Crowd Pleasers

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.

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.

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”.

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.

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.