Almost Like Someone Was Planning It
TMC
October 22, 2009
Almost Like Someone Was Planning It
I was re-watching the Tim Burton directed Batman Returns last week
when a thought occurred to me. If you look at the arch of Batman films
that have been released since 1989’s Batman (also directed by Burton)
through last year’s Christopher Nolan helmed The Dark Knight, they
follow the same evolution in character depiction that the Batman
comics have moved through over the years.
When the Batman character debuted in 1939 in Detective Comics #27, he
was partially modeled after the pulp heroes and vigilantes that were
popular of the day. Bob Kane and Bill Finger drew inspiration from The
Shadow and The Spider, characters who hunted criminals as much as they
protected the innocent. Like these pulp heroes, Batman was sinister
and brooding, and not at all averse to letting the bad guy die. In
these early Batman comics, Batman wouldn’t purposely kill the villain
outright, but at the same time he wouldn’t try and save the villain.
This characterization of Batman is similar to what you see in the
Batman films directed by Tim Burton – Batman and Batman Returns.
Batman is a defender of good, but he drifts into amoral territory when
it comes to handling the villains. This most notably happens in the
second film, Batman Returns. In that film, Batman is seen using the
jet exhaust from the Batmobile to set a fire-breathing thug aflame,
makes no attempt to prevent the Penguin from crashing through a roof
window and dropping to his ultimate death, and even attaches a ticking
time bomb to a muscle-bound heavy before tossing him into a tunnel
just prior to explosion.
This is not behavior modern day audiences would normally associate
with Batman, but it’s actually not that far off from how he was
behaving in the late 30’s and early 40’s when he originally debuted.
The first two films reflect that.
Just like the arrival of Dr. Wertham and his cronies dramatically
changed the comic book landscape in the 1950s, the arrival of director
Joel Schumacher to the Bat-franchise dramatically changed the caped
crusader on the silver screen in the middle 1990s.
To try and protect itself from the comic book witch hunts of the
1950s, DC comics made Batman friendlier and less threatening. The
colors became brighter, the stories became tamer, and there was
certainly no killing – by anyone, villain or hero. The new nice-nice
version of Batman hit its zenith in the mid 1960’s with the arrival of
the uber-campfest of the Batman television show; which the comic books
instantly set out to emulate. What started out as a happier, less
threatening Batman ended up with day-glow backgrounds and a “chummy”
Dynamic Duo that was more slap-stick than sinister.
Schumacher took over the Bat-films with Batman Forever, which is more
light-hearted and action-fueled than the earlier Burton films. While
less brooding that the first two films, Batman Forever still stops
itself from going too far into playing up the “comical” in comic
books. It was restraint that wasn’t shown in the debut of one of the
most hated films of the 1990’s, Batman & Robin.
Batman & Robin, Schumacher’s second Bat-film, is the modern day
interpretation of the campy 1960’s Batman television show – but
without any of the sense of fun. Over the top sets, ridiculous
storylines, and general silliness abound. The only thing missing was
the onscreen “Biffs” and “Pows” for when Batman and Robin smacked the
bad guys.
Understandably, interest in Batman comics plummeted when the Batman
television show closed shop and the campy Batman fad faded. With the
show to fuel the fad, fans of Batman the character had little interest
in seeing a campy parody of the hero they loved. Similarly, the
release of Batman & Robin had the effectively killed any interest in
making a new Batman film, let alone a comic book-based movie, for some
time.
This brings us to the third and modern era of Batman. Christopher
Nolan comes along to breathe new life into the Batman movie franchise,
and calls upon for inspiration from the comics the resurrected Batman
from his campy comic book persona.
Artist Neal Adams and writer Denny O’Neil reasserted Batman’s
grittier, pulp hero roots when they started spinning Batman stories
for DC Comics in the mid-1970’s; and Frank Miller further refined the
character as a noir, street-level hero with his work on Batman in two
works: Batman: Year One and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. These
comic creators, along with other working in the 70’s and 80’s, not
only redefined Batman, but also introduced the idea that superheroes
could be used to tell sophisticated, multi-layered stories.
It is the works of Neal Adam, Denny O’Neal, and Frank Miller that
Christopher Nolan was often quoted as saying were the inspiration for
his take on the character and guided his approach to crafting Batman
Begins and The Dark Knight. Just like in Batman: Year One, Nolan’s
Batman has a tenuous relationship with the Gotham Police force. Batman
is considered almost an urban myth, which only a few people – like
Commissioner Gordon – know more about. Batman is back to being dark
and brooding in his war on crime.
The Dark Knight came this close to being nominated for an Academy
Award for outstanding movie of the year. The amount of critical praise
lauded on the film demonstrated that now critics and audiences are
ready to accept superheroes as more than just kid stuff, much the same
way Frank Miller’s Return of the Dark Knight did in 1986.
So where do things go from here?
I know the popular thought is to have Christopher Nolan back to make a
third Batman film. However, I think Warner Brothers should stick with
the pattern that they have, for one reason or another, fallen into.
Namely, a director gets two shots at the Dark Knight and then moves
on. Burton had his two, Schumacher had two, and now Nolan has
completed his pair of Batman movies. These three directors have,
knowingly or not, traced in broad strokes the development arch of the
Batman character over the last 70 years. Time to let a new director
put his or her interpretation on film. Either draw inspiration from
other in-between periods of Batman’s history or create something new.
Labels: Batman, Comics, movies
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