Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014) on Netflix
Riggan Thomson, famous years ago as the superhero Birdman, stakes his savings on a Broadway adaptation of a Raymond Carver story. The mocking voice of Birdman wants him back in blockbusters.
- Netflix4.2/5
- IMDb7.7/10703,604 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes91%
Trailer
Plot summary
Riggan Thomson is a fading actor who played the superhero Birdman in three films between 1989 and 1992, and the role still defines him. He is tormented by the mocking voice of that character, which urges him to return to franchise films and insists he has no other identity. To win recognition as a serious artist, Riggan writes, directs and stars in a Broadway adaptation of a Raymond Carver short story, produced by his friend and lawyer Jake, with his savings behind it. His girlfriend Laura and Broadway newcomer Lesley co-star, and his daughter Sam, newly out of rehab, works as his assistant. The night before the first preview, a light fixture injures his co-star Ralph, and Lesley suggests replacing him with her boyfriend, the volatile method actor Mike Shiner.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- When the Academy released its longlist for Best Original Score in December 2014, Birdman was absent. The award committee told Sánchez that the film's more than half an hour of non-original, mostly classical, music cues, featured very prominently in numerous pivotal moments, made his submission difficult to accept.
- An earlier version of the ending would have put Johnny Depp in Riggan's dressing room with a Pirates of the Caribbean poster behind him. Iñárritu grew to strongly dislike it, calling it "so embarrassing", and rewrote the ending after a new one came to him in a dream.
- Lubezki, who did all the handheld camerawork, chose the Alexa M because the camera was very small and let him get into tiny spaces and close to the actors, sometimes filming two inches from Keaton's face.
- Josh Brolin was set to play the role of Mike Shiner when production came together, but the financiers decided to switch him for Norton because of scheduling conflicts.
- Emma Stone told Jimmy Fallon how a six-minute take of the scene where Riggan first meets Mike was ruined after she walked around a corner too quickly.
- The locations put limits on the takes: the live Times Square sequence was shot only twice, since the crew did not want to attract the attention of tourists.
- The visual effects were made by the Montreal studio Rodeo FX, which spent four months on the film. Its visual effects supervisor, Ara Khanikian, said visual effects touched 90% of the frames in the movie.
