Birdman (Keaton)

Just saw it tonight and I really enjoyed it.

This is a spoiler about a part that I though was very well acted.

After Keaton catches Emma Stone smoking a joint and they go at it and she just tears a strip off of him she stops talking and it’s a fairly close shot of her face and she seems to go through several emotions there. For me that was really powerful and stood out.

Stone was fabulous. I nominate best supporting on that role. I can’t go that far with Norton (though in this year, someone give me an actor that has done better) , though his role is superb and integral to the success of the film…so maybe I can.

Regarding the telekinesis

Regarding the telekinesis, I think it is clear it is his imagination, and one of the signs that he is losing his mind… And he fights with the voice for most of the film - he is obviously troubled with it. It finally gains control and convinces him to suicide by acting. After the flying sequence the overt scene of the cabbie chasing him in the theater and getting paid after Keaton lands is a clear indicator that you had just experienced his fantasy.

So he jumps from the window in the end (the new nose was awesome). Trying to interpret the daughter’s reaction convinces me that she is losing her mind as well. She could not cope with what he had done.

Well, I have to respectfully disagree, mok. While the Keaton stuff makes sense, your interpretation of Stone’s reaction does not. I am still with CLW on this one.

mok, your interpretation is definitely a valid one, in that I think that’s the ambiguity that the director was aiming for, but I don’t really buy it.

the ending

To me, the fact that Keaton takes a cab home does not imply that he can’t fly, just that he didn’t. I grant that there’s obviously an intended ambiguity to that scene.

I do agree that it’s possible that Stone’s final laugh can be read as a sardonic “Is this really what this fucking world is?” But for me, that entire interpretation of the entire film hinges, essentially, on how you interpret Stone’s facial expression in the last 3 seconds of the film. That’s an incredible amount to put on the actress, although I don’t really have a strong opinion on whether she’s up to it or not per se.

Insofar as I think there’s a point to the ending, it seems to have something to do with actually embracing what he is, rather than that which he wants to be. Maybe this syncs with Norton’s bloviating about truth and honesty or something. Maybe not. Honestly, it’s now been long enough since I saw the movie that I’m probably no longer equipped to talk about nuanced details.

I have no idea what this means.

Bridge to Terabithia. Highly controversial kids’ movie based on the book by Katherine Paterson. (Not controversial to me, but some parents felt it was upsetting.) The thrust of Zylon’s comment is that the movie leaves it ambiguous as to whether or not the kids are actually entering a fantasy world or just playing in their imaginations.

If you haven’t watched the movie, or read the book, go for it. Both are pretty good, and don’t spoil yourself by reading any synopsis!

I viewed the ending very differently

ending

[spoiler]I view it as Keaton actually succeeded in killing himself, with the final scene in the hospital solely existing in his imagination. It’s purely a fantasy. The man at this point has completely unraveled and after killing his physical self becomes solely imaginary. I read it as a fantasy because of how everything breaks perfectly for him, the critic (who we see not sticking around to applaud) writes the amazing review, his ex-wife is there, Jake shows up with all the incredible good news (movie deal, book deal etc.), no Ed Norton, his daughter is there and hugs him. Then he flies, and for the first time someone else (his daughter) views his powers.

Now, there are definitely holes in this and I have not fully fleshed it out. It hinges on him not having powers. I see no reason to believes he has telekinesis anywhere besides in his own head. Not a single person witnesses him use it. In his dressing room we see him using his powers to trash the place. As soon as the door opens and someone else is present we see a TV in his arms. When he “flies” back to the theater we see no one act surprised, and in fact a cabby runs in after him to collect money. And, if he had powers why not use them to open the door after he gets locked out? Or y’know, find a money making use for them.

[/spoiler]

Just my thoughts.

Still digesting this, but basically I loved it.

No, it’s really not ambiguous at all. They’re just using their imaginations.

hmm loka interesting, I am gonna watch…

Here there be SPOILERS.

It’s funny, I actually thought Keaton lost that battle in the movie. It wasn’t until he put it all on the line in his performance that he won her over. It made me wonder what would have happened in Ratatouille if the cooks had thrown a temper tantrum before the food critic came to eat at their restaurant. It certainly wouldn’t have made his opinion any less valid.

In any case, this Scott Tobias review actually does seem to fall into the personal vendetta category that Birdman rightfully attacks, if without much finesse. (I did think it was one of the weaker scenes in the movie. The only one even worse was the pot scene, which maybe lost some effect since I’m in Washington.)

Do you know which one this is? There are several candidates I can think of. I haven’t been this impressed with seamless transitions since the soccer stadium scene in The Secret in Their Eyes, which baffled even Roger Ebert. “[There] is a scene involving him in a soccer stadium that I have no idea how it could have been filmed, special effects or not,” he wrote. I felt much the same way about many transitions in this movie, even aware of the probable (& sometimes obviously necessary) use of CGI. The tracking shot that pulls back through the balcony railing, for example, must have had some form of CGI because no physical camera (well, maybe a GoPro) could fit through it, and similarly the transitions from outdoors to indoors & from shoulder to crane must have similar computer-assisted splicing. And then there are the more obvious transitions, like the black walls between sets. Overall, I found it to be quite mesmerizing, and there were only a few times (eg the flying scene) where I could even tell that the actors had been rotoscoped into position.

I wonder how long the actors had to go for each take. Do you think it was as long as Linklater’s Before movies? Sounds like a nightmare for an even larger cast than just those two.

I think the only other Inarritu film I’ve seen is Biutiful, which I liked. I had no idea he was the director here until the credits rolled, but I immediately saw the similarities, despite the different language, culture, & subject matter. Much like Biutiful, I can’t say I like Birdman without reservation—there’s some hamfisted stuff in both movies—but I definitely enjoyed it a lot. On the whole, I think it works.

As for the style of filming with all the long tracking shots, and the subject matter of theater production with the play-within-a-play trope, I think the latter absolutely excuses the former as an artistic decision. Besides which, it was great fun to watch. The great thing about the style of filming is that it really does make it feel like a stage production instead of a movie about a stage production, without any of the trappings of a fixed stage, of course. The way it cuts almost immediately to later times feels a bit like stagehands swapping the set around on stage to represent a later scene, and they mostly take a similar 10-30 seconds in the movie. My favorite transition was the “cut” from Keaton up above the stage, looking down on his future performance. The Keaton up above is picturing himself down there, worrying about the details of his performance, and in the movie we literally see his imagination & his actual performance from later that night as the same scene. That transition was so cool that I wouldn’t even care if it was just done because it was cool. Which I don’t, for the reasons I already gave.

I didn’t even think about Keaton’s Batman role! Or Norton’s Hulk role or… Who was Stone? I don’t even know. I was definitely viewing the movie in the context of its own world, not with any view towards winking cultural nods. (I think Norton would have been cast as Ed Norton if that had been intentional.) It still worked for me, mostly.

Now the more interesting question here is the ambiguity of Keaton’s Birdman persona. For the life of me, I can’t figure out if he’s really a (closeted) superhero or just delusional. The opening scene, combined with the subtitle “The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance,” made me think that this is a movie about a closeted superhero who’s just trying to live life as a human. I thought that would be a brilliant premise (there’s a delightful comic called Strong Female Protagonist that explores a similar premise but eventually, perhaps disappointingly, breaks out into classic heroics), but as you say the movie never does much with it. I still don’t think it’s wholly irrelevant to the movie, because part of Keaton’s holier-than-thou conceit comes from his knowledge of being literally superhuman, far more than his past as a movie star. (It initially seems clear his character views the Hollywood movies he starred in with as much contempt as the stage critic he encounters.)

But!—and this is a huge but—then the movie starts confusing us with ambiguities. The dressing room destruction scene provides the strongest evidence that it’s all in his head. Much like Calvin & Hobbes, when he’s alone he sees everything in a fantastical way, but as soon as other people enter the room, we see him physically tossing things about. And unlike Calvin & Hobbes, there’s less likelihood of a magical realist “both versions are true!” answer, although knowing Inarritu directed still makes it plausible.

On the other hand, he could have simply stopped throwing things telekinetically because he knew he was being watched. He’s trying to stay in the closet here, after all. The first flying scene (“Are you for real, or are you just shooting a movie?” “A film!”) seems to imply that he is for real again, since everyone is suddenly taken aback by his powers. But then the next flying scene again contradicts this! He lands right in front of the theater, coming down from on high, and no one walking by on the sidewalk so much as gives him a glance. Right back to delusional status. The smile in the final shot once again takes us back to superhero status, but at that point I’m not sure I cared anymore. If someone has an answer, I’d be happy to hear the explanation, but I’m gonna go with disappointingly ambiguous for now, maybe leaning towards superhero with inconsistent writing & direction.

Overall, I enjoyed the movie as clever entertainment, I mostly didn’t think it was too clever for its own good (maybe too theatrical, but that was the point), and I’m a sucker for a good play-within-a-play. I like that this one isn’t as obvious as something like Black Swan about the plot & themes of its stage play reflecting those of the movie, although I viewed that as a feature in Black Swan’s case. I’ve never been a fan of Michael Keaton, but I think he’s perfectly adequate here, and I quite enjoyed Edward Norton’s delicious performance. Several of the girls were good, too, but they all looked so similar I had trouble telling them apart. The ones who weren’t Emma Stone, we’ll say. I don’t think it amounts to anything but entertainment, but I don’t see anything wrong with having self-important characters be the subject of an untypical piece of trivial fun.

Emma Stone was Gwen Stacy in the Spiderman reboots, a character notable for falling to her death…and Stone’s character in this film is frequently shown on the edge of high precipices (rooftop, catwalk, hospital window). Is that an intentional joke? Who knows?

Probably coincidence. If I was going to start reading things into the casting, first I’d chuckle that a movie with characters who specifically mock superhero movies and the actors taking those roles includes not only former Batman Keaton (which must certainly be intentional), but former Hulk Edward Norton and former Gwen Stacey Emma Stone.

Ah, that explains why I don’t know her from that. I haven’t seen a Spider-Man movie since Spider-Man 2.

That is the best possible way to enjoy the Spider-Man movies.

I don’t know much about Hollywood buzz / actor personalities, but I read in several places that Ed Norton’s character deliberately evoked Ed Norton’s perceived demeanor. To whit, a line from a review: “Ed Norton plays the character we all assume he is in real life”. Maybe it’s just a theater thing though, it seems more common to cast celebrities in Broadway plays based on their real-world persona, rather than attempting a character “transformation”.

That, combined with the Keaton casting, makes it clear there’s some kind of deliberate meta-jokes in the casting, the question is just how deep it goes. Which is indicative of my overall problem with the film. I don’t know how seriously to take it, in that I don’t know what’s intentional and what isn’t. I don’t know how hard the writers and directors thought about these details. With some authors, I can feel pretty confident that anything I notice was put in there intentionally, just because the creators are so meticulous, and everything means something. I don’t know if Innaritu is like that, and I suspect he isn’t (my impression is that this movie is a bit overstuffed and sloppy), so I’m fundamentally unsure how to read the film.

I don’t know what to make of it either. Is it a tone-deaf comedy, or a statement about the nature of art and performance by a pretentious, presumptuous buffoon?

I’m going to have to settle on yes.

Technically it’s fantastic, and it’s got great performances, but they’re wrong for the characters. Because these characters aren’t people, they’re caricatures. But the actors and direction do their damndest to give them reality and pathos, they kill the the comedy. But because they’re such caricatures, they don’t work on a dramatic level either.

Same with those endless tracking shots. Doing transitions by panning up to a building and doing a time-lapse might be clever and attention grabbing, but that’s all it is.

Gah. This frickin’ movie.

That’s all Broadway is! I thought that was the point? (I still just think of this movie as light entertainment about heavy-handed stage actors, so I view some of your negatives as positives.)

Isn’t it just an extended meditation on “the show must go on”?

I’d definitely recommend watching it, however, I’m also in the camp of those who became partially annoyed at the film trying too hard to be clever and meta. This is smart. Get it? GET IT?! I can see how others won’t mind though.

I dug most of the performances with special nods to (of course) Keaton and Galifianakis, the latter one delivering a restrained gig by his standards. I did love the visuals of the movie. I’m not even talking about the long trackshots, which mostly are well done, but also make it a bit of an exhausting experience to watch Birdman. I was delighted by the mood, the colours and the lighting. The scenes on the theater stage looked fabulous; I also enjoyed the two scenes on the roof of the theatre, especially the second one which had a pretty heavy blue tint to it - except for Stone’s and Norton’s faces.

He flies off of the roof and back to the theater. When he lands there are people on the street around him and nobody reacts to a dude just landing in front of them. Then after he walks inside a taxi driver who is parked on the street right where he landed follows him demanding payment for the ride.

Later on he trashes his room with super powers but as soon as Zack Galifinakis walks into the room he’s throwing things around with his hands.