#2) Birdman or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance, by Alejandro G. Inarritu (2014)
This is the closest you’ll get to a comic book movie on my
list. Does it count that it’s a meta-commentary on the fallout of blockbuster
franchises? I love showbiz nightmares – Mulholland
Drive, Sunset Boulevard, Barton Fink. The viewer gets to look behind the
mirror they’re so accustomed to facing. They get to see the dark side of
Hollywood glamour, it’s vainglorious path to hell. They get to understand some
impression of what a show is a result of. The door opens to the dream factory,
where we experience both wonder and fear. What exactly motivates that profound
play, that tour de force film, that binge-worthy TV show into existence?
That’s the overarching question for Riggan Thompson (Michael
Keaton), star of the comic book blockbuster Birdman
[or Batman] franchise. In an effort
to reignite his career with more prestige, he has turned to Broadway,
writing/directing/starring in his own play, What
We Talk About When We Talk About Love, adapted from Raymond Carver’s book.
His self-conflict is trying to answer this question of motive while devilish
functions in the universe manifest obstacles like Mike Shiner (Ed Norton), the
cocky native stage actor who pushes Riggan to the brink, or Tabitha Dickinson
(Lindsay Duncan), the New York theatre critic who threatens to destroy his
play. Underlying this question of artistic motive is confronting his life’s
purpose, since he is, in fact, putting his whole life into this work, and a
mortgage on his daughter’s future house. Merging with this is the story of a
father and daughter, Sam (Emma Stone), trying to seam their severed
relationship. But this only happens on Riggan's terms as she works for his
production.
The film functions as a relentless tailspin, culminating in
a descent towards the depths that Riggan will stoop in order to achieve his
goal: to matter. We indulge in his delusions, believing in the real
life superpowers of his onscreen counterpart; floating meditation, moving
objects like the Force, flying through New York, and dropping a stage light on
a terrible actor, fatefully forcing him out of the play. The illusion of a
single continuous take, inspired by films like Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope, creates the feeling that we are
traveling sinuously from the head to tail of an undulating snake, the final
destination being more of a predetermined inevitability than a choice. Sam is
there issuing warnings, but his mind is made up, just like the camera knows
it’s not going to cut – he’s on this path, and he’s not getting off. Sam may
have a drug problem, but that doesn’t mean she’s wrong about Riggan doing this
for relevance over art. He ignores this to yell at her for smoking a joint. The
less he listens to Sam, the more she rebels, furthering their discord. Maybe
another analogy is to a tree that drinks poison, unable to stop it from
trickling down to it’s roots, but consciousness following its inner path,
seeing various branches along the way, observing the conditions that led to
this - similar to Riggan’s journey, who is already on his descent to hell and
doesn’t actually have choices he can make, no matter who or what shows up.
Mike, the thorn in Riggan’s side, is the one to blossom his seed, Sam – that’s
not how a plant should grow; he’s helpless, it’s all a part of the descent. I
wonder how many times the action circles around this theater – perhaps another
analogy would be to the nine circles of Dante’s Inferno.
Birdman can’t be
easily categorized. Among suggested genres are: dark comedy, mental health,
realism/surrealism, psychological realism, family reconciliation drama, or a
film concerning theatrical realism and naturalism. I see it as a tragic comedy,
maybe one shade darker than black humor, and funnier than the average mindless
Hollywood screaming, farting, puking comedy. Nothing is separate from it’s
larger themes, such as Riggan getting stuck outside the theater in his
underwear, having to go around through Times Square with pedestrians harassing
him as he reenters through the front door. Riggan’s a helpless victim of
circumstance, and ironically there’s potential for success in it, foreshadowing
the ultimate story beat; Sam shows him the thousands of views he’s getting on social
media – “this is power.”
“And did you get what you wanted from this life, even so? I
did. And what did you want? To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on
the earth.” This quote from Raymond Carver’s Late Fragment opens the movie, likely relating the superhero messiah complex to Riggan’s ego. Birdman
represents the worldly hero bestowed by the heavens to save earth, adored by
helpless citizens of the planet who gaze upon the superman with deep adulation.
After three Birdman movies, with the world seeing Riggan as this character,
he’s come to view his importance in life as equal to the superhero. After all,
why shouldn’t he? He was chosen to be this role, to embody this human ideal,
and as it’s representative, he’s just as exclusive as the character, just as
above the world. But in reality, he can’t control actors like Mike from getting
drunk on stage and breaking character during a performance, or Tabitha from
being that person who has to suck at life so much she becomes a critic and
writes judgmental labels that don’t acknowledge the art and structure of
someone’s work. Riggan is in conflict with what he wants to appear as versus
what the world wants him to be. Mention of a potential Birdman 4 causes one journalist to jump out of his seat excitedly,
and I’m sure Tabitha would approve, as entitled Hollywood only wastes space
where real Broadway art should be. Riggan is like an inverted Norma Desmond,
running from easy success instead of trying to regain it, harming himself
instead of someone else to achieve it.
It's inevitable that this nonstop anxiety, this sleepless
days long pursuit, is all leading to demise. And when we finally do get a break, a cut in the film, it's
to assure us that this man has reached the peak of his insanity, and now we're
about to settle down. No, that's
just the calm before the storm, perfectly setting the stage for what happens
next. We are trapped in a grand
delusion. The single-shot illusion represents that this one major beat of
insanity is attached to a long string of anxiety-accumulation - they all equate
to this one moment, and one cannot possibly be disconnected from the
other. There's so much meaning in
that kind of staging, it's not just there to demonstrate it can be done, not a
mere technical marvel, but a total view of life in the mind of a borderline
personality. By the end of the film, Riggan and Sam have reached a sort of
twisted harmony that’s both beautiful and unsettling. She’s never been outside
of his production, eventually seeing the grand illusion he’s been trying to
stage all along; they now share the same deluded mind, and the film ends. But
in the mind of the viewer, it should echo for ages to come, serving as an
assessment of one’s own self-accord, an indicator for whether we’re on our
spiritual path or straying afar.
From Fox Searchlight
Pictures. Directed by Alejandro G.
Inarritu. Written by Alejandro G.
Inarritu, Nicolas Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, and Armando Bo. Produced by John Lesher, Arnon Milchan,
and James W. Skotchdopole. Cinematography
by Emmanuel Lubezki. Edited by Douglas
Crise & Stephen Mirrione. Music by Antonio
Sanchez. Starring Michael Keaton,
Emma Stone, Ed Norton, Naomi Watts, Andrea Riseborough, and Zach Galifianakis. Rated R.
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