Birdman Or The Unexpected Virtue Of Ignorance? Essay Samples
And did you get what you wanted from this life, even so? I did.
And What did you want? To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth.
( Raymond Carver, Late Fragment)
What is so special about "Birdman" that caused dozens of the most severe critics of the film to fill the highest praise? The main thing - perhaps layering. The second one – an hour pattern which covers a wide range of topics: the cinema and theatre, private life of a star and posturing for the media, success and fall, family and work, and a single team, everything and anything - you can turn the tape from many angles, each time revealing new facets. Such three-dimensional movies happen when the author and the actors are passionate about what is happening on the screen so that dissolve in action. And in "Birdman" such "solution" is more than on other tapes while we are talking about the everyday life of the actor, the heavy burden of fame and even more severe Burden on the way to glory.
Birdman - a strange bird-man, haunting thoughts of Riggan Thompson and project his consciousness into reality. His costume was deliberately made to look like Batman costume. Looking at sixty Keaton easily understands how hard it is for life to stay for the layman a man in a suit with feathers. Released in circulation, the actor Riggan Thompson was famous in the early 90's for participation in the big superhero franchise, now he is desperately trying to recover at least a fraction of its former glory together with his confidence. On the last money, the actor is going to put money on the Broadway stage. This play was based on the works of Raymond Carver, but preparing for the play turned upside down - a rehearsal accident had happened with one of the actors which has to be replaced by completely uncontrollable upstart, his daughter who is on the brink of drug dependence, his ex-wife and a new life partner seem to remove from the actor's all the whole soul.
The myth of "Birdman" should be dispelled: the film is not shot of a single continuous plan. The picture is of the order consists of hundreds of fragments, the length of the longest of them is about ten minutes. The situation is complicated by the fact that one of the actors falling light fixture, and one of the actresses (Naomi Watts) leads him to replace the boyfriend (Edward Norton), an adept of the Stanislavsky system and favorite theater critics. To achieve the effect of "not disconnected the camera," Emmanuel Lubezki, the operator who has worked more on this technique of the film "Children of Men", used hidden mounting glue. To see them, just look some fragments "Birdman" in slow motion.
It is worth considering, for example, the scene where Riggan (Michael Keaton) comes out of the theater to take a short walk up to the bar with Mike (Edward Norton). The camera in this episode first follows the main character, and after he opens the door to the street, for a moment flies forward. At this point of view the audience disappear and doors, and Keaton himself, who later reappears in the second frame. However, between filming on the street and Keaton in for the actor could take hours or even days.
In order to maintain the illusion of continuity in this scene the authors had just removed the actor, opens the door, and then replace them located on the green screen footage from the next scene. The trick here was only to synchronize the movement of the camera at the end of one take and the beginning of another in such a way that the audience did not notice the transition. Then walk down Broadway interrupted by gluing at the moment when the camera momentarily puts its attention on street drummer. Milliseconds have passed before it was directed into the
wall, it was enough for the actors begin a new stage. Only a two-hour movie has up to ninety minutes of special effects, the greater part of which the audience will never know. For example, when Riggan trashes his dressing room with the help of telekinesis, all destroyed objects are actually made using photo-realistic computer graphics. More surprising that the episode in which the protagonist runs in Times Square in shorts, really filmed on the street: the authors did not have any money on it, to cover the area and fill it with extras, no matter what, to build up the scenery and draw always lively center of New York. Therefore, the director hired drummers who have diverted attention from the crowd, and Keaton in his underpants quickly and quietly ran down the street, along with four members of the crew, and eight more of them follow the crowd. By the time the onlookers realized what was happening, the episode has already been filmed.
Giant set decoration continuous sequence of events "Birdman" room was acting on the Broadway Theatre - Theatre of St. James on 44th, street in the heart of Times Square in New York City. Alejandro González Iñárritu considers the fate of Riggan similar to his own - the director also had to contend with his own ego and find motivation for new jobs after the success of the debut film.
Fantastic castes - the second most important component of the film. Of course, Hollywood actors are enough assertive , which is characteristic of self-irony, but Michael Keaton seems to have surpassed all this steps. Riggan Thomson, once famous for the role Birdman, and now looking for any opportunity to step back from this role, as far as possible - a blueprint from the Keaton Batman 90s. An amazing opportunity had appereared for the actor, he had a chance to rip off the shackles of the image, brought fame and Keaton pulls feathers from his winged superego with pleasure. You can think of other examples of this level of exposure of the nerves about human emotion of art, but why - let's enjoy Keaton Thomson, he was incredibly good! Speaking of frames. You can not talk about his admiration for "Birdman" and not to mention the incredible work of the operator. Behind the camera in the Inarrit’s team was Emmanuel Lubezki,
and the name of this year already has been on the lips of the true fans of the movie - the eyes of the man we saw the 'gravity' Alfonso Cuaron. The third facet of the incredible "Birdman" - a mind-boggling in its convincing illusion that the whole picture is shot in one long frame without mounting gluing. The camera never stopped for a moment, it permeates every cell of the body of cinematic, the camera pulls out into the world every detail of the relationship beteween the heroes, it does physically palpable any emotion, that appears on stage and on screen.
Equally exciting, giddy and overpowering effect can be compared with the now iconic first 17 minutes of "Gravity". This time Lubezki make you again go into space, but now it will be an internal space of one man. If these three reasons it seems not enough to give "Birdman" two hours of your life, but also should be added the list of an incredible number of references to contemporary cinema and its stars.
The spectator should be prepared to hear the hassle of impartial critic and actor, in which both sides are using prohibited methods, leave place for conflict between the theater and the cinema, arthouse and media. Finally, "Birdman" – it is just a great comedy about how difficult everything is arranged in man's head, it is not clear his thoughts, his desires as elusive. The film hides the subtitle phrase "Amazing power of ignorance," and this is the best characteristics for the author of the picture, its heroes, and even spectators.
"Birdman" has all the ingredients of a cult film. Jokes to the site, an unusual soundtrack (there is only drum solo and music performance), a wonderful setting and shooting, amazing game actors, interesting idea, plot and characters. Cinema, which glorify Inarrit (previously known mainly to the festival audience), will be remembered for a very long time, and set a new benchmark in the chamber tragicomedies for years to come.
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