Superheroes Are 'Sad Figures' According To Birdman Director Alejandro González Iñarritu
There are two types of Hollywood mainstays out there: the ones who are for the superhero sub-genre, and those who are against it. Plenty of major industry figures have spoken out on both sides of the aisle about the intense Marvel (and, at times, DC) wave that has swept our cultural zeitgeist over the last decade. But according to "The Revenant" and "Birdman" auteur Alejandro González Iñarritu, superheroes are actually "sad figures" whom he has very little intention of highlighting in his work.
The director, whose latest film "Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths" is now available to stream via Netflix, told Variety about his disinterest in the made-up white knights of our world at a BAFTA event:
"I see heroes every day. I see beautiful people really going through very difficult situations and doing incredible things. And that is the people that I kind of connect with. But these kinds of superpower heroes, really do we need that? If you need that, is there something missing. [...] Instead of admiring what we have, the possibilities that we have?"
Iñarritu's point of view is an interesting one, considering his film "Birdman" deals with not only the very notion of superheroism (Is that a thing? Now it is, you're welcome), but also the humanity within it. It's not exactly an uncomplicated thing, playing a superhero, but when you believe you might have some of that inside you if you just push, even if all it really is is human? It opens a whole new door of exploration into who we are and can be as people.
The superhero and the regular guy
Ultimately, Alejandro González Iñarritu is right. There are incredible people doing unfathomable things, for real, every day in this world. It's at the same time an amazing anomaly and as common as mail service or taxes — and those people, doing what they can to survive and thrive, are the real superheroes of our world. They are the ones tangibly making a difference, and they are the closest thing to the fabricated heroes we adore that we actually have in this wild life. When you break that down, it makes sense as to why the writer-director is more interested in centering the lives of those who make real differences, even if it's just in their own lives and the lives of those close to them: because that's where real-life superpowers lie.
That said, Iñarritu's "Birdman" doesn't entirely shy away from superhero conventions. Obviously, Michael Keaton's leading man has a past as a superhero actor (wink wink, nudge nudge), but the "Revenant" director's choice to have his character play with superpowers — and whether or not they are simply born of the mind, a concept that comes into play with power-less heroes like Bruce Wayne's Batman — is one that stems not from a distaste for the heroes that have them, but from the very inquiry into regular people that he mentioned to Variety.
The meshing of the real and imaginary in "Birdman" is key to the core of its plot and greater emotional life, and without both elements, Iñarritu would've failed at the very thing his film succeeds in: showing us that real superheroes, unsuspecting people doing their best to wrestle with the juggernaut of life, will always be among us.