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In Reply to: RE: 'Bird Man': It's a happening! posted by Billy Wonka on November 14, 2014 at 13:54:45
and sensationalizing had taken this melodrama into the Land of the Incredulous.
While the film makes a repetitive point of criticizing blockbusters for being so over-the-top, it does the same with its approach (even throwing in some FX, to boot).
The director had the smarts to quote Shakespeare, but obviously never read the Bard's quotation about acting:
"Speak the speech I pray you as I pronounced it to you,
trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth it as many of your players
do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the
air too much with your hand thus, but use all gently; for in the
very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of your passion,
you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it
smoothness. Oh, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious
periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split
the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of
nothing but inexplicable dumb-shows and noise. I would have such
a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant — it out-Herods Herod.
Pray you avoid it.
First Player: I warrant your honour.
Hamlet: Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your
tutor. Suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this
special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature. For
anything so o'erdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end both
at the first and now, was and is, to hold as 'twere, the mirror up
to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image,
and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure. Now
this overdone, or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful
laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve, the censure of the
which one must in your allowance o'erweigh a whole theatre of
others. Oh, there be players that I have seen play, and heard others
praise and that highly, not to speak it profanely, that neither having
the accent of Christians nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man,
have so strutted and bellowed that I have thought some of nature's
journeymen had made men, and not made them well, they imitated
humanity so abominably."
Hamlet
Follow Ups:
Did we see the same show? Does cutting and pasting Shakespeare count for big points? You are a lot like the theater critic--are you doing a reprise of her role?
and then a second-act of ridiculous fantasy.
It is tragic that the first hour or so was so very good with astonishing tour-de-force performances, and then the rest sank into Hollywood-itis: every act had to try and be louder and more over-the-top to hold a "target audiences" attention as the two hour mark approached.
The telekinesis stuff was dumb, too. The director must have considered throwing his kitchen sink into it.
of what I see. Have a nice life.
d
Keaton — in a wonderfully raw, dark and vulnerable performance — plays aging actor Riggan Thomson, who earned fame and wealth decades ago playing a superhero, Birdman. His fans want more; he’s moved on.
Any parallels here with Keaton, star of two “Batman” films a quarter-century ago, are purely intentional.
In a bid to restore his sense of self-worth, and perhaps to exorcise the demon of Birdman — a tall order, since, uh, the superhero still regularly speaks to him in his head — Riggan’s putting on a show. It’s a Broadway adaptation of a Raymond Carver tale, which Riggan himself has written, is starring in and directing.
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“I will destroy your play,” she hisses to him, acknowledging that she doesn’t even plan to see it first. Not to overly defend critics, but let’s just say that this melodramatic plotline feels like a rare false note in the script.
There are other flaws. Watts’ character seems to drop prematurely from view, as do some tantalizing relationships that we really wanted to know more about.
But there’s so much that is there. “Birdman,” more than most, seems a film that deserves a second viewing, not only to admire the work of Keaton and his co-stars, but to delve into its many layers.
---
Typical good to great review just like the 94% rating on the Tomato.
referencing.
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"E Burres Stigano"
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