Iñárritu at the 52nd New York Film Festival. Photo by Barbara Anastacio
Alejandro G. Iñárritu's Birdman has been a darling of this year's Awards Season. The film, starring Michael Keaton, closed the 52nd New York Film Festival last October and is the focus of this week's edition of The Close-Up, the Film Society of Lincoln Center's weekly podcast series.
Formally titled Birdman Or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance, the film features Keaton as a washed-up actor, who once played an iconic superhero, but now battles his ego and attempts to recover his family, his career, and himself in the days leading up to the opening of a Broadway play.
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The feature has won multiple awards from critics groups and film organizations both in the U.S. and abroad, including two Golden Globe awards for Michael Keaton for Best Performance by an actor in a Motion Picture Comedy or Musical and Best Screenplay.
Birdman tied Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel with the most number of nominations at the 87th Academy Awards, which takes place this Sunday in Los Angeles. The film received nine nominations including Best Picture of the Year, Best Director for Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Best Lead Actor for Michael Keaton, Best Supporting Actor for Edward Norton, and Best Supporting Actress for Emma Stone.
Back in October, Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Michael Keaton, Edward Norton, Naomi Watts, Emma Stone, Zach Galifianakis, and Amy Ryan sat down before a packed house to discuss Birdman with New York Film Festival programming director Kent Jones hours before its official screening. That conversation is featured in this week's podcast.
