Birdman

Or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)

Film Review

Alejandro Iñárritu’s Birdman (or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), at the 87th Academy Awards, won four outstanding awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Cinematography. Michael Keaton was nominated for Best Actor. Emma Stone and Edward Norton were also nominated for Best Supporting Actress and Actor. It also received nominations for Sound Editing and Sound Mixing. The masterful work and Alejandro can not be understated. His masterful job and tracking, spinning, and weaving his camera around a tight, crowded, and busy stage play set displays his ability unlike any other. Michael Keaton plays a somewhat dramatized version of himself trying to cope with the life of being a once-famous actor to a man striving to find out who he is and his place in this world. With an incredible cast to fill in behind him that brings witty and snarky dialogue. Sound editing and mixing can often be forgotten or passed up entirely in films, but here they really blow the roof off the place. The film’s original music segments are a drum score consisting entirely of solo jazz percussion performances by Antonio Sánchez. He recorded the ensemble while playing along, watching each scene in real-time. The score is offset by several well known classical music pieces, including Mahler and Tchaikovsky. The film altogether is a brilliant work that asks you, the viewer, what you are doing here? Really, what are you doing here?