BINGE CULTURE
  • Home
  • Projects
  • About
  • News
  • Work with us
  • Contact

Birdman made me really excited but not very articulate

24/2/2015

1 Comment

 
I’ve been thinking about the bit near the end of Birdman where Michael Keaton/ Riggan Thomson  (spoiler sort of but not really) is standing on the edge of a building in New York, deciding whether or not to jump off. A woman on another roof calls out, “is this real or is this a movie?” Keaton/Thompson sort of fliches and tosses her the word  “movie” before focussing again on the drop. On the internet I saw some trivia which said that this was an unscripted moment, the woman just a random New Yorker who called out, and Keaton (not Thomson) responded. This made the moment make sense to  me, a perfect accident thrown into the finished film. Then I saw on imdb that that this woman was played by someone called Jackie Hoffman. Scripted. So it was Thomson, not Keaton, who responded? But he says "movie" as if it were not scripted, letting the two truths, the fiction of the story and the act of making the film, bleed into each other. Lots of the movie was like this, playing games with the real world and the world of representation- the difference between them or the lack of it. It was the best piece of theatre I’ve seen in a while, theatrical in that the long takes drew attention to performance and the potential for misteps, mistakes, things we edit from film but can’t remove from the performance of life. Long takes create liveness and encourage scrutiny, moments are more real since they are embedded in a stretch of time. The note on his mirror at the start, saying “the thing is the thing and not what I think about the thing”, or something like that- playing throughout with the idea of phenomena (things too new for old labels), characters trying desperately to break through to somewhere that they can actually be seen as real and be noticed in their own right. Emma Stone’s rant about the way we are all competing for attention in the digital world, trying to cut through the noise, Keaton/Thomson’s final act on stage being the ultimate desperate version of that (and it wouldn't work twice). Tricks and games with the real and staged, like the one on the roof- the run through Times Square of course all full of hired extras and carefully choreographed, made to look like they just put Keaton out there and roamed with him, like it happened… the slurring shift from scripted performance to something else when Edward Norton throws his drink on stage in the dress rehearsal and destroys the set. Edward Norton transmutating the shit script into dramatic gold, something true, before your eyes, too easily to be comfortable, then making things too real when he assaults his wife in the bed on stage. Keaton revealing the shocking truth about his father, but it's not even true in the scene. The whole movie always clawing away at the moment, all the time, trying to make it into something real. Theatre theorist Burt O States (and Matt Wagner who used to teach us at Vic) says that you can’t have animals, running water, or children on stage because they refuse the fiction, they are phenomena which can't be tamed. Add to that drunken actors. Add to that drummers, who appear halfway through a drum solo, lurching from the soundtrack, outside the picture, into the moment. Add to that city streets and traffic.  Add to that movie stars, who stick out like lions in zebra cages in all movies, except in this one, where Keaton is Keaton more than he is Thomson, and so we get that flipping of perception like we should in Shakespeare: Boy actor plays girls playing boy playing girl, king plays beggar plays king... Keaton plays Thomson plays the husband in the play…  and we flick around between them. Theatre, and great theatre, but also exhilarating film. 

1 Comment
Jeremy Downing
18/2/2015 01:55:33 pm

Great article. I love how the film replicates the fantasy of theatre, in that it breaks away from realist depictions and captures something 'more real'. In much the same way that Fellini's 8 1/2 did, it plays with cinema techniques while still being in service of the story and ideas being explored. It breaks away from conventional realist techniques, while still remaining engaging and relevant to the emotions. More of these types of films please cinema gods!

Also, Naomi Watts' career began with a performance that mixed her ability to "act" in a film, while also acting a version of the same character that was gut-wrenchingly real - the film I'm talking about is Mulholland Drive. There is a meta-connection here with Birdman, with her character "acting" on the stage merging into her pain and frustration after her boyfriend attempted onstage rape. Her ability to shift between these two styles of acting (in a way that is clear to the viewer while still being subtle) is impressive, and through its connection to her first big "Hollywood" performance links back into the ideas around what is and isn't real.

Great film - hopefully it spawns more play in cinema, and not countless copycats that miss the point.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Scrapbook

    A place for putting writing and links. 

    Posts by Ralph unless otherwise noted.

    © Binge Culture Collective
    All rights reserved
     

    Archives

    June 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    November 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    February 2013
    June 2012
    April 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    November 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    November 2010
    October 2010
    September 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010
    June 2010
    May 2010
    March 2010
    February 2010
    January 2010
    December 2009
    November 2009

    RSS Feed

Official website of Binge Culture.
© 2021 Binge Culture Collective Limited.

  • Home
  • Projects
  • About
  • News
  • Work with us
  • Contact