Best Picture Winner
Filmmaking is farcical, and movies are some of the best lies we tell. They stake a claim on reality while being anything but true. The standard Hollywood approach would be to carefully craft a film to suspend an audience's disbelief, but not Birdman. Here Inarritu has exposed the potential of film and by doing so expertly blurred the lines between what is real and what is surreal.
Birdman tells the story of Riggan (Keaton), a fading superhero actor who is seeking some form of redemptive catharsis through an attempt at the stage. So we are given a man at a fatal breaking point surrounded by all the wonderful dysfunction that the craft of theater presents. He has the classic fettering producer (Galifianakis), his egocentric Broadway star (Norton), and a drug addled emotionally suppressed daughter (Stone) all of whom come in and out of Riggins world supplying much of the chaos he is trying to negotiate. All of this is presented through one false continuous shot allowing for seamless transitions from what could be real to what most certainly isn't.
From the opening shot where Riggan is floating in meditation to his ultimate ascent to the unknown beyond, the film implies that a total submission to one's artistic work may in fact be insane but also provides a shot at nirvana. A degree of spirituality is necessary in art and when you succumb to that lifestyle you may, dare I say, make something of yourself, and I do believe Inarritu has found that transcendence. Birdman is written with a real understanding of the world and percussively marches forward with no apology. This is portrayed by a number of great performances with Michael Keaton leading the charge in a brilliantly manic fashion.
Overall: This is my favorite film of 2014. Inarritu is unabashedly indulgent and this is his greatest ode to filmmaking to date. All of it is real, and none of it is: a perfect beautiful lie.
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