Philosophy of Birdman

Or The Power of Ignorance

The movie starts, and you see the following quote ;

You get a feeling that the movie is going to be about love and caring for each other. But the title said “Birdman.” Isn’t it supposed to be a superhero movie? Like some new take on the Superhero Genre. Like Logan or Deadpool? You get a little confused. And then the title of the movie comes on the screen—Birdman: Or the unexpected virtue of ignorance. Now you are really confused. Is ‘Ignorance’ a virtue? Well…let’s find it out.

For every character in your script, you first have to establish their ‘NEED’ and ‘WANT.’ Generally, these are revealed as the story progresses, and you eventually realize what does the character wants and what he actually needs. But Birdman reveals it right in the beginning 10 minutes (if you pay attention and don’t treat it like other movies).

A thing is a thing, not what is said of that thing.

They didn’t have whatever you wanted.

These two quotes summarize our Hero’s whole journey. Whatever has happened until now and what he needs to realize to save his remaining life.

Birdman deals with many themes, but the two themes that form the backbone of the entire movie are (1 ) True Art and ( 2 ) Acknowledgment. We’ll go through each of the themes one by one and then we’ll figure out how it all connects to ‘The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance.’

When do you call any form of art a ‘TRUE ART’?

There has always been this war between artists on when to call a piece of art ‘a True Art.’ Is digital painting a true art? How can you call yourself a painter if you are not even touching a brush or the paints? But we have seen some beautiful digital paintings, haven’t we?

In the movie, Birdman, this question of True Art has been raised for Theatre vs Movies (especially superhero movies). Our protagonist, Riggan, is an ex-superhero movie character called Birdman. And even after giving three blockbuster movies for the same franchise, he still isn’t satisfied with his work. Why? Because he thinks that Superhero movies aren’t True Art. Again, Why does he think that? Because the critics say so (and the True Theatre Actors too). So what does he do to make himself a True Artist? He plans to do a Broadway Play.

And after an unfortunate accident on the stage (Riggan did it, believe me), one of his actors is injured and we are introduced to the replacement, Mike Shiner - A method actor or in other words, A True Artist. Mike is a prodigious actor who has dedicated himself fully to the Theatre. And in addition to being a master of the acting field, he is an emotionless, egocentric, narcissistic man who doesn't care about what people are going to think about him except when he is on the stage. Or as one of his co-actor (also his housemate) describes him;

LESLEY - Maybe up here you’re Mr. Truth, Mike. But in the real world, where it counts, you're a fucking fraud. How's that for truth?

Mike hates Riggan and all the things that he represents, i.e. commercialization of the art that the movies have done. He doesn't consider superhero movies a True Art because he thinks that all these movies do is fool people in the name of Art. And he makes it clear to Riggan after messing their play’s first preview where he became drunk because…method acting you know.

MIKE - My reputation is riding on this play. And that's... That is...

RIGGAN - A lot?

MIKE - A lot. Exactly. Fuck you. Yes. This doesn't work out for you, you get to go home to your studio pals and jump right back into that cultural genocide you guys are perpetrating. “There’s a douchbag born every minute”. That was P.T. Barnum’s premise when he got rich inventing the circus. And you and your pals know nothing’s changed, and whatever toxic shit you make people are still gonna pay to see it. But, after you’re gone, I’ll still be here. I’ll still be making my living on the stage. Baring my soul. Wrestling with emotions, complex emotions.

So let us get back to the question we started with - What is True Art?

True Art, as many people have described it, is when you create an artwork solely as a means of self-expression and satisfaction, and it resonates with other people. This definition is quite good but the problem with it is — How do you figure out if an art resonates with people or not?

Take, for example, a play or a movie. How would you judge a movie on artistic grounds? We will follow what critics say, but who gave critics the right to judge whether an artwork is true to its field or not? And as Mike in this movie quoted Flaubert;

MIKE - "A man becomes a critic when he can not be an artist, in the same way that a man becomes an informer when he cannot be a soldier."

So what is the other way to see if a movie resonates with people or not? We see the charts. The tickets it sold and the number of days it ran in the cinemas. But, does commercial success truly reflects the greatness of a movie? We have many examples of just the opposite happening that we can all recall from our own experience.

Art is a form of self-expression and no one has the right to judge whether something is true art or not because WE ARE VERY BAD AT IT. You can only like or dislike a particular artwork but you don't have the authority to call it out on the basis of it being True to its nature.

The Hunger for Appreciation and Acknowledgment

The whole reason why Riggan decided to do a play on Broadway is that he wanted himself to be recognized as one of the greats in acting which is something that, he thought, you can never achieve by doing a role in superhero movies. At first, he feared that one bad actor might destroy his play or to be precise, his reputation as a director of the play. So what did he do? He dropped a stage light on his head (I’m telling you, it wasn’t an accident). And then ENTERS MIKE, who is an over-the-top actor, loved by all the theatre critics and don’t even ask me if he sells tickets. At first, he is happy but after Mike starts doing things in his own ways and takes the central stage, Riggan becomes worried that he might lose the spotlight to him.

The whole facade of doing a Broadway play in the name of True Art breaks away and it all comes down to how many tickets he can sell, at what cost, and what the critics going to say about him. He thinks that he is doing the play for himself, to find out the real actor in him. But his daughter Sam makes it clear that this is not why he is doing it.

RIGGAN - To me... This is-- God. This is my career, this is my chance to do some work that actually means something.

SAM - Means something to who? You had a career before the third comic book movie, before people began to forget who was inside the bird costume. You're doing a play based on a book that was written 60 years ago, for a thousand rich, old white people whose only real concern is gonna be where they go to have their cake and coffee when it's over. Nobody gives a shit but you. And let's face it, Dad, it's not for the sake of art. It's because you just want to feel relevant again. (…) You're doing this because you're scared to death, like the rest of us, that you don't matter. And you know what? You're right. You don't. It's not important. You're not important. Get used to it.

We live in a world where others’ views of ourselves matter more than what we think about ourselves. And where critics are given more importance over the artists or the art itself. As Mike rightfully points out:

MIKE - You see that woman over there?(…) Nothing matters until she writes five hundred words about us in the New York Times.

RIGGAN - That's...

MIKE - Tabitha Dickinson. Yes. And, believe it or not, the only thing that matters in theater is whether she likes us or not. She does, we run. She doesn't, we're fucked.

And this is the beauty of Birdman. It showcases how funny the world has become. How we have given the lead rope of our lives to people who don’t have any idea about who we are, from where we have come from, and what do we want. All we crave is attention from them thinking that it might do wonders for us. Birdman shows us that this ‘thinking’ has become true in the current world. This is a sad reality of our modern lives. Riggan gets appreciated at the end by all the critics for delivering a super-realistic performance where he shoots off himself with a real gun in a live performance. And the entire theme of the play and its other aspects fades away in the dark. Defeating the entire purpose of why we really do theatre in the first place.

The Unexpected Virtue Of Ignorance

Coming back to the question that we asked ourselves in the very beginning —When does Ignorance become a Virtue?

As you grow older, you start acquiring these labels that people give you. These labels can be of a very trivial kind like ‘he is sincere’ or sometimes these can be really harsh like ‘he is a pyschomaniac.’ We try to label everything because in that way it becomes easier for us to categorize and recognize things and persons. We have been evolved in this way, to distinguish between good and evil. It isn’t something to worry about except when you start believing in the labels. When you start thinking about yourself or someone else through the lens of a label, your vision becomes narrow and you start believing in what others have said.

That is what exactly happened with Riggan. He was having a terrific career as a movie actor until the people started labeling him as Birdman and forgot the man behind that mask. His label changed from an actor to a celebrity. And it became even worse when Riggan too internalized this as a fact. This is the reason why he chose to do a Broadway play in the first place, to get the label of an actor back. But people don’t want to change the labels they have put on you so fast. It defeats the purpose of this whole labeling theory. And this is where Ignorance becomes a Virtue. You have to learn how and when to ignore these labels and free yourselves from all the expectations that people have from you.

It doesn’t matter whether someone calls your art True Art or not. It doesn’t matter whether people acknowledge and praise your work or not. The only thing that matters is what YOU think of your own work, without being polarized by what others have to say about it. This is the power of Ignorance. And Birdman is a gem of a movie.