The Unexpected Virtue of Goofs: Birdman’s Shifting Spaces from De Filmkrant on Vimeo.
Even Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Oscar-winning Birdman: Or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) has its goofs. In the scene when Riggan and Mike exit the St. James Theater onto 44th street, and the camera shifts to notice a street performer, for example, suddenly they are walking on 47th street. “It’s fun to notice these little hiccups because they show the seams in Birdman‘s single shot construction,” says Filmkrant critic Ronald Rovers in a new video essay. It’s even easier to pick out the tiny errors in the film’s fluid cinematography, from the impossible rooms to the button on Riggan’s shirt, he adds.
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“I think many of these discrepancies are simply there for narrative convenience,” says Rovers. “Filmmakers had to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible. So they stitched together shots from different locations.” The space of the theater and its surroundings doesn’t make logical sense, but rather, maintains a constant spatial shift. Birdman isn’t alone in its inconsistencies, however—Rovers compares the film to The Shining for its similarly beautiful, impossible movement.
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