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Blisster posted:
I'm a Carver fan and the overly dramatic readings kind of took me out of it. His work has always seemed much quieter to me. I know they had to make it theatrical and liven things up, but wonder why they went so over the top cartoony. If it was just to take another jab at the audience/critics and high/low art, I thought it was redundant. And why reduce the "success" of the play to a gimmick? You could still make the point about snooty audiences and have them won over by a brilliant production. The movie seemed to be saying that theater audiences and critics are right in thinking that Hollywood actors can't make a great play. Did he kill himself at the end because he realized that he had not succeeded in creating great art, and was just a hack actor after all? What we talk about when we talk about love: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/12/24/beginners
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Feb 28, 2015 22:07
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LORD OF BUTT posted:The point is that all that stuff is peripheral to whether it's good art. The Birdman stuff is silly, but that's not why it's bad art- it's bad art because it's soulless. The play is also silly, but Riggan is pouring every aspect of himself into it to the point of serious injury; there's the key difference. Right, but pouring one's soul into something doesn't necessarily make it good art either. Riggan poured his soul into it and created what seemed to be a nondescript play that would have died on the vine if not for him shooting himself in the face. Is he to be considered successful just because he did something from his soul instead of for a big Hollywood paycheck?
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Feb 28, 2015 22:19
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Maxwell Lord posted:I think it makes sense for the play to not be that great, and full of very 'actorly' things for the star to do to prove that he's a respectable thespian now. Like maybe it's good but it's amateurish in places and he's faithfully repeating words that work better as prose. Agree that it's tricky and that opinions are subjective, but it seems like they made it clear that this was not a first-rate production. The words may have been faithful to the prose but the readings were really hammed up, which I think most people caught, which seems to reinforce the notion that the critics were right, he's just a Hollywood actor that shouldn't be taken seriously- someone who only got accolades for a dumb gimmick.
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Feb 28, 2015 22:27
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But maybe him gaining notoriety and not legitimacy by walking in his underwear through Times Square and shooting off his nose was the point. Maybe he just didn't have the chops and it all fits together as a portrait of delusion. I guess the question is, what exactly was Riggan thinking before he went out the window?
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Feb 28, 2015 22:43
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LORD OF BUTT posted:That's basically what I took from the movie, yeah. It's not supposed to be realistic, the movie's a giant parable. It makes sense in that sense. Kind of reminds me of that old joke though: Mother: As long as you try your best, I don't care if you get Fs in school. Child: Really? Wouldn't that make it so much worse?
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Mar 1, 2015 05:36
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umalt posted:It seems like Riggan not really 'getting' Carver was a bit of characterization on his part. He didn't care for Carver because it resonated, it spoke to him; Riggan liked him because Carver gave Riggan 'legitimacy'. It goes back everything being about how Riggan sees the world; he chose to adapt "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love" because it was an ill-conceived attempt at going back to his roots and gain legitimacy. It was never because he liked Carver's work, or that it resonated with him. Interesting. I guess I read it differently. I thought Carver's work meant something to him on a deep level. Lots of lost and broken men in Carver's stories.
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Mar 1, 2015 07:19
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Cole posted:with a movie like this it is pretty silly to say it is one way or the other. Not sure what you mean. Is it all just a matter of personal interpretation?
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Mar 1, 2015 18:50
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Nakar posted:I think his inability to get Carver (regardless of whether he does like and read Carver) is part of the long-running dark comedy of the film. It certainly changes the nature of the story. It's one thing if he doesn't get Carver, and another if he gets him but can't make it work. The latter adds an additional layer of pathos and makes his desperation more compelling in my view. Nakar posted:The character he's playing in particular is an odd choice, and then there's the way he changed the script which isn't something you'd think someone who deeply respects a writer would do with their work. Agreed. while I think it's reasonable to allow for creative license in order to make the material more theatrical, I'm still trying to figure out what they were going for here. Nakar posted:As he mentions, Carver signing that napkin of his "inspired" him, not Carver's work itself. I think it again goes back to the idea of legitimacy and adoration, where he thought it was important not because of an inherent merit, but because of who it was that praised him. Notice that he shows Mike the napkin and Mike is unimpressed ("He was drunk") and then he tries to show it to the critic and she's having nothing of it. He then abandons the napkin in the bar and it's never seen again. I think it could be both the idea of legitimacy and the inherent merit of real art that's driving him. I took him abandoning the napkin as exasperation that nobody grasps the significance except him, not as him casually tossing it away as if it no longer had meaning. When Mike steals his napkin anecdote, it matters, it's not nothing, and I don't think that comes from just a desire to be seen as legitimate. Nakar posted:Carver's endorsement of his career means nothing if nobody will take it seriously, so he just gives up on it; alternately, it could be read that nobody cares about how much Riggan likes and respects some writer, everyone will shut down that side of him and will only respect him for Birdman. There's no shortage of people throughout the film who respect or admire Riggan, after all, it's just always for one thing, and none of them have probably ever heard of Raymond Carver. Right, he views that respect and admiration as superficial, and for all the Birdman hoopla, where did it get him? Broke, personal life in shambles, zero credibility as a true artist- not just in the eyes of critics and fans, but in his own eyes. He gave up everything for what he got, and this was his last chance to save his own life. Which, in my interpretation, he was unable to do.
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Mar 1, 2015 19:01
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 01:49 |
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Bown posted:That's what I take from it. This is a movie that spends a lot of its time on the fence and doesn't commit to any specific interpretations. Does he really feel like Carver's work speaks to him or is it just a reaction to receiving the childhood compliment? Does he really have powers or is he just crazy?* And so on. Agreed on the lack of specific interpretation. *I took it not so much as crazy as haunted by the past and regret.
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Mar 3, 2015 23:01
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