Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Short description
Riggan Thomson was once a major star thanks to his role as the superhero Birdman, but that fame is long behind him. Desperate to prove he still matters, he puts everything into staging a play on Broadway, writing, directing and starring in it himself. The days leading up to opening night bring problems on every side: a replacement actor whose behaviour unsettles the production, friction with his daughter Sam and his ex-wife, and his own ego, which keeps pulling him back toward the character that made him famous.
Alejandro González Iñárritu directed and wrote the screenplay with Armando Bo and Nicolás Giacobone. It is the ninth of the thirteen films he has directed, arriving between Naran Ja and The Revenant. Michael Keaton plays Riggan, with Edward Norton as Mike, Emma Stone as Sam, Zach Galifianakis, Andrea Riseborough and Naomi Watts among the cast of fifty-six credited performers.
Made for about 18 million dollars, the film took roughly 103 million worldwide, a strong return on its budget. On IMDb it holds 7.7 from over 700,000 votes, and on TMDB 7.4 from nearly 14,000, while the critics' rating of 8.5 from 359 reviews sits clearly above both audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- The film was shot in less than a month.
- Most of the filming took place in the St. James Theatre on Broadway – Michael Keaton and the other actors had to adapt to Alejandro González Iñárritu's strict filming style, as they were required to memorize up to 15 pages of dialogue for scenes that were shot in one take.
- The film's score by composer Antonio Sánchez, performed almost entirely on percussion instruments, was disqualified from Oscar consideration.
- The scene where Riggan walks through Times Square in his underwear was shot in four takes, beginning at 8:30 PM. Earlier was poorly lit, and later the crowd would have begun to disperse. The crew was kept minimal to avoid attracting attention. Keaton's movement was accompanied only by four people: cinematographer Lubezki, the focus puller, the boom operator, and a digital imaging technician. Eight production assistants worked on crowd control. Iñárritu was nearby; for the first two takes, he filmed Keaton on his smartphone. The footage he captured was used in the following scene, when Emma Stone watches the incident on a smartphone via YouTube. To divert attention from the camera, Iñárritu hired a group of street drummers who danced and played, attracting the attention of tourists in the square.
- The same girl appears multiple times in the shot before the premiere: the first time she is walking with her friend, and the second time - with a guy.
- In the first scene on the roof, Mike Shiner is smoking an endless cigarette: throughout the entire scene, the ember doesn't advance even a millimeter.
- In the scene where Michael Keaton's character stands on the roof, a poster for Zack Snyder's “Man of Steel” (2013) can be seen in the distance.
- Before filming began, Alejandro González Iñárritu sent the actors a photo of Philippe Petit walking a tightrope between the Twin Towers. He told them, “Guys, this is the movie we’re making. If we fall, we’re finished.”
- The book Mike Shiner (Edward Norton) is reading in the tanning salon when he encounters Riggan Thomson (Michael Keaton) is a collection of stories, "Labyrinths," by Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges.
- Emma Stone filmed "Birdman" (2014) during a break from filming "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" (2014), which was also taking place in New York.
- During an interview in Riggan's (Michael Keaton) dressing room, he states that he hasn't played Birdman since 1992. The same year saw the release of "Batman Returns" (1992) – the last Batman film in which Michael Keaton starred.
- At 00:20:16 of the film, when Riggan says “great” and smiles, Jake says “stop grinning, you’re scaring me” – this is a reference to the film “Beetlejuice” (1988), which starred Michael Keaton.
- Due to the unusual filming style featuring long takes, Edward Norton and Michael Keaton decided to keep track of the number of mistakes made by the actors. Emma Stone made the most mistakes, while Zach Galifianakis made the fewest.
- Michael Keaton stated that Riggan's personality is the most dissimilar to his own compared to all his other roles.
- According to Alejandro González Iñárritu, he had lunch with director Mike Nichols in New York two weeks before filming started. Iñárritu told Nichols about his plan to shoot the film in one long take. Nichols predicted it would be a disaster because the lack of various takes to use during editing would hinder the creation of a comedy. Iñárritu said that the meeting did not deter him from his intention; on the contrary, it helped him understand the complexity of what he was about to do.
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