It Begins...
Jun. 18th, 2005 11:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityvixenI went home after Batman Begins, went to sleep, got up the next morning, went to work, and spent three hours writing. Clearly, I liked it. I liked it a lot. The plot might have been a bit overdone for the sake of climatic ending, but hey, who am I to protest a larger climax? The acting cannot be assailed; though the chemistry between Katie Holmes and Christian Bale is DOA romantically, they had a fairly interesting relationship and she had shit dialogue and shit characterization to work with (there, through being 'fair' to her). Every aspect of the Bat-man that looked at all incongruous in promo pictures (the cowl, the bat shape on his costume, and the Batmobile) worked or served as a passable interim device for a hero-in-training (as I said to people last night who were narking on the Batmobile, give the guy a break--he had to work with what he had, and, to quote Homer Simpson, 'it was his first day!'). That Gordon is the one to make the bat-signal, and that the shape is hazy and indistinct...everything points to this being, forgive the pun, only the beginning.
Let the fun begin. My first discursive thoughts on Batman Begins center on something I've always wonder: why is Batman so perfectly the dark hero he is? Enjoy.
As Eugene phrased it on our way home, every movie I see makes me want to buy another movie. That’s mostly because, being the ignorant child of the MTV-ADD generation, movies are my only primary source references for just about everything.
Naturally, when we went to see Batman Begins, I compared it to other movies, though, oddly, not any of the other Batman movies. Perhaps that is the greatest compliment one can pay Batman Begins – it neither compares nor competes with other Batman visions, it just is a vision of the Batman. No, what movie came to mind upon seeing it the first time was Spider-Man (and, on a lesser scale, Spider-Man 2, mostly because of the elevated train sequence). Both Bruce Wayne and Peter Parker have a lot in common–the deaths of loved ones spur them into action, they use their heads as much as their fists – yet it seems perfectly natural to have Batman Begins be a dark drama and Spider-Man a light action comedy. Beyond the pathetic fallacy of having Batman dramatized by the hero’s penchant for black and for inspiring terror, why does Batman deserve, nay, require such serious introspection and Spider-Man flip sympathy and cheer?
As I watched Bruce Wayne’s origins unfold, I could not intellectually distinguish why he took his pain to such a dark place at first. He seems every bit the adorable child of loving, indulgent, but conscientious parents. His obsession with fear seemed on par with that of a Sith, and its progression to violent ends ever more a confirmation that, Episodes I and II aside, Lucas was onto something with his conception of the dark side of the Force. Could Bruce’s extreme youth at the age of his parents’ death be the contributing factor? At (guessing here) seven or eight, he’d have hardly developed the necessary survival mechanisms that adults or more grown children possess with which to defray the self-destructive anger and depression. Whereas an adolescent like Pater Parker, though having lost his parents at a young age, enjoyed the love and support of his uncle well into his more social (well, more social than his younger years at any rate) age.
Bruce’s isolation physically is underscored by Nolan’s choice of Wayne Manor as a mansion out in the sticks. Carrie nitpicked this choice as a bit of directorial extravagance or negligence (i.e., Nolan forgot that Bruce’s house ought to have some view of Gotham, presumably nearby, in one of the 360 pans around the mansion). I see it as another foundation for defining why Bruce is so alone in his quest for justice. It’s not that he plays poorly with others (while absolutely a loner-type, Batman’s trust and faith in Gordon is proof he is capable of trusting and working with others in tandem, as is his unspoken agreement with Lucius Fox and his reliance on Alfred); it’s just that alone is the way he knows best. Visits to Gotham being tainted by the one that caused his parents’ murders, he views that kind of living-on-top-of-your-neighbor intimacy with distrust, suspicion, and, yes, fear. An only child at the outset, the lone survivor of a once-great family, Bruce is constantly alone. That Wayne Manor is like an estate out in the picturesque neighborhoods of Westchester or Evanston to Gotham’s New York or Chicago only clinches the fact that Bruce enjoys privileged isolation. It is his magnificent solace and his underlying sorrow.
The friendships that Bruce/Batman manages to engender and maintain speak of desperation as much as true affection. Gordon is someone to trust because he is trustworthy, yes, but also because there is no one else. Rachel is someone to like and love because she has always been there; there is no need for him to invest himself in getting to know another person when one smart, cute, talented, and–very important to a mind bent on ending corruption–implacably moral (‘idealistic’ is the term the film uses, though that suggests a naivety that Rachel does eventually outgrow). Alfred is Alfred is Alfred. Speaking only of Batman Begins, Alfred is the only one Bruce really loves. He uses him ill at times, as he does everyone else, but in the end, he is always amazed and grateful that he still counts this man as mentor and a friend.
Strange that such a dark army-of-one type would be the one of two heroes to have a confidant; Peter enjoys no such friend through much of his film career and the self-destruction still does not take him into brooding bat territory. It would almost seem that it should be the other way, that Spider-Man ought to be dangerously spiraling out of control with no means to release the pressure of leading a double life, yet it is Batman, we imagine, who would implode at any moment were it not for the balancing influence of Alfred Pennyworth. There is no easy answer to give other than to suggest that Bruce needs an outlet and Peter does not, though that would be an unfair characterization and a truly super-human power for Peter to have. As Spider-Man 2 proved, you can’t possibly shoulder the downs of being not dependable because you often have to ditch your life for the hero’s duty all on your own.
So, a wounded Bruce retains a sliver in his soul that eats at him because it was formed prior to any other serious, complex emotion (other than love for his parents, we can assume), and it preys upon his preference for solitude and violence as a means of cathartic release. As I said before, this really doesn’t separate him from a more jovial character like Peter Parker. Parker uses humor to deflect his pain, true, but it no less eats at him than it does at Bruce Wayne. In both films, the hero feels a sense of responsibility for the tragedy that drives him, and, with Nolan’s tinkering, Bruce is about as culpable as Peter. The choices made for the two films dictate the way they’ve now been recorded in our cultural idiom, but why they should make such sense that way (as opposed to just blandly agreeing with the directors’ choices) remains elusive.
Comic books weigh heavily on this subject matter, but being only popularly schooled in both titles, I can only conjecture as your average movie-goer can (I’m better versed in Spider-Man, but by no means proficient, and my Batman knowledge I will not vouch for; as I said, I’m a movie person). The popular representation of Batman for this, my generation, owes its structure to Frank Miller and Tim Burton. As such, I am inclined to accept Bruce as pathos, Peter as angst, in the popular connotations of those words. And yet the flip sides of these two heroes reveal they could be the other given half a chance. Batman in a humor is in rare form (used to excellent dramatic purpose in Batman Beyond: The Return of the Joker...and I can't believe I didn't catch the reference to Mark Hamill until just now...), and Peter in dark decline tragic in the extreme (his separation from MJ seemed really harsh in comic form, and Aunt May’s reaction to his telling her about Uncle Ben in both movie and comic is enough to drive all levity from the franchise).
Accepting a Dark Knight instead of a Caped Crusader is not necessarily a universal thing, as conversations with my mother and a retrospective of the Batman franchise online have pointed out to me. Younger generations probably think Joel Schumacher, neon lights, and bad puns when they think of Batman (don’t mention nipples, please), and older generations cling to Adam West (or, even older, Bob Kane and the Detective Comics), which is pretty much the same thing, with Batman-as-campy instead of Batman-as-vigilante. Most of you are aware of this history, so I’ll skip it and come straight to the point: the Batman-as-Dark-Knight is a generational anomaly not shared by too many outside the coveted 20-30 year old demographic. Sure, The Dark Knight Returns will stay current with comic fans, Batman will always be beholden to Burton fans, but the amorphous, Platonic ideal of “Batman” changes with each age.
So why should this Dark Knight vision make so much sense? Perhaps a better question is does it? If I were not me, if I were my younger sisters or my mother, would I come to Batman and think “too dark,” “not funny enough,” “where are the ‘ka-pow’s!?” Could that older/younger generation forgive the unrelenting misery of Bruce’s lifestyle because the film itself is so clean, so compact, so brilliantly put together? It boils down to a question of how out-of-touch I and my generation are with the new, and, considering that I didn’t know my youngest sister was unaware of how The Return of the Jedi ended, I am probably pretty far out of touch (and they are a bunch of no-respect-giving Episode I floozies).
Let the fun begin. My first discursive thoughts on Batman Begins center on something I've always wonder: why is Batman so perfectly the dark hero he is? Enjoy.
As Eugene phrased it on our way home, every movie I see makes me want to buy another movie. That’s mostly because, being the ignorant child of the MTV-ADD generation, movies are my only primary source references for just about everything.
Naturally, when we went to see Batman Begins, I compared it to other movies, though, oddly, not any of the other Batman movies. Perhaps that is the greatest compliment one can pay Batman Begins – it neither compares nor competes with other Batman visions, it just is a vision of the Batman. No, what movie came to mind upon seeing it the first time was Spider-Man (and, on a lesser scale, Spider-Man 2, mostly because of the elevated train sequence). Both Bruce Wayne and Peter Parker have a lot in common–the deaths of loved ones spur them into action, they use their heads as much as their fists – yet it seems perfectly natural to have Batman Begins be a dark drama and Spider-Man a light action comedy. Beyond the pathetic fallacy of having Batman dramatized by the hero’s penchant for black and for inspiring terror, why does Batman deserve, nay, require such serious introspection and Spider-Man flip sympathy and cheer?
As I watched Bruce Wayne’s origins unfold, I could not intellectually distinguish why he took his pain to such a dark place at first. He seems every bit the adorable child of loving, indulgent, but conscientious parents. His obsession with fear seemed on par with that of a Sith, and its progression to violent ends ever more a confirmation that, Episodes I and II aside, Lucas was onto something with his conception of the dark side of the Force. Could Bruce’s extreme youth at the age of his parents’ death be the contributing factor? At (guessing here) seven or eight, he’d have hardly developed the necessary survival mechanisms that adults or more grown children possess with which to defray the self-destructive anger and depression. Whereas an adolescent like Pater Parker, though having lost his parents at a young age, enjoyed the love and support of his uncle well into his more social (well, more social than his younger years at any rate) age.
Bruce’s isolation physically is underscored by Nolan’s choice of Wayne Manor as a mansion out in the sticks. Carrie nitpicked this choice as a bit of directorial extravagance or negligence (i.e., Nolan forgot that Bruce’s house ought to have some view of Gotham, presumably nearby, in one of the 360 pans around the mansion). I see it as another foundation for defining why Bruce is so alone in his quest for justice. It’s not that he plays poorly with others (while absolutely a loner-type, Batman’s trust and faith in Gordon is proof he is capable of trusting and working with others in tandem, as is his unspoken agreement with Lucius Fox and his reliance on Alfred); it’s just that alone is the way he knows best. Visits to Gotham being tainted by the one that caused his parents’ murders, he views that kind of living-on-top-of-your-neighbor intimacy with distrust, suspicion, and, yes, fear. An only child at the outset, the lone survivor of a once-great family, Bruce is constantly alone. That Wayne Manor is like an estate out in the picturesque neighborhoods of Westchester or Evanston to Gotham’s New York or Chicago only clinches the fact that Bruce enjoys privileged isolation. It is his magnificent solace and his underlying sorrow.
The friendships that Bruce/Batman manages to engender and maintain speak of desperation as much as true affection. Gordon is someone to trust because he is trustworthy, yes, but also because there is no one else. Rachel is someone to like and love because she has always been there; there is no need for him to invest himself in getting to know another person when one smart, cute, talented, and–very important to a mind bent on ending corruption–implacably moral (‘idealistic’ is the term the film uses, though that suggests a naivety that Rachel does eventually outgrow). Alfred is Alfred is Alfred. Speaking only of Batman Begins, Alfred is the only one Bruce really loves. He uses him ill at times, as he does everyone else, but in the end, he is always amazed and grateful that he still counts this man as mentor and a friend.
Strange that such a dark army-of-one type would be the one of two heroes to have a confidant; Peter enjoys no such friend through much of his film career and the self-destruction still does not take him into brooding bat territory. It would almost seem that it should be the other way, that Spider-Man ought to be dangerously spiraling out of control with no means to release the pressure of leading a double life, yet it is Batman, we imagine, who would implode at any moment were it not for the balancing influence of Alfred Pennyworth. There is no easy answer to give other than to suggest that Bruce needs an outlet and Peter does not, though that would be an unfair characterization and a truly super-human power for Peter to have. As Spider-Man 2 proved, you can’t possibly shoulder the downs of being not dependable because you often have to ditch your life for the hero’s duty all on your own.
So, a wounded Bruce retains a sliver in his soul that eats at him because it was formed prior to any other serious, complex emotion (other than love for his parents, we can assume), and it preys upon his preference for solitude and violence as a means of cathartic release. As I said before, this really doesn’t separate him from a more jovial character like Peter Parker. Parker uses humor to deflect his pain, true, but it no less eats at him than it does at Bruce Wayne. In both films, the hero feels a sense of responsibility for the tragedy that drives him, and, with Nolan’s tinkering, Bruce is about as culpable as Peter. The choices made for the two films dictate the way they’ve now been recorded in our cultural idiom, but why they should make such sense that way (as opposed to just blandly agreeing with the directors’ choices) remains elusive.
Comic books weigh heavily on this subject matter, but being only popularly schooled in both titles, I can only conjecture as your average movie-goer can (I’m better versed in Spider-Man, but by no means proficient, and my Batman knowledge I will not vouch for; as I said, I’m a movie person). The popular representation of Batman for this, my generation, owes its structure to Frank Miller and Tim Burton. As such, I am inclined to accept Bruce as pathos, Peter as angst, in the popular connotations of those words. And yet the flip sides of these two heroes reveal they could be the other given half a chance. Batman in a humor is in rare form (used to excellent dramatic purpose in Batman Beyond: The Return of the Joker...and I can't believe I didn't catch the reference to Mark Hamill until just now...), and Peter in dark decline tragic in the extreme (his separation from MJ seemed really harsh in comic form, and Aunt May’s reaction to his telling her about Uncle Ben in both movie and comic is enough to drive all levity from the franchise).
Accepting a Dark Knight instead of a Caped Crusader is not necessarily a universal thing, as conversations with my mother and a retrospective of the Batman franchise online have pointed out to me. Younger generations probably think Joel Schumacher, neon lights, and bad puns when they think of Batman (don’t mention nipples, please), and older generations cling to Adam West (or, even older, Bob Kane and the Detective Comics), which is pretty much the same thing, with Batman-as-campy instead of Batman-as-vigilante. Most of you are aware of this history, so I’ll skip it and come straight to the point: the Batman-as-Dark-Knight is a generational anomaly not shared by too many outside the coveted 20-30 year old demographic. Sure, The Dark Knight Returns will stay current with comic fans, Batman will always be beholden to Burton fans, but the amorphous, Platonic ideal of “Batman” changes with each age.
So why should this Dark Knight vision make so much sense? Perhaps a better question is does it? If I were not me, if I were my younger sisters or my mother, would I come to Batman and think “too dark,” “not funny enough,” “where are the ‘ka-pow’s!?” Could that older/younger generation forgive the unrelenting misery of Bruce’s lifestyle because the film itself is so clean, so compact, so brilliantly put together? It boils down to a question of how out-of-touch I and my generation are with the new, and, considering that I didn’t know my youngest sister was unaware of how The Return of the Jedi ended, I am probably pretty far out of touch (and they are a bunch of no-respect-giving Episode I floozies).
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-06-18 10:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-19 05:46 pm (UTC)There isn't a romance. Their relationship is too complex for mere attraction and rejection--and I really regret that there was that reduction of the two of them into love-limbo.