Birdy

"Just a couple of normal crazy Philly kids? You been to Philly? You'd have to be crazy to live here".

Whatever happened to Matthew Modine? In the '80s he was cast in some really major films (most people will probably remember him as Private Joker from Full Metal Jacket) and then some time in the late '90s he just became a half-remembered somebody, cast out from the motion picture world into guest spots on (admittedly decent) shows like Weeds and The West Wing. This film, Birdy, teamed him up with then-fellow up-and-comer Nicolas Cage. You might be a little shocked to hear this, but Cage plays the 'normal' one in this odd tale of war and friendship!

Birdy (Matthew Modine) is the weird kid of his 1960s neighbourhood, a withdrawn teen living in poverty who has a rather unhealthy obsession with birds. Al (Nicolas Cage) befriends Birdy and the two embark on a series of adventures together, with Al showing Birdy 'the world' and Birdy teaching Al a thing or two at the same time. This story is shown in flashback, with Cage reminiscing about their time together from an Army burns ward. Birdy is nearby in the psych ward, catatonic and birdlike. Both have just returned from the Vietnam War.

If you were to go off Birdy and Full Metal Jacket you'd probably be forgiven for assuming that Modine had been typecast as a nutjob. As Birdy he pushes his performance into some pretty bizarre territory, which is ironic when you consider that his co-star is Nicolas Cage. Birdy's flimsy grasp of reality makes him incredibly reckless, and Al becomes his guardian angel. Cage is fairly good in this more sensible role, he looks young and buff and has anachronistically feathered hair (he makes it look like the '80s, though it's meant to be set in the '60s), but he plays it both serious and loose in order to just let the film flow in its own nostalgically ramshackle way. There's no real true explanation ever given for Birdy's condition, but I'd say that both he and Al are depicted as products of their families. Ultimately, Birdy is disassociative, whereas Al is anti-authoritarian - both pushed into these states through their time growing up in the junkyards of Philadelphia, and both forced to deal with these personality defects after the horrors of the Vietnam War.


I really enjoyed Birdy... it could've been a bit dreary and derivative as far as films about soldiers returning from Vietnam go, but the emphasis is as much on the friendship of Birdy and Al and their teenage misadventures, and the narrative is fairly rich in texture. Their exploits range from the normal (going to the beach, the fair, fixing a car together, trying to catch and train pigeons as part of an adolescent get-rich-quick-scheme) to the outrightly bizarre (dressing in suits made of pigeon feathers, capturing dogs to sell to a dogmeat factory, building an ornithopter!). I guess there are a few different themes... the preciousness of identity, the damage that war can do to an already delicate human, the limitlessness of dreams, and standing up for onself. Most of these elements are brought to life by the great performances of Cage and Modine.

I should also mention that this film is directed by Alan Parker, one of several defiantly original and atmospheric movies that he made in the '80s. There's a great scene where Birdy thinks he can fly so he jumps from a construction site onto a sand hill... it plays in slow motion and then replays again whilst intercut with footage of Al running down to the ground, and then it switches back to real motion for Birdy's jarring connection with the ground. It's a great piece of editing, and you'd probably have to see it to really appreciate what I'm talking about. There's also a great smash cut at the film's end that defuses this big dramatic swell that Parker builds up over the course of the climax; the director's final word on the film's unique tone of tragedy and excitement. Overall, it's a film full of extremely memorable moments.

DIRECTOR: Alan Parker
WRITER/SOURCE: Screenplay by Sandy Kroof and Jack Behr. Based on a novel by William Wharton.
KEY ACTORS: Matthew Modine, Nicolas Cage, John Harkins, Bruno Kirby, Karen Young, Nancy Fish, Marshall Bell

RELATED TEXTS
- The 1978 novel Birdy by William Wharton. It was Wharton's first novel, written when he was 50, and it went on to win the National Book Award.
- Birdy was also adapted as a play in 1987 by the poet Naomi Wallace.
- Alan Parker's run of great '80s films started with Birdy and continues through with Angel Heart, Mississippi Burning and The Commitments.
- Films about returning Vietnam War veterans... Coming Home, The Deer Hunter, Jacknife and Born on the Fourth of July.
- See also: The Boy Who Could Fly.

AWARDS
Cannes Film Festival - won Grand Jury Prize. Also nominated for the Palme d'Or.