I had a thought that occurred to me right now. If Batman '89 was the first live-action adaptation for the main character to speak in two distinctive voices as Bruce Wayne and his alter ego, then how Burton and Keaton never seem to get any credit for it? Granted, Kevin Conroy went one better in BTAS by speaking by acting as charming as Bruce Wayne and brooding as Batman. But still...
Probably because Keaton was so subtle with his performance. With Bale, it's more... overt.
Quote from: Slash Man on Tue, 30 Sep 2014, 16:10
Probably because Keaton was so subtle with his performance. With Bale, it's more... overt.
Yeah that's the thing; Keaton is like Jim Caviezel in the sense that he has multiple voices depending on his characters traits. Not that the bat voice HAS to be raspy but I bet Keaton could have pulled that off better than Bale; see Beetlejuice, that character was supposed to be a chain smoker yet he didn't sound nearly as annoying as Bale and wasn't hard to understand.
Now it should be noted Keaton rarely spoke period in the cowl. But he came off much more confident as Batman than he did as Bruce Wayne almost as if the cowl gave him confidence.
Like The Dark Knight said, it helps if you're not playing the character but you are the character. That's Keaton.
An equally salient question would be why Michelle Pfeiffer never gets any acknowledgement for being the first – and to date, the only – actress to use two different voices for Selina and Catwoman.
Quote from: Silver Nemesis on Wed, 1 Oct 2014, 18:44
An equally salient question would be why Michelle Pfeiffer never gets any acknowledgement for being the first – and to date, the only – actress to use two different voices for Selina and Catwoman.
Come to think of it, you're right. I've never noticed how subtle she spoke as Catwoman compared to her nervous self as Selina Kyle. It goes to show that Burton was trying to portray both her and Batman as two damaged people who found a release in life by becoming costumed freaks.
I've always hold Conroy in a very high regard like everybody else, but it's always odd to me that he always gets the credit for being the first actor to speak in a distinctive Batman voice. I guess he went one better than Keaton by speaking in a distinctive style as the Bruce Wayne playboy?
Off-topic: here's a TV spot for the upcoming Birdman movie.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XWvY3kccVo (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XWvY3kccVo)
Is it just me, or Keaton's voice meant to be a subtle dig at Bale's Batman voice? ;) ;D
michael (and by extension, tim) doesn't get enough credit, period. on anything. the voice thing is just one part of it. his batman was the most intimidating of any live action batman, his bruce was the best detective, and even though we only see him challenging max where you see a bit of val's bruce running wayne enterprises, that little bit makes it look like he would have been the best "business bruce" too. and i loved how awkward he was, first with vicki, then with selina. he's so underrated. him and val both, i think deserve a lot more credit than what they get. both were miles better than christian bale in and out of the suit.
as for michelle, i love her voices. you're shocked, i know. lol. but its fun to change back and forth trying to mimic her in and out of the catwoman personality. andrea barbeau's selina voice had the same sultry confidence, no reason for her to change it i guess cause she's the bad girl. doesn't matter if people know it's her. with michelle, it was like this whole other personality coming out, and everything changed. brilliant.
Quote from: Catwoman on Thu, 2 Oct 2014, 20:06
michael (and by extension, tim) doesn't get enough credit, period. on anything. the voice thing is just one part of it. his batman was the most intimidating of any live action batman, his bruce was the best detective, and even though we only see him challenging max where you see a bit of val's bruce running wayne enterprises, that little bit makes it look like he would have been the best "business bruce" too. and i loved how awkward he was, first with vicki, then with selina. he's so underrated. him and val both, i think deserve a lot more credit than what they get. both were miles better than christian bale in and out of the suit.
as for michelle, i love her voices. you're shocked, i know. lol. but its fun to change back and forth trying to mimic her in and out of the catwoman personality. andrea barbeau's selina voice had the same sultry confidence, no reason for her to change it i guess cause she's the bad girl. doesn't matter if people know it's her. with michelle, it was like this whole other personality coming out, and everything changed. brilliant.
Hear, hear! :)
It's good to see someone giving Keaton his due for his top five favourite comic book film castings.
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2) Michael Keaton: Bruce Wayne/Batman in Batman and Batman Returns
Say what you will about Keaton, but the man proved that obscure casting choices are sometimes the best. While Keaton could never work as Batman in today's muscle-bound market, he set the example for how Batman should exist on-screen. It was Keaton who first used different voices between his Bruce Wayne and Batman personas. It was Keaton who learned to act through his eyeballs. It was Keaton who brought the catchphrase "I am Batman" to life—something that no other actor has been able to deliver with the same grit. Christian Bale may have had the build, but Keaton had the bad ass.
Source: http://comicbook.com/2014/11/25/five-comic-book-movie-actors-were-grateful-for/
Here's another article that credits Keaton for coming up with a distinctive voice, with Keaton being interviewed himself.
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Michael Keaton Reveals The Secret Origin Of His Batman Voice
The 'Birdman' star looks back at his 'Batman' beginnings.
by josh wigler 22h ago
If you're looking for someone to blame for Christian Bale's Batman voice, maybe you should point the finger at Michael Keaton.
As the star of Tim Burton's "Batman" movies, Keaton was the first actor to decide that Bruce Wayne and the Dark Knight could not share the same voice. The Golden Globe-winning actor sat down with Josh Horowitz on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, and explained why he arrived at that choice.
"I'm kind of a logic freak," he said. "I don't know how to do anything unless I have a logic to it. It can be the silliest, stupidest, broadest thing, but I have to work from somewhere."
Keaton encountered a serious logic problem during his first scene shooting as the Caped Crusader, in which he confronts a criminal in a dark alley.
"There's no way this guy doesn't just look at me and say, 'That's Bruce Wayne, everybody! I figured it out!'" he said with a laugh. "'It's obviously you! You're four feet away from me!'"
Burton and Keaton explored a few different ways to preserve Batman's identity in the scene, from the way he was positioned, to the use of contact lenses. Ultimately, the only thing that made sense to Keaton is if Batman used a different voice than the famous Gotham City playboy.
"I had to do something," he said. "I had to drop down a register. Then I learned, later, that it became a thing [for future 'Batman' movies]."
Looking back on it now, and even at the time, Keaton was an unlikely choice to take on the DC Comics superhero — a fact that's not lost on Keaton at all. He said he had to find some extra layers in Batman and Bruce Wayne beyond all the grim-and-gritty, lending levity to scenes like his dinner date with Vicki Vale, in which she and Bruce sit across from each other at a long dining table in a room he's never entered.
"It's funny, but it's also kind of pathetic, and not serious pathetic," Keaton said of the scene. "Then, in the next couple of minutes, this guy gets to go out and kick somebody's ass. That guy, and that guy, was very interesting to me."
Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/2047921/michael-keaton-batman-voice/
Blame Nolan for Bale's voice, not Keaton. Keaton and Conroy knew how properly disguise their voice.
Its really kind of annoying how Nolan gets a lot of credit for a lot of things that the Burton movies did before. But I'm glad people are beginning to realize (or remember) that there were dark Batman Films pre-Nolan.
I think people knew deep down that the voice started with Keaton, but they never wanted to give him recognition until this recent attention with Birdman.
I found another article where Keaton explained his approach to Batman once again during a ceremony paying tribute to him as an actor.
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In 1989, Keaton got to work with Burton again for "Batman" and he developed the rough voice that the superhero became so iconic for. He was, in fact, the very first Batman that gave Bruce Wayne a different voice in the suit.
"I'd move from Bruce Wayne to Batman, [and thought] he had to transcend. I worked out this whole bullsh*t actor-y thing. I thought, 'I gotta have something that makes me believe I don't walk out on the street in this big rubbery suit and people think — hey Bruce Wayne is out again.' So I did the voice. And we just used it. Every time I was Batman I altered my voice."
That bullsh*t actor-y thing became the basis for Keaton's Birdman voice. "[For "Birdman"], the voice got crazier, with more incarnations of it. And then it grew from that."
Source: http://dailynexus.com/2015-02-05/emotions-spring-up-during-michael-keatons-tribute/
Keaton has been telling these stories over and over recently due to Birdman.
Here's another:http://spinoff.comicbookresources.com/2015/02/13/flying-high-with-birdman-keaton-looks-back-on-batman-beetlejuice-and-more/
I'm doing this scene in Gotham — it's lit and kind of big and relatively bright, and I'm doing a scene, with a dignitary from Gotham and I'm saying, "Tim, he's going to stand there and go, 'Hey everybody, It's Bruce Wayne. We figured out who Batman is!' You know what I mean? He sees me. I just don't know how to play –" People are thinking, "Well, it doesn't matter — It's 'Batman.'" No — It matters a lot! I don't know how to play this. I said, we've got to figure out how — so we started to figure out how to shoot me where I'm kind of off in the shadows or kind of on angles. And really worked really great. But the voice, I thought, "This is just going to make me laugh. This is silly."
I'd already worked out a whole thing that kind of showed up, kind of didn't. Like hanging from the thing was my idea, hanging like a bat, and I used to do this thing where I'd move from Bruce Wayne into Batman, the transformation. I'd worked out this whole bullsh*t actor thing because I had to have some reason. So I said, "Hey, man, he's going to hear the voice and go, 'Hey, we just figured it out! '"
So I created the voice. I got to have something that makes me believe that I don't walk down the street in this big, black, rubber suit, and people go, "Bruce Wayne's out again?" So I did the voice, and then we just used it. People think it was electronic — It wasn't. It was me. Just every time I was in as Batman, I just kind of altered it, because I had something in my head that I could rationalize to play it, frankly. So when I told that story to Alejandro on Birdman, he thought it was the funniest thing I did and starts laughing like crazy. He said, "You have to do that!" And then the voice got crazier, the incarnations of it. We did everything — the post [production] on the voice alone went on forever.
Doing a scene with a dignitary from Gotham, in the Batsuit? Bright light? WHAT THE HELL'S HE TALKING ABOUT
Quote from: The Laughing Fish on Tue, 30 Sep 2014, 10:19
I had a thought that occurred to me right now. If Batman '89 was the first live-action adaptation for the main character to speak in two distinctive voices as Bruce Wayne and his alter ego, then how Burton and Keaton never seem to get any credit for it? Granted, Kevin Conroy went one better in BTAS by speaking by acting as charming as Bruce Wayne and brooding as Batman. But still...
Short answer? People just seem to flat-out resent both
B'89 &
Returns, & therefore talk down (or just completely deny) their redeeming qualities & contributions to onscreen (& offscreen, for that matter) comic lore.
[Short answer cont.] :D
I've noticed that, generally, when the films are derided (as they so often are), whether it's a vitriolic youtube comment or a protracted, nitpicky essay on some guy's no-traffic blog, people have little-to-no
legitimate criticism for the films (at least for
B'89).
They're penned mostly by guys who seem to have this rather deep-rooted dislike for either Burton or Nicholson (each has his own group of dedicated detractors, I've found), or guys who simply resent Keaton's Wayne for being skinny & bushy-haired. They seem to try to mask it by adopting this sort of passive-aggressive demeanor in their 'critiques', & then mostly repeat stuff they read on someone else's blog or youtube comment (seriously, it's like they just cut & paste - "Jack just played Jack Nicholson in makeup", "Batman doesn't kill", "There's no story/the story is too simple", "Joker shouldn't be responsible for the death of Batman's parents", etc.)
In other words, stuff that's either simply untrue, or which they personally dislike, but which made for a stronger story arc, character dynamic or film overall.
Sorry for going off the trail a little bit there. :-X