The Invented Worlds Of "Birdman" And "Whiplash"

(Note: this post gives away a number of plot points to both Birdman and Whiplash, so if you're still not conversant with those films and are intent on avoiding "spoilers," you might want to wait until you've seen both films before reading.) 

In the opening shot of Birdman (the movie’s much-remarked upon formal conceit involves presenting much of the action in the form of a single moving-camera take, but in point of fact the movie has a handful of strategically placed deliberate visible cuts) the movie’s lead character Riggan Thompson (Michael Keaton) is sitting in his dressing room. He’s in a lotus position, and dressed only in the underwear briefs sometimes colloquially refered to as “tighty whities.” And he is floating. Director Alejandro G. Iñnaritu sets the tone right there; and while later in the movie, the viewer is perhaps encouraged to infer that when Thompson moves objects in the dressing room in his mind, sometimes egged on by the voice of the superhero character who made him a rich movie star, he is actually throwing them in a fit, we're never asked to forsake the idea that maybe he can actually float. The approach to what's sometimes called magical realism here is both slightly reverential and more than a little farcical. The antic quality that I found to be sustained throughout, up until an ending I didn't think "worked" but was too exhilarated overall to get too hung up about, is the reason I find Birdman to be one of my top moviegoing experiences of 2014. 

It's perhaps a mistake to take everything in the movie at face value. I can’t even track down the source of the supposed Susan Sontag quote Thompson has taped to his dressing room mirror: “A thing is a thing, not what is said of that thing.” Sontag may have said it, she may not have said it, but she was still Susan Sontag, that is, still a critic, so the hurt feelings over Birdman's portrayal of a gargoyle-like New York Times theater critic might well be misplaced. It's funny: if I thought that Birdman was in fact about what both its most ardent champions and its most eyebrow-raised detractors seem to think it's about, I probably would have hated it. Critics from all over the intellectual spectrum are coming at it from the perspective that it has something to "say" about the current state of cinema and the arts. Jeffrey Wells, on one hand, rhapsodizes that it's “in love with the real-deal gleam and glimmer of the Broadway stage," while Richard Brody argues that its theme is “the higher artistic dignity of acting in the theatre.”

I dunno—I found Birdman's view of "dignity" in performance not un-akin to that of Singin' In The Rain, albeit a little more broad, and early 21st-century raw. This is a movie in which the character who considers himself an emblem of stagecraft integrity is, yes, is a brilliant performer, but also an errant loon who believes that the fact that he’s getting a hard-on for his longtime girlfriend for the first time in six months while on stage awaiting a cue is totally awesome. Dignity indeed. 

Riggan Thompson clearly feels that he's pursuing a higher calling with his adaptation of Raymond Carver, but we're encouraged to have our doubts about that, I think: those dancers with antlers we see on stage don't bode totally well. The matter of the Birdman poster  (that is, the poster for the Birdman within Birdman) in Riggan's dressing room is also pertinent: if he's so tormented by the curse of success that character has brought him, why's the poster there? We soon find out it was a gift from the Broadway stagehands. The movie is, then, hardly a coherent statement about X being bad and Y being good. Iñnaritu has talked about how the idea of the film arose from a midlife crisis, and that his instinct was to create a work that laughed at this rather than sank into it; and I believe this instinct was correct, as Birdman is now my favorite film of Iñnaritu's in a walk.

While its incidental observations on fame and craft and superhero movies all land in various sweet spots throughout, I perceive Birdman’s theme as not so much about the arts as such but more the extent to which the human need/desire for love is linked to vanity, and whether the two can ever be wholly distinguished and/or untwined from each other.  

If the character of the gargoyle critic doesn't really register in a "real world" sense, it's likely because she wasn't meant to. As I mentioned, this movie opens with its lead character floating. Half the time I read real-life New York Times theater critics Ben Brantley or Charles Isherwood, I get the distinct impression they’d rather be writing about television anyway. Addison DeWitt, the mandarin gatekeeper, was a long, long time ago. At the New York Film Festival press conference for the film, Edward Norton, who clearly likes to goad his director a little bit, dropped the name "Manohla" as a possible inspiration for the character. Manohla likes Tony Scott movies, though. The point is not whether this character is or is not Manohla—it’s more that the character IS a heightened version of a paranoid projection on Iñnaritu’s part and is PRESENTED as such, and that's all that counts and all that should count. (Manohla DOES get under the skin of a lot of filmmakers though, I've noticed. I was at a friend's wedding some years ago and at the reception I was at a table with a producer of quite a few blockbuster action picture. Nice enough guy. On learning I was a film critic, he asked me, "Do you know Manohla Dargis?" I said yes, I did. He furrowed his brow and said "What's the deal with that broad?") 

Birdman made its positive impression on me because it swept me up in the contrivances of its world. Damien Chazelle's Whiplash did not. On leaving the screening I attended, I thought, "It's not that the movie gets jazz wrong—although it does—it’s that it gets LIFE ON THE PLANET EARTH wrong." (The aforementioned Mr. Brody has written most trenchantly on how it gets jazz wrong.) There's a lot of dynamic filmmaking on display here, most of it in the service of utter horseshit. 

First there's its near-Randroid vision of artistic excellence and non-compromise. (The fact that this is coming from a Harvard graduate kind of stoked my own largely dormant but slightly unpredictable feelings of class resentment, but never mind.)  Much is made about martinet music teacher Terence Fletcher’s speech in which he derides the phrase “Good job,” but more stressful and possibly significant is actor J.K. Simmons’ fake-chirpy delivery of the instruction “have fun.” None of the musicians portrayed in Whiplash are seen to have fun—these guys, and they’re mostly guys, play music, but they don’t play. They’re not seen interacting outside of practice; they don’t get to articulate their ideas about the material they’re playing. Which is all fine, arguably, if the whole jazz thing in the movie is just a pretext for a metaphor anyway. But still. The calculus of the metaphor wants to have things two ways—making art is an exalted thing and it's hard work and it also makes you a bad person, and YOU don't wanna be a bad person—and in that sense, the movie lords it over its audience unforgivably. "Professional. Do Not Attempt."

Some say that all great art flirts with ridiculousness; at the end, Whiplash goes far enough so as to achieve it. The idea that a respected musician would deliberately sabotage a performance of his own ensemble out of spite against a single player, and do it in front of a packed house at Carnegie Hall,  does, I have to say,  test credulity. As does the idea that, after haplessly fucking up on account of an omitted chart (wait, wasn’t this the guy who memorized the “Caravan” chart?) that single player would stalk off the stage of Carnegie Hall, continue to the stage door exit, get hugs from his personification-of-agreeable-mediocrity dad...then go back to the stage and blow the roof off the place. Imagine if in Raging Bull Jake La Motta took that beating from Sugar Ray Robinson, got dragged from the ring, chewed out by Joey... and then returned to the ring, called Ray out and beat him. Yeah sure. 

Also: “the bus gets a flat tire” is seriously the “dog ate my homework” of plot machinations. ALSO: the whole climax of the movie is built around the idea of " 'Caravan' with a drum solo," which is likely to cause profound giggle fits in anyone conversant with early Frank Zappa.

Comments

[Clayton Sutherland]

Given how insanely knowledgable you seem to be about countless genres of music, Glenn, I figure you'll probably be more critical of Whiplash than most moviegoers and critics.

But it's coming from a place of insight, so I certainly wouldn't disregard your position.

I'm curious to see where I'll fall on it, when I eventually get around to seeing it. I might just enjoy the performances (actor-wise), and not be too fussed over the contrivances of the premise. Who knows.

[Jose]

I haven't seen Birdman yet, but the reaction to Lindsay Duncan's critic character in reviews I've read is bizarre. I've read more than one that say flat out that the idea that a critic might go into something they're reviewing with their mind already made up is completely absurd. I really don't know how anyone can really assert that. I have nothing but respect for critics and the work they do, but at the same time, why is it so hard to imagine some might not be fair or honest all the time? As someone who considers themselves pretty liberal, I've got no problem accepting that journalists who cover the news and especially politics for a living can often be predisposed to hate on a politician or spin a current event in a way that confirms with their POV. Hell, there's an entire industry on the left and the right dedicated to pointing that out wherever it may be, and let's face it, that shit is out there. So why are critics getting so riled up about a movie showing a critic doing something similar? I can definitely think of a couple of critics who have it in their head about a certain kind of way a movie is "supposed" to be be and that I can counted on to champion those films, filmmakers and actors over others that make movies the "wrong" way. I'll need to see Birdman for myself, but I get the feeling the stuff with Duncan might have something to do with that.

As for people's beef with Dargis, that I don't get. I've always loved her reviews, and she seems to have as much an appetite for pop as she does for meatier fare. And the directors she's championed over the years, Fincher, Nolan, Mann, are definitely ones very comfortable working in the mainstream.

[Kurzleg]

I'm not surprised to read this: "...at the end, Whiplash goes far enough so as to achieve it." When I heard the premise of the film, Simmons' character sounded like a caricature of the "tough teacher" character type and didn't strike me as a likely feature of the jazz education world. It's a pity they wasted Simmons' talent on a story that doesn't remotely ring true.

[Don Lewis]

Gotta say, I totally disagree with Glenn and Richard Brody on the WHIPLASH reviews. I'm somewhat educated in jazz (I listen to it frequently on a local radio show here and had a great undergrad class on it) but am by no means an expert. I found that aspect of it (ie; me not knowing ALL the finer points) really added to my experience because I felt lost, as did Andrew whenever Fletcher was breathing down his neck. Was he dragging or rushing? I had no clue and not knowing added to the tension of those scenes. Was he doing CARAVAN correctly? I had no idea and that feeling made me feel tapped into Andrew who never really seemed to know where he stands either.

I mean, I GET why huge jazz fans could be put off by the lack of jazz education on display but that hardly seems to really matter both in terms of if the themes are allegorical or not. To dismiss the film because Andrew idolizes Buddy Rich, as Richard Brody does, really seems to miss the point of an intense, extremely entertaining and well rounded film.

[Thomas Fuchs]

I had the complete opposite response to these two movies (Birdman felt as aggressively lacking in substance as the movies it's mocking, whereas Whiplash proved utterly immersive), but I appreciate this perspective a lot. Great work, Glenn!

[Kalen Egan]

I thought it was fairly obvious that Fletcher's methods are, essentially, psychotic... Chazelle is telling a story, and I think the premise of the story is that this teacher has pathologically fixed ideas about music, perfection, greatness, etc., which he uses as a pretext to abuse a constantly rotating classroom full of students. That he honestly believes he's doing so in order to find (or create) a world-class player is his issue, not the film's. That Miles Teller's character falls for it so much that he actually becomes the thing-- at least for a minute there, right at the end-- that JK Simmons has been telling himself was possible, is either tragic or extraordinary, depending on how you want to interpret it for yourself.

So I really don't get how people are watching this movie and reading it as a general statement about jazz, or even competition. I think it's pretty clearly about two people, at different points in their lives, who find a kind of sick-but-perfect symbiotic relationship. It's almost Cronenbergian. There's so much to think about in terms of what kind of a man the JK Simmons character must actually be in order to do what he does, and how of course his perfect prey would be the young and idealistic, who haven't yet developed any sense of nuance about the world...

Anyway, I found the movie crazily engrossing on these levels, and an amazing display of directing and acting virtuosity on top of that, and never once thought I was supposed to be taking away a message about how real life jazz music works.

[george]

http://thedissolve.com/features/exposition/807-the-cheapening-of-independent-film/

"The cheapening of independent film"

Instead of releasing indie films to theaters, the Weinsteins are now giving them away for free. Glad BIRDMAN and WHIPLASH got theatrical releases. A year from now, who knows?

[Kurzleg]

"I thought it was fairly obvious that Fletcher's methods are, essentially, psychotic... Chazelle is telling a story, and I think the premise of the story is that this teacher has pathologically fixed ideas about music, perfection, greatness, etc., which he uses as a pretext to abuse a constantly rotating classroom full of students. That he honestly believes he's doing so in order to find (or create) a world-class player is his issue, not the film's."

Perhaps. Is the world of "Whiplash" an invented world, and transparently so? Or is the setting more or less meant to reflect "real life?" If it's the latter, then these jazz-related details matter to the extent that getting them wrong undermines the credibility of the story. One would have to assume it's meant to reflect real life because the film references real people (Buddy Rich!) and a song standard (Caravan). More importantly, one presumes that the viewer is meant to take what transpires seriously.

It's a fair point that most people won't notice the mis-steps like a serious jazz musician idolizing Buddy Rich, or won't know that solitary study isn't the way jazz musicians typically develop and improve. But if that's true, then most people wouldn't notice if Jo Jones or Art Blakey were instead the idols, and they'd accept a reality where musicians study and learn collectively at least some of the time. The same story could be told but with an authenticity that buttresses the film for those who are informed on this subject instead of undermining it for them. Citing Buddy Rich as a pinnacle of jazz artistry strikes me as either 1) lazy, or 2) monumentally uninformed, which is more or less the same as 1.

[Arizona]

Late on this, but just saw the film. I think it has its share of issues, but I don't think the film really presents or endorses the idea that jazz musicians don't practice with each other. It seems pretty clear that the movie is about a very isolated individual, who is from the start is having a rough transition into the social and academic life of higher education. The early scenes are not subtle about this (other players' pre-rehearsal small talk/shit talk amplified on the soundtrack, Teller avoiding the party next door to sit alone in his room, Teller longingly observing a romantic embrace before rehearsal, etc.). Heck, there's even a clunky piece of dialogue where Teller is asked point blank if he has any friends.

I don't think there's much evidence that the other musicians aren't engaging in different forms of practice and study. We don't follow his peers at all; from the start we're following someone who is substantially disconnected from his fellow musicians. It seems pretty central to the film that this makes the Teller character more vulnerable to his mentor's ideology (and abuse).

Yeah, some of the jazz details took me out of the movie (particularly when the Simmons character namedrops Buddy Rich, which is a lot less explicable than a 18-year-old student doing so). But ultimately I tend to agree with Karol Egan's assessment above.

[george]

Today's weird cinema news, from the Associated Press:

Sober directors fears he won’t make more films

Provocative Danish director Lars von Trier says he fears he won’t make any more movies since sobering up, because his award-winning films were made while intoxicated.

In his first interview in three years, von Trier told Saturday’s edition of Danish daily Politiken that he no longer drinks a bottle of vodka a day or takes “narcotics” that had helped him enter “a parallel world.”

Because of sobering up, von Trier says: “I don’t know whether I can make more films. And that haunts me.”

In 2011, the director of “Nymphomaniac” and “Breaking the Waves” was ejected from the Cannes Film Festival after expressing sympathy with Adolf Hitler. He later said he had been joking, and said he would no longer speak in public.