Partons of the Artist of the Beautiful

While I would love to give a review of The Dark Knight, I feel like too much has already been said towards the film’s quality. I can hardly add to it. It was a rich morality tale with a firm footing in both the arenas of crime drama and adventure cinema, but one where the action never eclipsed its intelligence. The subtext of the film – one spun tightly of terrorists, a one-man Department of Homeland Security and the danger of putting all of one’s eggs in the basket of a (delusional?) white knight. When more of my friends have seen it, I may post a review/explanation of the themes as I see it and try to tease out more of the subtext. For example, any doubt that Bruce Wayne is the alter ego to Batman is erased in a single decision made halfway through the film. Let there be no more debate on that front.

What I do want to touch briefly upon though is one’s capacity for awe and excitement as we age. There is a scene halfway through Knocked Up when Seth Rogen’s character is at the park with Pete (the fantasy-baseball-draft-sneaker husband) and Pete’s daughter. Pete is bemoaning the doldrums of aging, how life grows mundane and lacks joy. He tells Rogen, “I wish I liked anything as much as I like bubbles,” a defeated man who has watched all the promise and joy evaporate from his life. Bills, suits and responsibility ravage any enjoyment he may have. He lives in the real world equivalent of post-Mufasa Pride Rock. Promise and hope, joy and genuine excitement are such rare things. And I refuse to turn into Pete. The months of anticipation for The Dark Knight served as a nice reminder to me of what fun truly enjoying something can be – that even though the days of superhero lunch boxes and Trapper Keepers have long since been, we can still be childishly awed and impishly impatient. I found it relieving that I could be so excited by something so utterly inconsequential. As I made thank you notes out of pages from a Dark Knight coloring book for each of my friends who joined me for the movie or as I thought through the logistics of taking a three foot wide Batman balloon on the El to dinner and then to Navy Pier, it occurred to me how few of these moments there still are.

While the growing freedom we earn as we grow is appreciated, it takes some of the special/mysterious quality away from the outside world. We can go get a Happy Meal any time we want. R-rated movies aren’t all that special. Neither are most bars. The internet is flooded with top-heavy shirtless clownettes. Our capacity for amazement has been shrunk to a narrow, fleeting band and our desire for “amazement” is not always driven by the best of impulses. But having a few things that unmistakably remind us of our youth can be powerful in a way that escapes nostalgia and captures our dormant imagination. It is that much more special when the occurrences are beyond our purchase. That is, we can’t pay for a new Batman film anytime we want. We can’t demand with our Benjamin’s a new U2 album or book by Klosterman. It is almost entirely out of our control. And perhaps that is what is most subtly childlike about the experience.

Regardless of the reason, I was simply thrilled that I could enjoy both the anticipation of the film and the actual 152 minutes of footage on a 6 story high screen like I was – at least temporarily – a six-year old and know that the ability to be awed does not totally disappear as we leave a once seemingly endless Neverland.

By Choice, Not By Chance

Superhero origins all pivot on circumstance. No self-destructing Krypton, no Superman on the Kent family farm. No radioactive arachnid, no Spider-Man. No misused gamma rays, no Hulk. And Batman's origin hinges on circumstance as well: no murder, no Batman. But Batman’s origin is not as simple as that.

What is noble about Batman/Bruce Wayne is that he chooses his path; he is a product of free will and determination, not chance. His parents may have been murdered, but he isn’t the only mourning son of slain parents. Unlike Superman, Spidey, or Hulk, the circumstance that grips Wayne’s world is shared by others. What differentiates the Dark Knight is that he embarks on his journey consciously. Spider-Man’s “great power” is thrust upon him by fate, forcing him to accept “great responsibility”. Wayne chooses the burden of great responsibility that sets him about a journey for establishing himself as a great power. Batman is a Horatio Alger-character – self-made and reliant, his effectiveness hinging upon cunning and ingenuity, not an inexhaustible supply of inherited power – while the others are more members of the Lucky Sperm Club. (This is particularly ironic because of massive wealth of the Wayne family.)

Very few other superheroes - and none of the big guns - choose their path. Clark Kent, Peter Parker, Bruce Banner, and Logan all have no choice in their alter-egos. They are victims of fate, subservient to the surrounding world. And my guess is that if Clark, Peter, Bruce and Logan were asked whether they would give up their superpowers to become regular humans, each would do it in a moment for a chance at normalcy. Wayne had normalcy and willingly embarked on a different path. His genesis was conscious, not manipulated by the heavy-hand of fate.

While Kent and crew painfully embrace their alter-egos, Bruce Wayne is the only one who truly becomes his alter-ego without reservations and emotional hindrance. And in doing so, Batman becomes the man's true ego, while Bruce Wayne becomes his alter ego. I am wont to believe that any character or person who chooses to become "something else entirely" - as Ducard says at the beginning of "Batman Begins" - assumes that "new" identity as their ego, relegating their previous life to their alter-ego. That is why I was so thrilled with how "Batman Begins" ended, with Rachael Dawes acknowledging that, "your real face is the one that criminals now fear. The man I loved - the man who vanished - he never came back at all. But maybe he's still out there, somewhere. Maybe someday, when Gotham no longer needs Batman, I'll see him again." That is EXACTLY right. He has become something else entirely and in doing so, marginalized another part of his life. By choice, not by chance. And this is what differentiates himself in the crowded superhero canon. Since Wayne chooses to assume the Batman identity, Bruce Wayne becomes the alter-ego, not vice versa.

(A quick aside and perhaps a point of clarification - based on this standard, James Gatz is the alter ego to Jay Gatsby because Fitzgerald's protagonist willingly chooses to be Gatsby rather than Gatz. Although this is slightly complicated by the fact that Gatsby is never bound by dual identities like Batman/Bruce Wayne is.)

And Batman is clearly a man on a mission, but it's not pursuit of personal vengeance. His aim is much higher than that. He wants Gotham to be a better place, a city where a young Bruce Wayne would not become a victim. In a way, he's out to make himself obsolete (this will be a central thematic tension in the new film). Spider-man, Superman, and Batman are all heroes who wish they didn’t exist. The difference is that Spider-Man and Superman wish that fate had not dealt them these super cards, while Batman wishes he lived in a world where he was not needed.

The cumulative effect of this is that the world Batman inhabits – the world without flying men and purple-pants wearing angry monsters, but with crime, grit and corruption – is that much more believable to us, the audience. We can understand how a man became a cape-and-cowl-clad creature of the (k)night and in some small way relate to him in a way that others can never be relatable to those watching their exploits. We can understand and empathize with Peter Parker, but not with Spider-man. We can feel for Clark Kent, but not for Superman. But we can emphasize with both Batman and Bruce Wayne. Now as for the Joker…

I think the Color Kid is coming out in 2010

There are a few events every year that mark the beginning of seasons to me. This means winter. This means fall. This just sounds like the trees blooming and the coming thaw of spring. And increasingly summer sounds something like this. Or this. Or this. Since 2000, the summer movie docket has been populated – perhaps overpopulated – with superhero films based on comic book characters. In each year of the new millennium, a superhero film has finished as one of the top ten grossing films in the country – from 2000’s X-Men to 2007’s Spider-Man 3. The future Hollywood landscape looks similar – Iron Man makes his silver screen debut in May. The purple jeans-clad Hulk gets a much needed – albeit not highly demanded – re-visitation after Ang Lee’s tedious attempt earlier this decade. And a certain young man is almost beside himself waiting for The Dark Knight. 2009 will see the release of a Wolverine origin story starring Hugh Jackman, a Captain America pic, and G.I. Joe (I am hoping it starts like this). The success of these films comes at a time when the mainstream popularity of comic books has dropped significantly over the past two decades. But the heroes who once found themselves published only in the marginalized mediums of comic books have captured wide and loyal viewing audiences.

Why have these films found traction? Why can’t Hollywood get enough of them? And why are even more coming down the pipeline? A few thoughts.

The incredible number of characters and stories

Hollywood loves to take an idea or story formula and beat it into the ground until there is nothing but the tired shell of the original idea. Think of what they did to television game shows in the late 1990s and how they spawned bastardized off-spring of shows like Friends, The X-Files, and Sex and the City to see this pattern. Comic book films are a similar phenomenon. One studio sees another score a huge hit with a comic book adaptation and they want their own. Fortunately, the comic book canon is enormous, both in the number of characters and their rich, numerous story lines. These characters have been created and recreated countless times and are available to be reinterpreted on film again. Studios can delve deep into the character’s cannon to pull the most compelling stories to adapt onto the big screen. The material and storyline often times just needs to be found, not created. The incredible depth not only provides a single story arc, but a number of compelling plots and angles for a single character, making sequels that much more viable and attractive.

Batman is a great example of this. Warner Brothers released four Batman films between 1989 and 1997 with the final installment – Joel Schumacher’s Batman & Robin – essentially killing the franchises’ momentum. After waiting almost a decade, Warner Brothers revived Batman by fusing three of the character’s best graphic novel stories into a film, relying heavily on Frank Miller’s Batman: Year One. The resulting film – Batman Begins – stayed true to the character’s roots, scrapping the previous image of the Batman from the 1990s films and in doing so found greater success at the box office than any of the other previous Batman movies.

Special effects and compelling stories merge

Much of the film’s appeal to an audience much wider than core comic book readers stems from the reemphasis on the compelling characters and narrative structure rather than relying solely on special effects to sell the film. Since audiences have come to take awesome and intricate special effects for granted, studios can no longer rely solely on special effects to sell a film, a la Twister. The novelty of special effects has worn off, resulting in audiences now expecting some dimension and complexity to the characters and a certain narrative quality in addition to the visual fireworks. Comic books are uniquely ripe for this type of adaptation. Comic book films allow for the film makers to uniquely structure a compelling story arc – a vast canvas with complex characters, flawed figures, and intricate emotions – within the traditional blockbuster blueprint whose foundation is in special effects.

Emphasis on the story means emphasis on the alter ego

Because the character’s emotional component is on the forefront of the story, this means that the superheroes’ alter-ego is an important component in connecting with the audience. Audiences are unable to relate to Spider-man’s graceful swings down New York City’s concrete canyons, but they can emphasize with Peter Parker’s rent problems and his overriding concern for his Aunt May. A movie-goer might not be able to share Wolverine physical make-up, but most in the audience can connect with the character’s status as marginalized and misunderstood. The X-Men series does a particularly deft job at balancing their protagonists’ super powers with their emotional baggage. There is a judicial display of their superpowers throughout the films in order to not dilute the human element of the story. The script even calls for the X-Men to call themselves by their given names (Logan, Scott, Eric), not their mutant names (Wolverine, Cyclops, and Magneto, respectively). These psychologically complex characters with obvious emotional concerns provide these films their ethos, making it easier for the director to communicate the story to the audience.

This also impacts the casting of these characters. The casting decisions take into account both the superhero and the alter-ego. Tobey Maguire might not seem like he would be a natural pick for Spider-Man, but he is spot on as Peter Parker, showing that both sides of the character were considered when casting the role. The other component is that most of these leads in the superhero films since 2000 have been relative unknowns; Maguire as Spider-Man, Christian Bale as Batman, Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, and Brandon Roth as Superman. This makes it easier for the director to communicate with the audience because they are not distracted by seeing a well-known actor in the role, but rather the physical representation of an iconic image.

Comic books are essentially a director’s story boards

Another advantage to comic book adaptations is the way in which comic books are written. They are essentially story boards to the directors, a graphic organizer of illustrations that are displayed in sequence for the explicit purpose of visualizing motion sequences. Comic strips in the 1930s and 40s are now generally considered to be the video tape of its day. The advancements in special effects has allowed for directors to create a world where the action of the character can be convincingly and believably shown on screen, whereas before the movement of a Spider-man or Magneto could only be imagined by the reader in the static pages of the comic book. Special effects in motion pictures filled in the imagined action only implied in the two-dimensional, static world of comic books.

It is fun to watch

This may be obscenely simple, but superhero movies – on the whole – are fun to watch. Most of these characters are unrealized heroes and boys of all ages like things that fly, explode, and have capes. As long as it is treated seriously, then it is tough to go wrong. That means stay away from these clowns.