Film Friday: Alejandro G. Inarritu's Best Picture Oscar winner 'Birdman' starring Michael Keaton

Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) is art for art's sake. It's by artists, for artists. Alejandro G. Inarritu's film doesn't attempt to reach the audience at the back of the theater. Instead, it's a too-cerebral trip inside the head of an actor struggling to reinvent himself by defining his life in a world where celebrities don't get to do that. On one level, it seems too alienating to win the Best Picture Oscar, but its win only proves further how far from reality Hollywood has come. We are at a point where Hollywood celebrates a movie that insults its own system in an effort to make itself look smarter. But they've gone off the deep end as far as Riggan Thompson has.

The plot of Birdman is almost beside the point. It's akin to French New Wave films of the 1960s, whose plots only exist to push forward some idea or exploration by the director. Here, Inarritu and his three co-writers – Nicolas Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris Jr. and Armando Bo – are exploring the minds of actors on the difficult search for love. They latch on to Riggan (Michael Keaton) as their vehicle through the journey. The few non-actors in the movie exist to only confirm their thesis – that most actors are self-centered humans who can only be true to themselves when they play someone they aren't.

Riggan is a former superhero actor who walked away from making Birdman 4 in an effort to regain the respect that he'd already lost. Under some delusion that a Broadway play is the best way to get it back, he decides to write, direct and star in an adaptation of Raymond Carver's short story What We Talk About When We Talk About Love. This decision couldn't make Riggan's point clearer than if he had decided to star in a play called I Want Critics To Like Me.

While he thinks he despises critics, everything he hopes to accomplish is to impress them. If he really cared about getting the average person to like him again, he would have gone for a more accessible subject. Riggan rips into New York Times critic Tabitha Dickinson (Lindsay Duncan) for her use of “labels,” but that's all he's really after. He wants to strip himself of the “superhero actor” label and exchange it for the “serious actor” one. Unfortunately, the store that hands those out might not have a return policy.

“So I guess what we have to ask ourselves is... what do we talk about when we talk about love?”

Whose love is it that Riggan wants? It's the other thing he is desperate for, even more than a new label. He wants the love of his daughter Sam (Emma Stone), believing that having her around as his assistant will help her get her life together after rehab. He still thinks he has a shot with his ex-wife Sylvia (Amy Ryan), even though he's also dating actress Laura (Andrea Riseborough).

Riggan's private life is a mess, like so many real-life actors. Indeed, within the film's world, he has few good examples when it comes to finding love. Mike Shiner (Edward Norton), who already has what Riggan wants with critics, struggled in his relationship with actress Lesley (Naomi Watts). It's clear that the love of family is hard to find for Riggan (and Mike, as well).

How about the love of friends? Riggan's best friend is his lawyer Jake (Zach Galifianakis). If that fact doesn't tell you something about Riggan, nothing will. Their relationship only seems to center on money, as that's all they talk about. Even when Riggan is at his most vulnerable, all Jake can bring up is how they might have gotten out of an expensive lawsuit. Riggan should have added the search for the love friends are supposed to share, but he's got no time for that now.

While the love of friends and family is important, Riggan is more obsessed with the love of the audience. That's what he really wants to finally have. Unlike those other loves though, he actually did have it – he just destroyed it by not making Birdman 4. He thinks that the only way to get that love back is by being in a play after he gets his new label. But Sam gives him a dose of reality. In 2014, the only way a celebrity can get that kind of love is by being on social media.

That's probably one of the most relevant points in the film that Inarritu has to make. The way today's celebrity works isn't defined by what they do on stage or even on the silver screen. It's by a person's presence on social media. Are people really going to see Riggan because they want to see him perform or are they just hoping to see him break down so they can post a picture of it on Twitter?

“You're the one who doesn't exist. You're doing this because you're scared to death, like the rest of us, that you don't matter.” - Sam

That line may play out like a cheap laugh in a super-serious moment, but it's not. That speech – so eloquently performed by Emma Stone – is the heart of the movie. Riggan doesn't need the love of a traditional audience any longer. He needs the love of social media, something that he doesn't understand, which scares the heck out of him.

Riggan also fails to see that he can be both a “serious actor” and “superhero actor” at the same time. It's something that Michael Keaton himself figured out, which adds another level to Birdman. Once an actor figures out that there is enough time in his own life to have two careers, he can finally move on with his life. If you let the past haunt you, you let it destroy you.

Inarritu's point is also made in the way the story is told. Most of Birdman appears to be in one single take. Of course, it's all really veiled edits (which make its lack of a Best Editing Oscar nomination a shame), but the idea is that the entire film plays out like a stage play. We are really watching a stream of consciousness go by, even if some scenes don't feature Riggan. Even in those moments, though, characters are talking about him, so his presence is always felt. The audience is checking in on incredibly private moments, so the one take idea – combined with Emmanuel Lubezki's always-moving camera – make us feel voyeurs.

The acting is also incredibly fluid and realistic. Keaton brings his own past to the film and, while he's clearly not Riggan, that did help him understand the character a bit. You can't see anyone else playing this role, which makes his performance a success. Inarritu also gets brilliant performances out of Norton and Stone, who challenge Keaton to go further in every scene. Watts and Risenborough are also memorable as actresses who are also questioning their own worth.

“Popularity is just the slutty little cousin of prestige.” - Mike

Mike tells Riggan that, just after he berates the Hollywood system. Yes, it's true that prestige helps out with popularity, but Birdman is about how those two are very different. You get popular with a small audience by turning Raymond Chandler into a stage play. You get popular with a wide audience by playing Birdman on the big screen. But there's nothing wrong with either of those, if you can juggle both in one life. That's ultimately Inarritu's point. Actors in today's Hollywood system want to be both, but it's pretty hard. Acting is nice work... if you can survive it.

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