Birdman

Wow, what a strange, intense movie. Birdman, The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance, directed by Mexican director Alejandro Inarritu, is nearly 2 hours, and the the drama is turned up to 11 from beginning to end. Riggan, played by Michael Keaton, is a washed up actor whose high point was the last “Birdman” superhero movie in 1992 (the same year Keaton did his last Batman movie…coincidence?). He is trying to get his game back with a Broadway production of a high drama play. The distinction between reality and fantasy in Riggan is loose. When nobody else is in the room, he can levitate things and is haunted by the speech and image of Birdman. His actors are hyper-engaged, temperamental and always in a state of high drama themselves. When one of them is severely injured by a falling light (levitation?…accident?), “Mike” (Ed Norton) arrives on the set. He’s having an affair with another cast member, Leslie (Naomi Watts) and already knows his lines in a play that has not been performed yet, even though he often ignores them.

In spite of preview disasters, injuries and a horny actor (Norton) who actually wants to have live sex on stage, the play progresses toward its opening, which is already damned by an influential critic who has not even seen the play but hates it anyway. Money is short, the producer (Zach Galifianakis) is frantic and everything that can go wrong goes wrong. What’s amazing in this movie is that it is SO intensely dramatic and exhaustingly fasctinating. Keaton is on screen for about 95% of the movie, and really does NOT look good, nor do any of the other actors. They are at their ragged, frantic worst. Will this play come off? Will anybody survive? Can Riggan really fly?

This movie strains your boundaries; you are never sure what is real and what is not and when you think that the strange things are Riggan’s fantasies, then you recall that the light really DID hit the actor in the early scene. In the small realm of movies about creating live theater, the last one I saw was Me and Orson Welles, a completely enjoyable tale of a kid getting his first taste of theater under the shadow of Welles. Birdman is no Me and Orson Welles. Characters are intense, unattractive, often much more dramatic off stage than on, nothing works right and everybody is at their edge. I also recall the kind of polarized reaction of audiences to Mallick’s The Tree of Life, which is probably similar to the reaction to this movie. I really enjoyed it, but then I am the sort of right side of the brain person that also liked The Tree of Life. Birdman is much more linear and does have a story, but its loose sense of what is real is similarly disjointing in a story that is so up-close and low-tech. The entire cast is excellent, and all spend the entire movie in overdrive and mostly being unattractive. Keaton is especially amazing, with his unflattering portrayal of this character. The entire movie is also filmed in near extreme close-up, with shaky, unnerving camera work, claustrophobic, cluttered sets, mostly in the backstage area of a Broadway theater. It’s also a great New York movie, capturing the messy, confusing back alleys of Midtown, the crazy mob scene of Times Square and the hunt for celebrities. It is not a movie for the faint of heart, nor the easily offended. It’s a wild ride to a strange ending.

Birdman review part one (after first viewing)

I saw Birdman last night, and I still don't quite know what to think. Hell, I don't even know where to start. Birdman is such an overwhelming experience and there's so much to take in that I don't know where to begin. So, I guess that's where I'll start. There is so much going on in Birdman that it's hard to know where to look. Should I look at the actors and see what they're doing? Or should I be admiring this camerawork and taking in everything around the actors? How is Michael Keaton floating? What was that in the background, oh too late we already moved past it. These are the kind of things I was thinking in the theater. You see, some people say that the first quarter of the movie or the first hour is made to look like it was done in one shot. Well that's wrong, because the whole movie is like that. A constantly moving camera that seems to float magically like a ghost from scene to scene. While this is extremely impressive and definitely gives Birdman an artistic edge, it can at times be distracting. The movie is so fast paced that it's really difficult to take it all in and get a firm grasp on everything. It's so hard to really talk about Birdman in segments like camerawork and story and acting, because they all seem to blend as one in this film. It's all a fluid motion. So, please excuse this very strange segway. The acting was very good in Birdman. Every performance is fantastic. Emma Stone and Keaton were especially great, but everyone brought their A-game for this film. Only problem is that it's hard to really take in all the great acting when there is so much else going on. I don't know what to say about the story. In the end, I came out confused, and didn't know what to think. That's all that I will say about the story for now. I'm going to have to see Birdman again before I really give it a solid rating. I need to take this movie bit by bit, looking at something different each time. It's so overwhelming the first time. Next time I see it, I need to try and analyze the story to try and understand it's symbolism and deeper meaning.

This will be my "consensus" for now.

Birdman is an astounding achievement. It is undoubtedly a work of art and a film that will be studied for years and years. This is not a film that gets easily forgotten. That being said, I don't think I understood it. I did not necessarily enjoy it all that much, but my eyes were constantly on the screen. I'm not even sure if I liked it. But there's no doubt in my mind that I have to see it again. Was this one of my "favorite movies of the year"? Probably not, because I didn't enjoy it immensely. I respect it immensely. It is definitely a groundbreaking film. One that will be remembered and discussed in film classes for years. I just need more time to comprehend it's meaning and figure out if I like what it's trying to say before I give it a rating.

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Through the darkness of future past
The magician longs to see
One chants out between two worlds:
Fire walk with me.

I still have to wait more than two months before this film comes out here in Belgium. I can't wait to read certain people's opinions on it, though. It sure looks like a film I could potentially enjoy immensely.

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Cobpyth's Movie Log ~ 2019

It's not an easy movie to watch and the humor is very dark, but I loved its strangeness.

Gat damn, that movie seriously moved me like few things ever have.

Probably the first 10/10 I've seen since Tree of Life.

My only minor problem with it was that it should have ended after the final act in the play. Felt like it was trying to provide closure when it didn't need to.

Birdman is a massive rip-off of this Los Campesinos video:



Actually, Birdman has so many influences or possible comparisons (Allen meets Aronofsky? A touch of Donnie Darko and a sprinkling of Synechdoche New York?) and yet it is something unique and unpredictable. I'd love to see it again, just to see how the experience changes knowing what does happen, and to see what other things are happening that I might have missed.

Films about the film industry (which this is, essentially, despite its Broadway setting) do toe a dangerous line where amusingly self-referential can become irritatingly self-absorbed or frankly mastubatory, and for all the film criticizes Hollywood self-obsession within itself, it is not completely immune from this. While Michael Keaton's character Riggan worries about whether his play means anything, we can pose the same question of Birdman. But maybe we are meant to pose that question. There are a couple of times, too, where it verges on the obvious (Riggan's confrontation with the theatre critic, for example), and it just doesn't seem to know when to end.

The whole continuous shot look is fascinating, it looks great and it gives the film a fantastic energy. This, like so many other things in the film could have gone horribly wrong, and yet Inarritu manages to pull it off, spectacularly. The acting is good from everyone involved (I especially liked Emma Stone as Riggan’s daughter Sam).

Birdman has so many contradictions or tensions which are all balanced expertly - comedy and drama, reality and fantasy, flippancy and sincerity, a sort of joyous cynicism which shouldn't make sense but does.

Highly recommended.

Yeah I agree in terms of the fact that it is not an easy watch. It's difficult to fully comprehend all the sub plots going on and the characters and their motivations as well as the fact that this is a film trying to touch a number of different genres. There is something deeply moving about Riggan and although he isn't the best fame hungry, celebrity crazed 21st century character (David Brent in the UK Office still have that spot) he is probably the best realised in a 3 dimensional sense.

However, imo, it's far from a 10/10 movie, then again I'm not a fan of Tree of Life so I guess we have different tastes lol

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"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn"

"I need your clothes, your boots and your motorcycle"

While not my favourite performance of the year, I'd love to see Keaton win for Best Actor.

Want to see it so badly,can't wait till I get the opportunity to go. Normally I can predict whether I will like a film or not but this one,it's 50/50.

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"Anything less than immortality is a complete waste of time."

I haven't seen anything like it. I enjoyed it immensely. My favorite part in the whole movie, is when he tells the critic off. Oh I love that part.

I'm curious what your favorite performance of the year was.

The biggest crime in the history of cinema will be if this movie doesn't win Best Picture or Keaton doesn't get Best Actor

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My take on it. I liked it quite a bit.

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Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0

I also gave it fantastic film and soundtrack. It was so well paced and actually funny as hell.

Solid.

I was already anxious to see this movie because I love Michael Keaton, but your review really got me stoked for it...really well written and focused. You revealed what the movie is about without really revealing what happens and that's hard to do. I thought your comment about how unattractive the actors look in the movie was interesting. You have to wonder, considering the storyline, if the actors were purposely de-glammed.

Did not like.
Black Swan was a much better film.

I will give this movie its due for the acting and (mostly) one-shot. I can't say that I really enjoyed it, though. There was very little reason for me to care about any of the characters and it left me feeling detached.

A damn-near perfect movie. Amazing performances, great script and interesting cinematography style. Keaton gave the second best performance of the year in my opinion, that scene with the critic was something else.

I watched this over the weekend for the first time. I wanted to see what everyone thinks happened at the end of the film, as I really don't know.



Thanks for your thoughts!