Batman Begins: The Thread

Ha, I guess you're right! I know that much about the varying stories at least.

The Batman myth presists and matters because it affirms that some insults don’t heal with time—nor does the struggle not to use past scarring as rationale for present bad behavior. Burton understood this, but romanticized his hero’s suffering, glamming it up in freakshow goth. In a final paradox, Nolan, who name-checks Jung to affirm his awareness of archetypes, strips his incredibly inventive film of any character-distancing fancy. In this finest iteration of the partially destroyed child-man legend, Nolan makes us feel protective of both his literally bipolar hero and the extraordinary movie he inhabits.

Thing is, the more I play the movie back in my head, the more really impressive things come to me. (Something I might expect from an Ozu film, say, but not Nolan, who I really was sort of distnatly interested in before this.) I'm seeing it again this weekend. Paying, even!

I just read somewhere that Sarah Michelle Geller was up for the role visited by Cruise's new cover story. Hmm.

I'll grant ya that, but it's definitely one of the most "DO YOU SEE?" moments in modern creative lit -- perhaps by default and perhaps because that's what the medium/story would have allowed/demanded at the time. As Huk notes this isn't an auteurist film, despite many trappings (I haven't even talked much about the beginning of the film yet!) -- something that would have made it more so might have been pulling the 'what you don't see gets more horrible in your imagination' trick, which in respects is much of the rest of the film.

I could argue that, with his otherwise pretty rigorous psych approach, it would have been more powerful if Wayne's memory of the event had been more fragmented, more open to multiple takes on the memory, as it would in real life.

Not the highlight of the film, for certain. But so much other good stuff.

They should have John Malkovich as a villian in the next one and then Glenn Close in a role in the one after that and then huzzah! All of Dangerous Liaisons would have been in a Batman movie one way or another. Except for Keanu. Good thing too.

"I'm THE BARBER."

SPOILER:

THE BIT WHERE HE SUMMONS BATS

using Chicago as the base for the city itself was a nice variant on using NYC, say

It was very well done, and the "this city's whole goverment is rotten and everything's run by gangsters" angle fits Chicago very well. I loved the Board of Trade building as the Wayne Building. Some of the helicopter shots of the city were unretouched, I noticed -- just shots of Chicago. Nice.

BUT there's one overriding reason that Gotham cannot be New York City, and has to be Chicago: Chicago has alleys. You have got to have alleys. That's where the bad crime happens, and where the bats drop from fire escapes in the rain. Do you see?

Hay guys let's remake knight rider except instead of a super gay 80s corvette we can make him a busted up Hummer with rocket launchers

http://bigpicture.typepad.com/writing/images/batmobilerollingstone.jpg

do people who write this kind of thing know what 'auteur' means, where the idea comes from? as it happens howard hawks and alfred hitchcock worked once in a while with the world's biggest entertainment conglomerates.

And my memory is a little hazy, but didn't Burton's movie limit that scene to shadowy flashbacks (a hand holding a gun, etc.)? I think it was already done the way you suggest, and given the increased time spent on Wayne's childhood and parents, it would have been a copout not to actually show the shooting.

I was gonna ask the same question as Jordan re: the death scene, but was gonna be really rude about it, as is my wont. From what I recall (and don't mind me if I remember things a bit slanted):

Burton - slow-mo echoed horsecrap, almost pantomimed, leering sinister crooks, and OF COURSE that crook becomes the Joker (oh the pathos!)

Nolan - in real-time, actual interaction between the criminal and the victim, actual TENSION (cf. when the wallet drops), crook as lost befuddled desperate soul driven to such depths (apparent even w/out all the depression discussion), actual Bruce-parent interaction prior to that so viewers give a crap when the parents get popped, the insertion of Bruce's guilt into the scenario (cf. wanting to leave the opera house), and the lack of romanticized foofah when the gun goes off (tho, in hindsight, Mr. Wayne getting off that one line is a bit hokey, but, @ the same time, it dovetails nicely w/ what preceded it).

Yeah, yeah, but maybe I didn't put fine enough a point on it. Batman is not just any filmic property, he's a fucking brand, and a pretty big one. For the last 20 years, Batman has been the biggest (and nearly ONLY at times) moneymaker from DC Comics. On the one hand, yeah, Batman is a modern myth, an operatic iteration of the post-Depression urbanization, but on the other hand, Batman is Ronald McDonald.

I admit I actually liked the creepy sense of slow motion/unsettled music in the Burton depiction, at least as the scene begins. With this version, I suspect part of me may well have just been *impatient* -- like a, "Look, we know, okay?" Which for those that don't know is admittedly unfair. But also I thought the conclusion of the scene -- kid slumped to his knees, folks sprawling out on either side -- was a little too self-consciously staged in a movie where most such scenes are done with plot-derived intent (the multiple ninja scene in the monastery, for instance, or Falcone spreadeagled on the searchlight).

Also, frankly, I was a bit dulled by the young Bruce's reaction to it all. I suppose it's really hard to convey near instant shock and make it seem like something as compelling as "I've got a splinter in my foot. Ouch. I think I'll vaguely sniffle." The fact that it's immediately followed by Oldman's first appearance trying to figure out *how* to convey sympathy/assistance to young Bruce -- you can sense him trying to find the right words/attitude/etc., like you suspect just about anyone else would in that situation -- kicks the acting up a notch and has more of an impact in my mind.

xpost

I guess I can see where Burton's self-aware staging of the event is less cloying than Nolan's "less artistic" attempt at verisimilitude, but at the same time, Ned, you're on crack, and you like Star Wars, so SHAVE THOSE SIDEBURNS HIPPY!