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PURE M Magazine
Birdman
Michael Keaton plays Birdman
alongside Edward Norton
by Colm Quinn
It is brilliant! There’s no way of getting around that and it
deserves to be said. The characters all seem to be somewhere
in between cycles of nervous breakdowns.
Michael Keaton stars as Reggan Thompson, a former comic
book hero actor, who’s shunned Hollywood and put all his
money into adapting a 60-year-old short story into play on
Broadway.
Keaton is plagued by a mean voice in his head who keeps
telling him what he’s doing is a massive mistake. Everything is
at risk for him as he tries to make a play which he hopes will
get him respected as a real artist.
The pure pace of it and the intensity is something you won’t
find in any other film. It’s better than almost anything else going
for Oscars this year without the exception of Boyhood. But
they’re completely different films. Boyhood is a nice and
relaxing film whereas Birdman is like spending a couple of
hours in a mental asylum.
The camera almost never stops moving the entire film. Even
when the characters are sitting down it’ll be spinning around
them or gently hovering. There is no discernible breaks between
the scenes. The camera moves on from one place down
hallways, upstairs or down streets and then time has moved on.
Keaton is brilliant in it and the supporting cast all play their
parts well. But the only one to match Keaton is Edward Norton.
He plays Mike Shiner, a purely theatre actor who questions and
destroys Thompson’s beliefs, motives and ideas with unmerciful
tirades.
And when the two of them are put in the same scene with each
other it is just brilliant. They argue and rip into one another, one
time they end up actually coming to blows.
The dialogue is funny and fiercely opinionated at times. Like
when Norton’s character says, “Popularity is the slutty little
cousin of prestige.”
Reggan’s daughter played by Emma Stone at one point calls
his play, “Weird, but kinda cool.” This could be said about the
film as well but it would be an understatement. It’s more totally
fucked up and absolutely brilliant.
In three words: Go see it.
o