Dir: Tim Burton, 1989, US/UK 1Cast26 mins
Cast: Michael Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Kim Basinger, Robert Wuhl, Pat Hingle, Michael Gough, Billy Dee Williams, Jack Palance, Jerry Hall
From the darkened skyline to the sprawling urban decay on the streets of Gotham City, if there is one thing that strikes you when watching Batman, it’s that this is worlds away from the pop-art camp and spandex that typified previous screen incarnations of Bob Kane’s comic-book creation. Taking inspiration from 1980s graphic novel reinventions of the titular hero, such as Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns series, director Tim Burton enraptured and infuriated die-hard followers in equal measures. Even before the projector reel was set in motion, fans were still praising the omission of the much-maligned (rent) boy-wonder Robin while debating the merits of “Mr. Mom” Michael Keaton in the lead role.
Gotham City is in the midst of a crime wave. With most of the police department in the pockets of crime lord, Carl Grissom (Palance), the mysterious vigilante Batman (Keaton) is the city’s only saviour. Grissom sets up his right-hand man, Jack Napier (Nicholson) during a raid on a chemical plant after learning of his infidelities with gang moll, Alicia (Hall). During a shootout with police, Batman enters from the shadows but cannot stop Napier plunging into a vat of toxic waste. Disfigured and demented, The Joker is born and vows to take revenge on his former employer before leading a crime wave of his own.
Batman’s origins, both in print and on screen are open to re-interpretation, and Burton makes a few of his own additions to the mythology. Unlike most other comic-book superheroes, Batman’s attraction is his humanity, living a dual existence as eccentric millionaire Bruce Wayne, and unlike genetically-modified mutants, Batman’s genesis is the murder of his parents, which Burton revisits here in flashback. Burton personalises the conflict between Batman and The Joker by revealing that it was Napier who shot Wayne’s parents, and in the film’s climax, the battle between the two is more psychological than physical.
Despite the film’s title, it is The Joker who receives top-billing here, and Jack Nicholson steals his scenes as the anarchistic antagonist. Bursting with deranged physicality, The Joker takes mischievous glee from defacing everything from art galleries to people’s faces, and despite delivering some memorable comic lines (“Do I look like I’m joking?”), there is always a sense of uninhibited menace that lurks beneath his distorted grin. Surprising fan-sceptics, Michael Keaton excels as Bruce Wayne, exhibiting all the schizophrenic duplicity of the nocturnal crime fighter. However, despite the ultra-sleek Batmobile and vast array of gadgets (“Where does he get all of those wonderful toys?” quips The Joker), Keaton lacks the physical potency to fully inhabit the batsuit, and one of Burton’s flaws was that he allowed Batman to become the stooge to The Joker’s scene stealing.
When Bruce Wayne says in the film, "Some of it is very much me, and some of it isn't”, it could almost be Burton talking of his artistic input. Set reports that the studio was passing the maverick director constant re-writes throughout the shoot would have done little to allay the pressure felt by Burton on only his third feature to cultivate a traditional blockbuster. The obligatory love-interest with reporter Vicky Vale (Basinger), feels so forced that there is never any spark between her and Bruce Wayne, and when Vale enters the Batcave, she fails to register any surprise that her date is the caped crusader. If there is one part of this film that fails to transcend the two-dimensional, it is the characterisation.
Regardless of its flaws, Batman was more than just a film and became something of a cultural phenomenon. For Warners, Batman was a mass-marketing opportunity, spawning toys, t-shirts, two soundtracks and fast-food tie-ins. The bat logo was a ubiquitous icon during the summer of 1989, and in more ways than one, the film’s biggest flaws are the result of its commercial imperatives. Danny Elfman’s score, mixing the epic grandeur of John Williams and ominous tones of Bernard Hermann, compliments the film’s striking visuals, but the inclusion of Prince songs that now make the film look dated break the mood.
However, the lasting images from this film are Anton Furst’s sets which depict the fall-out of modernity, with skyscrapers climbing monolithically to a claustrophobic skyline. Gotham City in Batman is a bleak visualisation of postmodern city, presented as an urban nightmare drawn from the worlds of Huxley and Orwell, Le Corbusier and Fritz Lang, Robert Weine and Orson Welles. Fifteen years on, and this is still Batman’s finest achievement, redefining the look of fantasy cinema, and leading the way for comic-book adaptations from X-Men to Spiderman.
While Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins appears to have become the definitive big-screen realisation of a comic-book superhero that continues to inspire equal amount of anticipation and antipathy, the worldwide success of Batman, 16 years earlier, permitted Burton the unique position to work on personal projects with blockbuster-sized budgets. Burton’s Batman Returns was a more cohesive film, but it was to be his last before Joel Schumacher sent the franchise into near-terminal decline. This Dark Knight, however, has a habit of rising from the shadows.
Stephen Collings
Region 2 Special Edition DVD extras include:
Audio Commentary by director Tim Burton
On the Set With Bob Kane
Legends of the Dark Knight: The History of Batman – The Batman comic book saga as reinvented and reinterpreted over nearly seven decades
Shadows of the Bat: The Cinematic Saga of the Dark Knight Parts 1-3
The Road to Gotham City
The Gathering Storm
The Legend Reborn
Beyond Batman Documentary Gallery
Visualizing Gotham: The Production Design of Batman
Building the Batmobile
Those Wonderful Toys: The Props and Gadgets of Batman
Designing the Batsuit
From Jack to the Joker
Nocturnal Overtures: The Music of Batman
Music videos by Prince: Batdance, Partyman and Scandalous
The Heroes and The Villains Profile Galleries
Batman: The Complete Robin Storyboard Sequence
Theatrical trailer
Released by Warner
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