Birdman
or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)

Birdman is easily one of 2014's most enjoyable movies. Though it’s one of five films released this year about a fictional ageing movie star played by an actual ageing movie star, it distinguishes itself by exploring this subject and its themes with dark, unpretentious wit and a minimum of overt audience winking. It's a technical tour de force of filmmaking and acting that eschews the typically self-congratulatory vibe such showy undertakings often can’t help giving off. The film provides the underexposed Michael Keaton with perhaps the best role of his life, a part that feels like only he could play it. It’s a meta-movie about the fleeting nature of individual relevance in our modern, distracted, compartmentalized culture, so it’s almost appropriate that once the film is over, it fails to linger very long in your thoughts.

Birdman stars Keaton as Riggan Thomson, a faded Hollywood star most famous for playing a movie superhero named Birdman back in the 1980s. Now older and washed-up, he hopes to reinvent his career and gain artistic recognition by writing, directing, and starring in a Broadway adaptation of a short story by Raymond Carver. But Riggan faces an onslaught of production problems, public hostility, and, most importantly, crippling self-doubt that threatens more the just the success of his show. The film follows Riggan through the demanding week of previews, in which the events surrounding each performance run together like a surreal fever dream. The sensation that this entire movie may be happening inside Riggan’s unhinged mind occurs in several dazzling ways. For one, we hear the disembodied voice of Riggan’s Birdman alter ego as it belittles him, challenges him, and takes on the role of his conscience, his champion, and his inner critic. Occasionally, this imposing yet goofy doppelgänger appears to Riggan in full costume, alternately stroking and shattering his ego like a deranged Jiminy Cricket. Although these externalized inner monologues are serious scenes, they’re full of the playful quality Keaton brought to the title role in Beetlejuice, the 1988 comedy classic that first brought him mass acclaim.

Even more illusory is the movie’s photographic conceit. Birdman plays in what seems to be a single, unbroken shot, like Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope (1948), Alexander Sokurov’s Russian Ark (2002), or the Uruguayan horror movie The Silent House (2010). As applied here, the technique is no mere gimmick or technical stunt. While the film appears to be shot in one two-hour take, it does not unfold in two hours of real-time. Rather, the story takes place over the course of several days, or perhaps it represents Riggan's blurred memories of several days. Regardless, this uncanny representation of time, space, and reality is unlike anything I’ve seen attempted in film before, and it helps make Birdman one of the finest examples of magical realism in contemporary cinema.

The picture never feels limited by its single-take aesthetic, nor by the technical feats required to pull it off. As the film’s omniscient Steadicam floats through the labyrinth of dressing rooms, theater offices, stairwells, wings, and stage, as well as the New York streets outside the theater, we are treated to some of the most spirited, well-written, un-self-consciously performed dialogue of the year. The actors are completely immersed in their characters, and they never seem distracted by blocking or any of the external technical demands of long, intricately-choreographed travelling shots. Nor does this technique make the movie feel stiff, labored, or overlong; problems that often result when cuts and changes can't be made in the editing room. (Quentin Tarantino’s segment from the 1995 anthology film Four Rooms is a prime example of the stilted quality of long takes). I’m sure much of the credit for pulling off this seamless cinematic conjuring trick without sacrificing pacing or performance belongs to director of photography Emmanuel Lubezki. Lubezki is the innovative cinematographer who broke new ground in Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity (2013) and Children of Men (2006) with his use of digital technology to create the astounding illusion of long, elaborate, unbroken shots. But equal credit should go to the cast, who create a grounded, measured, and unified ensemble—no easy feat given the film’s overtly theatrical setting, its humorous take on different acting styles and approaches, and the meta nature of its premise.

The film gleefully blurs the lines between fact and fiction and plays with our fascination with and assumptions about the lives of famous and once-famous stars. Riggan Thomson’s biography is tantalizingly close to that of Michael Keaton, who gained international fame as Batman in 1989 and seems to have intentionally skirted mega-stardom ever since. Edward Norton, an acclaimed movie star (who also has a superhero role under his belt), began his career off-Broadway and has always been considered a legit thespian. Like his character, Norton also has a reputation for being difficult to work with. He brings an edgy quality that stops just short of self-parody to his role, a condescending, method-acting, cock-of-the-walk Broadway veteran. The rest of the company is perfectly cast, with the exceptions of Zach Galifianakis as Riggan’s best friend, manager, and producer, and Emma Stone, as his disaffected daughter who's working as his assistant. Both actors are fine, but they seem to be here more for their marquee value than their ability to personify their characters. But Keaton and Norton, as well as Andrea Riseborough, Amy Ryan, and Naomi Watts, are each ideally suited to their roles. The film gains additional credibility and depth from several cameos and inside references to the New York theater scene, as well as from shooting on location in Broadway’s Saint James Theater, the home of classic shows ranging from the original 1943 production of Oklahoma to the record-breaking 2001 production of The Producers. 

Birdman is directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu, and, on the surface, it seems like a major departure in style and subject matter for this filmmaker. Iñárritu specializes in ensemble movies with disparate, intersecting storylines that plumb the depths of human suffering. Critics tend to fawn over his heavy, ponderous pictures, which include Amores Perros (2000), 21 Grams (2003), and Babel (2006), but the films often leave general audiences cold. Birdman will have both critics and mass audiences laughing and swooning, despite the fact that it is infected by the same hollow quality that dogs Iñárritu’s other pictures. None of this director’s films are ever as deep or substantial as they promise, but this “is that all there is?” quality feels entirely appropriate in this case. Iñárritu makes ambitious films that search for universal human traits across different cultures, interests, and moralities. Birdman is easily his best work because its aspirations are comparatively modest. It achieves more by trying to accomplish less, and the unfulfilled sensation it conveys is entirely appropriate for its subject matter and themes. It's a film about a man who's unsure if his life means anything, a satirical fight between artists, entertainers, and those who feed off each that ends in a kind of transcendent stalemate. From first frame to last, this film will put a smile on your face, and if you feel a little empty inside when it's over, that’s the ideal reaction.