Riggan Thomas (Michael Keaton) played the superhero The Birdman 20 years ago but has turned down the fourth instalment. To advance his art he adapts, directs and acts in the Broadway drama, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love. The production is troubled by a lead actor’s incapacitating accident, his replacement Mike’s (Edward Norton) Method unruliness, Riggan’s troubled relationship with his daughter Sam (Emma Stone), his bittersweet exchanges with his ex-wife, and the Times critic’s threat to kill the show with an opening night savaging. Riggan also manages to lock himself out of the theatre during a preview, which leads to a massive video sensation of his walking through Times Square and the theatre in his briefs to get to his last scene.
Questions to consider:
- Why is the first shot a fireball streaking though the heavens? To what later scenes does it connect?
- How does Inarritu play with his stars’ personae, e.g., Keaton’s six-year period between starring roles in a film and his having played Bruce Wayne (aka Batman) twice for Tim Burton, Edward Norton’s reputation as a difficult actor, etc.
- Why is the film set in a superhero culture? Norton played Bruce Banner in The Incredible Hulk and Emma Stone was in The Amazing Spider-Man. A tv clip refers to Robert Downey Jr’s Iron Man films. A Spidey weaves through a marching band, along with some less familiar monsters.
- Why cast eternal boy Zach Galifianakis as the Broadway producer?
- Why does Riggan’s self-lockout follow upon his spotting Sam being close with Mike?
- What is the thematic point of Inarritu’s very long takes, pretending to a single-take film? Might they relate to any of these themes: the continuity between life and art, between truth and fiction? control vs chaos? the ego vs the uncontrollable world? the unexpected virtue of style? Rigging the action?
- How does the Birdman voice express Riggan?
- For what might the Birdman be a metaphor?
- What’s the point of the ex-superhero actor having superhuman powers? We first see him levitating and at the end we’re led to believe he’s flying. He’s also a dab hand at telekinesis. So?
- What does the film’s presentation of theatre say about life? Vice versa?
- Why can Mike get an erection on stage but not in life? Same woman, incidentally.
- How does this film relate to Mexican director Inarritu’s earlier features, Amores Perros, 21 Grams and Babel? e.g., He usually gave us a non-linear plot.
- Why the subtitle (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)? Why is it the title of the Times review? Who has what ignorance and what’s its virtue? Might it relate to our prosaic sense of ‘realism’?
- Consider the four female leads: Riggan’s daughter Sam, costar Leslie (Naomi Watts), sexy girlfriend Laura (Andrea Riseborough) and devoted ex-wife Sylvia (Amy Ryan).
- Why that particular Raymond Carver short story for the play? What is the film talking about by “love”? There’s a story that Carver’s editor so reworked his original manuscript that Carver never quite recovered his confidence and self-respect after that experience.
- Why is Mike reading Borges’ Labyrinths on the tanning bed, a seminal text in Magic Realism? The Times review heralds Riggan’s work as a new realism. Is the film?
- Why is Thomas named Riggan? Why is Mike Shiner when that’s what Riggan gives him?
- What’s the significance of the Truth or Dare game? Why does Mike in the game stick only to the Truth? What on stage? Riggan?
- Why does Sam retreat to the dangerous rooftop? How does that relate to the ending?
- After Riggan blows his nose what are the implications of his new beak?
- What’s the point of the title credits style, words assembling through scattered letters?
- What’s the significance of Riggan’s prized Carver cocktail napkin and Mike’s stealing it for his Times interview?
- How does Sam’s view of her father’s relevance change?
- How does the allusion to Phantom of the Opera open out in this context?
Consider the following dialogue:
- Popularity is the slutty little cousin of prestige.
- —I wish I had more self-respect. — You’re an actress, honey.
- Note on Riggan’s mirror: “A thing is a thing, not what is said of that thing.”
- Shave off that pathetic goatee. Get some surgery. Sixty’s the new thirty, motherfucker.
- People, they love blood. They love action. Not this talky. depressing, philosophical bullshit.
- The stage is the only place I know what I’m doing.
- You’re a celebrity not an actor.
- You confuse love with admiration.
No comments:
Post a Comment