{"id":1792,"date":"2017-09-18T12:26:15","date_gmt":"2017-09-18T12:26:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/?p=1792"},"modified":"2017-09-18T12:26:15","modified_gmt":"2017-09-18T12:26:15","slug":"a-video-essay-birdman-or-fantasy-hopscotch-not-played-very-often","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/2017\/09\/18\/a-video-essay-birdman-or-fantasy-hopscotch-not-played-very-often\/","title":{"rendered":"A Video Essay: Birdman or Fantasy Hopscotch, Not Played Very Often"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Medi\u00e1tico<em> is delighted to present an inaugural post by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.american.edu\/cas\/faculty\/middents.cfm\">Jeffrey Middents<\/a>, Associate Professor of Literature at American University in Washington, DC, where he teaches transnational film and literature. His previous video essay work has been published in <\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/mediacommons.futureofthebook.org\/intransition\/2016\/por-qu-me-miras\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">[in]Transition<\/a><em>. He has also published widely on<\/em>\u00a0<em>Latin American cinema including a monograph on Peruvian film culture<\/em> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dartmouth.edu\/~library\/digital\/publishing\/books\/middents2009\/?mswitch-redir=classic\">Writing National Cinema: Film Journals and Film Culture in Peru<\/a> <em>(2009)<\/em>\u00a0on\u00a0<em>documentary aesthetics in the work of Chilean filmmaker Particio Guzm\u00e1n <\/em>(2005).\u00a0His<em> current book project examines Alfonso Cuar\u00f3n and transnational auteurism.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Birdman, or Fantasy Hopscotch, Not Played Very Often: A Video Essay\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/227507841?dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" width=\"470\" height=\"313\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture; clipboard-write\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Birdman<\/em>, or (Fragmentary <em>Hopscotch<\/em>, Not Played Very Often)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>by Jeffrey Middents, American University<\/p>\n<p>Julio Cort\u00e1zar\u2019s 1962 novel <em>Rayuela<\/em>\u00a0(Hopscotch)\u00a0is said to have influenced much of the work of Mexican director Alejandro Gonz\u00e1lez I\u00f1\u00e1rritu. For the most part, <em>Hopscotch<\/em> has been mentioned by critics in regard to the fragmentation intrinsic to the narrative structure of his first three films: <em>Amores perros<\/em> (2001), <em>21 Grams <\/em>(2003) and <em>Babel <\/em>(2006). For instance, J. Hoberman in his <em>Village Voice<\/em> review of <em>21 Grams<\/em> explicitly states, \u201cThe movie\u2019s temporal logic is associative rather than structural \u2013 closer to chestnuts like Alain Resnais\u2019s <em>Last Year at Marienbad<\/em> or the Julio Cort\u00e1zar novel <em>Hopscotch<\/em> than the recent brainteaser <em>Memento<\/em> and <em>Irreversible<\/em>\u201d (Hoberman 2003). A good portion of this association with the Argentine novelist comes from the filmmaker himself. In an interview with Celestino Deleyto and Mar\u00eda del Mar Azcona published in 2010, Gonz\u00e1lez I\u00f1\u00e1rritu says \u201c[S]crambled narratives are quite common in Latin American literature: Julio Cort\u00e1zar, Jorge Luis Borges, Ernesto S\u00e1bato \u2013 they are all writers I was really impressed with when I first read them. I guess that navigating between parallel stories is something very common to Latin American literature\u201d (2010: 129). He cites this influence again as a response to a question about his earlier films in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/entertainment\/movies\/moviesnow\/la-et-mn-alejandro-gonzalez-inarritu-retrospective-20150203-story.html\">a 2015 interview<\/a> following the release of <em>Birdman, or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)<\/em>: \u201cin that literature there\u2019s always an exploration of different perspectives, points of view. That style is integrated into the very substance of the story. I was very affected by that idea \u2013 to understand the complexity of one single event through the perspectives of many different characters\u201d (Ali 2015). With <em>Biutiful <\/em>(2010), a film where the narrative follows a single character\u2019s perspective in a single city, the associations with <em>Hopscotch<\/em> stops.<\/p>\n<p><em>Birdman, or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) <\/em>(2014) introduces what appears to be a narrative departure for I\u00f1\u00e1rritu: a feature film that appears as a single, uninterrupted take. [1.Let us grant for a moment that this actually is not true: the film actually begins with a hard cut from what appears to be a falling Icarus figure; there is a fully edited dream-like montage sequence after Riggan (Michael Keaton) shoots himself, returning to the Icarus figure; and it is acknowledged that the uninterrupted takes are actually <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=XxXWs74dKnE\">a clever digital disguise<\/a>.]\u00a0The filmmaker claims to be influenced by a different Argentine literary work, specifically Ernesto S\u00e1bato\u2019s novel <em>The Tunnel<\/em>: \u201cEverything in there is stream of consciousness with no commas or dots. It\u2019s like a runaway train.\u201d Despite his claim, however, the final shot, as my video essay suggests, supports a connection back to Cort\u00e1zar\u2019s <em>Hopscotch<\/em> that allows for an examination about the cinematic form itself.<\/p>\n<p>From its\u00a0release in the early 1960s <em>Hopscotch<\/em> has been considered a fresh departure for the novel as a form, the \u201cparadigm for a revolution in literature,\u201d as Beatr\u00edz Sarlo notes in her contribution to Franco Moretti\u2019s vast treatise on <em>The Novel<\/em> \u2013 by its blatant fragmentation (2007: 920). Right at the start, Cort\u00e1zar challenges the very idea of how to even read the book by forcing the reader to choose between two methods outlined in the infamous \u201cTable of Instructions\u201d:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px\">In its own way, this book consists of many books, but two books above all.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px\">The first can be read in a normal fashion and it ends with Chapter 56, at the close of which there are three garish little stars which stand for the words <em>The End<\/em>. Consequently, the reader may ignore what follows with a clear conscience<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px\">The second should be read by beginning with Chapter 73 and then following the sequence indicated at the end of each chapter. (Cort\u00e1zar 1966) [2.\u00a0There is no page reference for the &#8220;Table of Instructions&#8221; because the frontismatter is not paginated at all. None of it, not even with lower-case Roman numerals.The same is true with the Spanish version of the text.]<\/p>\n<p>Generally, novels are read linearly, from front to back as a single, uninterrupted text \u2013 even as they are broken up into chapters. By subverting this very mode of reading, Cort\u00e1zar calls attention to the idea of chapters contributing to the fragmented nature of the novel as a form. At the same time, while seemingly granting the reader a choice, the Instructions actually steer the reader into a <em>very<\/em> precisely organized reading. Why, for instance, would anyone ever think to start with chapter 73, or follow it with chapter 1, if not for the suggestion in the Instructions? The fragmentation actually compels the reader to consider the form of the linear narrative itself.<\/p>\n<p>I contend that this experimentation with and exposure of form is what I\u00f1\u00e1rritu has actually borrowed from his readings of Cort\u00e1zar and that both this experimentation and exposure are explored in <em>Birdman<\/em> by removing cinema&#8217;s most basic tool of grammar: the cut. Unlike the novel, cinema <em>depends<\/em> on narrative suturing that occurs over cuts (or other transitions between takes). Most of his earlier works are sharply edited \u2013 <em>Babel<\/em> most notably juxtaposes the four storylines in the three locations (Morroco, Mexico and Japan) \u2013 to bring meaning to particularly fragmented storylines [2. See Dolores Tierney (2009) for an exploration of how editing between different stories in <em>Amores perros<\/em>,\u00a0<em>21 Grams <\/em>and\u00a0<em>Babel\u00a0<\/em>bring meaning to the different stories]. One can argue, however, that this is merely using the cinematic form the way it is meant to be rendered: D.W. Grifith, Sergei Eisenstein and Lev Kuleshov taught film viewers early on about how to create meaning by putting shots next to one another. By \u201cremoving\u201d the cuts, <em>Birdman<\/em> becomes a truly experimental piece that calls attention to how we otherwise read movies in general.<\/p>\n<p>This desire for experimentation-as-commentary-on-form is expressed within the diegesis of the film itself<em>.<\/em> <em>New York Times <\/em>critic Tabitha (Lindsey Crouse) threatens to destroy Riggan\u2019s (Michael Keaton) play and career. But when he shoots his own nose off, on opening night, both his play and his career receive an unexpected boost. When it is published the morning after, Tabitha&#8217;s review, titled \u201cThe Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance,\u201d reveals itself as the source of the film\u2019s subtitle and, as such, the key passage that Riggan\u2019s wife Sylvia (Amy Ryan) reads aloud references the importance of recognizing and then radicalizing art forms:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px\">[Riggan] Thompson has unwittingly given birth to a new form which can only be described as &#8216;superrealism.&#8217; Blood was spilled both literally and metaphorically by artist and audience alike. Real blood: the blood that has been sorely missing from the veins of the American Theater.<\/p>\n<p>In my reading, <em>Birdman <\/em>tips its hat to <em>Hopscotch<\/em> as inspirational source by providing a similar ending: both Cort\u00e1zar and Gonz\u00e1lez I\u00f1\u00e1rritu \u201cend\u201d their narratives by having the protagonists (Riggan and Oliveira) seemingly jump out windows. In the video essay \u201c<em>Birdman<\/em> (or, Fantasy Hopscotch, Not Played Very Often,\u201d which begins this post the last three minutes of the film are accompanied by a voice-over overlaying two passages from <em>Hopscotch<\/em> that explicitly reference the titular game. The second passage (beginning as Riggan steps outside the window) features the entire last paragraph of Chapter 56, the apocryphal chapter which ends with \u201cthe garish stars which stand for the words <em>The End<\/em>.\u201d Of course, the words that immediately precede the stars in the English translation are \u201cpaff the end\u201d (Cort\u00e1zar 1966: 348-49); the original Spanish ends with \u201cpaff se acab\u00f3,\u201d which has the same meaning but does not quite have the same literary\/cinematic connotative ending of \u201cfin.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Throughout the book, however, Oliveira keeps discussing the game of hopscotch as a game in which one obsessively tries to get to heaven. In the video essay, the first passage of the novel read over the last minutes of the film indicates:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px\">the worst part of it is that precisely at that moment, when practically no one has learned how to make the pebble climb up into Heaven, childhood is over all of a sudden and you\u2019re into novels, into the anguish of the senseless divine trajectory, into the speculation about another Heaven that you have to learn how to reach too (Cort\u00e1zar 1966: 214).<\/p>\n<p>Cort\u00e1zar, however, offers the reader something outside of the \u201csenseless diving trajectory.\u201d The 99 chapters that physically follow the words \u201cthe end\u201d offer another possibility, a narrative that, because it breaks with the form of the novel, also allows for an indefinite conclusion. The \u201csecond version,\u201d in fact, ends not in Oliveira\u2019s death, but rather in a narrative loop between two chapters (58 and 131).\u00a0<em>Birdman <\/em>ends similarly: Riggan is seen going out onto the balcony of his hospital room, but we do not see him fall \u2013 and, instead, his daughter Sam (Emma Stone) first looks down in horror, then slowly looks up into the clouds with joyful wonder. Towards the end of a film that has refused to use the most basic element of cinematic grammar, it finally cuts to black and the credits begin &#8212; but even then, we hear Sam offer up an incredulous laugh. Can we believe these characters have literally risen above in the air,\u00a0that they have reached the Cortazarian \u201cheaven\u201d? Do they jump \u2013 or do we believe the unbelievable, that they can stay in a limbo transfixed by fiction? <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cinemablend.com\/new\/Birdman-Ending-Why-Obscure-Final-Shot-Makes-Total-Sense-69883.html\">Many<\/a>\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/screenrant.com\/birdman-ending-explained-spoilers-riggan-dead\/\">have<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thecinemaholic.com\/birdman-explained\/\">speculated<\/a> about the meaning of the film\u2019s ending \u2013 and neither the director nor his co-screenwriters have <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2014\/11\/25\/birdman-ending_n_6219290.html\">fully answered the question<\/a>s the ambiguous ending poses \u2013 but perhaps a \u201cfantasy hopscotch, not played very often\u201d (214) as I have explained it here, embodies an ending, which is simultaneously also not an ending.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>References<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Ali, Lorraine. \u201cQ&amp;A: Alejandro G. I\u00f1\u00e1rritu on directing his own career.\u201d <em>The Los Angeles Times<\/em>. February 3, 2015.<\/p>\n<p>Ananda, Gautum. \u201c\u2018Birdman Ending, Explained.\u201d <em>The Cinemaholic<\/em>. April 20, 2015.<\/p>\n<p>Buxton, Ryan. \u201c\u2018Birdman\u2019 Screenwriters Discuss the Film\u2019s Ambiguous Ending.\u201d <em>Huffington Post<\/em>. November 25, 2014.<\/p>\n<p>Cort\u00e1zar. Julio. <em>Hopscotch<\/em>. Gregory Rabassa, transl. New York: Pantheon Books, 1966.<\/p>\n<p>Cowden, Catarina. \u201cThe Birdman Ending: Why That Obscure Final Shot Makes Total Sense.\u201d <em>Cinema Blend<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Deleyto, Celestino and Mar\u00eda de Mar Azcona. <em>Alejandro Gonz\u00e1lez I\u00f1arritu<\/em>. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2010.<\/p>\n<p>Hoberman, J. \u201cHeaven Can Weight.\u201d <em>The Village Voice<\/em>. November 18, 2003.<\/p>\n<p>Kendrick, Ben \u201c\u2018Birdman\u2019 Ending Explained.\u201d <em>Screen Rant<\/em>. April 5, 2015.<\/p>\n<p>Sarlo, Beatr\u00edz. \u201c<em>Hopscotch<\/em>.\u201d Linda Phillips, transl. In <em>The Novel, Volume 2: Forms and Themes<\/em>. Franco Moretti, ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007. 919-925.<\/p>\n<p>Tierney, Dolores &#8220;Alejandro Gonz\u00e1lez I\u00f1\u00e1rritu: Director Without Borders&#8221;\u00a0<em>New Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film <\/em>2010,\u00a07.2, 101-107.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cVariety Artisans: The Seamless Look of \u2018Birdman.\u201d <em>Variety<\/em>. November 4, 2014.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Medi\u00e1tico is delighted to present an inaugural post by Jeffrey Middents, Associate Professor of Literature at American University in Washington,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":1794,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[129,131,220,219,218],"class_list":["post-1792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-film","tag-alejandro-gonzalez-inarritu","tag-birdman","tag-hopscotchrayuela","tag-julio-cortazar","tag-or-the-unexpected-virtue-of-ignorance"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/files\/2017\/08\/Birdman-EmmaStone-BigEyes.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p49QSj-sU","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1792"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1792\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1819,"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1792\/revisions\/1819"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}