 Probably the first thing that you associate Birdman or the unexpected virtue of ignorance with is the shooting style. The seemingly uninterrupted long take moving you around the theater in the streets of New York, but before the take begins, we're shown two seemingly unrelated images, a shooting star in a sea of dead jellyfish. As the film progresses, these images start to gain a bigger meaning, as we learn more about the characters and their personal struggles. But before any characters are fleshed out, the film first critiques the modern world. In it, everyone is obsessed with the idea of high art versus low art. Despite Reagan's career being based around big budget comic book adaptations, he still looks down on the media. The world has conditioned him to think that there is a hierarchy of art. In order to make anything of yourself, you need to fit into the upper group. The modern world has twisted art to take a backseat to commercialism. Ben and Jake aren't interested in what Mike can bring to their play. They're interested in him because he can fill a theater. And even though he is tricky to work with, they're willing to put up with that discomfort for commercial success. Nobody cares about how good anything is. Instead they care about what people think of their work. Do critics like it and does it sell tickets? This focuses on what other people think of them and remaining relevant. Reagan even liked playing Birdman. He was good at it, but because of how others viewed it, he chose to leave that part of his life behind. In the world of Birdman, everybody is trying to remain relevant to try and make their part of show business history. It's here that the first images from the beginning start to make sense of a shooting star burning out. This is one of the more ambiguous parts of the movie, but I always took it to be a representation of Reagan's dwindling star power. His career is coming to an end, and as the world gets ready to leave him behind, he knows that he only has one real attempt to try and stay relevant. Throughout the film, Reagan searches to find his purpose in life. He has been conditioned to associate his career with his purpose. Throughout the film we see him push away relationships with his daughter, girlfriend, ex-wife, and friends to focus on the play. Bear in mind, the play as the character is looking for the same answers that Reagan searches for. And despite him finding them in the play and saying what he needs to do to be happy, he doesn't take that advice offstage. Instead, he is caught up in his perceptions of what others think he should be doing. Trying to turn into someone who can please everybody. Reagan gives everything for the play. He sacrifices money, his house, his relationships with others, yet it isn't working out. Despite how personally he tries to make the play, ultimately he is still an actor pretending to be someone else. It isn't until he chooses to make the ultimate sacrifice to others truly appreciate his work. During the final performance, Reagan tries to kill himself, the same as his onstage character. And although he was unsuccessful, the ability of him to blend reality and fantasy gains him universal acclaim from critics. The irony being the critics are praising the excessive and unnecessary violence that they used to look down on back when he played Birdman. The film helps to blend the line between reality and fantasy through the long take shooting style. The camera moves along as if we're in a dream, but it also goes further than that. A lot has already been said about the parallels in casting. All three leads in this movie have spent some time working in superhero films. And Reagan Thompson's Birdman is a very obvious parallel to Michael Keaton's Batman. However, it goes well beyond that. Throughout the film, it oftentimes is not made clear whether watching characters interact with one another or characters act on stage. Does that sound like love to you? Sorry, I'm late. And of course, Reagan's Birdman hallucinations also do the same to help blend reality and fantasy. Both Birdman and Mel, his onstage character, embody what Reagan searches for. Birdman ultimately wants fame. Reagan's career is an important part of his identity. But as he falls further into obscurity in the public eye, he leaves Birdman behind and instead turns to the search with Mel, who's looking for love. In order to understand Reagan's search for love, we need to first explore the character of Mike. Popular, popularity is this bloody little cousin of prestige, my friend. Mike has a similar problem, whereas Reagan struggles to distinguish between reality and fantasy, Mike sees no purpose in doing anything offstage. He's an incredible actor onstage, but offstage, he's a terrible person. That's really good. That's really good. Crazy. He doesn't care about anybody else. He only exists to act, and only through acting does he find any purpose. He doesn't act because offstage, it brings him satisfaction. He acts because onstage is the only place where he can feel emotion and connect with others. Like I said, it's important to understand the contrast between Reagan and Mike. Both are obsessed with their careers and have given up seemingly everything for them. But outside of his career, Reagan still has a purpose, to connect with the people that he loves, to make up with and apologize for his actions in the past. He is more than the characters that he plays. He is a real person, unlike Mike, who only exists through fictional people. Reagan was not a good father to Sam. He continues to neglect her, not treating her as a real person, but instead just another complication in his life. What do you do? She's my sister. Work's fine. In this scene, Sam literally yells at Reagan what he needs to do to be happy. You are doing this because you want to feel relevant again. And yet, he refuses to listen. It isn't until he is able to satisfy his yearnings for a career through Birdman is he able to focus on what is really important with Sam. Following the success with the play, he no longer cares about Hollywood or success or anything like that. Reagan, this is what you wanted. Yeah. Yeah, this is what I wanted. He got what he wanted only to realize that it wasn't what he wanted. And now he can focus on what he really wants. In the last 10 minutes of the movie, he did what he was unable to do in the first hour and 50. Connect with his daughter and share a real intimate moment with her. Once he is able to brush aside Birdman, he is able to find something special in life. The last 25 minutes of the movie are full of ambiguity and there never was a real answer given. Writer and director Alejandro G. and Ritu stated that it can be interpreted as many ways as there are seats in the theater. So keep that in mind when I tell you my interpretation. I think that Reagan has always been dead. Or at least when he tried to commit suicide earlier. I tried to drown myself. He was successful. And everything we have been watching is his attempt to rationalize existence as he is stuck in a state of purgatory, hovering in between life and death. This is what the jellyfish from the opening clip represent. Someone or something dead in the water. Only when he sees his mortality is he able to realize what is truly important. It's not show business, it's not Hollywood, and it's not relevancy. It's family. And once he connects with Sam, he has achieved his purpose in life. Hey everyone, I hope you enjoyed. I think Birdman is one of the best, if not the best movie released so far this decade. There's so much to discuss both on a technical and a thematic level. I hope I was able to at least start a conversation in the latter. One that I would love to see continued in the comments below. So be sure to drop a comment to get your thoughts out there. If you're not subscribed yet, be sure to hit that subscribe button to check out my last video where we explored the deer hunter in the Russian roulette sequence. Thanks for watching and I will see you next week.