Birdman : The Unexpected Virtue of Goofs
Birdman won 4 Academy Awards 2015: Best Picture, Best Director, Original Screenplay, and Cinematography. I am sure you all must have watched the movie, but if you haven’t go watch now. Its not just a box office success as well as it received widespread critical acclaim all over the world. At Rotten Tomatoes; it has rating of 93% and IMDB it has rating of 8/10.
So whats so different about Birdman? Well Birdman received widespread critical acclaim, particularly for Keaton, Norton, and Stone’s performances, Iñárritu‘s direction and screenplay, and Lubezki‘s cinematography. We will not discuss acting here but more of its technical side.The camera work, which depicts most of the film as one continuous take, met with extensive acclaim for its execution and usage.
As I discussed in my previous posts about crew mistakes and continuity mistakes, even if you are a seasoned filmmaker, you make mistakes and sometimes pretty silly one. Birdman also has its own share of mistakes some of which are unintentional and some might be intentional( not sure though), but it makes Birdman a better film. Watch the following video essay made by De Filmkran.
When a hack director makes continuity error, it is taken as proof of incompetence. When a revered genius does the same, we wonder what they meant.
-Xan Brooks, writing on The Shining
So after watching the video essay you also must have noticed some mistakes in Birdman. There are some crew visible mistakes,some geographical mistakes, continuity mistakes,… As film depicts most of the film as one continuous take or feel like single shots, the mistakes become more noticeable. But how these mistakes make Birdman a better film? To understand its answer you should first watch the movie.
Birdman is about an actor who is messed up in his life on professional, personal and social fronts. These technical goof ups add more intensity to a messed up character. The complex hallways of the theater acts as an aimlessness of the character and makes it more intense. I feel crew visible mistakes are unintentional but rest of the mistakes are made intentionally with lots of planning and hard work just to make the movie more intense.
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