Or, The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance
Many years ago, when the earth was young and Marvel’s Cinematic Universe was just a gleam in the eye of some rich Disney executive, Riggan Thomson (Michael Keaton) was the biggest superhero in the world: Birdman. No, not the lovable lawyer of Hanna-Barbera and adult swim fame, but Birdman, star of the multi-million dollar superhero film franchise that kicked off the entire multi-million dollar film franchise kick that the industry is so stuck on nowadays. If you ever wanted to know who was to blame for us getting Topher Grace as a symbiote or Halle Berry’s Catwoman, or that Jonah Hex movie you just remembered existed, then the fantastic success of Birdman is partially to blame for that Some might even say that Riggan was Birdman, in a much more visceral way than Robert Downey Jr. was Iron Man, but that’s neither here nor there.
That was back in 1992. Nowadays, Riggan Thomson is on the tail-end of middle age, divorced and with an estranged daughter fresh out of rehab and on the payroll as a P.A. . All those millions of dollars of Hollywood money has gone into adapting Raymond Carver’s novel “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” for Broadway, an adaptation written, directed and starring Riggan Thomson. Something ‘real’ and ‘important’, Riggan thinks, a way to establish himself as a great actor outside of the feathered suit and fake muscles. When the rest of the world thinks you’re a has-been however, whether it’s your ‘serious’ co-star Mike Shiner (Edward Norton) or the twitterverse/blogosphere/facebookhole that doesn’t know you even exist outside of three movies you made 20 years ago, trying to get yourself back in the spotlight is harder than you would think. And maybe Birdman isn’t locked away in the past like Riggan would have hoped…
The parallels between Michael Keaton, the man behind the cowl in Tim Burton’s Batman and Batman Returns and Riggan Thomson are obvious. Both men starred in films that in their respective worlds made the concept of superheroes in film into beaucoup dinero years ago, and both have slipped into obscurity since then, more or less. Riggan has shades of the classic tragic figure, a self-saboteur who bases his own self-worth on the admirations of others, and who refuses to change with a world with a shorter and shorter attention span. Yet we feel sorry for him because in his increasing sense of obsolescence we see ourselves struggling to find meaning in an increasingly brave new world. In fact, the entire film seems to revolve with this idea of the struggle for relevance, whether it be in Sam’s (Riggan’s daughter, played by Emma Stone) own reduced ego prompting the refutation of her father’s plans as pathetic, Mike Shiner’s obsessive need for ‘the truth’ on stage in contrast to his toxic social life, everyone wants to feel important but no one gives wants to give anyone a chance to do so. I can relate to that, and I’m sure many of you out there can say the same.
Birdman is a very surreal movie. Not on the level of David Lynch, whose films operate on strict dream logic, but there does seem to be an altered sense of reality running throughout the film. Recurring drummers, guys on the street belting out Shakespeare, and of course the bit of fantasy that the film is based on: Birdman. This film loves to toy with the question of whether Riggan really did have superpowers, really was Birdman, or whether we are the witness to Riggan’s emotional breakdown. Is Riggan really lifting things with his mind, or does he just think he is? Is the voice of Birdman really speaking to him, or that just a conscience taking a schizophrenic shape, hounding him about stepping away from the fame and fortune that came from doing ‘apocalypse porn’ to try do and some serious drama? We are left to draw our own conclusions from the evidence presented, and luckily there is enough gray areas for left the question open-ended.
I suppose I really liked this film, since the more I like something the less I’m able to write about it. Although it’s not a superhero movie, watching it reminded me of the kind of comic books I read back when I was a kid. Morrison’s run on The Doom Patrol, Moore’s Watchmen and Supreme, Scott McCloud’s Zot!, comic books that played with what superheroes were and and where the narrative could go beyond the constraints that have been placed upon it over the years. Which in my experience makes it more like a comic book movie than any superhero movie I’ve seen in a while. Hopefully as time goes, if superheroes don’t die off in favour of the next hot fad, we’ll be able to see films that move off into new and interesting directions beyond that of a 20 dollar popcorn movie, much like comic books were able to move beyond dime store entertainment for kids and move into an artform. Until that time, Birdman stands out as being one of the most unique modern films I’ve seen. I say give it a watch.
Result: Recommended
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