Ids, egos and superegos collide and
combust (in a single take!) on stages as concrete as the Broadway
theatre and as fantastical as the imaginings of a self-obsessed actor
in Alejandro González Iňárritu's Birdman. As in the myth of
Icarus, to which his wily script often alludes both visually and
verbally, Iňárritu has high-flying ambitions for what is possibly
his most personal film to date. But rather than crash and burn, his
satiric slant on the artist's odyssey soars magnificently on its dark
feathery wings.
Michael Keaton stars – in a
performance that vies to redefine his career – as Riggan Thompson,
a washed-up former movie star seeking respect and validation by
directing and starring in his own adaptation of Raymond Carver's What
We Talk About When We Talk About Love
on Broadway. He had once played a popular superhero (the eponymous
Birdman) in a series of lucrative but disposable comic book
blockbusters that brought him fame and fortune, but not artistic
fulfillment.
Now, some twenty years after hanging up
his dopey bird suit, he's risking so much more than just his money
and reputation by mounting this prestigious production. The tenuous
relationship with his recovering drug addict daughter (Emma Stone),
his fragile sense of self, and even his grasp on reality hang in the
balance while the pressure mounts.
Iňárritu has taken some bold artistic risks himself with Birdman; Much ado has been made about his splashy, “unedited” single-take approach. There actually are several digital editing cuts so expertly achieved that they're invisible to us. Otherwise, the film is designed to resemble one extended single take, shot by the modern master of lengthy tracking shots, Emmanuel Lubezki.
The trick itself isn't an original one;
Alfred Hitchcock famously attempted it with Rope, as did
Alexander Sokurov more recently with Russian Ark. But
Lubezki's magic with light, colour and kineticism elevates this
camera stunt above the gimmick into which it could have deteriorated.
Beyond its visual panache, the greatest virtue of this uninterrupted
shooting style is the chance it affords us to observe the cast's
uninterrupted performances. Seems appropriate for a story about live
theatre, no?
But the thing about live theatre is
that there's a lot that can, and does, go wrong. As the days left
until opening night are counted down by a gong show of disastrous
rehearsals and previews, Riggan finds himself at odds with his
actors, his family, his audience, but most of all himself. One minute
he's humbly self-aware, the next he's the sort of egomaniac who'd
shoot his nose to spite his face.
The show within a show we see him
preparing reflects more and more this struggle between his doggedly
driven superego and his hallucinatory id, the victor of which may
decide the fate of his very existence. One of the masterstrokes of
Iňárritu's devilishly funny screenplay (which he co-wrote with
Nicolas Giácobone, Alexander Dinelaris & Armando Bo) is how it
populates Riggan's world with characters who represent the
conflicting levels of his psyche.
All the self-conscious perceptions he
has about his family, his career, and his art are reflected in the
interactions he shares with his concerned ex-wife (Amy Ryan), his
harried best friend/agent (Zack Galifianakis), and the New York
Times' hostile theatre critic (Lindsay Duncan). His raging
subconscious delusions, meanwhile, are embodied by his prickly method
actor costar (an hilarious Edward Norton), his leading lady/lover
(Andrea Riseborough), and the ghost of Birdman himself, who taunts
Riggan with barbed reminders of his lost stardom.
It's only fitting that a piece of art
that's about about art imitating life would imitate life itself. So
cinephiles can be forgiven for gleefully reminding those of us who've
forgotten, that Keaton – much like the character he plays here –
hit the apex of his own big screen career (until now, that is) over
twenty years ago by playing the iconic title superhero in Tim
Burton's Batman movies.
While it's impossible to measure the
extent to which Keaton's own history and perspectives inform his
performance, what's undeniable is that he's tapped into something
truly special with his work here. Ever the versatile performer, he
plays Riggan as a grounded human being and as an artist driven mad
with equal conviction, building to a climatic epiphany that's as
terrifying as it is bleakly comical.
Yet as tempting as it is to play up the
“meta” aspect of Keaton as Riggan, the truth is it's probably
more accurate to read Iňárritu as Riggan. He is the artist who has
put himself out there on the line and delivered a near masterpiece.
Sure, Birdman's not perfect (a few too many unresolved
subplots clamber for our attention), but Iňárritu flies just close
enough to the sun for us to see the world from Riggan Thompson's
eyes... without falling back down in flames.
**** out of ****
