Birdman: A Commentary on a Post-Talent World

 Alejandro González Iñárritu's Academy Award-winning film titled Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) appears to be a parody of blockbuster action hero movies but is actually a postmodern narrative describing the life of an actor in a world where "being relevant" is all one can strive to do. Michael Keaton plays Riggan Thompson, an ex-Hollywood movie star who has achieved a lifetime of fame from playing the lead roll in the Birdman superhero trilogy. The story starts with Thompson writing and directing a broadway show 20 years after turning down Birdman 4, and his confidence in this play being his triumphant return to the mainstream wanes over the course of the movie, fueled by characters calling him "old" and "washed up" and with hundreds of fans recognizing him as the hero he wants so badly to be separate from.

Riggan Thompson is old-fashioned. To him, making a comeback as someone involved with theatre and film merely means putting on a good show. To everyone else, a "good show" has nothing to do with it. Everyone in the crowd is at the play because The Birdman is attached to it. Tabitha Dickinson (played by Lindsay Duncan), is a top theatre critic who is predisposed to give Thompson's new show an awful review. Not because she doesn't have faith in the show to be good but because she has seen so many actors desperately put out shows to come back and she doesn't feel like watching another.

Riggan Thompson's relationship with his daughter Sam Thompson (played by Emma Stone) worsens throughout the course of the movie, with Sam becoming more and more disgusted by her father's lifestyle. Sam delivers a rant during an argument with her father complaining about how Riggan doesn't understand the world he lives in. "Let's face it, dad, you aren't doing this for the sake of art. You are doing this because you want to feel relevant again," she says. "Well guess what, there's an entire world out there where people fight to be relevant every single day, and you pretend like it doesn't exist."

The most striking element of the narrative is the character of Birdman that reinforces the postmodern theme. Birdman exists for most of the movie as a disembodied voice in Riggan Thompson's head, always reminding him of what could have been. Birdman tries to convince him and Riggan Thompson are one and the same, and Thompson is constantly trying to shut him up. Sometimes this leads to Thompson throwing tantrums using his "super powers" to throw posters across the room with a wave of his hand, or walking outside and flying up to the roof. All of this adds up to a clever way to blur the line between Riggan Thompson as a person and Riggan Thompson as he is known to everyone else: Birdman.

Birdman is an incredibly clever postmodern commentary on the world of film and how one's image can affect their life. The movie was filmed in a way that makes it feel like one continuous shot, with a soundtrack consisting almost entirely of jazz drums. This combined with a fantastic narrative, memorable performances, and a fantastic ending creates a film that deserves the Academy award for Best Picture in 2014 and a spot among the most relevant postmodern works of this era.

Film Clip