Birdman

Birdman does not care about you. It does not exist to please its audience, nor does it exist to gain critical ac- claim; at least, not in the conventional sense. This sentimentality is echoed in the moment featured above, in which washed-up movie star Riggan Thomas (Michael Keaton) vents his frustration at the steely New York Times critic (Lindsay Duncan) who is deter- mined to destroy both his Broadway play and his desperate attempt at a career come-back.

Just as Riggan notes, there is a laziness, a slackness, in how audiences and critics make sense of artistry, and Birdman goes out of its way to become a difficult film to define. It fiercely refuses neat categorisation in terms of genre; it’s not a drama nor a comedy, but yet it feels wrong to call it a hybrid. Taking Riggan’s advice, it’s worth reflecting on Birdman in respect to its intention, structure and technique, rather than providing an over-simplified account of a plot and a few generalised remarks on individual performance.

As I struggle to determine a comprehensive understanding of the film, I like to imagine Iñárritu and co. gathering around a laptop, clutching their increasing collection of trophies and laughing at this entire commentary

Throughout most of the running time, Birdman gives the impression that it is filmed in one long take in and around St. James Theatre on Broadway, which results in a fascinating new perspective of New York City. Though very convincing, the long take itself is a complete fabrication: whilst one might expect that the action takes place over a 119min time period to match the running length, the narrative of Birdman actually takes place over several days. To some, it ends up being disconcerting and misleading. For most films this would be a criticism, but that’s exactly what Birdman wants to achieve. It doesn’t want you to gain a confident understanding of its direction nor its motivations, instead presenting a strange and wonderful creation which you want to understand but will never be able to comfortably analyse.

There are some identifiable broad themes – the quest for cultural relevance and the world of the theatre, for example – but overall, one senses that a definitive reading of the film is exactly the opposite of what Iñárritu wants. Try to force Birdman into easy-to-digest box- es and you’ll realise that it is a film in transit. At times it is fantastical, drawing upon the superhero film conventions of Riggan’s long lost career, but it is often naturalistic too: one particular scene in Times Square features several real-life passer-bys watching the action take place. One cannot even rely on the consistency of the long shot which gained so much media attention, as towards the end of Birdman, it breaks from established structural convention, switching to an abstract montage of images during the narrative climax. Why might this be the case? Who knows. The film appears to have little concern in targeting a specific audience, proudly failing to work out whether it is an art house or a com- mercial project.