Why Do We Fall?: 20 Years of Batman Begins

Spoilers below

The Batman film franchise, barring the 1940s serials and the 1966 Adam West movie based on the  TV series, began with Tim Burton's 1989 Batman, released a little over a decade after the original Christopher Reeve Superman opened the doors for all future superhero adaptations. The Burton films were attempt to present a darker, more gothic vision of the dark knight, akin to Frank Miller's Year One and The Dark Knight Returns than the West show. When Batman Returns, the follow-up to Burton's original, where he had more creative control, was met with outcries from parents for being too dark and violent, as well as MacDonald's cutting its Happy Meal deal with Warner Bros. for the same reasons, the studio decided to go in a more kid friendly direction, hiring Joel Schumacher to direct the third installment, Batman Forever. The film was a success and Schumacher was tasked with directing the follow-up, Batman & Robin. To quote George Lucas watching the rough cut of Phantom Menace's climax, Schumacher may have gone a little too far in some places. Schumacher dialed up the camp, and supposedly would say "Remember, it's a cartoon" before yelling action. Ironically, there was a really good Batman cartoon in the 90s that appealed to kids while still being mature and character driven. 

While Schumacher was originally slated to direct a third film, Batman Triumphant, which may have starred Nicolas Cage as the Scarecrow and Madonna as Harley Quinn (except retconned in to being the Joker's daughter), it never came to fruition. Appropriately for a film starring Mr. Freeze, Batman & Robin put the franchise on ice for several years. It wouldn't be until 2005 that we saw the caped crusader again, except this time it wouldn't just be another film in a franchise, but a film that reinvented the whole idea of the Batman franchise, creating something more psychological and character-driven that had been done in the live action films. This was Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins.. At this point in his career Nolan wasn't yet the blockbuster auteur he would become with The Dark Knight and Inception. He was still very much the indie filmmaker making his first blockbuster. The film feels modest compared to the second and third and film in the trilogy but it also feels the most like a stright forward Batman film. 

Burton's approach to Batman was enigmatic and mysterious, while Nolan and Goyer's is internal and personal. Batman Forever tried to be a little more character driven, most of Val Kilmer's arc as Bruce was exorcised in that film. To be fair, those previous 4 films were more interested in the villains than Batman. And I get why- they're often more colorful and entertaining than him. But I appreciate Nolan and Goyer zeroing in on Bruce and Batman essentially giving us the full of arc of Bruce becoming Batman. To get us more in to Bruce's head, Goyer's script employs a flashback structure, beginning with this nightmare Bruce is having of the time when he was a child and fell in to a pit of bats. We then jump to Bruce waking up in prison. In the years since his parents were murdered during a mugging, Bruce has traveled the world learning the ways of criminals, but has completely lost himself in that life. But then a man named Henri Ducard (Liam Neeson) gives him a chance to train under Ra's Al Ghul (Ken Watanabe) and become part of the League of Shadows. As he trains with Ducard we get more flashbacks of Bruce's life before leaving Gotham, including the moment where he about to kill Joe Chill, his parents' murderer, before he is murdered for being a informer by one of mobster's Carmine Falcone's (Tom Wilkinson) cronies. After being given a stern lecture on justice vs. revenge by childhood friend, now lawyer, Rachel Dawes (Katie Holmes), he begins his journey in to the criminal underworld.

Nolan and Goyer don't just use the murder of Bruce's parents as a set up for a completely sepearate story but use is as the film's thematic crux. Joe Chill only existed because of the economic depression, leading to financial desperation in men like him. While the murder of the wealthy Waynes supposedly urged Gotham to pull itself out of this depression Rachel points out that things haven't really gotten better. Gotham is full of corruption and is run by Falcone. And essentially this corruption and decadence fuels Ghul's motivation to destroy Gotham.

Nolan and Goyer trust the audience to wait awhile for Bruce to don the cowl. They knew they had to make Bruce a compelling enough figure our of the suit that audiences wouldn't be impatient getting to  Batman stuff. I think the reason why this approach ended up working for audiences is due to Nolan and Goyer approaching this material with a certain kind of seriousness and earnestness. From very beginning the film plays out as a straight drama rather than a comic-book movie, though I feel of the trilogy this one feels the most a straight-up Batman movie. Ultimately, the film encourages the audience to engage with the narrative on a character and thematic level rather than just pure entertainment. I do hate when people say Nolan was embarrassed to be doing a comic-book movie since I feel it's the opposite. Nolan obviously thought there was something more to this material then silly pulpiness. He saw something mythic and compelling this character. He of course had to strip down some of the fantasy in order to do the story he wanted, but I like when these films have a specific vision. And to be fair, this is still a pretty pulpy movie and it has a sense of humour about itself.

Maybe the film's wisest decisions, is forgoing the Joker as the antagonist. Structurally, it just ended up working better for the overarching story of the trilogy. In this one Batman brings hope back to Gotham City and by the beginning of The Dark Knight is very confident in his abilities, and even underestimates the Joker, as does the mob. only for the Joker to completely destroy his whole world. This film's ending is so satisfying, having Lieutenant Gordon (Gary Oldman) giving Batman the Joker's calling card. It's the best sequel set-up of any superhero film, largely because it wasn't designed to be a set-up, but a payoff of the whole story.  

In typical Nolan fashion, he uses the concept of fear both as a plot device and as a larger thematic concept. Ducard (who is revealed to have been the actual Ghul in the third act) wants to use Dr. Jonathan Crane/Scarecrow's (Cillian Murphy) fear toxin against Gotham so it it will tear itself apart. Bruce uses fear (the symbol of the Batman) to invoke a positive change. And Bruce initially blames his fear of bats (he had to leave the opera due to the people in bat costumes) for his parents' death. 

 While I usually really like Neeson, I do find the character, and his performance, a little bit on smug side. It's a big part of why I have a love/hate relationship with this film. I do like that this movie focuses in more on Batman than any of the previous live action films and feels the most like a Batman of Nolan's trilogy, especially in the aesthetic of Gotham. I do wish Nolan was a stronger visual stylist and that his shooting style wasn't always so basic. There's also some janky editing going on in the fight scenes, and the third act just isn't as strong as the first two. Rachel also feels likes she's just there to tell Bruce what he needs to hear, rather than being a fully formed character, though Nolan has often been a stronger idea and conceptual guy and his characters can often feel like mouthpieces for exposition. However, his Dark Knight Trilogy does have some really good character stuff and oddly feels like his most character driven work.

He's not unlike George Lucas, who also struggles with dialogue and character. Lucas' strengths, like Nolan, are in the bigger picture stuff.  But Lucas and Nolan's flaws as directors don't really matter to most people because their films, often seen by people when they're younger, have such a impact on viewers and define a young person's upbringing as a cinephile. 

Superhero movies often get seen as right wing power fantasies, though someone like Stan Lee was always very progressive in his politics. Batman, in particular, gets reduced, maybe fairly or unfairly, to the rich guy who beats up poor people. Nolan also got blowback when The Dark Knight came out when Batman chose to spy on people via cell phone to find the Joker, viewing this as pro Bush and Patriot Act. And in the third film, Tom Hardy's Bane was seen as a criticism of Occupy Wall Street. The Dark Knight does prevent the surveillance stuff as pretty morally dubious and Bane doesn't really represent the ideals of Occupy Wall Street but rather uses the ideology to turn Gotham against itself. Still, Nolan does try to have it both ways with the surveillance technology, presenting it as necessary one time thing before it's destroyed. The ending of The Dark Knight also prevents lying about Harvey Dent's crimes as a necessary evil to keep order. And The Dark Knight Rises does present the ideology of Occupy Wall Street as useful weapon to turn classes against each other. Nolan's politics are thorny but I'd argue it makes the films more interesting, especially compared to the more overt thematic exposition that has probably hurts these films the most on rewatch. 

The key to casting Batman and Bruce Wayne is you don't go for the traditional leading man like George Clooney. You go for someone like Michael Keaton or Val Kilmer. You need some who you can believe dresses up as bat and fights crime. Christian Bale may have gotten himself the role by playing another rich, crazy guy with Patrick Bateman in American Psycho. I think Bale often gets overshadowed in these movies by the more colorful performances but he's good in this initial go around. Bale can sometimes be too actorly and heavy as an actor, but here he doesn't overplay the seriousness but lets it come naturally. He finds the reality in essentially an outlandish character.

While I feel The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises are stronger films formally, I understand why Batman Begins is often seen as the best of the trilogy and many peoples' favourite. It's thematically the tightest and feels the most comfortable being a superhero film. I always wonder the series would've been like if  Nolan had continued on with this aesthetic. So, what are your feelings about Batman Begins? Is this your favourite? Comment and let me know.

 

Why Do We Fall?: "The Dark Knight Rises"

Minor Spoilers Ahead

Where to begin with The Dark Knight Rises? While I may be a tad disappointed in it, I can't generalize and say this movie is a disappointment, or a failure. Believe you me, it's not. We get plenty of blockbusters each year that blow stuff up and attempt to be epic. The Dark Knight Rises, on the other hand, despite being too lengthy in some respects, genuinely feels epic. It's scale harkens back to an almost old fashioned idea of what a Hollywood epic once was and can still be and it ends Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy on a well balanced note of conclusion and continuation.

It's remarkable that The Avengers, The Amazing Spider-Man, and The Dark Knight Rises are all superhero films yet despite that genre label they all seem to exist in a different genre of their own. Also, on the tonal spectrum they're miles apart. The Avengers is probably the most "comic booky" of the three, the one that's most in love its central characters and what it means for them all to finally come together in one movie. It's also probably the funniest of the three and it doesn't forget to give its larger than life very relatable human moments. The Amazing Spider-Man is the sweetest and most intimate of the three. Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone have a sexy and cute chemistry that sets the groundwork for the tragedy we know is to come. It's a pretty low key movie, more concerned with Peter Parker than Spider-Man in some respects- though it does have some great shots that feel straight out of a  Spider-Man comic book.

The Dark Knight Rises is the darkest of the three superhero films this summer and tonally the one most distant from its comic book origins. This feels like the least "Batmany" of Christopher Nolan's trilogy and I'm still trying to figure out how much of a good or bad thing that is. Nolan's vision from the very beginning, with Batman Begins, was to ground Batman in the real world. It wasn't a completely realistic universe but it played like it was. The same with The Dark Knight, which was a superhero epic within the context of crime drama. Both films achieved an almost perfect balance between creating a contemporary and stripped down universe while still feeling quintiessentially Batman. After making such definitive and mythic statements on Batman, It was no doubt difficult for Nolan to know where to go next. With The Dark Knight Rises Nolan has made the most "real world" feeling of his Batman films yet. All three films in the the trilogy are reflections of America's inner turmoils. In Batman Begins it was a battle against a city's police corruption.  The Dark Knight asked the question of how one fights terrorism in a post 9/11 world. In The Dark Knight Rises, it's economic crisis and how it leads to Gotham being at risk of annihilation. The previous two films were able to relate the mythology of Batman to its conflicts but this film seems the least concerned with Batman's place within its battle.

The Dark Knight Rises begins eight years after the events of The Dark Knight. Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) has retired the cape and cowl after taking the fall for Harvey Dent's (Aaron Eckhart) crimes as Two-Face. Nolan has joked that while he hasn't been able to do his Howard Hughes biopic, he has filled that gap by making these Batman films. Bruce certainly isn't too far away from Hughes' type of eccentricity. He's become a recluse and Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway) mentions that he doesn't have long fingernails like people say. I love the detail of Bruce becoming a recluse because it fits in to Nolan's "real world" style. In reality (he he), it wouldn't be a stretch to imagine Bruce Wayne as a shut in hermit. The fact  he no longer operates as Batman adds even more resonance to the hermit characterization. There's a pretty good joke early on between Bruce and Selina and a certain kind of weapon that I won't reveal.

Selina Kyle is, of course, Catwoman. While Nolan was uncertain of how her character would fit in to his universe, his brother Jonah turned him around. The Dark Knight Rises deals with class divisions and the overthrowing of the rich. Catwoman works perfectly within this context because she's a cat burgular who wasn't born in to privilege. This is in stark contrast to Bruce Wayne, a man who, despite the tragedy of his parents' murder, was always provided for. I liked Hathaway a lot as Catwoman. When Hathaway was first cast I felt it was a little too conventional and "Hollywood" a choice but she does a great job of being funny, sexy and hardedged.

The villain of the film is Bane (Tom Hardy), a terrorist leader that was trained by Ra's Al Ghul (Liam Neeson), Bruce's former mentor. Bane isn't as diabolically entertaining as Heath Ledger's Joker but nevertheless Bane fascinates me. In many respects he feels the most "realistic" of the villains in the trilogy, making him the most intimidating. I felt a genuine sense of dread as he cuts off Gotham from the outside world and plans to destroy it. Like The Dark Knight, it's a heightened form of terrorist threat but one that's eerily plausiable.

I wish there was a little more of Gary Oldman as Commissioner Gordon. He seems to spend most of the movie in a hospital and I wish for the last movie there was more of a role for him to play before the final act comes around. I did however love a moment between him and Batman near the end which ties their relationship back to the first film in an unexpected but I feel meaningful way. Joseph Gordon Levitt gives a strong performance as John Blake, a patrol officer who becomes a detective after Gordon is shot. Levitt has a great scene early on with Bale where we get a sense of how much Bruce meant to him as a young orphan since Bruce was an orphan himself, a 'Billionaire orphan" as Blake calls him. I don't want to reveal what else happens in the scene but Blake's knowledge, while it may not make logical sense, makes dramatic and thematic sense.

Michael Caine has a great scene which pays off on a decision Alfred made in The Dark Knight but I felt he and Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox also deserved a little more to do. I don't want to reveal too much about Marion Cotillard's character Miranda Tate but I wish she was a little more prominent as well. For a while it seems like she's going to be a new love interest but that''s dropped pretty quickly. She does get to shine towards the end but that's all I'm saying.

And what about the (Bat) man himself, Christian Bale? Bale got a little overshadowed by Heath Ledger and Aaron Eckhart in the last movie but here he has a little more room to shine. Bale is pretty terrific here, convincingly conveying Bruce's lack of passion for anything in life in both sad and humorous way. He also conveys Bruce's brokeness in Bane's prison. And I have to say- I love the Bat voice. While after The Dark Knight came out it seemed a little ridiculous and over the top, I couldn't do without it. It's both hilarious and, when Batman repeats to Bane something he told Batman earlier, pretty intense and awesome.

Since Batman Begins Nolan has been criticized for his action sequences but I feel Nolan has improved over time in terms of his action sequences. I feel his action work here is arguably his best work yet just in terms of clarity. The fight scenes between Batman and Bane have a real weight to them and unlike the hand to hand combat in Batman Begins you can see Batman fighting. The prologue of the film, involving Bane, aside from being a great homage to the James Bond film Licence to Kill, is also a simultaneously unsettling and exciting feat of zero gravity action filmmaking.

There is a long stretch of time when the film does feel too lengthy and I was feeling that the film just wasn't as memorable as The Dark Knight or had as many great moments as that film- or even Inception. But by the time we finally get to the final action set pieces I was thinking "This is kind of great" and I was totally in to the race against time to save the city.

I said it was probably hard for Nolan to say much about Batman after the last two movies and that Batman didn't completely fit in to the film's main battle. This film seems less about Batman's relationship to Gotham's conflict and more about about Bruce Wayne's redemption, in a physical sense at least. While he comes back as Batman early on in the film, it's not enough. He truly has to learn how to be Batman again and that means having to push himself physically more than ever before.

The ending of the film, without revealing too much, is able to both conclude its story yet suggest a continuation of the Batman mythos in a way that works within Nolan's universe as well as provide a intriguing take on the Batman mythos in general. I'll probably have to give the film another viewing in order to catch some plot points I missed before as well as get a firmer hold on the themes the film is exploring. But after just one viewing I feel The Dark Knight Rises, while maybe not the best of the trilogy, nevertheless concludes the trilogy in a respectful and resonant manner.