Birdman (Alejandro González Iñárritu, 2014)

[Professor Wagstaff]

Alejandro González Iñárritu's Birdman

[Movie-Brat]

Even before seeing the trailer, I thought casting Michael Keaton as the lead was straight up genius given what I had read about the film, it makes sense given he played Batman.

The trailer itself, I dig it. Keaton fits in with the movie like a glove and it has interesting imagery so that makes for a good hook.

[domino harvey]

Looks quite visually striking (surprisingly so, given what I'd read about it so far). I'm hearing this floated as a serious awards contender, so word of mouth is good already. I like that if you didn't know what this movie was about, this trailer is 100% nonsensical (and still kind of is if you do!). And A+ use of the Week End font

[The Narrator Returns]

This was shot by Emmanuel Lubezki, which explains the surprisingly good visuals, as well as the handheld long takes. I heard on another website that the entire film is edited to resemble one long take.

[domino harvey]

Great movie poster for this one too:

[pzadvance]

Is this supposed to have any tenuous connection to the Hanna-Barbera cartoon?

[Movie-Brat]

Is this supposed to have any tenuous connection to the Hanna-Barbera cartoon?

Trust me, I thought the same thing myself until I read the premise. Actually I'm pretty sure a lot of people assumed it was based on the cartoon.

[swo17]

Looks like G-I may have achieved the unfathomable here--making me kind of want to see another one of his films.

[knives]

Buitiful was actually really good and makes me think that Arriaga was the main problem of those earlier films. Also connected to our PAL format thread González Iñárritu is the correct last name following Mexican standards.

[swo17]

You are right of course and I actually knew that so

[Jeff]

I heard on another website that the entire film is edited to resemble one long take.

More on that.

[Jeff]

Opening the Venice Film Festival

[flyonthewall2983]

International Trailer (a little NSFW)

[rohmerin]

Someone from media world in DF (Mexico city) watched last week in a private projection and told my best friend that it's excellent.

[Jeff]

I'd advise avoiding the mostly ecstatic Birdman reviews out of Venice, as I've had a couple of gags spoiled that I wish I hadn't known about. It does sound though, like it is everything the trailer promised. Suffice it to Scott Foundas says that it's "a work that can hold its own with Sunset Blvd., All That Jazz, The Stunt Man and The Player among the great, mordant Hollywood movies about the messy entanglement of reality and fantasy, art and commerce." Here's the Metacritic rundown, with only Xan Brooks failing to shit himself with glee, and even he tweeted that it's a "mighty technical feat and a whole heap of fun."

I have not been an Iñárritu fan (I thought Amores Perros was promising, hated Babel and 21 Grams, skipped Biutiful), but I'm really looking forward to this. It looks as though Iñárritu is completely reinventing himself.

[knives]

Buitiful is pretty great and worth checking out. It is more along the lines of his earlier films than this seems to be, but it is also radically different in subtle ways that suggest that the thing that made his early films so horrible (I don't even like Amores Perros) is Guilermo Arriaga.

[hearthesilence]

I may be with Jeff on this. I thought Amores Perros showed promise, but I wasn't big on his films after that. It seemed like his work was on a steady downward trajectory, but it would be great to see him deliver with this one.

[Finch]

Walter Chaw found the film an incredible bore.

Although it has a snotty critic character name-drop Roland Barthes, it proceeds to misunderstand Roland Barthes; it's like the whole damn thing is that guy in Annie Hall who gets a lecture from Marshall McLuhan. But Birdman's biggest miscalculation, frankly, is that it believes it isn't more vacuous than the "Hollywood" productions it's taking these wild, haymaker swings at. It's more vacuous. It's the exact equivalent of a middlebrow-appeasing, broadly-appealing troll of a mainstream film, actually--the arthouse Michael Bay product that hits every dopamine-vending cue in a festival-goer's lizard brain. It's funny, because while white, privileged, Seven Sisters-educated moviegoers of a certain age are this film's choir, Birdman actually gives adorable Sam (adorable Stone) a long monologue--one of so many--that skewers the "rich, white, old people" assembled to watch Riggan's play/this movie. Irony? Arthouse audiences don't recognize themselves. The real irony is it's both intentionally and unintentionally ironic.

[domino harvey]

Walter Chaw is calling out middlebrow? Talk about not recognizing irony!

[Jeff]

Walter Chaw found the film an incredible bore.

I'm afraid I'm with Chaw (and Scott Tobias and Richard Brody) on this one. I've come to the conclusion that Iñárritu is just not for me. I generally hate to see "pretentious" used as a descriptor, because it is misused so frequently, but it seems tailor-made for Iñárritu. I feel like he doesn't really have anything to say that hasn't been said by thousands of stoned college freshman. Here he's gone from the "it's like we're all connected, man" message of his earlier films to an even more nebulous "artists (like me) are, like, so totally troubled and misunderstood, man."

Despite my aversion to his early work, I was really looking forward to Birdman. It's got a great cast, a completely different tone than Iñárritu's other films, and the trailer made it look like tremendous fun. The unbroken take illusion is indeed pretty neat, but that propulsive drum score gets old really quickly, and even things like the Godardian credits start to feel designed to convince you that the director is an Important Cinematic Artist. If you're still not convinced despite Iñárritu's repeated insistence, he's got an absurd theater critic arch-villain (every bit as campy as the Hollywood superhero variety he's deriding) to artificially position his protaganist and himself against.

I can't fault anyone in the cast. Everything is played to the rafters, but intentionally so, and that's I guess that's the point of the "if everything's over-the-top you can call it satire" approach. Edward Norton in particular has a lot of fun with his role, in which he seems to be poking a bit of fun at his own public persona. Emma Stone remains adorable even when trying to be edgy. I can't fault Michael Keaton either. He delivers even the most cringe-worthy dialogue with conviction, and he remains a magnetic presence on the screen. Even though I kind of hate this movie, I wouldn't mind seeing Norton and Keaton in particular recognized for their work in it, especially if it leads to the presumed Michael Keaton Renaissance.

I feel like maybe I need to give the movie another shot. What am I missing? While it's not the worst movie I've seen this year, it's certainly the biggest disappointment. My fault for being wooed by a spectacular trailer and glowing festival reviews, I suppose. I was sure that the maudlin, pretentious hack Alejandro Gonzales Iñárritu must have been reborn as the playful, witty Alejandro G. Iñárritu. Turns out it's just the disco-remix of the same guy.

[hearthesilence]

I've yet to see this, but I was intrigued by Glenn Kenny's praise for it, especially since he's always been a skeptic of Iñárritu's work and expressed strong reservations going into this one.

[Grand Wazoo]

I really feel this is one of the worst scripts I've encountered that has such great performances and cinematography attached to it. As Jeff said, the dialogue is often painful yet everyone involved really gives it their all, so much so that they sometimes overcome the horrendous writing. Often it seems like characters are just shouting themes at each other without exploring them, as if Iñárritu believes the louder the shout, the more meaningful the point.

Also, did anyone else notice the jarring drop in visual quality during the roof scenes with Norton and Stone? I'm fairly certain a different camera was used for those, perhaps because they did not want to light the balcony and/or draw attention to a film production so close to the street at night, but it was such an extreme change (looks like it could have even been a DSLR) that it actually took me out of the film briefly.

[Jeff]

Often it seems like characters are just shouting themes at each other without exploring them, as if Iñárritu believes the louder the shout, the more meaningful the point.

This encapsulates my experience perfectly.

[Professor Wagstaff]

I'm with Jeff and Wazoo on this one. I found a lot to admire about the film, particularly the performances by Keaton and Norton. I'd also say that Lubeski's gorgeous photography beautifully captures New York City despite never venturing far from the St. James Theatre. At times I found it too gimmicky to have the movie appear as (mostly) one take, but scenes in the theatre, particularly during rehearsals and previews, had the same immediacy of a live performance that would have been hard to capture any other way.

I feel like maybe I need to give the movie another shot. What am I missing?

But, ultimately, I'm not sure what to take away from Birdman beyond the farcical elements. I think this is same old González storytelling. Even as he chastises his potential audience with Emma Stone's tirade against rich white people or the obnoxious critic caricature, I think he's desperately attempting to pander to these same audiences that his surrogate Riggan Thomson character claims to resent. The heavy cultural name-dropping, the deriding of populist entertainment, and the plea for artistic integrity seemed like calculated attempts to appeal to the more urban sophisticate audiences who once embraced González's work.

[Roger Ryan]

I enjoyed this considerably more than Iñárritu's previous three features (although I appreciated how BIUTIFUL had a bit of perversity to cut through the sentimentality). On first blush, I would agree that BIRDMAN appears to be pandering to the "go-watch-TRANSFORMERS-and-shut-up" crowd, but it seems to me that the staged Raymond Carver adaptation is treated with equal ridicule as Thompson's blockbuster franchise. The "magic realism" that Kenny addresses even suggests that Thompson's true purpose is being a real-life Birdman and that his focus is entirely misplaced in attempting an "artistic" Broadway statement. Certainly BIRDMAN is not nearly as comical as its trailer suggests, but I found the discomfort of its tone (not unlike BARTON FINK or SYNECDOCHE, NY) and the mesmerizing single-take approach to be very refreshing.