'Birdman' Soars

Imagine a Broadway theater mid-performance: while the lead actor delivers an enthralling monologue, he seems to stumble a little bit. Whispers spread behind the curtain until the crew realizes the actor is drinking real gin instead of the prop water. The exasperated director, who also plays another main character, walks onstage and improvises lines while secretly replacing the alcohol with a bottle of water. The main actor picks up the bottle again and, after a sip, suddenly throws it on the ground, shouting, “When did you take away the gin, you motherfucker!”

This is just one of the many scenes in “Birdman” with almost explosive dramatic tension. Director Alejandro González Iñárritu is famous for complex plots with multiple protagonists, and in “Birdman,” he places a multitude of distinct and equally fascinating characters on the same stage to achieve maximum conflicts. Riggan Thomson (Michael Keaton), who used to play the iconic superhero Birdman, is now as washed up as Michael Keaton 25 years after “Batman.” To save his career, he is directing a Broadway drama that stars himself and Mike Shiner (Edward Norton), a genius method actor who becomes increasingly uncontrollable as he steals the limelight from Riggan. At the same time, Riggan’s daughter Sam (Emma Stone) castigates her father every day over his absence from her life, and one of the actresses (Andrea Riseborough) may be carrying Riggan’s baby. One can sense drama just by a simple glimpse at these characters, and in fact, the dramatic conflicts in the film are as intense as the explosions in a Michael Bay movie. In almost every minute, new plot lines unfold between the actors and director, actors and producer, or director and producer, a staggering achievement only paralleled by the fact that Iñárritu miraculously manages to weave all these elements together and prevent information overload. It is safe to say that the script of “Birdman” will be a textbook for film students for the next 20 years.

As if the script is not enthralling enough, the whole film is ostensibly a titanic two-hour-long take that persists from beginning to end with no cuts. Cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, known for his cooperation with Alfonso Cuarón on “Children of Men” and “Gravity,” is the expert at long takes, and in “Birdman” he uses CGI to weave 10 long shots together and creates the illusion of one massive tracking shot. With imaginative camera work and complicated blocking, the long shot is beautiful to look at even just as a technical stunt. However, unlike in the case of many other films, the long take in “Birdman” actually serves important narrative purposes. Iñárritu is known for multi-line narratives, and his first single storyline attempt “Biutiful” was a mild disappointment due to its diluted dramatic tension. But in “Birdman,” he lets the camera drift away from the main plot to what’s going on with the supporting characters and then returns it to the hero and his interactions between different characters. This technique, first invented in the French New Wave but never used so systematically, enriches both the story and the characters while maintaining the frame of a single-line narrative. In this context, the long take becomes necessary because it makes the camera a silent observer who always keeps pace with whatever is happening with the crew, or rather, an audience watching the mercurial drama behind the curtain.

As Russian director Vsevolod Pudovkin wrote, "The foundation of film art is editing." Thus, by eliminating editing, “Birdman” renders itself a portrayal of theatrical drama (more precisely, a theatrical drama about a theatrical drama). And since editing signifies the passage of time, its absence gives an illusion of being live and uncut. The virtual “audience” is not only watching a theatrical performance but also watching it in real time. Riggan, Mike, Sam, and everyone else who takes part in the drama are as unprepared for the accidents onstage as we are, and this makes the dramatic conflicts even more exciting.

Good scripts and directing often inspire great acting, and this applies to “Birdman” as well. Keaton, tortured throughout the film by endless accidents and arguments, gives a convincing interpretation of a desperate director suffering from a mid-life crisis and need for relevance. The role itself has lots of dramatic potential, so the most outstanding aspect of Keaton’s performance is not how eye-catching it is but how natural it feels. A good comparison is Norton and Stone. While they have also done an impressive job, their delivery is a bit overwrought, suggesting a lack of total immersion in their roles. This may be the biggest imperfection of the film, but it is certainly acceptable.

Even the most casual film audience will notice the huge amount of work put into “Birdman.” It is an exquisite, well-crafted, and inventive masterpiece that is not only another piece of evidence for Iñárritu’s genius but also very likely to be the best film of the year.

—Contributing writer Tianxing V. Lan can be reached at tianxinglan@college.harvard.edu.