by Richard Gould
BIRDMAN isn’t Michael Keaton’s own story of course, but it’s hard to think of a better pairing of actor to role. His recent Oscar-junket rounds for the film, set against the background of his career-making turns wearing the cape in 1989 and ’92, show a cheerful willingness to be misunderstood. Keaton plays “serious” actor Riggan Thomson, whose ill ease with the comic book character that brought him fame years ago has put him on a mission to stage a Raymond Carver short story on Broadway, starring himself. More theatre de l’absurde in the rehearsals than “Angry Old Man,” it’s seen by most as an attempt by Thomson to find relevance in an industry that’s passing him by. But we see what others can’t; All he really wants to do is break through his numbness. Costar Mike (Edward Norton) arrives, bringing some real theater chops and an ego to match; when Thomson isn’t being upstaged by him, he’s contending with a daughter whose self-destructiveness and cutting barbs are enough by themselves to shoot him down–say nothing of the theater critics. But Thomson’s flights of imagination seem to rise above the surrounding grimness–his strange telekinetic powers, and a certain booming-voiced feathered man just over his shoulder. The film’s single tracking shot has wowed many, but I was more struck by the dazzling one-piece score by Antonio Sanchez, who believes–as composer Alfred Newman did in 1945’s Leave Her to Heaven–that insanity’s theme song is a military march.
