04.28.23 (+ an analysis on birdman)
Your resident creative's monthly (ish) digest.
Loving:
Starting off the morning with matcha. Four Sigmatic’s adaptogenic blend is life-changing (when you can’t go to your favorite local coffee shop).
Soaking in April’s sun and showers. Trying to be outside as much as humanly possible.
A fresh crudité platter, on a picnic table, (wait for it,) at sunset.
Per the crudité platter: mini bell peppers, mini cucumbers, radishes, and roasted garlic hummus.
Crown Heights, Brooklyn (!)
Recreating album covers and celebrating the release of a new album with fellow Beach House lovers. (Music is such a connective force and I just won’t shut up about it.)
Breathwork.
Learning:
Eyecandy, a resource for visual techniques in the ad space pioneered by Jacobi Mehringer of W+K.
The 10,000 Steps Myth (huge fan of everything Maintainance Phase).
What’s inspiring others. A few of my favorite responses when asking around:
“Kendrick Lamar’s agency, pgLang,’s new work with Calvin Klein”
“The future of tech right now.”
“The people around me.”
“This weather!”
“Looking at my friend’s new photography.”
“Music that tells a story, specifically Mac Miller’s.”
“My wife and two kids.”
Listening:
The entirety of Become by Beach House (Specifically, Black Magic).
Haunted by Pinc Louds (Speechless here).
_
Ending this issue with my take on how the 2014 film, Birdman, touches on and discusses all things media. While this was an analysis written for class, if you’ve seen the film, it’s one I think you’ll find interesting, and one that I’m quite proud of. If you haven’t seen the film, watch it right. now.
TL;DR
“In each character’s own way, we find that perhaps it’s this confusion that leads them to their hardships. Trying to satiate a need for love with fame and admiration, a byproduct media so heartily gives, but doesn’t necessarily cure.”
Read the full piece below.
_
You’re Not Important, Get Used to It:
Exploring the Dichotomies within Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Innocence)
There are certain films that latch onto your subconscious and will stay there for quite a while. That film, for me, is Birdman. Seeing as it won Best Directing, Writing, Cinematography, and Picture in 2015, I contend many would agree. Throughout the film’s two-hour run-time, director Alejandro González Iñárritu shines a light on middle-aged Riggan Thompson, a Hollywood actor seeking to reinvent himself and escape his past role as the famed superhero, Birdman. He attempts this by directing and starring in his adaptation of a Broadway play, a decision markedly putting his reputation, and as we see later on, his life, on the line. Birdman is an exploration of the power media holds, or at least, the power we ascribe to it throughout our thirst for reinvention, fulfillment, and whether we recognize it or not- admiration.
Media in Birdman serves largely as a conduit for reinvention as seen through many characters in the film. Whether in Riggan’s attempt to re-establish his image in the industry or the other actors’ desperation to be seen “on Broadway,” the use of “art” to do so is the only answer seen.
We most closely follow Riggan’s journey as he seeks to redefine his name in the industry, and as we see him floating in his dressing room in the first scene, we quickly realize that there are parts of his Birdman past that will never disappear, and that will follow him to his ambiguous fate at the very end of the film. We learn more about his motivation to transition from a comical (albeit, successful) superhero to an artful playwright in a bar scene towards the beginning of the film with the villainous actor cast in his play, Mike Shiner. In this scene, Riggan explains the significance behind the author of the short story his adaptation is based on, Raymond Carver. As Riggan poignantly notes, Carver was the man who inspired him to become an actor after slipping Riggan a cocktail napkin with a note of encouragement on it back in Riggan’s childhood. In Riggan’s eyes, being able to bring one of Carver’s plays to life served as an homage to the man who brought him so much assurance to pursue his career as an actor, yet all Mike points out is that the note was nothing more than drunken words written on a cocktail napkin, one that Riggan ends up abandoning in a fit of rage at the same bar later on.
We see other characters throughout the film seeking this same sense of reinvention through the arts, such as the actors and actresses performing in the play alongside Riggan. For these characters, being “on Broadway” carries massive weight, and is a chance that’s worth sacrificing anything to get there. By shining a light on the not-so-glamourous aspects of show business throughout the film, Iñárritu makes a case for the lengths people will go to experience this admiration media brings, but is this admiration worth everything else that comes along with it? Lesley, an actress in Riggan’s play, confesses this frustration to fellow castmate, Laura in an intimate scene halfway through the film. “I'm pathetic,” Lesley says. “You know, I've dreamt of being a Broadway actress since I was a little kid. And now I'm here. And I'm not a Broadway actress. I'm still just a little kid. And I keep waiting for someone to tell me I made it.” This gut-wrenching scene shows us just how unfulfilling chasing fame can turn out to be, yet how badly so many want it. For Mike specifically, an actor who admits to being more himself when in character than in real life, this desire is clear. But as we see him struggle with bouts of anger and despair throughout the film, we’re left with a bitter taste in our mouths when thinking about the so-called life he’s made for himself on the stage.
This need for reinvention through media is further addressed in a comparison made by Riggan’s daughter, recovering drug addict Sam, in one of her many arguments with Riggan at the theater. Sam, frustrated by her father’s overwhelming obsession with the success of the play and his public appearance, ends up screaming that his dedication to making the play a hit is, despite his objections, “not for the sake of art. It’s because [he] [wants] to feel relevant again,” She continues to tell her father that [he’s] not important,” and that he “[needs] to get used to it.” This perspective is further expressed by Sam’s mother Sylvia, Riggan’s ex-wife, as the couple reflects on what led to the disintegration of their marriage. Sylvia, in what I believe to be one of the most impactful lines in the film, contends that in the end, Riggan seemed to “confuse love for admiration,” a vice that carries extensive weight throughout the film. In each character’s own way, we find that perhaps it’s this confusion that leads them to their hardships. Trying to satiate a need for love with fame and admiration, a byproduct media so heartily gives, but doesn’t necessarily cure.
This critique of an obsession with media in a quest for admiration can also be found through Riggan’s manager, Jake, played by Zack Galifianakis. Throughout the film, we see Jake, someone that Riggan believes to be a lifelong friend, continually enabling Riggan in his destructive behaviors brought on by the mentally-taxing nature of the play. Through this, we can see the lengths in which he goes to ensure that the play is a success. This is seen especially in the final preview of the play with what I consider to be the most jarring moment of the movie. Riggan, in a bout of torment, intentionally shoots himself in the face on stage, ending up in the hospital with a reconfigured nose. Instead of acknowledging the glaring reality of his friend’s attempted suicide, Jake visits him in the hospital that next morning only to obsess over the positive reviews in the paper (the reviews being another form of social commentary on Iñárritu’s part). This infatuation with praise and acclaim is markedly intoxicating for Jake as we see through his relationship with Riggan and the play throughout the film.
This vice of admiration versus love is also seen in Riggan’s play itself, as the dialogue we see revolves around two couples musing about what love actually is. Each character has their own take on the concept of the word and what it means to them, yet their justification and explanations get muddled as the play continues on, alcohol and violence making their way onto the stage and eventually leading to Riggan’s character’s suicide at the very end of the play. The fact that this was the play that Riggan decided to put on speaks volumes for the intention of the film, the absence and misunderstanding of love serving as grounds for the suffering and chaos to then ensue on and off the stage.
Another interesting concept within the film is Iñárritu’s comparison of different forms of media and how we compare and interact with them. This is primarily seen through the icy, acclaimed critic, Tabitha and her personal conviction to make sure that Riggan’s play receives an awful review. Her strong distaste for Riggan is solely based on the fact that he does not come from the theater, but from a superhero stint in Hollywood. In a conversation with Riggan at the same bar he visited with Mike, Tabitha expresses this distaste, explaining that the reason she wants to shut down the play without even having seen it is that in her eyes, Riggan “took-up space in a theater that otherwise might have been used on something worthwhile.” This fierce divide between the perception of Hollywood versus the theater is seen time and time again, but begs the question, can’t art simply be seen for art? In Birdman’s case, clearly not. Ultimately this leads us back to the original thread of admiration, a feeling of which those who identify primarily with traditional theater, refuse to share with outsiders alike.
I do believe that this interrogation of different media forms in Birdman perhaps serves as a ground for contradiction considering the medium in which it was produced (being a film critiquing the film and theater industry). Yet I also believe in the power of storytelling within the cinematic space, and that movies hold the potential to tell stories like Birdman in a way that other mediums can’t. By portraying the world of behind-the-scenes Broadway in such a raw, and real way as Iñárritu does, the audience is able to better understand the basis on which the film is built and all the intricacies that come with it. This is what I’d argue to be the intent of the message itself.
In all, Birdman is a fantastic film diving into the multifaceted relationship we hold with media. Through its execution, it so deeply explores how we willingly give media the power to shape how others perceive us and with that, how we perceive ourselves. Though many instances in the film lend to fiction, we can undoubtedly see this concept play out in our day-to-day lives, most especially through our use of social media. Social media and virality are concepts brought up in the film mostly by Sam and in Riggan’s unintentional streaking moment in Times Square, having immediate ties back to this concept of admiration and why our relationship with content creation and publication is so infatuating. Like Riggan, we all want to feel empowered in our identity and use whatever we can to shape it into how we want to be perceived. For Riggan, that meant staging a play, but that can also look like staging a post, story, or any means of curating an image for oneself. As we were reminded in “The Suspect Wore Louboutins,” people will go to extreme lengths to achieve the means in which they want to be perceived, whether that’s robbing celebrity homes or giving it all up for a chance on the stage.
The ability to create is the ultimate form of self-expression, and I do see media as a healthy outlet to do so, but when the determination to create is guided by the expectation of admiration-based self-fulfillment, problems, as seen in Birdman, arise. Towards the beginning of the film, we see a postcard with the message: “A thing is a thing, not what is said of that thing” on Riggan’s dressing room mirror. Put otherwise, we are who we are, not what others perceive us to be. This is the takeaway I believe Iñárritu wants us to leave the film remembering, and what media can lead us to forget. Yet I contend we will keep creating and consuming to the lengths seen in Birdman as long as our quest for admiration remains.
_