...serious abandonment issues. Saw this great movie again last night and a few things have dawned on me. Not only did his parents abandon him but it happens to him three more times in the film.
- Catwoman refused to surrender to his advances
- Shreck abandons him when Batman plays his true schemes over the PA system and the crowd turns
- His own circus buddies scamper off when Batman races towards his lair at the climax.
Penguin's need for love and acceptance always backfires because of how sinister he is. I've seen this film so many times and it really just dawned on me last night.
Thanks Tim Burton ;)
Quote from: Grissom on Fri, 17 Apr 2015, 00:18
- His own circus buddies scamper off when Batman races towards his lair at the climax.
Of all the 'current day' rejections, this one would've hurt the most. Even when I was a young kid watching thie movie, say, as a six years old, I knew this visually signified all hope was lost for the guy. He was truly alone and defeated. And when he's staring down the sewer, knowing Batman is approaching, it's almost to say there's no light at the end of the tunnel. I don't think the circus gang abandon Penguin because of his sinister nature. The game was simply up.
If I feel any sympathy for Penguin (see I didn't call him OSWALD this time, I'm being nice and sincere) it's with the issues of abandonment. Who doesn't find that painful? You can put on whatever facade you want and act like you don't care but it takes a heart of stone not to be affected by being abandoned. It would drive most people to madness to deal with it on the level he did (his own parents throwing him into a sewer, not leaving him at the steps of an orphanage or a hospital or an old lady's doorstep, literally throwing him into a sewer and leaving him for dead). That doesn't excuse anything he did and I still find him positively loathsome, but more than a shred pitiable because of that.
Make sense? lol
I'm not at all surprised that American kid's were crying by the end of this movie lol
However I don't think it was because Burton was taking great glee at booting audiences directly in their balls with the "ultimate summer depression blockbuster". I think it was because kids genuinely understood what he was doing with the story-line in generating sympathy for The Penguin. They were fully invested in the emotions. Of course rather dumb adults, assuming once again that kid's are always stupid, saw their reaction differently.
Quote from: Cobblepot4Mayor on Fri, 17 Apr 2015, 02:56
I'm not at all surprised that American kid's were crying by the end of this movie lol
And the British kids weren't?
Yeah, it had to hurt the most for Penguin when even his fellow circus freaks abandoned him. Penguin is possibly associated with Jesus in this movie because he's 33 years old, tempted by "the devil" (Max Shreck), embraced by the people and then later rejected by them. Jesus was abandoned by his apostles when he was arrested although the apostle John, the youngest but ironically the bravest, showed up for his crucifixion and stood by him at the cross and comforted him and Jesus' mother. No one stood by Penguin though. :(
It's interesting to think that children who may have cried when they saw this movie saw how abandoned Penguin was and felt sorry for him and that adults might have just thought the movie scared them because many adults often assume children are stupid. I've never thought of that before.
Quote from: JokerMeThis on Fri, 17 Apr 2015, 04:51
Yeah, it had to hurt the most for Penguin when even his fellow circus freaks abandoned him. Penguin is possibly associated with Jesus in this movie because he's 33 years old, tempted by "the devil" (Max Shreck), embraced by the people and then later rejected by them. Jesus was abandoned by his apostles when he was arrested although the apostle John, the youngest but ironically the bravest, showed up for his crucifixion and stood by him at the cross and comforted him and Jesus' mother. No one stood by Penguin though. :(
Brilliant observation.
Quote from: JokerMeThis on Fri, 17 Apr 2015, 04:51
Yeah, it had to hurt the most for Penguin when even his fellow circus freaks abandoned him. Penguin is possibly associated with Jesus in this movie because he's 33 years old, tempted by "the devil" (Max Shreck), embraced by the people and then later rejected by them. Jesus was abandoned by his apostles when he was arrested although the apostle John, the youngest but ironically the bravest, showed up for his crucifixion and stood by him at the cross and comforted him and Jesus' mother. No one stood by Penguin though. :(
It's interesting to think that children who may have cried when they saw this movie saw how abandoned Penguin was and felt sorry for him and that adults might have just thought the movie scared them because many adults often assume children are stupid. I've never thought of that before.
I have always hated the Jesus/Penguin comparisons because I didn't like such a mean grotesque villain being compared to the Son of God lol. But your explanation makes sense and the difference (that at least one disciple stood by Jesus while Oswald was totally abandoned) makes me not feel so bad about it. Maybe Oswald was a sort of antichrist character but in Tim's twisted vision?
Quote from: Catwoman on Fri, 17 Apr 2015, 02:24
If I feel any sympathy for Penguin (see I didn't call him OSWALD this time, I'm being nice and sincere) it's with the issues of abandonment. Who doesn't find that painful? You can put on whatever facade you want and act like you don't care but it takes a heart of stone not to be affected by being abandoned. It would drive most people to madness to deal with it on the level he did (his own parents throwing him into a sewer, not leaving him at the steps of an orphanage or a hospital or an old lady's doorstep, literally throwing him into a sewer and leaving him for dead). That doesn't excuse anything he did and I still find him positively loathsome, but more than a shred pitiable because of that.
Make sense? lol
Wow I wrote that? lol.
I'm Catholic and I meant no disrespect to Jesus. I've always seen Penguin as a kind of Anti-Christ figure. I also see him as an anti-Moses because he was abandoned by his mother in a basket in the river and also because of his plan to kill the first born sons of Gotham.
I wonder, is the Fat Clown an anti-Judas Iscariot? He kind of betrayed Penguin but, unlike Judas, his betrayal was for a noble reason. If Penguin is an Anti-Christ type figure though instead of turning the other cheek and forgiving the Fat Clown he murdered him. Jesus of course said "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do" while Judas killed himself.
Quote from: JokerMeThis on Fri, 17 Apr 2015, 07:26
I wonder, is the Fat Clown an anti-Judas Iscariot? He kind of betrayed Penguin but, unlike Judas, his betrayal was for a noble reason. If Penguin is an Anti-Christ type figure though instead of turning the other cheek and forgiving the Fat Clown he murdered him. Jesus of course said "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do" while Judas killed himself.
I hadn't thought of that! I got the Moses thing, when we watched Prince of Egypt in school I was like "Ugh" when she puts the basket in the water and it floats away and gets thrashed around because it reminded me of the Cobblepots. The difference was (here's another twisted analogy!) she did it to save his life from the Pharaoh's order to kill the babies while the Cobblepots dumped Oswald to get rid of him with no regard for what happened next. Moses went from being a Jewish slave to being a Prince of Egypt while Oswald went from an infant life of lavish luxury to a sewer dwelling circus freak.
It's almost like in the movie at least with Penguin you're looking at the Bible in a broken mirror and I'm just now realizing this lol.
I feel sorry for the Penguin despite his villainy. Some of his scenes were powerful, especially when he says the 'My name is not Oswald!' line. And that final shot of his body with the music playing always gets to me.
I can definitely see the Anti-Moses angle, great observations here!
The fact that you can still pity the Penguin despite all the horrible things he does in this movie goes to show what a well written character he is. I thought the Penguin was a repulsive monster, and yet even I can't deny how heart-wrenching it was to watch him visit his parents' graves at the cemetery, or how his pet penguins carry his dead body into the water like pallbearers in the end. And since everybody else has disowned him, the Penguin's farewell is witnessed by Batman - the other 'orphan' and a fellow 'freak'.
Batman Returns may not be perfect, and it definitely has its share of flaws. But it's a movie that shines when it doesn't shy away from the villains' humanity and poignancy. In my opinion, Tim Burton is the only director in the franchise who has captured this perfectly. Schumacher and Nolan have tried (the latter rather lazily), but nowhere near successful as this.
But then, isn't Tim's craft all about capturing the human side of freakshows? So it is perfect for him. Joel just lacked substance and I'm not even going there with Nolan cause I'm trying to avoid even think about him, his movies, or most specifically his sheep, but anyway lol.
Quote from: The Laughing Fish on Sat, 18 Apr 2015, 00:52
The fact that you can still pity the Penguin despite all the horrible things he does in this movie goes to show what a well written character he is.
Exactly. That's a hard feat but Burton achieves it for me. His death sequence is tragic, and the music Elfman composed for the sequence is pitch perfect. I can't imagine it working the same with another arrangement.
Burton always identified with the outsider and it's not fully surprising that there is some sympathy towards the Penguin character. If things were different from his birth he would have still been a bit outcast but at least comfortable with himself and not bitter and sinister.
All he needed was was a little love. ;)
Good point. Burton always dealt with "freakish, lonely and gothic" characters better than most directors. Batman as the lone crime-fighter, The Penguin as the deformed freak of nature, Catwoman as the unstable femme fatale who was pushed over the edge, and you can even argue that the Joker is another loner too because his madness isn't one that's common and can be shared with.
I guess Burton's grasp with the bizarre and gothic caricatures is a reason why Edward Scissorhands was considered to be his most successful movie among critics.
Burton always had a grasp for drama as well. DeVito, Pfeiffer and Keaton's performance has an underlying dramatic element that is beautifully portrayed on screen. All of them actually have abandonment issues.