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I think one of the interesting things to me about the film's ending was that he was still Birdman. The Galifianakis character is telling him about all of the success, and licensed performances, and book deals this will result in. Riggan is back on top of the world, just like Birdman told him he would be. The critic's review The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance, is interchangeable with Birdman in the film's own title. And perhaps the most telling of all, his bandage is shaped exactly like the Birdman mask. By his act of shooting off of his nose, he has gotten back to the heights he enjoyed in the late 80s and early 90s. It's just that this time it's in the "other" spectrum of mass-consumed commercial entertainment: The theater world. And Riggan's entire arc has been hating himself for what all the "Birdman success" led to. The shooting isn't transforming himself into some sort of liberated and erudite artist, it's rocketing him right back to where he was before he tried to kill himself with the drowning: being Birdman. The fire and water imagery is interesting, in that they're both the origins of these two incarnations of Birdman. He's either flaming downward as some sort of Icarus in a billion dollar pyrotechnic extravaganza, or being stung by a bunch of jellyfish in an emotionally charged intimate drama shared by him and his estranged ex-wife. They're both two sides of the same coin however, designed to evoke something in the watcher of all of this: you. Some may prefer giant CGI birds and lasers, and others may prefer character vignette's showing "real" human emotion. But at the end of the day, Riggan is still the big mess of a star, right back where he started from. I consider the ending a happy one. As others have alluded to before, it's a liberating one. Not from his past, but from his current present. Everything about this play was just about becoming Birdman again, and he became it with gusto. By taking off the Birdman mask, and telling the Birdman in the bathroom "goodbye, Fucker" he can finally just step out of being Birdman altogether.
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Nov 30, 2014 00:47
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| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 13:50 |
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