Alejandro González Iñárritu
Westerns are brilliant because, like all great genres, they possess a wealth of contrast; while…
“Literature is invention. Fiction is fiction. To call a story a true story is an insult to both art and truth.
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discovered I had not lived. — Walden (Henry David Thoreau) Set in the remote wilderness of Montana and South Dakota in the 1820s, director Alejandro Iñárritu’s biographical western, The Revenant, follows fur trapper Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his remarkable quest of survival and retribution. Having been mauled by a bear and left for dead, Glass must find a strength and resolve to overcome the elements and fight his way back to civilization while attempting to have a cathartic release from his experiences.
“I ain’t afraid to die anymore.” Especially when you want that Oscar so bad, right Leo? Kidding.
Michael Keaton is one of those “If only he was given a chance, he could have done great things” type of guys. Edward Norton is one of those “If he could just suck it up and take other people’s advice he could be one of the biggest stars in the world” type of guys. This is no secret to us and it is certainly no secret to Alejandro González Iñárritu, who takes full advantage of our outside knowledge to create the only slightly twisted reality of Birdman.
There was an odd time in the late 1980’s where Michael Keaton was the biggest star in Hollywood. Since hanging up the Bat-suit in the early 1990’s, he has continued to have a successful career, yet will never reclaim that success he once had. In Birdman, the first foray into comedy from Amores Perros director Alejandro González Iñárritu, Keaton plays an actor whose life is overshadowed by the fact he once was a megastar due to playing a superhero decades earlier (sound familiar?