There
are a couple of somewhat overworked moments in Birdman, the otherwise very original and captivating film by
Mexican auteur Alejandro González Iñárritu; in one of them a wannabe street actor
screams out the famous lines from Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Scene 5:
“Life’s
but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the
stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound
and fury, signifying nothing.”
In
Birdman it is literally an actor upon
a stage that embodies the line, which fairly summarizes one of the themes of
the movie. This “nothingness” and the need to overcome our otherwise pithy
existence through fame, on the stage, in front of a camera or behind it, is
something that unites Birdman with
another recent release Nightcrawler,
Dan Gilroy’s directorial debut about a disturbed young man who becomes a crime
videographer and moves into “some-thingness” through his ruthless work.
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| Jake Gyllenhaal in Nightcrawler |
Both
movies also show the voracity, the almost cannibal-like nature of the modern
day viewer that preys on other people’s weaknesses and disgrace. The movies
denounce the vicious cycle that we seem to be caught up in, where many use
technology and things like social media so cruelly that they are negatively
impacting art, journalism and, more importantly, our morals, our compassion,
our humanity.
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| Michael Keaton and Edward Norton in Birdman |
The
main characters in both movies are men whose egotistical nature is extreme to
the point of insanity. They live only to be known by people who really don’t
care. The directors of both movies, who are also the writers, make these points
vividly clear. Birdman or (The Unexpected
Virtue of Ignorance) tells the story of a washed-up actor, Riggan, who once
played an iconic superhero, Birdman. Riggan is played by Michael Keaton who
once also played an iconic superhero, Batman. Probably not a coincidence.
Riggan puts everything into a Broadway play to try to reclaim the success he
once knew. His young, drug addicted daughter, very well played by Emma Stone,
harshly grounds him by reminding him that he is a nothing who doesn’t even have
a Facebook account, no “followers” on Twitter. Later, in his disgrace, he
quickly gains many. Such is the case also with Nightcrawler’s Lou Bloom, who is making his way to fame and fortune
by giving people what they want to see. As Nina, the news director he sells his
crime videos to, tells him very frankly: “If it bleeds, it leads”.
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| Emma Stone in Birdman |
The
other thing that these movies share is amazing acting. Michael Keaton is great
in Birdman, as is Edward Norton, who
most certainly steals many scenes (yet fades as Keaton grows). We expect both
actors will be nominated for many statuettes come award season, something they
will share with other actors that have worked in front of Alejandro G. Iñaritú’s
lens, like Javier Bardem nominated for Biutiful,
Benicio del Toro and Naomi Watts for 21
Grams (Watts is in this movie as well), Gael Garcia Bernal for Amores Perros, Adriana Barraza and Rinko
Kukuchi for Babel. Competition will
be steep, beginning with Jake Gyllenhaal and, surprisingly, Rene Russo for
their excellent acting in Nightcrawler.
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| Renee Russo in Nightcrawler |
Both
movies are reminiscent of other greats. Birdman
strongly reminds us of Bob Fosse’s All
that Jazz; Nightcrawler has a
very Taxi Driver feel to Blooms
increasing craziness,so evocative of Travis Bickle, so wonderfully acted by
Robert De Niro. Iñaritu’s directing is, however, closer to Fosse’s or Scorcese’s
genius. He has chosen to reduce cuts to nothing (visible) and his camera flow
is amazing, in constant movement, completely fluid, even when moving from
interiors to exteriors, through different points in time. In an interview, Iñaritu
expressed his objective saying: “I realized — and I am probably the last person
in the world to realize this — that we live our lives with no editing. From the
time we open our eyes, we live in a Steadicam form, and the only editing is
when we talk about our lives or remember things. So I wanted this character to
be submerged in that inescapable reality, and the audience has to live these
desperate three days alongside him.” And this we do. The interruptions to this
very realistic fluidity come with the majestic and magical scenes when we are
inside Riggan’s mind. Most certainly
this will lead to a Best Director nomination for a director who clearly has
surpassed his previous films with this one.
Of
course these movies leave us feeling disheartened and wondering how we will be
able to move away from so much of the dehumanization that has come with the
tinsel-like values of the small screens that we carry everywhere with us now,
the ever shorter messages that force us to stereotype humans and reduce art and
communication to clichés; a society where everyone feels they have fame at
their fingertips, and we live to please these nameless crowds.
