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 The film brings starpower that Venice, the world's oldest
film festival, needs to keep itself from being sidelined by the
celebrity magnet of Cannes in May and industry powerfest the
Toronto Film Festival, which opens next week.
Noted for his art house movies "Babel" and "21 Grams", Inarritu
switches gears in this Fox Searchlight production, also starring
Emma Stone as Keaton's daughter, who is just out of drug rehab,
Naomi Watts as an actress desperate to make it on Broadway and
Edward Norton as the foil to Keaton's character, Riggan Thomson.
"Michael was a pioneer of those superhero roles and having some
time and perspective I thought his knowledge about it, his
experience about it, will get something very powerful for this
film," Inarritu said at a post-screening press conference.
"Michael was crucial to make this film, without him I think this
film couldn't be made."
"Birdman", Inarritu's fifth feature film, is set mostly at a
Broadway theater where the Keaton character hopes to make a
comeback in his own theatrical adaptation of a short story by
the late American writer Raymond Carver, "What We Talk About
When We Talk About Love".
Inarritu, who filmed the movie in a faux single-take style so it
looks like the camera never stops, said "Birdman" had been an
experimental project.
To make this point to the cast, he even sent them photographs of
the French high-wire artist Philippe Petit making his famous
unauthorized tightrope walk between the twin towers of New
York's World Trade Center in 1974.
"That was the image and the ambition of this film, or at least
the execution of this film was very much like this," he said.
"We were kind of crossing without a net with the possibility to
fail absolutely and miserably and be laughable."
The film shows touches of Latin American magical realism,
spectacular car crashes and a colossal, computer-generated
monster - but the effects are pretty much an afterthought to the
imposing, theater production.
BATMAN EFFECT
Keaton, asked if his Batman successes had undermined his career,
said his past superhero role was like "the giant elephant in the
room". But he joked that he'd recently returned from Africa and
that "I love elephants so I'm okay with the elephant in the
room".
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The plot of "Birdman" deals with a question haunting Riggan, who
gave up being the superhero Birdman, much like Keaton gave up doing
Batman in 1992. Riggan asks himself: Do I still exist?
"I wasn't present in my own life," the character says as he wrestles
with having missed his daughter's birth, blaming himself for her
drug addiction and for the break-up of his marriage to his wife,
played by Amy Ryan.
He has sunk far from the heady heights of his "Birdman" alter ego
but is inexorably drawn back to the role.
LOVE-HATE RELATIONSHIP
Inarritu plays with the age-old love-hate relationship between
Broadway and Hollywood, which is brought into the open when a
venomous New York Times critic, played by Lindsay Duncan, tells
Riggan her review will kill his play.
In the lead up to opening night, Keaton and Norton play out an
intense, almost Shakespearean drama, with the critic trying to show
up Keaton's Riggan character as a Hollywood has-been with no place
on Broadway.
Stripped to the two-hander of Keaton-Norton, the scene is a gripping
tour de force and results in Keaton trashing his dressing room after
Norton has seemingly crushed his ego completely.
Trade publication Variety has called the film "a triumph on every
creative level, from casting to execution, that will electrify the
industry, captivate art house and megaplex crowds alike, send awards
pundits into orbit and give fresh wings to Keaton’s career".
(Michael Roddy is an arts and entertainment correspondent for
Reuters. The views expressed are his own)
(Writing by Michael Roddy; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)
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