Birdman or: The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance

I know this movie is already going on 2 years old, but for me it’s certainly not a forgettable one and worth looking back on.  I’ve got some more of these in mind so if you like this one let me know.

THIS CONTAINS SPOILERS.  If you haven’t seen Birdman and intend to see it, I recommend not reading the following text.

On stage, does Keaton actually attempt suicide?  The first time I watched it that’s what I thought.  We see him, backlit, put a gun to his head and pull the trigger.  Its pretty darn obvious to us in that moment that’s what he had done.  But! one scene later he wakes up and only his nose is gone.  He shot off his nose.  Was this his actual intention?

Either way, with the gun he was trying to make the statement he was trying to make with the production of his “high art” play all along: “I am no longer Birdman”.  But for the people watching the play in that moment they saw a man, the character he was playing, shoot himself, which was how the play was written to end anyway, just not with someone actually doing it.

I like to think of Keaton’s gunshot as an intended suicide, and in the moment he messed it up.  He shoots off his nose, he shoots off his “beak”.  In doing so he succeeds at what he intended by mistake.

The characters actual intentions, especially in a movie like this, are less important than what does end up happening.  It’s much more about the symbolism, which is what tells us what the story actually is, more so than character’s intentions

Ironically when Keaton attempts to kill himself, while he himself is making a statement, he accidentally commits high art.  If the circumstances were different, and the play went off without a hitch, it might never have gotten the attention it would have otherwise.  It probably would have been, to the masses, another washed up ex-celebrity trying to do something “important”.  Instead he made it a spectacle, much like the Birdman movies themselves.  Box office spectacles.  Without the added publicity the play may not have gotten much attention at all, after the fact.

The ending itself…

Now this is set up in such a way that it is just as ambiguous as the scenes previous.  What actually happens?  What are the characters actually attempting?  They are up for interpretation just as much as the actions of the characters in the movie are up for interpretation to the character of the audience in the movie itself.

Keaton apparently goes out the window of the hospital, Stone looks out the window (down first then up) and smiles.  Keaton might have killed himself.  That’s easy.  And maybe it is that easy, especially if you go with the idea that that was his intention on stage with the gun.  Maybe he did and his daughter is happy that he finally did it, and finally got rid of his stress filled life.  He soars away from us all and is the better for it, which is why Stone can’t help but smile when she sees it.

But like I said, it’s too easy.  A character committing suicide and that being the end of the story, we’ve seen that plenty of times before.  In my opinion this movie is smarter than that.  If that’s it then well, that’s a pretty lame way to end it all, in my opinion.  The story does still have a conclusion this way, but the story itself is much more clever than letting that be it.

Another way to look at it: Stone looks up and we imagine Keaton flying into the sky as we’ve seen him do a couple times in the movie.  A number of times.

Going back a little, Keaton has some telekinetic type powers and can fly at times, given the emotion cadence of certain scenes.  Whether these powers are actually happening or are in Keaton’s head is not known to us throughout the movie.  It’s easy enough to think they’re in his head.

What I think this actually is representative of what Keaton has in his hands.  He has the power to go and do another Birdman movie.  The thing everyone wants him to do.  With that he has sway, he has actual power to manipulate the world around him.  In his hands he literally holds a billion dollar franchise.  We gather this from dialogue and backstory, but additionally it’s demonstrated to us as Keaton’s ability to move things with his mind and fly from time to time.  So in a way he can actually do these things.

He thinks he’s moved on, and is ready for “bigger better things”, more “credible art”.  It’s more than obvious this power is still very much a part of him, still talks to him, still drives him, even though he often refuses it.

I think what happens in the end, him going out the window, represents Keaton actually deciding to wield the power he’s held in his hands the whole movie.  He decides to go and be Birdman again.  He has decided to make the movie everyone still, years and years later, have wanted him to make.  Birdman 4.

He submits to the ignorance that is blockbuster fair, not because he has to but because he can.  It’s a super power in itself to be able to have a billion dollar franchise at your disposal.  Something that people enjoyed so much, there’s no other way it could go on unless it was with the actor that made it possible.  Certainly not something that will go down in history as high art, but something that still has a powerful magnetism for the everyday movie goer to go and see again and again.

And fail or succeed in that endeavor, if that is even the case, doesn’t matter in the end of Birdman or: The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance.  The fact is Keaton can shed all higher art expectations and do what he is good at.

But that’s just my interpretation.

-Bryce Ian