Oscars 2015: Why ‘Birdman’ Was Crowned Best Picture

The Academy has recognized itself in Iñarritu’s portrait, a black comedy about a Hollywood consumed by its own superego, to be released in France on Wednesday.

In a shabby room, an actor levitates in his underpants. A booming voice that you might mistake for that of a famous crime fighter from Gotham City demands, “How did we get here?” In former times, Riggan Thomson was a superstar. He played a superhero with crow’s feathers called Birdman (who said Batman?). Today he is nothing but a has-been, haunted by the most lucrative role of his career to such an extent that this man-bird, like a malevolent Jiminy Cricket, continues to speak to his conscience — “You should never have refused ‘Birdman 4’. You were a film star!” — and convinces himself that he possesses real superpowers enabling him to fly or move objects by telekinesis.

This is the beginning of “Birdman,” a superb black comedy by Mexican Alejandro González Iñarritu, and a complete break from his usual tragedies (“21 Grams,” “Babel”). For two hours, driven by an overcharged drum kit and virtuoso direction that gives the illusion of a single take, the entertainment industry is on the psychiatrist’s couch. And as we are talking about people in show business, the psychoanalysis is set in the auditorium and on the stage of a theater. We are on Broadway, where Riggan has invested what remains of his fortune and his mental health to attempt an artistic renaissance by staging Raymond Carver’s “What We Talk about When We Talk about Love.” But, what with a daughter who is just out of rehab (Emma Stone), a pushy producer (Zach Galifianakis), an actress who is full of doubt (Naomi Watts) and hallucinations caused by his spiteful alter-ego Birdman, chaos lies in wait. Even more so because Riggan must call on an unbearable method actor (played by the exceptional Edward Norton), who on stage replaces water with real gin and in a desire for realism, wants to have real sexual relations with his fellow actor.

Over-inflated Egos

Films set in the corridors of show business have long been a genre of their own (“All about Eve,” “Opening Night,” “The Player,” etc.). But it is undoubtedly no accident that it is two foreign directors, two outsiders, who have just depicted an American film industry so hysterical that it lacks inspiration. Last year in the brutal “Maps to The Stars,” Canadian David Cronenberg presented a Hollywood made sick by its own incestuousness. “There is a creative incest generated by the studios. All films are genetically deformed, come from the same idea, without any new vision. “Iron Man 5,” “Superman 15,” and how many more to come? There is so much technology and money, and it is really stupid!”* [Cronenberg] confided to us. In “Birdman,” the Mexican Iñarritu also uses everything at his disposal to tackle the over-inflated egos with satirical verve, whether actors who try the credibility cure of Broadway, or critics who cannot ask a question without quoting Roland Barthes.

The cinematographer does not spare himself, suggesting that this ambition has surpassed his previous works. But by choosing Michael Keaton to play the leading role, Iñarritu has first of all targeted the American obsession for superheroes. “When I finished the script, I knew that Michael was the best possible choice,”* he explained on the telephone from Canada while making his new film. “Having been Batman, he brought an overarching aspect to the feature, just as Edward Norton is reputed to have been a very difficult actor in New York.”* In 1989, Keaton donned the cape of Bruce Wayne in Tim Burton’s “Batman.” A pioneer of the horde of masked crime fighters who, in the wake of Bryan Singer’s “X-Men” (2000) and Sam Raimi’s “Spider Man” (2002), were to make a long-lasting change to the face of entertainment — a trailblazer who, well before Ben Affleck, had to put up with the insults of fans who were unhappy with the choice of actor to personify their favorite superhero. In a digital world that only makes judgments based on trailers and teasers, he is a relic from a bygone age.

“The Screenplay of ‘Batman 3’ Was a Catastrophe”*

When we met him in a London hotel room, dressed in light blue jeans and a white shirt straight out of the 1990s, Michael Keaton, 63, had nothing of the embittered veteran [about his demeanor]. Unlike Riggan Thomson, he knew to jump ship before the disastrous “Batman 3” (Joel Schumacher’s “Batman Forever”), refusing $15 million. “That was a good decision, wasn’t it? The screenplay was a catastrophe. I told the studio that it would have to be improved, but they didn’t want to do that. I replied ‘OK, but I’m returning the cape.’”*

In “Birdman,” we laughed a lot when Riggan tried to recruit a prestigious actor for his play and discovered that they were all busy. Woody Harrelson? He’s filming another “Hunger Games.” Michael Fassbender? In an nth “X-Men.” Robert Downey, Jr? [Working on] an “Iron Man,” but at least it’s not an “Avengers.” In the same way that Riggan is no longer able to detoxify himself from “Birdman,” Hollywood seems today to be addicted to superheroes, willing to risk an overdose. On Oct. 15, 2014, Kevin Tsujihara, Chairman and CEO of Time Warner, announced to his shareholders that 10 new feature films adapted from DC Comics would be produced between 2016 and 2020. Two weeks later, it was his competitor Kevin Feige, head of Marvel Studios, who announced nine projects. What with reboots (when a saga is restarted from the beginning), spinoffs (derivative series), international superhero summits (“Batman vs Superman,” coming in 2016 while we wait until 2017 for “The Justice League,” a sort of superhero G-8) and the launch of new characters with increasingly improbable powers, nearly 40 films inspired by comic books may be made by 2020. If you add franchises (“Beverly Hills Cop 4,” “Avatar 2,” “Star Wars” episode 7, etc.), it makes an armada of more than a hundred blockbusters that will have invaded our screens by then.

More G-8 than ‘Super 8’

“It’s cultural genocide,”* says Iñarritu. Genocide? Really? “Precisely. An entire generation growing up with these stupid shows will no longer be able to see anything at the movies that reflects their lives. It’s a disgrace. What’s worse is that these popcorn entertainments claim to have a depth borrowed from Greek mythology.”*

Has he been approached to make a blockbuster? “I had an offer, but I would be a very bad director for this type of film, because I would make the hero disappear in the first scene. These superheroes are good-looking, rich and powerful, and have the right to kill whoever disagrees with them. I don’t like that.”*

“Cinema has, of course, always been obsessed with profit, but never to this extent,”* observed the [movie] veteran Michael Keaton. “The world has become a gigantic shopping mall. Before, there were family-run cafés; now, there’s Starbucks. In the same way, if the studios find a product that pushes people to spend money, obviously they will feed off that for a dozen years. Superheroes are to the film industry what jeans are to the clothing industry.”* The resumés of the new Hollywood moguls seem to confirm this analysis: Appointed head of Warner Bros in 2013 without having made a single film, Kevin Tsujihara has an MBA from Stanford and started out at Six Flags theme parks. More G-8 than “super 8”?

Amid the tourist-attraction movies favored by shareholders, the place reserved for feature-length “art-house” films seems to be more and more limited. “That’s the heart of the problem,”* Iñarritu continues. “Each year, there are 10 or 15 excellent original films, but they don’t get the screenings they deserve. Their distribution becomes more and more minimal as blockbusters monopolize the screens.”* A superhero closer to Cassavetes than Catwoman, his “Birdman” has been able to take flight on American soil thanks to the prize-giving season. Already rewarded with a Golden Globe and awards from the Producers, Directors and Screen Actors Guilds, it is the big winner at the 2015 Oscars ceremony — the proof, no doubt, that professionals in the movie industry are also beginning to ask themselves the big question: “But how did we get here?”

*Editor’s note: The original quotation, accurately translated, could not be verified.