'Birdman' review: Inarritu's fine showbiz satire of ex
Published 9:22 am, Thursday, October 23, 2014
Any conversation about 'Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)' must begin with a description of how it was filmed. It was shot in long takes, many of which involved following characters down hallways and in out of tight corners and small dressing rooms. Then it was strung together in such a way that it plays as though the entire movie were done in one unbroken shot.
This is a remarkable feat, not only of cinematography, but of choreography. Just to film Michael Keaton and Edward Norton walking down a Manhattan street, everything had to be timed as in a dance - when the camera swirls ahead, when it goes behind, when it swoops back around. It's all accomplished so smoothly that it would be worth doing merely as a stunt, except this is no stunt. This method carries the mood and soul of one of the best movies of 2014.
In a way, 'Birdman' is a departure for director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, best known for the heavy dramas 'Babel,' '21 Grams' and 'Biutiful.' 'Birdman' is a heavy-hearted comedy, the story of a former superhero actor (Keaton), seeking redemption on Broadway. No trivial satire of Michael Keaton's career as the first and best Batman, it concerns the torments of a career in the arts - the awfulness of contending with other egos, hostile critics and a loony public.
Worst of all, there's the crazy voice in your head that tells you all day long, at staggered intervals and with sudden and profound revelation, that you're a genius and that you're a bum, and that you face doom if you don't do this or that immediately.
In his previous movies, Inarritu has attempted stories on a grand scale, but he has been at his best, as in 'Biutiful,' in conveying flights of the spirit, the journey of a single consciousness colliding with the world. In 'Birdman,' he gives us this effect in pure form, without diluting it with over-plotting and multiple locations. Inarritu allows himself the freedom to follow other characters, as he should, and yet the overall feeling is that one person's story.
This is where the single-take strategy becomes more than a gimmick and an integral part of the movie's effect. The camera is as flowing and nimble as any camera has ever been, but it can't leap across the universe in the span of a second, as in other movies. In that way, it's like the mind - specifically, like the hothouse of its lead character's mind: It can go anyway, but it can't escape itself.
This weird feeling the movie instills, a combination of freedom and suffocation, of possibility and limitation, of grandiosity and despair, puts 'Birdman' in a different class from other show-business satires. But it is indeed a showbiz satire and succeeds on those terms, too. There's a bit of the old: The sheer terror of the Broadway critic - here played with alarming coldness by Lindsay Duncan - goes back to '42nd Street' and beyond. And the impossible but brilliant actor, given complexity in Edward Norton's performance, is a creature from the dawn of theater.
But we get the crazy new world of celebrity, too, in which, once famous, you remain famous, even if you're washed up; and in which a trending video of yourself running down the street in your underwear - something that in another era might mean humiliation - constitutes 'power.'
As Keaton's sullen daughter, Emma Stone has never been more vivid, neither as an actress nor as a physical entity. Inarritu does her the service of not falling in love with her, of seeing her as a mixed-up kid. At one point, in the midst of an angry tirade, her eyes and mouth begin to look monstrous. A pretty face becomes something more: a great movie face.
Naomi Watts is poignant and funny as an actress in her 40s, finally making it to Broadway. In an inspired bit of casting, Zach Galifianakis plays the fretting business manager - a mostly dramatic role, but one that benefits from Galifianakis' abandon and timing.
Finally, and principally, there's Keaton - weathered and full of doubt, someone life has rendered too human for superhero antics, and yet at the peak of his real and important power, his power as an actor. Am I talking about Keaton or the role he plays? In this case, I'm talking about both.
Mick LaSalle is The Chronicle's movie critic. E-mail: mlasalle@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @MickLaSalle
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
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