Two of today’s most talked-about films, Gone Girl and Birdman or (The
Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), both focus on the hot topic of media
celebrity. Gone Girl dramatizes the
way members of the viewing public, egged on by TV commentators with biases of
their own, choose up sides when faced with scandal or crime of a particularly heinous
nature. If you’re unlucky enough to be featured on a TV news broadcast, you’ll
inevitably find yourself typecast as either a villain or a victim. And you’ll
discover along the way that changing public perception is by no means
easy.
Birdman – which
appealed mightily to my sense of humor and sense of wonder – concerns itself
with the world of actors. It belongs in the category of movies (including
everything from Forty-Second Street to
Woody Allen’s Bullets Over Broadway)
that chronicle the staging of a Broadway play, taking us behind the scenes to
meet actors with large egos and larger insecurities. In Birdman, there’s a priceless performance by Ed Norton as a cocky
Broadway Method actor, and an appealing one by Naomi Watts as a fading
Hollywood beauty both thrilled and alarmed at the prospect of making her debut
on the Great White Way.
But Birdman
belongs to Michael Keaton, whose long career includes outrageous roles in two
early Ron Howard comedies (Night Shift and
Gung Ho). Also in the 1980s, he
starred in the popular role-reversal comedy Mr.
Mom, then put on the cape and mask for Tim Burton’s Batman. The latter film surely helped prepare him for Birdman: in it he plays a former
Hollywood he-man who, having once walked away from the fourth film in a popular
superhero franchise, now wants to revive his reputation by presenting himself
as a serious New York actor/director/playwright. His stage adaptation of a grimly
realistic Raymond Carver short story couldn’t be more different from the films
in which he made his name. The joke is that, though Broadway insiders scorn
Keaton’s character as an over-the-hill interloper, the public still considers
him royalty. That’s why they’re ready to respect anything he does, however
misguided. It seems that playing a caped crusader on the big screen is clearly
a form of godliness.
I won’t go into the many surprises that grace Alejandro
González Iñárritu’s film, except to praise the way he balances magical moments
with the nitty-gritty of the New York theatre world. We see a lot of an actual
44th Street theatre, whose cramped backstage hallways and grimy dressing
rooms belie the glamour most of us associate with Broadway. The script, which
convincingly portrays the tangle of emotions most actors know all too well,
also has fun with insider references ranging
from Robert Downey Jr.’s superhero chops to Meg Ryan’s plastic surgeon.
In this context it’s worth
noting that the number of Hollywood legends who look for legitimacy on the
Broadway stage continues to rise. In the recent past, Scarlett Johansson has
trod the boards in Tennessee Williams’ Cat
on a Hot Tin Roof, and Tom Hanks just starred in an original called Lucky Guy. Daniel Radcliffe, trying to
shed his Harry Potter mantle, has done everything from a musical (How to Succeed in Business) to a
take-your-clothes-off drama (Equus). Michael
Cera is currently wowing critics in This
is Our Youth, but not every Hollywoodite receives serious critical respect.
The public, though, remains starstruck.
During the annual Tony Awards ceremony, honorees continue to
imply that acting on a Broadway stage is
somehow far more noble than mere movie-making. Still, Hollywood celebs sell
tickets, and New York seems happy to let their stars shine bright.
