Fly, Birdman, Fly! - Reviews

Birdman, 2014

Director: Alejandro Gonzalez Iñarritu

Cast: Michael Keaton, Edward Norton, Emma Stone, Naomi Watts

For a long time, an “art house” film has not become an Oscar laureate, and even about such subtle matters as the nature of theatrical art and the acting profession. Birdman is especially valuable because everything in it is true. Flights in a dream and in reality, altered states in which the protagonist falls, is a completely ordinary reality for a creative person. And the getting used to the actor in the image may well end with the appearance of a not quite healthy "subpersonality", which, in fact, happens to Riggan Thompson (Michael Keaton), who regularly hears the voice of his character - Birdman.

AWARDS

Birdman has been recognized as one of the most powerful contemporary film projects.

Oscar, 2015

Winner in the nominations: Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography.

Golden Globe, 2015

Honored for Best Actor and Best Screenplay.

Venice Film Festival, 2014

He won the Future Film Festival Digital Award, Nazareno Taddei Award, Leoncino d'Oro Agiscuola Award, Soundtrack Stars Award - Best Soundtrack.

LYCEDES

An actor is a person whose profession is based on "getting used to" the images of fictional characters. Try to imagine that you need to become a different person for some time - to walk, sit, gesticulate, act, and most importantly - speak like another person, and even with memorized phrases that should sound like your own!

It is not surprising that the psyche of the actor is significantly different from the psyche of the average person. After all, creativity by definition is an altered state of consciousness. That is, we are dealing with people for whom being “in change” is a desirable working state that they are ready to get at any cost. As an example, we can mention the recent recognition of the famous director Lars von Trier that he "returned to alcohol and directing." How else to evoke this very inspiration?

PRICE OF METAMORPHOSIS

But nothing is given free of charge, and the actors are paid for their acting in full with a "fine mental organization", which in fact looks like childishness, hysteria, capriciousness, excessive pride, sensitivity, vulnerability, and so on. And with such an unpleasant set of personality traits, they need to somehow survive. Because each performance ends sooner or later, and you have to return to yourself. And there is not the most attractive person waiting for you with a bunch of psychological problems. To complete the picture, let's add extraordinary ambition and immense pride!

Hence, by the way, the famous weakness of the actors for any praise, which is remarkably played in the film. An actor is the person who needs to be praised “like a little one” and who cannot live without success - simply because he has nothing to live for anymore. Success with the public is the main reason for his existence, no matter what they say about the "high destiny of the actor". As the upset Leslie (Naomi Watts) says in the film, “I'm still a little girl. I wait all the time for someone to tell me that I have achieved something."

And therefore, all the heroes of the film take turns showing an unexpected, seemingly, sensitivity to each other - they understand what a colleague needs at such moments - and express their support exactly as needed.

ABOUT SLEEP AND REALITY

There is one more feature of the profession - existence in the eternal transition from the reality of life to the fictional one. The actor is an eternal "border guard" who lives on the edge of different realities. Not only does he need to instantly switch from his own existence to the reality of the stage, but on this very stage he also needs to fall into a special state of acting, to portray someone else. For a good actor, this switch is almost instantaneous. At the same time, it is so deep that “in the image” all his characteristics change radically, right down to the look. Whoever observed this metamorphosis up close (the author refers to these lucky ones) really begins to believe in the magic of theater and cinema.

HOPELESSLY PROFITABLE BUSINESS

The torment of a creative person from the outside can look like psychosis or neurosis. After all, he sets himself an almost impossible task - in one of the millions of repetitions to try to express something of his own, to show his individuality. Despite the fact that everything has been known for a long time - any more or less noticeable thing has already been staged dozens of times. And if the picture is new, then its plot consists of another variation of well-known lines. And all this is so unoriginal and hackneyed … The only thing that can be done with this is to admit: yes, we will repeat the same plot moves for the hundredth time, but you will still watch and enjoy it!

In the last couple of decades, many filmmakers have been doing this without hesitation. Fortunately, children's features of the human psyche are guarding their earnings - people love repetitions of familiar storylines, they love to experience fear and horror, sitting in the safe environment of a cinema, they like it when everything ends with a happy ending. The entire mass distribution of film is reminiscent of a conspiracy between film producers and viewers to get the first money, and the second - pleasure. In addition, every ten to fifteen years, the generations of viewers change and you can again push old stories.

THE PROBLEM OF THE FORMER

There is one practically insoluble problem - what to do with former champions, stars, idols after the end of the triumph? How to come to terms with an ordinary, boring gray life? How to live peacefully when at any moment memories of another life and other possibilities arise helpfully in the brain?

In the movie "Birdman" we are dealing with the once famous hero of not the most popular, judging by the reviews, the series. However, he is already endowed with a sense of flight and supernatural capabilities, similar to levitation, which, in fact, begins the film. And this is not an invention, but a reality that is completely objective for this particular person! Imagine that once you have learned to fly, you are forced to vegetate on the ground for many years. It is worth recalling that Michael Keaton himself became famous for playing the role of Batman more than twenty years ago, and then experienced a creative crisis for many years.

BETS DONE

Until recently, our creative people were unfamiliar with the level of risk that American creators regularly expose themselves to. Moreover, the risk is not only artistic, but also material. Recall that the world famous Francis Ford Coppola was forced to mortgage his own house to finish filming the now immortal "Apocalypse". So the scene in which Riggan talks with his ex-wife about "re-mortgaging the house in Malibu" is not at all an invention or an exaggeration. The American art organization model is extremely honest and brutal - you get all or nothing.

WITHOUT CHEAT

So as long as these abnormalities will lay houses in order to fulfill their creative task as well as possible, everything will be fair in the theater. After all, it is not for nothing that the authors chose the theater as the place where the former successful film hero fled to prove to himself and to the world that he is worth something.

In the theater, the audience cannot be deceived. It's a strange thing, but exactly where everything is initially built on illusion and deception, in contemporary art there is a "reserve" of true mastery. After all, you can buy the critic's judgments, throw a lot of money into expensive decorations, but you can't buy a measure of talent. Deception must be talented, or success will have to pay a different price - which, in fact, does our main character, shooting himself with a pistol, that is, turning artistic truth into the truth of life.

On the other hand, the times have come when it is impossible to play outside the massive rules. The modern formula for success does not include labor and skill, but cheap scandalous popularity, shocking and crude naturalism. Mass deception of those who want to be deceived has suddenly become the rule of the game. And here the theater has long since retreated before the pressure of the omnipotent cinema, but “in words” it still continues to swagger. An illustration of this is a wonderful episode when, talking about his own acting greatness and the fact that Riggan is "no one in New York", Mike is interrupted by passers-by who recognize Riggan and ask the unrecognized Mike to click them along with "Birdman". So it turns out that in the modern world you can't reach for telepopularity.

IRONY OF CIRCUMSTANCES

The film's bitter sarcasm boils down to the fact that in a world where everyone is kidding, Riggan is not joking. He really wanted to talk with the audience about the eternal, about love. But, being in an honest "theatrical" logic, he accidentally does the same thing that others do on purpose to become famous - he runs in his shorts in Times Square. And even having decided to commit suicide, he involuntarily becomes the founder of a new direction - "hyperrealism". As a result, personal tragedy turns into a farce of success! What, in fact, explains the last flight to nowhere.