Hi, I'm Michael and welcome to Beyond the Screenplay, the podcast for each week we do a conversational deep dive analysis into a film.

Today we're talking about Birdman or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance, directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Iniarito, written by Alejandro Gonzalez Iniarito, Nicholas

Jacoboni, Alexander Dinolaurus, Jr. and Armando Boe. Based on the play by Raymond Carver.

I'm joined by the Beyond the Screenplay team, Trisha Arandt. Hello, everybody. Brian Bittner.

Hello, hello. And Alex Cayetos. Hi. We've had a lot of very long movie titles and like screenwriters this year already.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Bond, the Lord of the Rings, the Return of the Kid.

But I'm excited to be talking about Birdman because this is one of the most requested screenplays for lessons from the screenplay.

Interestingly enough.

And I remember when I started

to see all those requests on the channel, I was like, well, I saw Birdman and I liked it, but I wasn't

obsessed with it the way that it seems like so many people were. And so it was really interesting

to finally revisit it and see it because I hadn't seen it since theaters. And watching it last night throughout the movie, I was kind of saying to myself,

is this one of my favorite movies?

Like, do I love this movie?

Because I think I do.

Yeah.

And so it was really interesting to go on that journey.

And I think one of the things that held me back the first time was the

long takiness and the cinematography, which we can talk about, where I can't help but on especially

a first viewing of something that is presenting itself as if it's all one shot to be constantly

looking for the stitches or how are they

doing that or doing this effect.

...