It has been a while since I saw Birdman, the first time I saw it was when my mom rented the DVD of the movie after it won Best Picture at the 87th Academy Awards. It has always been on my mind, not only because it was directed by a Mexican (Alejandro Gonzales Iñarritu) but because it was an amazing movie filled with symbolism and perhaps a caution tale for the future.
This year has been interesting for film and movie theaters, especially when the top 3 movies are not comic-book or sequel-related projects and one of them is a 3-hour historical drama. While franchise movies are all struggling at the Box Office.
Perhaps it is fitting this week, in a TikTok video, Martin Scorsese chose Birdman over The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, sparking a discussion on Twitter (now 𝕏) about the movie. This made me rewatch the film, it has been almost 2 years since I last saw it and I thought it was also a great mental exercise. What I found after this 3rd or 4th rewatch is a movie that not only shows changes in Hollywood and Show Business but also a film that resonates with the current state of the movie industry.
Marvel and Cultural Change
We can finally say after 15 years that Marvel (and Disney) has changed the perception of the entire industry on how to produce movies. During the making of this film, there were 3 superhero movies released that year, The Avengers was released in 2012, and changes in the market were starting to be seen. Suddenly, every studio wanted to have a big interconnected franchise(s) and the making of big-budget movies (those made with $150M or more) was being normalized.
Who could blame these studios, it was easy money, and a trend was set, if your movie included superheroes or was based on a book franchise (especially made for young adults) and had a big budget attached to the project, you could go and make $1B+ at the Box Office. Before the pandemic, in 2019, 9 movies crossed the $1B mark, and all but one was made by Disney or Disney-owned companies. And of course, like all trends this had to end, multiple people over the years have been warning studios that this business model was one day going to bring them to bankruptcy, Steven Spielberg made those comments in 2015, and then in 2019, Martin Scorsese made the comparison that Superhero movies were not cinema.
Birdman also makes that argument, at the beginning of the film, Michael Keaton's character Riggan Thomas needs an actor to replace an injured one for his Broadway play, he starts naming popular actors, and they remark how they have all been bought by Marvel, and these big franchises (Woody Harrelson, Michael Fassbender, Jeremy Renner). It is also important to notice that Riggan previously worked on a movie called Birdman, a title that parodies Tim Burton's Batman. While searching for an actor one appears out of nowhere, Mike Shinner who is played by Edward Norton. One could say he is a parody of the actor himself, and Riggan makes reference to him being fired from a movie, a clear nod to Norton leaving the MCU after The Incredible Hulk. He is a person who clearly cares about art and performance and he also indicates his disdain for big franchise films calling them Cultural Genocide.
Perhaps this is why Scorsese resonated with the movie. It is clearly a Cultural Genocide and studios paired with their streaming services are not helping either. As previously stated, this was only a trend, this year, only one superhero movie managed to gain both the Box Office marker and critical acclamation, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, and this November, the release of The Marvels, sequel to the acclaimed and billion dollar film Captain Marvel opened with the lowest opening weekend of any MCU movie. Perhaps this will indicate an industry-wide change, to move away from these very expensive films and focus on, perhaps, more artistic films.
Personally, I've been moving away from these films, after Avengers: Endgame I tried to watch every MCU movie, and I noticed these movies losing their identity. The early "phase one" movies were clearly stylized and served as their own stories, now these movies require multiple movies or shows to comprehend what is happening, The characters also change their personality between movies or shows and the quality and tone inconsistency makes everything feel like a waste of time.
Not all is lost, movies like Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse are still viewed as artistic pushing the animation genre to the next level, and DC movies (at least when they don't take place in their shared cinematic universe) are often well-received and even end up becoming award-winning films.
Actors' Ego and Their Diversification
An important aspect of the film is the commentary on actors and their behavior on and off set, everyone knows Edward Norton is a hard person to deal with, that's why his character was a parody of himself, but is also a comment on how many male actors try to get everything they want no matter the cost. Thankfully due to systematic changes made possible by the #MeToo movement, we are slowly moving forward and not allowing toxic behavior to be as normalized as it was before. The actor's ego is something many are aware of, that's why most people don't like them on a personal level. They think they are spoiled and they think they deserve all the accolades in the world, even to the point they start doing stuff that affects others negatively.
Keaton's character is also a reflection of him and Iñarritu, in the special features found on the Blu-ray they often make reference to their ego and how it played an important part in the movie. Riggan wants to be acknowledged by the world as an actor who can still give a great performance and is not "only an old superhero actor", he wants it to the point he changes to a more "artistic" medium which is theater. It was always considered the true form of performance and movies as their cheap counterpart, which is why he decided to make his play. Back to the extras, they even talk about selling out so that way they can get the fame and money they once had.
For me, the ending represents the possibility of leaving this side of Hollywood and starting to make more artistic material, pursuing our dreams, and breaking this cycle of movies that are slowly poisoning everyone's minds, but also, perhaps, it indicates this desire of selling out too.
Social Media
In the 2010s, social media was already a big part of everyone's lives. The way information moved through the world was changing, the use of smartphones accelerated this process and a struggle between celebrities and the internet was something we started to see explored. Previously, actors and celebrities were in the global spotlight with the help of traditional media (Newspapers, TV, Movies, Songs, and Magazines), but in this new realm, that was starting to disappear. Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook were the global arena where millions of people got their news and entertainment, accepting this new reality and that people all over the world could express their voices for good causes is a key aspect of the movie. This new way of thinking is explained by Riggan's daughter Sam (played by Emma Stone) who spends all day on social media. She remarks that people try to fight for causes on the internet and that this is a new way to gain popularity and recognition. Just as movie actors wanted to be recognized back in the 1920s.
Nowadays we can't imagine a world without social media, celebrities share their lives through these sites and can even be subject to mass criticism, something previously only done by mainstream media. Who knows what will happen in the next 5 to 10 years but something is clear, social media is now the mainstream way to get exposure and be exposed.
The Flash and Icarus
Now is 2023, and after 9 years since Birdman was released in theaters we can now say Keaton sold out, The Flash gave him the possibility of returning into the Batman suit, and while I liked the movie I recognize I am the minority.
In Birdman, the character of Birdman makes a reference to Icarus, the man who flew close to the sun, and perhaps we can say this is what happened to Keaton, he returned to his iconic role only to be in a movie that resulted in mixed reviews and a box office bomb. This helps to recontextualize the ending of the movie as Riggan sells out, there's not enough money to be made in the slow dramas and artistic independent films. I imagine Riggan would have made Birdman 4 if the money was good enough, even after he won awards and a critically acclaimed play.
Back to the real world, we can observe big actors being chosen for these roles, starring in superhero or franchise movies for as long as the studio needs them, and after leaving the franchise, most of these actors can't get recognized by the critics because they get labeled as superhero actors. Chris Evans hasn't been able to make a good movie after ending his role as Captain America, and Jennifer Lawrence is trying to revive her career after The Hunger Games.
It is disheartening to see this happen, perhaps not all is lost, these couple of years we have seen actors, directors, and writers rejecting to be a part of this world after seeing the economic disasters at the box office and trying to achieve a more personal connection with the movie they are trying to make.
Ending metaphor - Critics and Actors
To finish with this small article, I want to comment on the ending of the movie, particularly one scene, in this scene, we can observe a group of jellyfish lying on the shores being eaten by seagulls. To me, this represents actors and critics.
The actors, being the jellyfish, are often guided by the tides and currents of the sea, these currents are the trends that happen in the movie industry. The actors participate in these trends until they eventually can go anywhere and end up on the shore. This has happened many times over the past century, actors are always going to be replaced by new generations and there's nothing we can do, even when trying to adapt they will eventually go to the same place. Diversifying into many roles, movies, and genres is the only way an actor can stay relevant and prevent being forgotten by the public.
The seagulls represent the critics. Critics don't have anything on the line but their own reputation, they feed themselves by the work of others, analyzing what they do and what they think, explaining their work, even when the people who made it don't agree with their conjectures. We try to put our opinions aside but it is hard, our own perceptions can also affect how we see others and our words could destroy a person's career. Perhaps is not so much the fault of critics in general but the ones who try to destroy others, the ones who believe so much in "merit" and "the arts" that they forget real people are the ones performing and sharing a part of their souls to us. This is maybe a wild interpretation of the scene but I hope someone can agree with it.
Iñarritu has directed 7 movies, all with different tones and genres, there is no denying, that he is one of the best directors to ever live and one of the best Mexican filmmakers to achieve global recognition. Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) won the Academy Award for Best Picture back in 2014 and to this day it remains one of the best movies of the 21st century.
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| Jellyfish and Seagull scene. |
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