Burton Batman and Superhero Flicks

[Dagenspear]

The key distinction between Nolan and Burton's approaches might be this: Burton acknowledges that Batman is f***ing INSANE, and doesn't hold it against him or try to make excuses for it the way fanboys have reverted back to doing:

(quote from Tim Burton)
"Unlike Superman, Batman isn't simply a good-vs-evil thing. You get a lot of grey areas with Batman...I wanted the villains to be these weird but interesting characters who could fill in those grey areas in Batman's life."

That's pretty much what the Nolan films did in a few ways too. Not to great extremes, but you could draw a comparison between Batman and at least one of the villains per movie.

People often explain Batman's continued appeal through various incarnations as due to the fact he's fully human, and not super-powered. Exactly right, but there's another essential ingredient: Zorro, The Lone Ranger and The Shadow may have worn masks to conceal their identities, but Bruce Wayne dresses up to become an ANIMAL MAN. There's something more primal happening there. Even the early 1940s comics, more preoccupied with action than psychology, expressed the innate darkness of this fantasy world with a canvas of night skies and shadows - the noir outlook - which of course found it's way into the films of the period. This is the world re-created by Burton Batman, and neutered by Nolan into generic "gritty" city streets we've seen in a zillion run of the mill cop movies. He neither allows the characters nor the world of Batman to be truly larger than life, and we the audience are left dispiritingly un-amazed.

Scarecrow, Two-Face, Joker and Bane were all larger than life or hyper-realistic. Even Batman is in some areas.

To mistake the idealization of Batman as a self-made force of nature for admiration is immature. To marginalize the character's weirdness and ultimately equate him with Superman as another well-meaning do-gooder as Nolan did is just as glib and superficial an interpretation as Adam West on the 1960s tv show. The only difference is the 60s show was intentionally funny.

Glib and superficial? The 1960's series aren't that and neither are the Nolan films, which make a point that Bruce is addicted to the pain and anger that Batman brings him. That's the point of TDKRises, that being Batman isn't healthy, that he's messed up. This person didn't pay attention to the movies.

I despise Batman Begins as a lumbering, ponderous church service for passionless geeks, one of the worst examples of superhero nerddom which thrills no-one. In a mounting wave of reactionary resentment against Joel Schumacher's amusing but frivolous Batman Forever and gratingly frivolous Batman and Robin these nerds demanded and eventually received a new film version of Batman and his colorful world completely drained of color, fantasy or fun.

And now bashing B&R? And this person says that Nolan drained Batman of fun, when this person seems to not appreciate fun. And there's passion. It seems there are those that want to put down movies that don't do what they like. Have a very great day you and everyone!

God bless you! God bless everyone!

[riddler]

I kind of feel that I would enjoy the Nolan films if he only made one or two; I think we all get what Schumacher faced and what he tried to do but the end complaint was that he didn't take the material seriously and it felt like he was making a cartoon or a toy commercial. Batman Begins was refreshing and interesting at the time as Nolan took it seriously and showed us how Batman and Gotham city could fit into the real world. By the third film it got to be overkill. As JG alluded to, they were too afraid to let their hair down. It also deviated far too much from the source material and the lack of good fight scenes really drained the life out of the character.

[The Laughing Fish]

Looking back at this decade old blog entry, there are some things that I agree with preferring Keaton's take, except for some instances.

For example, these two particular quotes, both by the blogger Matthew H, and Burton himself, which caught my attention.

The conceit that a strong man, already physically imposing and crazy enough to fight crime on his own would want to wear a crazy costume on top of that only works in the comics. In live action, having a man of average build wear a costume for transformative effect is EXACTLY how you make the fantasy plausible - not by bending over backwards to rationalize the irrational and drain all the fun and drama out of things.

You can't just do, 'Well, I'm avenging the death of my parents - Oh! A bat's flown in through the window. Yes, that's it. I'll become a Batman!' That's all stupid comic book stuff and we don't explore it at all. He dresses up as a bat because he wants to have an amazing visual impact. It all gets away from the fact he's just being a simple vigilante, something I always loathed about the character. He's creating an opera wherever he goes to provoke a strong, larger-than-life reaction. He switches identities to become something else entirely, so why wouldn't he overdo it?

I believe Burton had every creative right to cast Keaton in the role and focus how he could morph into this mysterious creature of the night, and it certainly paid off. But I don't agree with the suggestion that it's the only way to depict Batman on film. Especially not after seeing Affleck in the role.

I don't see anything wrong with wrong with using an already fit, muscular man playing Batman in live action. I didn't like the way Nolan went about it, for a myriad of reasons that this blog covered, but I think Affleck showed it can be done without sacrificing too much for the sake of realism.

In many ways, I think BvS had adopted Burton's philosophy in focusing the visual impact of the character, albeit differently. Whereas Burton emphasised how Batman is this elegant Gothic sentinel, Snyder showed a Batman that was more of a deranged, borderline horror film character when he's on screen, e.g. when first see him hiding from the scared cop as if he's a Xenomorph and inhumanly escapes through the ceiling, or busting through from the floor like a cannonball in the beginning of the warehouse fight scene. And let's face it, the eerie music makes both scenes a lot more frightening and intense. Affleck might've had a bigger build than Keaton, but he was just as transformative, and yes, he was just as mentally disturbed as Keaton was. Say what you will about BvS, you can't deny that the film didn't sacrifice the character for the sake of realism too much to the point you can't suspend your disbelief what he could possibly do.

By the way, does anybody else think that Burton's comment about bats flying through the window shows he had some contempt for the material? I know he definitely had a point that not every thing in the comics can be translated to films. But I'm not too surprised that this would've upset some fans back in the day.

[Kamdan]

Yeah, I was always questioned the contempt Burton seemed to have with not having a more physically toned Bruce Wayne and the idea of the bat flying through the window. Makes me wonder if he was familiar at all with Batman: Year One which addressed both of those issues. I guess the excuse is that Burton likes to make his characters an extension of himself and couldn't relate with a muscled person and that with the story they wanted to tell, there was no room to have a sequence where the bat motif is explained. That at least gave something for Batman Forever to spring off of.

[thecolorsblend]

Yeah, I was always questioned the contempt Burton seemed to have with not having a more physically toned Bruce Wayne and the idea of the bat flying through the window. Makes me wonder if he was familiar at all with Batman: Year One which addressed both of those issues. I guess the excuse is that Burton likes to make his characters an extension of himself and couldn't relate with a muscled person and that with the story they wanted to tell, there was no room to have a sequence where the bat motif is explained. That at least gave something for Batman Forever to spring off of.

Year One had been out for little more than a year by the time B89 went into production. I don't fault Burton for not being too influenced by it since it hadn't become as influential at that time as it ultimately would become.

[Kamdan]

The Killing Joke had been out less than Year One had been and he cited that as a huge influence. I believe they were trying to go out of their way to avoid comparisons with Superman: The Movie by not covering Batman's origin at all. Even in Hamm's original script, they really just shoved the killing of the Waynes that could have been cut from the film had it been filmed as written. At least in the final film, the killing of the Waynes serves as a plot point to reveal The Joker did it.

[thecolorsblend]

The Killing Joke had been out less than Year One had been and he cited that as a huge influence. I believe they were trying to go out of their way to avoid comparisons with Superman: The Movie by not covering Batman's origin at all. Even in Hamm's original script, they really just shoved the killing of the Waynes that could have been cut from the film had it been filmed as written. At least in the final film, the killing of the Waynes serves as a plot point to reveal The Joker did it.

The influence of The Killing Joke is always described in aesthetic terms. Look and feel but not necessarily anything that would need to be written into a movie script. Bats crashing through windows, though, would be scripted.

End of the day, Year One hadn't made the mark at the time B89 was made that it would ultimately make. It's not really a poor reflection on Burton that it played pretty much no real role in B89.

Something else, Burton didn't have the clout back in 1987 and 1988 that he would have after B89 came out. My guess is he had to deal with a lot of studio notes when he was making B89.

[Kamdan]

Replace "studio" with "Jon Peters" and you're more accurate. Wish we could learn about the specific changes that were made during the production, but I doubt Peters or Burton would care that much to dive into those details.

[The Laughing Fish]

The Killing Joke had been out less than Year One had been and he cited that as a huge influence. I believe they were trying to go out of their way to avoid comparisons with Superman: The Movie by not covering Batman's origin at all. Even in Hamm's original script, they really just shoved the killing of the Waynes that could have been cut from the film had it been filmed as written. At least in the final film, the killing of the Waynes serves as a plot point to reveal The Joker did it.

B89's use of Bruce Wayne's tragic backstory to serve that plot twist definitely makes it distinctive in the genre. In contrast, nearly every first film in a franchise is a typically by-the-numbers origin story.

It wouldn't surprise me if Sam Hamm and company had this mentality when they were writing B89:

Look: real life criminals would not be frightened by a man in a Halloween costume, even if he were using a scary voice. That is a fictional conceit created for a comic book. Insisting on the rationality of the situation is a losing argument. The entire purpose of Begins is to be an APOLOGIA, delivered with pathetic religious reverence and stooping it's shoulders every single minute to justify the premise of Batman into reality through a long series of contrivances and really sh*tty expository dialogue.

Some of the worst aspects of the first Burton Batman were such expository passages - tedious scenes of the marginally amusing Robert Wuhl and living mannequin Kim Basinger slowly, slowly illustrating that Bruce Wayne is a rich loner with murdered parents. Begins is comprised of nothing BUT that awful exposition, and where Burton allowed the audience to fill in the gap between that childhood tragedy and current crime fighting with the knowledge that he has immense wealth to finance this obsession, Nolan comprised about half of his film with farfetched justification that not only is he rich but there's ninjas and secret military technology and blah blah blah. Who but the comic book obsessives need to know every minute detail? LET there be some mystery! That's part of his character! If "his parents were killed by criminals and he's rich" isn't enough of an explanation for how someone decides to become Batman, no amount of backstory will likely suffice for one's own lack of imagination in that area. At least not from a hack like David Goyer.

Batman's origin is so simple it only took Bob Kane and Bill Finger two comic book pages to illustrate, and we believe it. We believe because it's so simple, and strikes on a gut level - personal loss as inspiration for vigilantism. To pick it apart and put the process of Bruce Wayne becoming Batman under the microscope only calls attention to how unlikely it really is, outside of a comic book. Children's parents are murdered in front of them every day in real life, and they don't all become costumed vigilantes based upon which animal flies into their study window at just the right moment, or upon which animal scared them the most prior to their parent's death.

The key distinction between Nolan and Burton's approaches might be this: Burton acknowledges that Batman is f***ing INSANE, and doesn't hold it against him or try to make excuses for it the way fanboys have reverted back to doing:

"Unlike Superman, Batman isn't simply a good-vs-evil thing. You get a lot of grey areas with Batman...I wanted the villains to be these weird but interesting characters who could fill in those grey areas in Batman's life."

Is this a more nuanced outlook than the comics fans can handle anymore? The best and most popular Batman comics of the 80s, from which Burton's film drew inspiration, were all about the ambiguities and insanity at the core of the character, and the thin line between him and his enemies: The Dark Knight Returns, The Killing Joke, Arkham Asylum. Bats is well meaning, but by definition the man clearly just has some issues. My best guess for the turnaround is that in the wake of so many persecuted, sympathetic protagonists like the mutants of X-Men and relatable, likable guys like Peter Parker in Spider-Man, the bat-fans began feeling a bit self conscious about their most f***ed-up and self-isolated member of the Justice League.

People often explain Batman's continued appeal through various incarnations as due to the fact he's fully human, and not super-powered. Exactly right, but there's another essential ingredient: Zorro, The Lone Ranger and The Shadow may have worn masks to conceal their identities, but Bruce Wayne dresses up to become an ANIMAL MAN. There's something more primal happening there. Even the early 1940s comics, more preoccupied with action than psychology, expressed the innate darkness of this fantasy world with a canvas of night skies and shadows - the noir outlook - which of course found it's way into the films of the period. This is the world re-created by Burton Batman, and neutered by Nolan into generic "gritty" city streets we've seen in a zillion run of the mill cop movies. He neither allows the characters nor the world of Batman to be truly larger than life, and we the audience are left dispiritingly un-amazed.

To mistake the idealization of Batman as a self-made force of nature for admiration is immature. To marginalize the character's weirdness and ultimately equate him with Superman as another well-meaning do-gooder as Nolan did is just as glib and superficial an interpretation as Adam West on the 1960s tv show. The only difference is the 60s show was intentionally funny.