{"id":17225,"date":"2015-02-22T19:26:16","date_gmt":"2015-02-22T09:26:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=17225"},"modified":"2015-02-22T19:26:37","modified_gmt":"2015-02-22T09:26:37","slug":"birdman-or-the-unexpected-virtues-of-ignorance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=17225","title":{"rendered":"Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtues of Ignorance)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"birdmanposter\"<\/p>\n

Director: \u00a0<\/strong>Alejandro Gonz\u00e1lez I\u00f1\u00e1rritu
\nWriter: \u00a0<\/strong>Alejandro Gonz\u00e1lez I\u00f1\u00e1rritu
\nCast: \u00a0<\/strong>Michael Keaton, Zach Galifianakis, Edward Norton, Emma Stone, Naomi Watts<\/p>\n

I<\/span> saw\u00a0Alejandro Gonz\u00e1lez I\u00f1\u00e1rritu’s debut feature\u00a0Amores Perros\u00a0<\/em>back in the year 2000. \u00a0Amores Perros<\/em> was\u00a0a multi-strand narrative set in Mexico City which followed the lives of three different sets of people. \u00a0Although their paths occasionally intersected the common thread linking the stories was violence inflicted upon their pet dogs.<\/p>\n

I found the film extremely challenging to watch and I have no desire to watch it again, although I begrudgingly respected the artistry with which\u00a0I\u00f1\u00e1rritu made the film.<\/p>\n

He then went on to make\u00a021 Grams, Babel<\/em> and\u00a0Biutiful<\/em>, each film more wretched and miserable than the last. \u00a0I find him to be one of the most nihilistic directors getting work in Hollywood today. \u00a0Each of the films has an ensemble cast who suffer a great misfortune, mental anguish, physical suffering or often all three at once. \u00a0Gradually I got a sense of diminishing returns with I\u00f1\u00e1rritu\u00a0because I felt that the misery was devoid of any purpose and his films felt increasingly mechanical and predictable in their nature.<\/p>\n

In Babel<\/em>, when he actually gave one of his character’s a tiny glimmer of hope at the end of the film (they decided not to kill themselves) I joked that maybe\u00a0I\u00f1\u00e1rritu had gone soft. \u00a0“Perhaps his next film will be a romantic comedy”<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Birdman<\/em> isn’t quite that exactly, but it is unlike any film\u00a0I\u00f1\u00e1rritu has made before. \u00a0The film takes is cues from the works of Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman and is a weird case of life imitating art imitating life. \u00a0Michael Keaton, a washed up Hollywood actor who made his name playing Batman, plays the role of Riggan Thomson, a washed up Hollywood actor who made his name playing Birdman.<\/p>\n

\"birdman\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Riggan has one last shot at becoming a big star and his fortunes hang on the success of his Broadway adaptation of Raymond Carver’s “What We Talk About, When We Talk About Love”. \u00a0The success of\u00a0Birdman<\/em> has seen Michael Keaton’s fortunes rise once again and tomorrow, his improbable comeback will be complete if he wins the Best Actor award.<\/p>\n

Birdman<\/em> is nothing like any of\u00a0I\u00f1\u00e1rritu’s previous films. \u00a0Birdman<\/em> is a positively light and buoyant\u00a0in tone compared to the likes of Babel<\/i> and\u00a021 Grams. \u00a0<\/em>The film opens in memorable fashion with a zen Michael Keaton floating in the air with his legs folded in the lotus position wearing nothing but his y-fronts. \u00a0He seems calm and collected but is disturbed by the raspy omnipotent voice of Birdman in his head. \u00a0That’s just the start of it. \u00a0There are scenes in the film where Keaton fights Ed Norton who puts up his dukes wearing nothing but his undies and later still, Keaton accidentally locks himself out of the theatre in his jocks and has to hastily make his way back in by way of Times Square. \u00a0This is\u00a0Alejandro Gonz\u00e1lez I\u00f1\u00e1rritu finally saying ‘fuck it’ and having a bit of fun.<\/p>\n

The film is an stylistic assault on the senses that will likely enthral as many people as it annoys. \u00a0Birdman<\/em> is shot in a single interconnected swoop of the camera, where the passing of time occasionally speeds up and slows down as the camera zig zags through the mazey corridors of St James theatre. \u00a0The film’s musical score is entirely composed of a snare drums fills and beats played by a man who we occasionally see in the background. \u00a0I can’t even begin to imagine the technical wizardry required to construct a film in this way. \u00a0I discovered after watching Birdman<\/em>\u00a0that it was the work of Emmanuel Lubezki who also shot\u00a0Gravity<\/em>. \u00a0He is surely the\u00a0most technically gifted cinematographer around today.<\/p>\n

The story in\u00a0Birdman<\/em>\u00a0is a weird, shapeless mess that mostly ebbs and flows with Riggan reacting to people, storming into the next room and gradually losing his mind. \u00a0It’s equal parts drama and comedy, post modern and self aware to the nth degree. \u00a0The cast of characters are comprised of every show biz cliche under the sun. \u00a0There’s a desperate agent played by Zach Galafianakis. \u00a0Emma Stone is Riggan’s neglected and resentful daughter Sam. \u00a0Ed Norton has an entertaining turn as a rival actor Mike who is an alcoholic womanizer. \u00a0Naomi Watts is Riggan and Mike’s costar Lesley who desperately craves recognition and is involved in a messy love triangle. \u00a0Ooh – and there’s also a bitter critic who thinks all actors are self entitled ratbags.<\/p>\n

I must admit, I wasn’t taken with\u00a0Birdman<\/em> nearly as much as I had hoped for when I first saw the trailer and heard the buzz about this film. \u00a0As much as I enjoyed the crazy ambitious special effects and seeing some of my favourite actors playing whacky caricatures of themselves, the overall package was still too self aware and cutesy for me to properly engage with the film. \u00a0There were individual scenes that grabbed my attention and brought a smile to my face but it never sustained it. \u00a0I applaud\u00a0I\u00f1\u00e1rritu for taking his work in a different direction and I hope the success of\u00a0Birdman<\/em>\u00a0will encourage him to keep going down a fresh path. \u00a0But for me, this was film that confounded and confused more often than it entertained.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A washed up actor pins his hopes of a big comeback on a Broadway production.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":17235,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[2188,2190,639,1272,1535,2189],"class_list":["post-17225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-films","tag-alejandro-gonzalez-inarritu","tag-edward-norton","tag-emma-stone","tag-michael-keaton","tag-naomi-watts","tag-zach-galafianakis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17225"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17225\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17237,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17225\/revisions\/17237"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}