Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014)

If you grew up as an avid watcher of Cartoon Network in the 90's like me, then the name "Birdman" conjures up images of a guy in a bright yellow, red, and black suit, with big wings on his back and a Wolverine-like mask, as well as an eagle sidekick named Avenger, who yells, "Biiiiiiirdmaaaaan!", whenever he soars off into the sky. Also, if you're part of my generation, Michael Keaton was the original movie Batman and has yet to be equaled in his portrayal. So, when I heard that Keaton was doing a movie called Birdman, I did a very quick double-take. Of course, I quickly learned that it was not the movie I thought it would be, but the idea of Keaton playing an actor who was once famous for being a movie superhero and is now embarking on a Broadway play was intriguing nonetheless, as it seemed like a character that was tailor-made for him. And then, of course, the movie got a bunch of acclaim, was nominated for and won a number of awards, and gave Keaton a career renaissance that I was very glad to see him get, because he really deserves it, so I now had even more incentive to see it. I had also heard that it was rather pretentious in certain aspects but I figured that Keaton and the rest of the really stellar cast would allow me to overlook that. I didn't get around to it until the beginning of 2016, when I managed to get the Blu-Ray cheap at a used movie, book, and video game store in Chattanooga, and when I watched it, I didn't love it nearly as much as I wanted to. Having watched it a couple of more times since then, I appreciate it more and can say that it is a very well-made film, with great performances all-around, is a major technical achievement in how it appears to have been almost entirely in one take, and has an interesting music score, but there are also things about it that grate on my nerves. There are moments that do come across as overly arty and pretentious, especially in the more ambiguous aspects of the story, which get to the point where, by the end of it, I'm not sure what to take from it, and I'm also not big on how the movie often feels like an indictment against the popularity of comic book and superhero films, which just comes off as snobbish to me.

It's three days until the opening of a Broadway production of What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver, an adaptation written and directed by, as well as starring, Riggan Thomson. Riggan was once the star of the blockbuster Birdman film franchise in the 90's but now, he's an often mocked has-been who's desperately attempting to gain recognition as a serious actor. Things are not going well with the play at all: during a rehearsal, one of the actors gets injured and is replaced with Mike Shiner, a popular but very difficult actor who doesn't care who he offends or what he has to do to make his performance great; Riggan's estranged daughter Sam, who's a recovering drug addict, is working as his assistant and the two of them don't get along that well; one of the actors is Riggan's girlfriend, Laura, who doesn't feel at all loved or appreciated by him; and his amicable relationship with his ex-wife, Sylvia, is starting to crumble, as Riggan continues to only think of himself and his career rather than doing right by their daughter. On top of all of this pressure, Riggan, who frequently drinks and goes for long periods without sleep, continually has visions of himself having supernatural powers and struggles with the inner voice of his superhero alter-ego, Birdman, who mocks him for having given up his billion-dollar franchise and trying to be something he's not, insisting that he's better than all of these Broadway actors whom he aspires to emulate. As the play's opening night approaches and his depression and grip on reality worsen, Riggan may do something exceedingly drastic and foolhardy to gain the respect he so craves.

Looking at his filmography, I can already tell that Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, who started out as a radio host, TV producer, and even a composer, makes the kind of movies that I'm just not interested in. I have no problem with artistes or anything, but films like Amores perros, about society in Mexico City, 21 Grams, a very non-linear movie about the aftermath of a bad car accident, and Babel, another movie concerning several intertwined stories, don't grab me, and neither does Biutiful, even if it was the first movie where Javier Bardem gained a lot of recognition (except for Babel, I had never even heard of these movies until I looked them up). Truth be told, I would not have even checked Birdman out if it didn't star Michael Keaton, and my conflicting feelings about it didn't encourage me to seek out Inarritu's follow-up movie, The Revenant. He's clearly a major critical darling, one who the Academy fawns over, and that's fine, but the stuff he does simply isn't what I'm looking for in films and I don't see myself ever reviewing anything else he's done or will do in the future.

Michael Keaton has always been an actor who I feel, despite having been in a number of really popular movies in his heyday, never got the respect he deserved and so, on that note, I'm happy about Birdman, as it gave him a golden opportunity to show everyone what he can really do. He absolutely inhabits the role of Riggan Thomson, managing to make him pathetic, pitiable, and extremely flawed, with some not so great personality quirks, while, at the same time, not crossing that line to where he becomes unlikable. In the twenty plus years since he stopped playing Birdman, Riggan is now a down-on-his luck has-been, seen by many as just a clown who deserves to have been put out to pasture. As a result, he's absolutely obsessed with making his Broadway debut in his personal production of What We Talk About When We Talk About Love a success that will bring him respect. Unfortunately, the play is shaping up to be a disaster in more ways than one. Firstly, everything that can go wrong is going wrong: a main actor gets injured and proceeds to sue the production, his replacement is antagonistic towards Riggan and is virtually impossible to work with, there's a lot of drama going on between said costar and another actor who happens to be his girlfriend, Riggan ends up embarrassing himself when he gets locked out of the theater in his underwear and has to walk through Times Square like that to get back inside, and a very influential theater critic flat-out tells him that she's going to destroy his play with a scathing review because she hates what he represents: celebrities who try to be "actual actors." As if all that weren't nothing, Riggan is so focused on the play that he's alienating everyone around him, including those closest to him. His estranged daughter, Sam, who is a recovering drug addict and resents him for having never been there for her, works as his assistant. When Riggan finds that she's been smoking a joint and is more worried about it ruining things for him, she tears into him, telling him the play is unimportant and so is he. He drives his friend and producer, Jake, nuts with his constant mood swings and demands, to the point where Jake has to do anything he can to keep the play going, even telling Riggan what he wants to hear. His ex-wife, Sylvia, who left him because of his outbursts and an instance of cheating, is not happy when he says he plans to refinance their Malibu home to pay for the play, since it was eventually supposed to be Sam's home. And his current girlfriend, Laura, tells him she thinks she's pregnant but Riggan does a horrible job of disguising the fact that he's more concerned about how it could affect the production and complicate his life, much to Laura's anger.

Riggan is also literally tormented by the voice and visions of the character he played in the movies, who mocks him for the state he's in and his rejection of movie stardom, trying to get him to make a comeback as Birdman, saying that it's who he is. Riggan attempts to use meditation and calm breathing to block the voice out but it clearly does no good and he starts having violent outbursts where he trashes everything around him while arguing with Birdman, often imagining that he has powers like telekinesis and the gift of flight while doing so. Combine all of this with his constant drinking, lack of sleep, and all-around bad headspace and he's quite a mess of a human being in the days leading up to opening night. That night, after he had to walk through Times Square in his underwear during the previous night's preview, had a demoralizing encounter with theater critic Tabitha Dickinson at the bar afterward, and dealt with Birdman emphatically telling him that he must make a comeback in the part, Riggan is totally depressed, even though the play is going quite well. While talking with Sylvia in his dressing room before the final scene, Riggan admits to her that he tried to commit suicide after she caught him cheating and that he now feels like a failure whose life has completely passed him by, adding that he doesn't even have Sam anymore. Desperate to make some kind of mark, he takes a loaded gun with him on stage rather than the prop one and, following his character's soliloquy about how he's nothing, shoots himself, which actually gets him a standing ovation. Riggan survives this, though he blows his nose off in the process, and is later told that the play was a success and people everywhere are praying for his recovery. Though he now kind of has what he wanted, Riggan is no less unhappy than he was before, and after he removes the bandages that cover his nose, he looks at his swollen, bruised face in the mirror before apparently deciding to end it all and jump out the window... or, at least, that's one of the many interpretations of the ending.

Indeed, at the end of the movie, you don't know what's become of Riggan. You don't know if he did commit suicide and Sam's reaction of looking out the window, down to the ground, before looking up and smiling was a hysterical breakdown of seeing her father dead, or if he actually did fly away, suggesting that, either the powers he seemed to be fantasizing about happening over the course of the movie were real or he somehow managed to tap into them and literally become Birdman. It's completely ambiguous, and while I can definitely appreciate ambiguity, this is an instance where, as with the whole point of the story, I don't know what I should be taking away from it. Instead of pondering the various explanations, I instead find myself wondering, "What the hell was that?"

Michael Keaton has claimed the character of Riggan was not at all based on him and, in fact, says that it was so unlike him that it was different from any other part he's ever played, and Alejandro Inarritu has said that Keaton's past as Batman wasn't the reason why he cast him, but I have to wonder how much of that is true, as so much of this feels like it was done with Keaton's history in mind. While Keaton didn't have as much of a career downslide after leaving the role of Batman as Riggan, his career still slowly but surely kind of petered out and it's only in recent years, mainly thanks to this, that he's become as in demand as he once was. Moreover, there's the notion that Riggan last played Birdman in 1992, which was when Keaton last played Batman, and he talks about how he simply walked away from the Birdman franchise, the same way in which Keaton pulled out after Tim Burton left the Batman series. Plus, they mention how Riggan seems to be glad he didn't do a fourth Birdman movie, which makes me think of all the times Keaton has said how, when he saw a glimpse of Batman & Robin at the theater, he knew he'd made the right choice to stop playing Batman (Riggan also mentions being on a plane with George Clooney in one scene). Birdman himself tells Riggan that he was the original and that he cleared the way for all of the other actors who've now found huge success playing superheroes in movies, which you could attribute to Keaton (personally, I'd say that Christopher Reeve was the true original in reality but Keaton was the first one to do it in the modern era). And speaking of Birdman, he kind of reminds me of the modern take on Batman, especially with that overly gruff voice, which I see as a jab at Christian Bale.

While we're on the subject, I'll say that I do rather like the Birdman character and his portrayal in the film, coming off as a mixture of Batman, Hulk Hogan (in how he often says "brother"), and Samuel L. Jackson with his constant use of "motherfucker" and the really memorable way in which he enunciates it. As much as he mentally torments Riggan, he has some nice lines, such as, "Shave off that pathetic goatee. Get some surgery. Sixty's the new thirty, motherfucker!", and, "See? There you go, you motherfucker. Gravity doesn't even apply to you," and I could actually see him being a really good life coach and personal trainer, someone who would really get you motivated with what he says and how he says it. Plus, while his outfit isn't the most original thing and is about what you would expect, I still like it enough to where I would love to see actual movies involving this character (yeah, I still hate the fact that Keaton only played Batman twice).

Originally, Josh Brolin was meant to play Mike Shiner but, due to scheduling conflicts, Inarritu instead went with Edward Norton, another actor who seemed tailor-made for the character he was playing: a brilliant but difficult, volatile, and abrasive actor. I personally hope that Norton isn't as bad in reality as Mike is but, given what I've heard, it's possible that there's a lot of truth in this fiction. Mike joins the cast of the play after the original actor, Ralph, gets injured because, by luck, he happens to be the boyfriend of Lesley, one of the other actors. As difficult as he is, Riggan is keen on hiring him because of his talent and how adored he is by theater critics. The minute he shows up, already knowing the play backwards and forwards due to his girlfriend's involvement, he starts going into the deeper subtext of the scenes and the lines and demanding that Riggan just go into it without thinking about it. This perfectionist, detail-oriented, method approach soon puts him at odds with just about everyone else in the production, especially Riggan, as Mike constantly complains about the lack of realism, breaking character in the middle of a preview to rant about his gin being replaced with water and later complaining about how fake-looking the prop gun Riggan threatens him with in one scene is. He even goes as far as to try to actually have sex with Lesley during a scene in one of the previews and is totally clueless as to why she objects so much, to the point where she breaks up with him. In fact, Mike is completely shameless and antagonistic towards everyone around him, including Lesley, whom he continually makes inappropriate comments towards (when she begs him not to ruin her big break, he acts all comforting, only to then whisper to her, "Play with my balls,"), as well as hits on Riggan's daughter, Sam. Speaking of Riggan, Mike has no respect for him whatsoever because of his past as a movie star, being all about artistic integrity and truth rather than popularity, which he describes as, "The slutty little cousin of prestige." He also hates popular culture in general and doesn't care if anyone likes him or not, shouting at the audience during the one preview to have a real experience instead of viewing it through their cellphones and tells Riggan that he and everyone else like him don't matter. He even goes on to tell him that his inspiration for becoming an actor, an autograph from Raymond Carver himself, means nothing, as he wrote it on a cocktail napkin, which meant he was likely drunk.

However, that doesn't stop him from stealing Riggan's story for an interview he has with the New York Times, which he defends as having been the first thing that popped into his head when Riggan confronts him about it. Riggan also accuses him of not being the honest, truthful, serious theater actor he portends to be, accusing him of lying about writing his own lines when all he did was change a few and uses the fact that he brings up how many views the video of him with a massive erection onstage got on YouTube as proof that he does care about popularity. Bringing up a quote Mike made about his father having been a drunk, Riggan shows him that he can be as "truthful" as he is by convincing him that his own father was a mean, abusive drunk who was also a sexual deviant towards him and his sister, only to then reveal that he made it all up. This leads into a real fight between the two of them, as Mike continues to mock Riggan, telling him he should use some of that talent he displayed when they're onstage. However, there are moments between Mike and Sam where he proves that there is more to him than his just being a conceited, difficult jerk. He admits that his habit of antagonizing people and not caring what they think probably isn't as "cool" as Sam describes it, later saying that he deserved Riggan socking him in the face, and that he's insecure about how the erection he had onstage with Lesley was the first one he'd had in six months, saying that acting is the one part of his life where he has no problems whatsoever. Plus, he says that he wishes he could view New York through her unclouded, more naive eyes; in other words, life and the way the acting world works has made him the person he is. He and Sam soon start hooking up, going as far as making out in the rafters above the stage while Riggan is down below, performing a scene. What eventually becomes of the two of them is left ambiguous, as Mike's story arc all but disappears during the movie's final act.

Zack Galifianakis manages to show that he's more than just a funny guy in his role here as Jake, Riggan's lawyer and friend who also happens to be the play's producer. Jake is almost constantly at his wit's end, having to deal with Riggan's mood swings and sudden, last minute decisions, such as when he decides to cancel the first preview after an actor named Ralph is injured during rehearsal and then refuses to use the understudy. He has to accommodate the demanding Mike in order to make him do the play, including paying his rather lofty fee, has to talk Riggan out of risky decisions, even if he has to lie in order to do it (when Riggan thinks about bailing on the show entirely at one point, Jake tells him that it's a packed house and Martin Scorsese is in the audience), and also deals with the lawsuit that Ralph files against them because of his injury. By the end of the movie, however, when the show has proved to be a big deal due to Riggan actually shooting himself onstage, Jake is overjoyed that Riggan has apparently accomplished what he set out to do in making a mark and can now have whatever he wants, although he ends up getting slapped in the face by Sylvia for his insensitivity. Despite that, he is good enough to chase away all of the press and paparazzi who barge into his hospital room while he's recovering.

Like everyone else, Laura (Andrea Riceborough), Riggan's current girlfriend, is feeling undervalued and distant from him, believing he sees her as little more than a possible inconvenience to the success of the play. This is apparently confirmed when she tells him that she thinks she's pregnant and Riggan is not at all convincing when he says that he's excited, prompting her to slap him and yell, "You're not funny!" She feels even worse when Riggan comforts Lesley after Mike attempted to really have sex with her onstage during a preview, telling her, "You're beautiful and you're talented and I'm lucky to have you." After Riggan leaves the room, Laura tells Lesley, "Two years, and he's never said anything like that to me." Despite that, and her commenting that what Mike to her did was kind of hot, she does console Lesley in the dressing room and the two of them start kissing at one point. She eventually reveals to Riggan that it turns out she's not pregnant when they get into an argument over a bad article about him in the New York Times and it's clear that all he's concerned about is the play, telling him it's one less thing he has to worry about. That said, while it's clear their relationship is over, she's still concerned enough about Riggan when she learns that Jake lied about the play's attendance and Martin Scorsese being in the audience (he actually is in the audience during that one preview, though). They go their separate ways amicably, with Riggan apologizing and the two of them joking how they would have been awful parents whose kids would have ended up being serial killers, but Laura still laments that she can't be a mother.

The most volatile relationship Riggan has is with his daughter, Sam (Emma Stone), a recovering drug addict whom he's hired as his assistant in an attempt to reconnect and be close with her. It doesn't go well, as Sam does not like her job at all and resents her father for having never been there for her and for prioritizing the play's importance over everything and everyone else. This comes to a head when he finds a joint she's been smoking but is more upset over the effect this could have on the play rather than her well-being and she goes off on him about how the play is nothing more than a vanity project: "You had a career before the third comic book movie, before people began to forget who was inside the bird costume. You're doing a play based on a book that was written sixty years ago, for a thousand rich old white people whose only real concern is gonna be where they go to have their cake and coffee when it's over! Nobody gives a shit buy you! And let's face it, Dad, you are not doing this for the sake of art; you are doing this because you want to feel relevant again. Well, guess what? There's an entire world out there where people fight to be relevant every single day, and you act like it doesn't exist. Things are happening in a place that you ignore, a place that, by the way, has already forgotten about you! I mean, who the fuck are you?! You hate bloggers, you mock Twitter, you don't even have a Facebook page. You're the one who doesn't exist. You're doing this because you're scared to death, like the rest of us, that you don't matter, and you know what? You're right. You don't. It's not important, okay? You're not important. Get used to it!" Once she starts to calm down, it's clear that Sam regrets what she said, but leaves the room, seeing that nothing else she has to say will make a difference.

Sam becomes intrigued with Mike Shiner almost immediately after she meets him, which involved him commenting that she has a nice ass. The two of them have a couple of heart-to-hearts up on the theater's roof, playing rounds of truth or dare that allow them to get to know each other and allowing her to see what's really behind Mike's abrasive, difficult personality. She also confides in him that she's angry at her father both for his years of neglect and how he's tried to make up for it by going on about how special she is. Mike gives her this speech about how she really is special and, while Sam calls it on how corny it was, she still dares him to join her in the rafters above the stage, where the two of them start to make out passionately, all while Riggan is doing a scene down below. Later that night, after he's seen them making out, Riggan and Sam have a more amicable interaction in his dressing room, where she realizes how much the problems the play is encountering are getting to him. She also shows him something she was taught in rehab that signifies how little human arrogance and self-importance means in the long run, and a viral video of him walking through Times Square in his underwear, which happened not too long before, telling him that this is actually beneficial in making him relevant. To that end, when she visits him in the hospital after he shot his nose off onstage, Sam tells Riggan she's made a Twitter account for him and has posted a picture of his bandaged face there. The movie ends on her, as she goes to find a vase for some flowers that were sent to Riggan and comes back to find the room empty. Looking out the window, she looks down at the ground, then up in the air, and smiles and laughs in a manner that, as mentioned earlier, can be interpreted in many different ways.

Sylvia (Amy Ryan), Riggan's ex-wife and Sam's mother, has a fairly friendly relationship with him, despite the fact that their relationship broke up very badly (she says that he once threw a knife at her when she criticized one of his movies, adding that his problem is he confuses love with admiration, and it's also mentioned that she caught him cheating on her). She visits him in his dressing room during the first preview to talk about how things are going between him and Sam and is extremely unhappy when he mentions refinancing the Malibu home that was meant to go to Sam for the sake of the play. She does reluctantly agree to it but she doesn't hide her disappointment and also encourages him to try and be there for their daughter, saying that she simply needs "a father" rather than a great one. The two of them have a really nice scene in Riggan's dressing room on opening night, where she listens to him lament about having cheated on her, admitting that he tried to commit suicide afterward by drowning himself but was forced out of the water by a bunch of jellyfish, and also how he feels he's completely missed out on his entire life and his chance to form a bond with his daughter. Sylvia tries to encourage him, telling him that he can still make things work with Sam, and shows that she does still have some genuine affection for him by kissing him and wishing him luck on the play's final scene. That's when Riggan shoots himself onstage, putting him in the hospital after he blows his nose off, and while Jake is ecstatic about the success of the play and the popularity the act has gained Riggan, Sylvia is not at all happy and is concerned about Riggan's state-of-mind, which is probably exacerbated by him having told her about his Birdman voice. She stays with him until Sam arrives and hugs and kisses her daughter before leaving the hospital.

Naomi Watts plays the role of Lesley, Mike Shiner's lover and costar who is the one who suggests him as a replacement for Ralph. She soon comes to regret having suggested him when he does what he does best: gets on everyone's bad side and appears to take delight in getting under her skin, culminating in the moment where he actually tries to have sex with her onstage. Lesley is horrified by this and proceeds to break up with him and throw him out of their apartment, before having a complete breakdown in her dressing room with Laura. She pours her heart out to Laura, telling her that she doesn't feel like she's made it all and that she's still the child who once dreamed of being on Broadway, and Laura is able to comfort her, to the point where the two of them act on a mutual attraction and kiss passionately, implying that they may end up together when both of their respective relationships end. Despite having some issues with Sam, and embarrassing herself when she badmouths her without realizing she's in the same room along with a naked Mike, Lesley has a soft spot for Riggan himself, becoming concerned about his growing issues and telling him that, whatever happens, she's grateful to him for giving her this shot.

Tabitha Dickinson (Lindsay Duncan) is a very snooty, uptight, and downright spiteful theater critic whose opinion is, according to Mike, the only one that counts when it comes to Broadway. Her disdain for Riggan is made clear early on when, during a confrontation between her and Mike at a bar, she refers to him as, "A Hollywood clown in a Lycra bird suit," prompting Mike to actually speak up for Riggan by describing how he's risking everything on the play. However, that's nothing compared to what she says to Riggan himself when he encounters her at the same bar after the final preview. He tries to tell her his story about how Raymond Carver inspired him to be an actor but she has no interest in hearing it, telling him that she's going to completely destroy his play without even seeing it. When asked if he did something to offend her, Tabitha gives him a truly brutal dressing down: "As a matter of fact, you did. You took-up space in a theater which otherwise might have been used on something worthwhile... After the opening tomorrow, I'm gonna turn in the worst review anyone has ever read and I'm gonna close your play. Would you like to know why? Because I hate you, and everyone you represent: entitled, selfish, spoiled children, blissfully untrained, unversed, and unprepared to even attempt real art, handing each other awards for cartoons and pornography, measuring your worth in weekends? Well, this is the theater and you don't get to come in here and pretend you can write, direct, and act in your own propaganda piece without coming through me first." Completely irked, Riggan proceeds to rip into her as well, calling her someone who does nothing but write in labels and crappy opinions, saying that it doesn't cost her anything, while he has risked everything on this play, ending his diatribe by telling her to, "Take this fucking malicious, cowardly, shittily written review and you shove that right the fuck up your wrinkly tight ass." Tabitha is unmoved, telling Riggan that he's a celebrity, not an actor, and again says that she's going to destroy his play. Ironically, though, when she witnesses Riggan's suicide attempt on opening night, she writes an absolute rave about it, declaring that he's created a new art she dubs "super-realism" and says it's what American theater needed, ensuring that the show is a hit and everyone is looking forward to Riggan's recovery.

Technically, Birdman is a true marvel to behold, not the least of which is due to how it's shot to look like almost the entire story is told in one long, continuous take, a technique that Alejandro Inarritu chose to employ because, "We live our lives with no editing," and to truly make Riggan's miserable reality come off as inescapable. There have been movies that have attempted this style before, most notably Alfred Hitchcock's Rope, but even as technically proficient as that film is, you can tell when there was a cut, as the camera would often zoom in on something until the screen was completely black and then pull away from it. Here, once the movie proper starts, it looks as though almost every minute of the nearly two-hour running time is done in one go, save for a series of cuts in a montage of images in the immediate aftermath of Riggan shooting himself. Moreover, the story takes place over several days and yet, the transitions from one day to another are so seamless, often going from backstage drama one night straight into the next night's performance, that you're not even likely to realize that it's now the following night. I know visual effects were used to make those transitions look smooth and flawless, as well as to help with the illusion that the whole thing was done in almost one take, but still, can you imagine how technically complicated and punishing this approach must have been for everyone involved? Not only must it have been nightmarish for the cinematographer and camera crew, who had to keep moving constantly and keep the lighting consistent and natural, but Inarritu and the cast also had to work out every single movement, line reading, and such to make sure it all flowed together naturally, with even the slightest mistake meaning they had to start over. They also had to do a good number of takes in order to get into a well-oiled rhythm, which had to have been very, very taxing for everyone involved, and that's just for scenes involving dialogue and the actors walking around in the theater and down the street. Try to imagine how hard it must have been to transition into that fight Riggan and Mike get into at one point and then follow Riggan back to his dressing room, which he proceeds to smash up, apparently using superpowers. Yet, amazingly, none of the actors seemed to have a problem with this; in fact, it seemed like they all enjoyed their time on the film. For this achievement alone, it's small wonder the film won Oscars for Best Director and Best Cinematography.

The one-shot approach was further complicated by the fact that, for a down-to-Earth drama, the movie features quite a number of visual effects that have to be integrated seamlessly into the flow, whereas normally, you cut from fully live-action elements to shots involving effects. Because of this, Rodeo FX, the company hired to work on the movie, was also involved in the editing. Most of the effects work in the movie involve Riggan imagining that he's using superpowers whenever he's by himself. Some of these are mundane, such as the first shot of him floating in midair in a lotus position, him making doors open by themselves, or slightly moving objects, and they were probably fairly simple to pull off, while others, like him trashing his dressing room using apparent telekinesis, was probably more difficult, though they had the added benefit of the camera panning over to Jake entering the room and then panning back to see Riggan breaking everything in a normal manner. But, where the movie really goes all out is the scene between Riggan and Birdman on the day of the play's opening, where Birdman tries to talk him into making another movie. The two of them walk down the street in single-file, when Birdman suddenly starts hovering in the air behind Riggan using his wings. Riggan then snaps his fingers and the camera snaps over to the street to reveal a big action sequence, with a SWAT team climbing over cars and firing weapons, aircraft crashing into buildings, a helicopter getting blown in half, and the shadow of some enormous creature falling on them. Birdman hovers into the shot, fires at an enormous, robotic vulture-like monster perched atop a building, and Riggan is then shown floating up into the air, onto the roof of the theater, and after a brief talk with someone who finds him up there, he jumps off and flies throughout the city in an extensive sequence, before finally landing at the front of the theater and heading in to prepare for opening night. That latter section took a lot of preparation to get absolutely right and the end result really does look amazing, both effects-wise and also, again, because of how seamless it's put into this one ongoing shot.

As impressive as really well-done, front and center effects are, what's just as, if not more cool, to me, though, is how effects artists manage to do stuff that's right in front of your face and yet, you never even think about it. For instance, since there are a number of scenes involving mirrors, they often had to remove the reflections of the crew, and the background outside the windows of the hospital at the end of the movie was added in later. What's really amazing is how they did the night-to-day transitions where the camera is looking up at the city skyline, using a simple matte technique and combining together various shots of the buildings taken at different times during the day. But the best one by far has to be the last time you see Birdman, when he's reflected in the mirror of the hospital bathroom when Riggan removes the bandages on his face but is not seen when the camera pans around to the actual room behind Riggan. Obviously, there was some editing and visual effects trickery there, but the way Birdman's wing suddenly appears out of the corner of the frame before you see his entire form, coupled with the ongoing flawless flow of the camera, makes it especially incredible to see.

Inarritu's goal of making Riggan's reality inescapable is further emphasized by how, save for the ending in the hospital, the entire film is set either at the theater or just down the street, among the upscale bars, back-alleys, seedy small liquor stores, and Times Square itself. It certainly explores what's going on in the characters' lives but all of that happens either within the walls of the theater or when they're having a drink right down from it, hitting home the notion that the play is totally dominating their very existence, especially Riggan's, who appears to actually live in his dressing room. I know from experience that this is quite true to life, as I was involved with a high school drama production of Guys and Dolls during my freshman year (I did a lot of backstage work and operated a spotlight during the performances) and, up until the following spring, it did come to take up a good chunk of my time, as I had to be there whenever there was a performance, sometimes at night when I had to go to school the next day or a couple of times during the day. There was even one day when I was there from 9:00 or 10:00 in the morning to 7:00 that night, and this was on a Sunday. And remember, this was just for a high school play. I can't begin to imagine what the real deal is like. In any case, there is something of a nice dichotomy with the interiors of the theater, as you have the big, nice-looking main stage and auditorium, which Inarritu never fails to show in all their glory, and the more confined, somewhat claustrophobic, backstage areas that, while not exactly horribly rundown, do look as though they've seen better days. The narrow hallways, small commissary and lounge areas, and the dressing rooms give off something of a prison kind of vibe, particularly for Riggan when this play that he's risked everything for starts shaping up to be an unmitigated disaster that he can't escape. The upper areas of the backstage section, like the rafters above the stage and the rooftop, come off like the only places where one can stretch their legs, so to speak, so it's not surprising that Mike and Sam often head up there during their downtime. As confining as it all is, it's often shot very well, with lots of deep colors typically saturating the immediate backstage area as well as the main stage and giving it a very surreal vibe.

While ostensibly a drama, Birdman is also darkly comedic in a number of ways, as it makes things that should be off-putting, like Ralph suddenly getting whacked in the head by a falling light during a table read, Mike standing around in the middle of the costume room completely naked while Sam stands and watches, and his attempting to basically rape Lesley onstage because it's the first time in months that he's managed to get it up, more laughable because of their inherent absurdity. Other examples include the true first shot of Riggan levitating in his dressing room in nothing but his underwear; the sequence where Riggan confronts Mike about stealing his quote by forcing him out of a tanning bed, chasing up to the lounge area, making up a story about his dad being horribly abusive just to prove a point to him, and then getting in a scuffle with him, all while Mike is wearing nothing but a speedo and is covered in spray-tan; Riggan basically having a total breakdown during his arguments with Birdman, destroying his dressing room in the process in one scene; and, when he's at his lowest point following his confrontation with Tabitha Dickinson, he comes across a random guy on the street who's spouting off a quote from Macbeth (a quote I had to learn word-for-word and then repeat verbatim to my English teacher, I might add). However, the most blatantly uncomfortable and yet funny scene is when, on the night of the final preview, Riggan is out back, having a smoke, when the door shuts and his robe gets snagged in it, forcing him to go around to the front and walk through Times Square in his underwear to get back inside, all while getting jeered at and videoed by the throngs of people there. And then, with the play's scene already underway, he has no time to enter from offstage and, instead, goes through the audience while saying his lines and has to mime having a gun until he reaches the stage and someone hands him the prop. It's not all laugh out-loud funny but it does manage to generate at least a smirk, which is a nice way for the film to offset some of the issues I have with it.

One of those issues is just how nonsensical and arty the movie sometimes gets. For the most part, I understand the narrative and the story, but then, you have all these random images, such as the first thing you actually see when the movie begins, which is this meteorite-like object streaking through the sky, and after Riggan shoots himself, you get this montage of more shots of that object, a marching band on the stage, accompanied by people dressed up as the Statue of Liberty and as superheroes like Spider-Man, Iron Man, and Bumblebee from Transformers, dead jellyfish lying on a beach, and a shot of his dressing room window with a beam of sunlight streaming through it. Some of the imagery I get the significance of, like the jellyfish, but others, I'm just sitting there, wondering, "What am I looking at?" Plus, as inventive and well-done as some of those transitions from one day to another are, the way some of them are done come off as intentionally unusual and brow-raising. For instance, when Laura tells Riggan that she thinks she's pregnant before slapping him because of how bad he is at pretending that he's happy about it, she randomly kisses him and the camera follows her as she heads up to the stage, glancing briefly to look at some random guy sitting in a doorway, apparently rewiring something, before she says to the camera, in a very breathy and husky manner, "First preview tomorrow. Here we go," as the scene then transitions to said preview, with the play already in progress. The transition from the first night's preview to the second is more overly arty and metaphorical, as we go from Riggan feeling especially lousy after the blowup between him and Sam, to him looking to his right, down to where the door he came in should be, only now, we push into this surreal scene with Laura making a speech onstage, amidst fog and artificial trees, while men dressed as trees move around her, before panning around to Mike and Lesley lying in bed, waiting for their cue, when he tries to talk her into actually having sex with him. The scene Laura is acting out is part of the play and is meant to be a dream scene, but the piece of dialogue earlier that explains that flits by so fast, you could easily forget it and find yourself watching something that will make you very confused. Granted, the dialogue she's speaking in her part does have some dramatic relevance, as she's talking about an unwanted pregnancy, but it still has me rolling eyes at the deliberately abstract, arty nature of it all, as does that random guy on the street spouting Shakespeare, specifically Macbeth. While something can be said of the parallels between this film and Macbeth, with Birdman himself acting like Lady Macbeth and Riggan's attempt to keep his play from getting closed being similar to how Macbeth attempts to avert the prediction made by the witches, not to mention the moving trees in that one scene with Laura, having that guy actually spouting lines from the play for no reason, other than he's drunk or crazy, feels way too on the nose.

A very frustrating aspect of the movie for me, which is something I'm sure a lot of people praise, is that I'm not sure what it all means. Each time I've watched it, I've ultimately found myself wondering what the point of this entire sequence of events is. I get that Alejandro Inurrito is one of those filmmakers who doesn't like to spell everything out for an audience (like Steven Spielberg and David Lynch, he doesn't do audio commentaries for his films for that very reason) and I don't mind ambiguity at all, but here, it comes off as really pretentious to me. The whole time I was watching it, I thought maybe it was supposed to be about Riggan slowly but surely coming to terms with his past as the star of a profitable superhero film series and that he shouldn't run away from it, as that has as much merit as any thoughtful, introspective Broadway play. I honestly thought that was the point behind the scene on the day the play opens, where Birdman is trying to pull him out of the swamp of depression he's mired in and does so to the point where he feels godlike and untouchable, imagining himself flying over the city. But then, come the night of the play, even though it's going great, he's as depressed as ever, feeling like a complete joke and that all he has to show for his efforts is being a viral sensation due to the number of views the videos of him having to walk around the front of the theater in his underwear got.

He then shoots himself, seemingly desperate to make any sort of mark, even if he's not around to enjoy it, but he survives, gets put in the hospital, and is still not happy, though people are lauding what he did and are praying for his recovery. (He also finally got the flowers he wanted but he can't smell them because of his nose.) The way the bandages on his face seem to create the form of the Birdman mask appears to cement that he'll always be tied to that character and the interpretation of the ending, where he seems to fly off in the sky rather than fall to his death, could be seen as the fruition of that... only, as he's leaving the bathroom, he tells Birdman, whose reflection is in the mirror, "Bye-bye, and fuck you." That seems to clash with what it was going for, unless it means he's managed to tap into his own latent powers that he doesn't need Birdman to use. But, when I think about it, I find myself wondering what all of that has to do with the actual story in the first place. (I understand the concept of "magical realism" and all, but I don't get why placing that in the context of this story was necessary.) Then again, it could be that he did commit suicide and Sam's reaction is one of crazed hysteria at realizing her dad's dead. Maybe that's significance of the quote the movie starts off with, that in death, Riggan has ensured that he will be beloved and remembered, and he's happy about it in his mind before he dies. I just don't know what this movie is really about, and I get that's likely the point and that someone else will have a completely different interpretation of everything I've mentioned and will be able to get something out of it, but it just irritates me more than it fascinates.

And here is where I'm probably going to get a little soapboxy, as this is my biggest issue with the movie: it feels like it's wagging its finger at people who enjoy comic book movies and big spectacle in general and is saying, "Shame on you." I don't mind the story being about how Riggan is trying to reinvent himself as a serious artist and has to deal with a popular movie role that he played years ago constantly hanging over his head, as a number of actors and people in the entertainment industry can definitely relate to that. I also don't mind the theme of popularity versus artistic integrity, as personified by Riggan and Mike and the heated discussions they often have about it. Heck, there's one part of the movie that I actually agree with, which is how people nowadays are far too obsessed with social media and viral fame. In that scene where Mike breaks character during the first preview and yells at the jeering audience, "Stop looking at the world through your cellphone screen! Have a real experience!", I agree, somewhat, with what he's saying (I don't think there's anything wrong with filming something on your phone for posterity but I do think you shouldn't spend your whole life watching stuff through it). But, what I don't like is when various genres, be they comic book movies and other types of blockbusters or even horror and science fiction films, are looked down upon as being irrelevant and not "true art." Granted, there are a good number of those movies that are total junk, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with escapism and wanting to just have a good time with movies, and neither is there anything wrong with actors who find a successful niche within such movies. Now, it's made clear that Riggan was unhappy even when he was Birdman, playing into how he feels like a complete failure, at one point yelling, "I'm the answer to a fucking Trivial Pursuit question!", so that part is understandable. But, when the movie comes off as kind of derisive towards actors who've made it big in comic book films and mega franchises, like Woody Harrelson, Michael Fassbender, Jeremy Renner, and even Robert Downey Jr., with Riggan commenting, "Fuck! They put him in a cape too?!", it feels really snobbish on the filmmakers' part, as it does when Birdman looks right at the camera during that big action non-sequitur and, referring to the actual audience, says, "That's what I'm talking about. Bones rattling! Big, loud, fast! Look at these people, look at their eyes... they're all sparkling. They love this shit. They love blood. They love action. Not this talky, depressing, philosophical bullshit."

Now, before you think I'm making a judgement on Inarritu without really knowing what he thinks about the genre of superhero and comic book movies, allow me to let him speak for himself: "For me superheroes represent that vision of humans as flawless and certain, and all those things that are a delusional projection of how human beings should be. It's almost fascist. There's something very scary about that, the vanity. And for me, humans are exactly contrary to all that. I've never met a human like that. And I'm much more interested in humans, which I find much more dimensional and contradictory and flawed and driven by fears and anxiety, but at the same time, beautiful, pathetic, lovable creatures that I find fascinating. I think the values of the superheroes are in a way affecting the way the military mind works. So I have a conflict, philosophically, with the generations today not being fascinated by our human flaws and possibilities, and everything that's human seems to be boring now. It's scary for me. That's my conflict-that humans seem to be now no longer subject to analysis and observation, and we cannot see ourselves in films because we feel so bad about ourselves. We have been acting so bad in the last years, the world is in such bad shape, that probably the reason, I'm being outspoken here, is there's a shame about seeing humans on the screen. And that's sad." That quote says to me that Inarritu has never actually watched any of these movies, because if he had, he would know that, more often than not, especially nowadays, those characters are portrayed as flawed and complex and not the perfect, vain beings he seems to think they all are. And so, while I'm sure it did have to do with their just being great actors, I can't help but wonder if it was more than a coincidence that he hired people like Michael Keaton, Edward Norton, and Emma Stone, who've been involved with superhero films, to be in the movie, especially with the parallels between Riggan and Keaton's period as Batman. (Speaking of which, isn't it interesting to see Norton railing on the toxic crap he says Hollywood puts out, i.e. the kind of movies Riggan was once in, while in reality, he himself was fired from the Marvel Cinematic Universe after The Incredible Hulk for actually being a little too much like his character here?)

Okay, okay, it could be that I'm being overly defensive and, I admit, this is something that can get me riled up, since I've dealt with it myself, but it strikes a nerve with me whenever somebody feels the need to call people out simply for liking something. I felt the same way when Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola decided to really crap on the popularity of these kinds of movies, especially Coppola, who got particularly nasty about it. My feeling is, "You don't like something? Fine. No foul. But don't try to make people who do enjoy it feel stupid." But, apparently, that's not how it works anymore. And I'm sure I'm going to get some people arguing with me that that's not really what Inurrito was going for here but that's what I took from it and it completely turned me off.

The movie's score is interesting in that all of the original music, composed by Antonio Sanchez, are done completely through jazzy drum solos and percussions, which are orchestrated either to sound casual and light-hearted or more dramatic and even downbeat. Definitely a unique approach and one that I did not expect but welcomed, mainly because I thought it helped the movie a feel little less pretentious and overly arty, rather than if it had incorporated a bunch of solemn string pieces or soft piano, as is usually the norm. It's also offset by a bunch of classical music that you hear during the segments of the play and in the movie's more surreal moments, with a soaring, grandiose piece playing when Riggan flies through New York. The classical music is a bit more of a predictable choice for an arthouse film like this but it does work well where it's placed and it doesn't distract from the effectiveness of the original score. However, the inclusion of so much classical music caused something of a controversy, as it actually kept the score from being considered for an Oscar, something that really irked both Sanchez and Inarritu.

I really, really wish I could say that Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) is a movie that I absolutely love and feel is one of the best movies of the 2010's, as it does have so much to recommend it. It has awesome performances all-around, especially from Michael Keaton, and I will always be grateful that it gave him a much-needed career resurgence; it's very well-made and is a technical marvel in how it's made to look like as if the story were all done in one continuous shot, especially given the inclusion of really elaborate visual effects; the main setting of the theater and the surrounding streets are used very well; the movie is not without interesting themes and commentary; and the music score is memorably and effectively simple and the classical music that's also utilized fits well. But, unfortunately, for all of the praise I can give it, I do find the movie to be frustrating in its overly artsy nature, its unrelenting ambiguity (trust me, I agonized about how to write about my opinion on that without coming off as a clueless fool), and, most of all, how the filmmakers seem to be scolding those who take pleasure in superhero movies and big action, spectacle films in general. I hope no one was turned off by the tangent I went on about that but that always annoys me whenever I see it and is what finally made me decide that, in the end, this is not a movie I really like. I know there are many people who do enjoy it and I can see why because, I've said, there is a lot to admire, but the condescending attitude that Alejandro Inarritu appears to have towards mainstream Hollywood and its patrons is something I can't look past.