Birdman and the use of the Tracking Shot

Matthew Guarnieri

            I was watching a rerun of Conan, and he was interviewing Edward Norton about his new film Birdman. Norton quickly mentioned the fact that in the film, there are no cuts or editing. This caught my attention considering the fact that I was looking for a new blog topic. It was at this moment that I looked up show times, hopped in my car and made my way to the theatre.

            For Edward Norton to say that there are no cuts or editing is a little bit of an overstatement. There are in fact cuts in the film, however you could probably count them on one hand and they are at the very beginning and very end of the film. As far as the primary story line is concerned, it was essentially shot with one massively long tracking shot. This was definitely an interesting way to tell the story and it was refreshing to see something less conventional.

            The film opens with the image of an asteroid hurling through the sky, and then it cuts to Michael Keaton sitting in his dressing room. This is essentially one of the only cuts in the film. Once the camera is on Keaton in his dressing room, the tracking shot begins. The viewer will notice throughout the film that the plot never really goes too far beyond the Broadway theatre in which most of the film takes place. There is a scene in which Keaton and Norton walk a block down the street to a bar, and a scene in which Keaton is gliding through the air (which is shot from the roof of the theatre). Aside from these two scenes, the film follows a tracking shot throughout the theatre, cleverly transitioning from one character to the next.

            I think the use of the tracking shot was an excellent way to convey emotion. It is pretty clear from the beginning of the film that Keaton’s character is battling an enormous amount of inner conflict. He is trying to direct and act in a Broadway play that is undergoing an overwhelming amount of turmoil, he is dealing with some serious family issues, and he is constantly struggling with his sense of self-identity. It seems as though his head is always spinning. The tracking shot somewhat instills this feeling in the viewer. It makes the viewers head spin and kind of makes it difficult for the viewer to completely get a grasp on the plot, which reflects the fact that Keaton’s character can never fully get a grasp on his life or what’s unfolding around him. I am not, however, saying that the film is hard to follow. For the most part it was pretty straightforward.

            One might ask how you tell an entire story with one long tracking shot. How do you transition from scene to scene, and more importantly how do you represent the passing of time (from one day to another)? I personally thought the director did an excellent job of this. For example, Keaton and Zack Galafianackis would be in the dressing room discussing how they have a rehearsal that night. After the dialogue is over, the camera would glide out of the room, through a couple of hallways, and end up on the stage with Keaton now performing the rehearsal. It may seem confusing at first, but the viewer then realizes that time has passed and it is essentially a new scene.

            There was one cut in the middle of the film that was very well hidden, and could easily go unnoticed. There is a scene in which Keaton and his daughter are in his dressing room and his daughter is showing him a video on her phone. The camera slowly gets closer to the phone screen until the screen takes up the entire picture. When the camera begins to pan out, you can see that Keaton is now in the bar down the block and he is in a completely different outfit, once again representing the passing of time. This was obviously done through the use of a cut and editing, however it maintains the illusion of a tracking shot.

            The soundtrack was also very interesting. It was basically done only through the use of drums. There are no other instruments employed. As for the song the drums are playing; it has almost no rhythm whatsoever, possibly representing the chaos of the main characters life. We recently discussed the diegesis of sound. At first it appears as though the soundtrack was non-diagetic, like most soundtracks. However in the scene when Keaton and Norton are walking down the block, you can hear the drums, and all of the sudden you see Keaton toss some money to a drummer on the sidewalk who is basically playing the soundtrack. This instantly made it diagetic. Throughout the rest of the film, you can hear the drums and it once again seems non-diagetic. However later in the film Keaton is walking down a hallway past a room, and in this room you can see the same drummer from the sidewalk playing the soundtrack beat, once again making it diagetic.