Alejandro G. Inarritu worried that he had gotten stuck in an artistic rut following his first four features — all of them dark dramas (including the Oscar-nominated “21 Grams” and “Babel”) concerned with various forms of tragedy and human suffering.
“I’m overwhelmed by the pain in the world; I’m affected by the news very much, and adding that to my work was becoming a little bit too much. I needed fresh air,” he says.
Enter “Birdman,” a tragedy perhaps, but that of a ridiculous man, a has-been superhero movie actor weighed down more by his own ego than by the evils of the world. And it is a tragedy leavened by explosions of wild comedy and narrative invention — a movie whose protagonist, much like the obsessively tracking camera of cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, seems to be in constant motion, pirouetting in midair.
Inarritu keeps this risky enterprise nimbly on track, but never allows the story or its vividly drawn characters to get swallowed up in feats of technical wizardry.
“Who cares about a long shot?,” he says. “That’s not difficult. If the audience, in minute 50, is thinking about the way a movie is shot, there’s a problem. I want it to permeate emotionally.” — Scott Foundas
