the first time – variously boasted of growing prominence and of preserving a way of moviemaking often regarded as obsolete at the studios.

But the blur between the Spirit Awards and the Oscars, despite their vastly different dress codes, is nearly complete. Last year’s acting Spirit winners all mirrored the next day’s Oscar winners, and “12 Years a Slave” triumphed at both ceremonies.

The same could be true this year, where Oscar front-runners Julianne Moore (“Still Alice”), J.K. Simmons (“Whiplash”) and Patricia Arquette (“Boyhood”) all won Spirit Awards. (Notably absent, however, was possible best-actor winner Eddie Redmayne from “The Theory of Everything,” a movie that wasn’t eligible.)

Backstage, Redmayne’s chief rival, Keaton, basked in the final glow of a lengthy awards season.

“I’ll be in the fetal position, bawling, three months from now, missing it,” said an exuberant Keaton. Before “Birdman,” the 63-year-old veteran actor had never been nominated for an Oscar.

“Nightcrawler,” the dark Los Angeles noir, won two Spirit Awards: best first feature for Dan Gilroy, as well as best screenplay for his script.

Gilroy, who recalled years of writing screenplays to bigger-budget films that never got made, tersely applauded those in attendance as “holdouts of a tsunami of superhero movies that have swept over this industry. We have survived. We have thrived.”

The awards are put on by Film Independent, a group of filmmakers, industry professionals and movie buffs, who generally select films made with a budget of $20 million or less.