'Birdman': A Cinematic Defense of the Theatrical

Robert Tiemstra ‘16 / Emertainment Monthly Staff Writer

“Popularity is the slutty little cousin of Prestige.”

Imagine this scene: Riggan Thompson (Michael Keaton) squares off against a vindictive theatre critic (in this case, Lindsay Duncan) who has vowed to savage his play in her review column no matter if it is good or not. The civility in this interaction breaks down rapidly, bringing Thompson to a bitter rant against bitter critics who don’t see the blood, sweat, and tears on the stage. “All you do is label things,” he screams. “You don’t need to understand something when you can put a label on it!”
Birdman (or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) is a film that defies labels. In a recent interview, co-writer Alexander Dinelaris pointed out, “If someone were to break down the script before we shot the movie, they would have said we were crazy!” He’s not wrong. In some ways, Alejandro González Iñárritu and company have created a movie utterly free of convention, free from all the usual labels audience members use to make themselves feel comfortable about their own viewing experience. But the thread that shines through, beyond all the technical wizardry and sharp wit that makes this film soar narratively, is the pulsing vigor of artistic integrity.

Some have called Birdman a showbiz satire, and on some level it is – taking buffoons from the stage and the screen (the yin and yang of show business) and confining them to the St. James Theater for a cutthroat performance that earns comparison to the notorious previews for Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark – but through the method used to present this film, Iñárritu, his screenwriters, and famed cinematographer Emmanuel Lubeski preserve the artistic essence of both mediums. Method actor Mike Shiner (Edward Norton) champions the purity of the stage in caustic arguments against Riggan, but also defends Riggan against the critical community only a few doors down. This is not an inconsistent character, but one who (while deeply flawed) respects his colleague’s daring. Riggan himself flies in the face of everyone who calls him irrelevant, much to his own frustration and bitter despair (“you confuse being admired with being loved,” his ex-wife quips to him at one point).
A common directorial flourish, extended tracking shots are most often used as a display of realism – look no further than Lubeski’s work with Alfonzo Cuaron in Children of Men and all but one scene of Gravity. Shot to resemble one continuous take, Birdman is the first film to do something truly unique with the conceit of continuous camerawork. This film has no pretenses toward realism, and makes several lengthy digressions into surrealism, expressionism, and fantasy… all within the same (seemingly) unbroken camera move. At alternate times throughout the course of this production, we assume the point of view of the audience, the producers, the actors, and (almost simultaneously with all of the others) Riggan himself. Lubeski’s camera gives the effect of being on, in, around, and above a stage, without ever feeling like the film should have been a play instead. This is not just a “movie,” this is a piece of pure showmanship.

In Eyes Wide Shut, Stanley Kubrick notably used wide angle tracking shots to follow his protagonist into a labyrinth of desire and hidden secrets. The labyrinth Iñárritu leads us through is one of personal anguish and frustrated ego. The scenery is Riggan Thompson’s own personal purgatory, where telekinesis and the ability to inexplicably fly are no more daunting than standing on stage with a phony gun to your head. To use a quotation from Macbeth, Riggan is a poor player, strutting and fretting his hour upon the stage, and then he is heard no more.
But what is the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance? There is a title drop toward the end of the film, but it reveals little about what Birdman’s alternate title means. It seems to imply that the best art comes from truly profound acts of ignorance. Throughout the course of the film Riggan is trying to create “art” to prove he still matters, but at the end of the day it is a dumb mistake that shows his true integrity as a performer. The arguments he had earlier with Mike are completely irrelevant, because integrity is universal. There are actors, directors, stars, and technicians who obsess over “realism” in any artistic medium. Is the stage more genuine than film? Is film more real than the stage? It’s all artifice, but in the end, the play is still the thing.