Michael Keaton is a phenomenal actor with an unimaginably extensive career. However, there are three films of his that stick out to me in such a way that it creates a trilogy, even though they have no relation to each other.
Michael Keaton played Batman in the 1989 film Batman. In the reboot of the comic book series on the big screen, Michael Keaton played the titular role in what would become a gigantic series, birthing three sequels. While Keaton was already a fairly successful actor with his roles in films like Mr. Mom & Beetlejuice, this film’s massive success combined with the prestige of playing an iconic character like Batman elevated Keaton to the next level of Hollywood stardom.
While Keaton’s career would obviously continue to evolve, with him appearing in the Batman movie sequel, along with getting roles in other massive films like 1993’s Much Ado About Nothing and Tarantino’s 1997 film Jackie Brown, the sequel to the trilogy I’ve discovered, doesn’t appear until 2014 with the release of the film Birdman. It seemed like Keaton had become an actor of the 90’s, with no massively memorable roles in the 2000’s. In Birdman, however, Keaton played Riggan Thomson, a washed up superhero actor trying to reprise his glory by directing and starring in a broadway play. The character is, of course, almost a mirror to Keaton’s own career.
Riggan Thomson, Keaton’s character, had been a star of 90’s Hollywood, playing the hero of Birdman on the big screen. Throughout the film, the ghost of Birdman seems to be speaking to Keaton, taunting him to return to Hollywood as a corny superhero actor, as he’ll never make it as a “real” actor. The film deals with themes of the magical realism Hollywood attempts to create, along with the pretentiousness of Hollywood, actors, and artists in general. At the end of the film, Keaton’s character seems to have finally been able to quell the rumblings of the Birdman in his head by performing a daring act on stage. Specifically, in the final act of his play, he replaces the prop gun he was meant to use with a real gun, shooting himself on the stage. This strange ending raises questions about what in the film is reality and what is a machination of the actor’s head. More than that, it leaves viewers wondering if the only way Thomson’s character could have escaped Hollywood’s past tormenting him was to dive into a form of art so outlandish he actually had to harm himself. Is the past so haunting that it takes new pain to escape it?
Nonetheless, this trilogy seems to have evolved in a way where Keaton started as a typical Hollywood actor who landed a big role, but then realized the baggage that came with it. Birdman seems to be a self-aware memo from Keaton, in which he acts out his experiences, torments, and represents that perhaps individual resolution can exist, Hollywood itself is the creator of these problems, and it will continue to churn out stars with this cycle of problems.
At the same point though, the film is a battle between high art and “low” art. However, as the film begins to demonstrate with its ambiguous ending, art is art. Perhaps this is demonstrated best not by the film itself, but by Michael Keaton’s role in Spider-Man: Homecoming, where he plays The Vulture, the enemy of Spider-Man. In the finalization of this trilogy that mysteriously revolves around bird-based superheroes, Michael Keaton crosses over to the side of villainy in his most recent superhero movie role.
When considering all the thematic messages about art in Birdman and the massive success of the Batman movies, what is this role saying about art? In my opinion, the answer is nothing. Michael Keaton is an actor. He is an individual. When he reads a screenplay, it is his choice to audition for that role. While Birdman may have appealed to him because of a deep understanding of the complex depressions of the Hollywood cycle, Spider-Man may have just been the opposite; an understanding that this film is a fun part of the Hollywood formula. While it is interesting that Keaton’s trilogy revolves around bird-based superheroes, perhaps any message and theme revolves more around Hollywood than Keaton himself.
