A short comparison of Camus’ philosophy of Sisyphus’s tragedy and victory and Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014).
For background information Camus’ philosophy of Sisyphus’s situation is that he was given the worst punishment one could receive. He had to roll a boulder up a hill to have it just roll down for eternity. It was a pointless task that he was given, relinquishing his life of purpose. This is the tragedy Sisyphus suffers. However, his victory is when he realized the pointlessness, this grants him internal freedom from the absurdity of the task. Accepting the futility and becoming angry at the ones who punished him gave him a purpose again. The idea of the absurd is that feeling of lack of purpose in life. To overcome one must identify a purpose to life. Suicide is not an answer to overcoming the absurd because it is a gift for humans to be able to understand the concept of pointlessness.
Synopsis and Review of Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014) via The New York Times
My analysis of the movie and writing
The inability to understand reality is Camus' example of the absurd with actors. Edward Norton’s character by definition would be absurd because he can not just act the lives of others he has to live them or as close as possible. When his character is drunk he needs to be drunk, when his character is scared for his life he needs to be scared for his life and when his character is having sex he needs to do the same. He understands that he performance that he does on the stage lasts for three hours and that is it. So within those three hours he has to loose himself and make the character as real as he is.
The first example of Camus’ absurd man is the opposite of Edward Norton's character. They share the passion in not looking for true love and just passions but Camus' man knows who he is and exactly what he wants. Edward Norton gets lost in his character's loosing himself in the process. Which in turn relates to his inability to perform sexually. Emma Stone is one to call him out were he finds his identity and changes to more of a man that understands his meaning.
Camus speaks to suicide being a confession that life is not worth living because the reason for life is a purpose that a person can not grasp anymore, becoming pawns in a chess game. Michael Keaton's character is having a difficult time keeping his purpose of creating art with this craft and is called out on it by the critic in the bar. She says that she does not like him because he has lost what it means to be an actor and only wants to continue his career to stay relevant. He states over and over that he became an actor because he wanted to create. He has lost the artist inside with his production that he is the star of and wants all the credit for.
At the end of the movie it is confusing whether Michael Keaton lived with the absurdity in his life or not. The ambiguous ending lives the open ended question of, did he overcome the absence of hope that ended with him shooting his face? Or did it all take a toll and he had to give his life up to the dissatisfaction of his life? Did Michael Keaton find his answers to the absurd and had no more purpose to live?