(For Day 3 of NaPoWriMo, the prompt was to write a surreal prose poem a la Kafka’s meanderings, though that’s hardly a poem anymore to me. I’m not sure if this quite fits the intent, but I did my best. At least Birdman seemed like a good fit for some surreal introspection.)

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Everybody wants to be a genius, a starlet, a celebutante, a household name, as long as all the households are complimentary and not those dismissive sorts who wonder “Why is he/she famous?” If we reach an age that missed our chance at being a wunderkind, we will gladly accept the title of “late bloomer,” so long as we can chuckle in interviews about how long we’ve waited to be taken seriously by the fickle masses. Everybody included Riggan, and so this mindset applied to him as well.

The difference with Riggan was that he had already made his mark on the collective psyche of humanity and was increasingly bothered by that mark scarring over and healing by the day. If only he had made it deeper… If only he had aimed for the head rather than the clay feet. He had been a superhero; he was recognized on the streets, but by whom? By tourists snapping photos to be stuffed in dustbound albums, not by the people who claimed to matter, his archnemeses: the critics.

Yes, critics are the true villains of this world, the ones who tear down towers that might have stood for decades with a bit of support, who nibble like termites at the corners of confident actors and make them question whether they even deserve to be appraised. To see such denigrators scurry away at his approach and question themselves whether they could editorialize well enough to capture his triumphant return, that was his dream, which even superpowers are no help in achieving. He craved to be taken seriously. “Everybody wants that,” Riggan thought, flying over the streets where critics and tourists comingle. His enemies were also aiming for his head, but only ever hitting those clay feet.

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MPAA rating:  R

I’ve been catching up on some Oscar darlings that I skipped back when they made their initial splash, and here we have the Best Picture winner of 2014, Alejandro Iñárritu’s cinematographic wonder filmed as if it were all a single take. As some may know, I have a soft spot for marveling at long tracking shots, so I will absolutely sing the director’s praises as an artist. If only the story appealed to me as much…

As the “poem” above describes, the plot revolves around washed-up superhero actor Riggan Thomson (Michael Keaton, perfectly cast to reflect his past as Batman) who is desperate to make a comeback on Broadway, with his own stage adaptation of Raymond Carver’s “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.” Amid his own internal arguments with his Birdman persona, he must deal with the headaches caused by his floundering relationship with daughter Sam (the lovely-as-ever Emma Stone), a temperamental diva of a new actor (Edward Norton), and the derision of a respected critic (Lindsay Duncan).

Like so many favorites of the Academy, I appreciated the talent behind Birdman more than I enjoyed watching it. While I admired its forays into the nature of the creative process, the vast majority of the film consists of the characters hurling insults at each other and nearly everyone deserving it. In lieu of likable characters, the seamless camerawork becomes the real star, following conversations down hallways, swooping from the theater rafters down to the stage, and documenting one memorably awkward stroll through Times Square.

Iñárritu’s wins for Best Director and Original Screenplay were well-deserved, but I can now confidently criticize the Academy’s other choices that year. For me, Boyhood deserved Best Picture more as a time-capsule testament to an entire childhood, while Michael Keaton probably should have won Best Actor over Eddie Redmayne’s performance in The Theory of Everything. Birdman had its unexpected virtues, including a strong script and symbolically uplifting final scene, but most of it made me glad to not be behind the curtains of Broadway.

Best line: (Norton’s Mike Shiner) “Popularity is the slutty little cousin of prestige.”

Rank:  Honorable Mention

© 2024 S.G. Liput
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