- Title: ITALY-VFF BIRDMAN INTERVIEWS A look inside the highly reviewed 'Birdman'
- Date: 28th August 2014
- Summary: VENICE, ITALY (AUGUST 27, 2014) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) DIRECTOR, ALEJANDRO GONZALEZ INARRITU, SAYING: "He's one of the few actors that really can handle and navigate through comedy and drama simultaneously which is what I wanted and so he has the graft to do that so it was clear for me that it will give the film a meta-language in a way, you know, so I was very fo
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- Topics: General
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- Story Text: Almost mirroring last year's launch of the Oscar-winning movie 'Gravity', 'Birdman', which opened the Venice film festival on Wednesday (August 27) received rave reviews and a lengthy standing ovation and looks set to follow 'Gravity''s award season trajectory.
While 'Gravity' was directed by Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron, 'Birdman' is also directed by Mexican film maker Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu.
'Birdman' follows washed-up Hollywood actor Riggan Thomson (Michael Keaton) as he tries to gain credibility for himself on Broadway by putting on a play with the last of his finances. The film displays a lot of actors' insecurities as the play is finalising its production before opening night.
Inarritu, who found international fame with 'Amores Perros' went on to make big budget movies with Hollywood actors, like '21 Grams' with Sean Penn and Naomi Watts, 'Babel' with Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett and 'Biutiful' with Javier Bardem.
Asked whether 'Birdman' was based on his own experiences making these movies with Hollywood actors, Inarritu replied "Yes absolutely. I think this was an opportunity for me to explore my own ego and my own experiences, my context and my circumstances so for me it became very personal and the context is I think... the circumstances that I've been around in the past 15 years is I think... The responsibility as an artist is exactly that to be able to express what you've been living and struggling with or even having fun with and I thought it was a good way to explore it, my own personal problems or flaws or weaknesses, funny and trying moments."
The central character of Riggan plays heavily on Keaton's own portrayal of Batman in the franchise started by Tim Burton, and for Inarritu this made him the perfect actor for the role.
"He's one of the few actors that really can handle and navigate through comedy and drama simultaneously which is what I wanted and so he has the graft to do that so it was clear for me that it will give the film a meta-language in a way, you know, so I was very fortunate to count with his trust, you know," he said.
The film sees Riggan struggle to cope with his floundering fame and his long-standing recognition but Keaton doesn't believe that the film is a criticism on Hollywood.
"I think Hollywood supplies an enormous amount of good to the world and it makes a lot of people very very happy frankly but they just don't want to admit it. They don't want to... It's so easy to criticise it and sometimes it deserves to be criticised but, you know, everything deserves to be criticised, you know, these days," he said during the press interviews.
His co-stars Emma Stone, who plays his daughter Sam, and Edward Norton, who plays his acting rival Mike, both admitted they were huge fans of Keaton with Stone saying "he's one of my favourite actors of all time. I watched 'Beetlejuice' on a loop pretty much every day growing up," and Norton admitting that he and co-star Zach Galiafinakis used to watch him in rehearsals in awe.
'Birdman' is expected to have a limited release in the United States in mid-October before beginning a global roll-out from January 2015.
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