STACK NZ June 2015 Issue 63

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(Edward Norton) threatens to
derail the production before
opening night.
“It was new territory,
and I was definitely out of
my comfort zone,” Iñárritu admits. But
the transitory nature of success and the
lengths an actor will go to remain relevant
was something he was eager to explore,
and the character of Riggan Thomson
provided the perfect conduit.
“I was interested in exploring
the battles with the ego, the idea
that no matter how successful
you are, whether in money
or recognition, it’s always an
illusion. It’s temporary,” he
says. “When you think you
want to empower the people
to validate you, when you finally
get them, you soon find an
impermanence in that joy.”
Flawed characters driven by
doubts and contradictions are a staple of Iñárritu’s
films, and the director saw in Riggan a quixotic
and profoundly human figure whose ego has
run amok – a condition expressed in the film by
segues into magic realism and inner monologues,
delivered in the growling tones of Riggan’s
Birdman persona.
“Birdman is Riggan’s super ego, and from
Birdman’s perspective, Riggan has lost his mind
by doing this play that is clearly beneath them,”
offers Iñárritu. “From Riggan’s perspective,
it’s Birdman that has lost his mind. From the
perspective of the era, both are irrelevant.
“The modern definition of accomplishment
– people want to be famous immediately, not
from a body of work developed over years,” he
continues. “The immediacy of social media can
easily distort the reality of one person, especially
Riggan, who has to fulfill expectations of what it
is to be famous. And all this is new to him, that
crossover is difficult. This is the story of a man
trying to prove that he is more than that, more
popular than the ‘liked’ guy. But in today’s world,
where irony is king, anybody who wants to be
earnest or honest is crucified. It’s
an absurd, surreal world. In the
end, I just tried to recount in a
funny way the disasters of our
human nature to reconcile, if
not with the defects or faults
of the world and our nature, with
the way we approach and live them.”
B irdman: Or (The Unexpected Virtue of
Ignorance) represents a radical
departure for Mexican-born filmmaker
Alejandro G. Iñárritu, whose penchant
for non-linear narratives in which tragic events
unite disparate characters made him a favourite of
the arthouse circuit with films like Amores Perros
(2000), 21 Grams (2003) and Babel (2006).
Iñárritu’s first black comedy is set in a
Broadway theatre, where former screen
superhero Riggan Thomson (Michael Keaton)
is mounting an adaptation of Raymond Carver’s
story What We Talk About When We Talk About
Love, in the hope of reinventing himself as a
serious actor. But the arrival of his daughter
(Emma Stone) who’s just out of rehab, his ex-
wife (Amy Ryan), and an egotistical Method actor
Alejandro G. Iñárritu, the director of dark dramas
like Amores Perros, 21 Grams and Babel, ventures
out of his comfort zone with the Oscar-winning,
backstage black comedy BIRDMAN.
No matter how successful
you are... it's always an
illusion, it's temporary
ALTER
EGO
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