Monday, January 12, 2015

Birdman - A clever portrayal of psychosis, black humour injected with fantasy, or an attempt to demonstrate the psychological fragility of actors in general?

I saw Birdman on the weekend. I'd like to see it again now that I know it was up for an award in the Comedy or Musical section at the Golden Globes.  I didn't realise it was either, although there were definitely a lot of quite funny bits (I won't spoil it for you by detailing them).


To me, a Psychologist and Mediator, the lead role of Riggan Thomson, brilliantly played by Michael Keaton, is that of a late middle aged actor feeling washed up and surrendering, at times in dramatic style, to his alter ego Birdman - a character of his from a successful series of science fiction/super hero type films.


Riggan presents as being in the grip of psychotic visual and auditory hallucinations, delusions of grandeur and paranoid ideation and demonstrates an obvious cognitive blurring of the line between reality and fantasy.


At least, he did until the last scene .....


What do others think?


Could any of the many "interesting" characters in this movie have been helped by timely mediation or therapeutic counselling?


By the way, I have just discovered that congratulations are in order for Michael Keaton for winning "Best Actor in a Comedy" at the Golden Globes.

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