Batman Begins
Jun. 17th, 2005 10:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ivyficMy thoughts after one viewing:
If you understand that Bruce Wayne is the mask Batman wears, then you understand Batman. And the film-makers clearly understood this.
This film was a pure, distilled essence of Batman. It was like an intraveinous injection of the character, without any of the frills normally thrown in (sidekick, grand-standing villain). Everything the film-makers added to the backstory of Batman that I hadn’t seen before was perfect; they showed me that they understood him completely. Batman would choose to embody that which he was most afraid of, to make the face of what he feared his own face. Bruce Wayne, before being galvanized into the vigilante he would become, would be willing and capable of assassinating the man that murdered his parents.
The only conflict in this film is between Bruce Wayne and himself. Rha’s Al Ghul isn’t a character. He is smoke and shadows. All he does is reveal to Bruce what is inside him. He is an externalization of an internal conflict.
When Batman left Rha’s to die, I was struck by how little I felt for the relationship between these two men. I didn’t feel that Bruce respects, admires, loves, or even hates his teacher. Then I realised that there was no relationship between this two men. Rha’s is a mirror, that is all. The conflict in this scene is not about whether Batman will let his mentor die, it is about whether Batman will take a life. The conflict is purely internal.
Rha’s is Bruce’s own destructive influence. Think about it – what is Bruce fighting in this film? He is not fighting the man that killed his parents, or the crime kingpin that made Gotham a hell-hole. He is fighting the destruction of Gotham, which is a terribly un-specific goal. Batman, in all his incarnations, in all his years, is always fighting the destruction of Gotham. Rha’s, as an embodiment of Batman’s own darkness, just brings that immaterial opponent onto the screen. And at every turn, Batman is fighting himself – he is fighting his fear, fighting his anger, fighting his grief, fighting his desire for vengeance, fighting his doubt. No villain, no matter how ingenious or conniving or brilliant can create the tension that exists in this film simply within the character of Batman.
Alfred was perfect. When he sees how badly hurt Bruce is he doesn’t fuss or worry or whine, he practically points out that Bruce needs an excuse for his injury. Because he is so accepting and understanding of the path Bruce has chosen to walk, when he speaks out against Bruce’s actions it is that much more powerful. You can imagine this man waiting for his ward to come home for seven years while others declared him dead without losing hope. He is perfectly matched to Bruce – neither is demonstrative with their affection. That doesn’t mean it’s not there.
I was not paying much attention to Katie Holmes’ character in the film, but I did appreciate her final scene. I wanted to say two things to the two of them at that point.
One – as Bruce pointed out in “Batman: The Mask of the Phantasm,” what he does he cannot do if he has someone to come home to. He must walk alone – not in the selfish, short-sighted way Spider-Man feels, no, Batman truly must walk alone. Batman is a vigilante because something inside of him won’t let him be anything else, and it is that, not the danger and responsibility of his persona, which would not allow him to be romantically involved in any healthy way.
Two – the man she “loved” never existed. It’s not that he didn’t come back, he simply never was. The man she “loved” planned a cold-blooded murder, and would have carried it out had it not become unnecessary. If she saw something sweet and good in Bruce at that age it was because she was too blind to really see what he was thinking and feeling. Bruce has been twisted with his own guilt and anger his whole life; the only time I can imagine there being a sweet man for her to fall in love with is before his parents’ death.
I loved the last scene with soon-to-be-Commisioner Gordon, not for the fan service appearance of the Joker, but for what Gordon says about it. Right here, at the very start, he lays the responsibility for the wackos squarely at Batman’s feet. He’s right. It is escalation. And Batman is in that way responsible.
-Liam Neeson – I’d forgotten what a good action star he was. Watching him here, I was reminded not only of Qui-Gon Jinn, but of Darkman, a very Batman-like character that he originated.
-I have one nitpick. A microwave emitter vaporizing all water within its radius. Isn’t the human body, um, mostly water? Wouldn’t this pretty much kill people? I have long learned to tune out during the pointless exposition of the villain’s plot and recognize it for what it is – simply a means to get in a big show-down at the end and to make the audience feel like they didn’t just waste two hours of their time. But this plot seems overly convoluted. We’re going to smuggle in hallucinogens as drugs, extract it out of the drugs, put it in the water supply and then – wait for it – vaporize all the water in the city! Unh-huh. For a while I thought they were going to spike the herion so all the users went crazy and died. That would fit pretty well in with the Sodom and Gomorrah-esque view Rha’s has of the city. It would wipe out the bad elements exclusively. Ah, well. Guess that’s not dramatic enough.
-That was one hell of a stunt casting pick. Ken Watanabe for five lines in Chinese and bill him as the main villain? Glad they have that much money to throw into messing with our heads.
-I love Lucious Fox. And I love that Bruce Wayne doesn’t even have to try to stage a hostile takeover of his company.
-Anybody else want to see Bruce Wayne: The Princeton Years?
The Score
The soundtrack was composed by Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard – an odd combination, but an effective one. James Newton Howard has done all of M. Night Shyamalan’s films – beautiful, atmospheric music. “Signs” is one of my absolute favorite soundtracks. Hans Zimmer, as the NPR film music consultant says, is good for “sound by the pound.” He and his many collaborators are responsible for all the booming, drum-driven action scores of the last few years, including “Gladiator,” another one of my all-time favorite soundtracks.
Together, they create a new musical landscape for Batman. Danny Elfman took a step forward in his scoring for Tim Burton’s film by creating a dark, moody theme for the Dark Knight. This soundtrack has no themes at all. James Newton Howard often uses minimalism – mood instead of melody. And for a story about the Dark Knight before he has become that, it makes perfect sense that he has no theme music. There is no Batman theme because there is no Batman. Instead we get pounding drums during the fights (very “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”) and low threatening ostenatos from the orchestra. I will have to, of course, purchase the album for further examination, but I suspect it will not be as listenable as Danny Elfman’s scores. It worked perfectly in the film, but might not work on its own.
I wonder if this is a similar situation as the soundtrack for “Constantine,” where Klaus Badelt, one of Hans Zimmer’s frequent collaborators, was brought in at the last minute to give some punch to Bryan Tyler’s orchestral score. If so, it is an unusual marriage, but an effective one.
This film put on the screen every thought I have ever had about the character of Bruce Wayne. And for that I am thoroughly grateful. I can only hope that there will be many more from this mold and that they will all be as good.
If you understand that Bruce Wayne is the mask Batman wears, then you understand Batman. And the film-makers clearly understood this.
This film was a pure, distilled essence of Batman. It was like an intraveinous injection of the character, without any of the frills normally thrown in (sidekick, grand-standing villain). Everything the film-makers added to the backstory of Batman that I hadn’t seen before was perfect; they showed me that they understood him completely. Batman would choose to embody that which he was most afraid of, to make the face of what he feared his own face. Bruce Wayne, before being galvanized into the vigilante he would become, would be willing and capable of assassinating the man that murdered his parents.
The only conflict in this film is between Bruce Wayne and himself. Rha’s Al Ghul isn’t a character. He is smoke and shadows. All he does is reveal to Bruce what is inside him. He is an externalization of an internal conflict.
When Batman left Rha’s to die, I was struck by how little I felt for the relationship between these two men. I didn’t feel that Bruce respects, admires, loves, or even hates his teacher. Then I realised that there was no relationship between this two men. Rha’s is a mirror, that is all. The conflict in this scene is not about whether Batman will let his mentor die, it is about whether Batman will take a life. The conflict is purely internal.
Rha’s is Bruce’s own destructive influence. Think about it – what is Bruce fighting in this film? He is not fighting the man that killed his parents, or the crime kingpin that made Gotham a hell-hole. He is fighting the destruction of Gotham, which is a terribly un-specific goal. Batman, in all his incarnations, in all his years, is always fighting the destruction of Gotham. Rha’s, as an embodiment of Batman’s own darkness, just brings that immaterial opponent onto the screen. And at every turn, Batman is fighting himself – he is fighting his fear, fighting his anger, fighting his grief, fighting his desire for vengeance, fighting his doubt. No villain, no matter how ingenious or conniving or brilliant can create the tension that exists in this film simply within the character of Batman.
Alfred was perfect. When he sees how badly hurt Bruce is he doesn’t fuss or worry or whine, he practically points out that Bruce needs an excuse for his injury. Because he is so accepting and understanding of the path Bruce has chosen to walk, when he speaks out against Bruce’s actions it is that much more powerful. You can imagine this man waiting for his ward to come home for seven years while others declared him dead without losing hope. He is perfectly matched to Bruce – neither is demonstrative with their affection. That doesn’t mean it’s not there.
I was not paying much attention to Katie Holmes’ character in the film, but I did appreciate her final scene. I wanted to say two things to the two of them at that point.
One – as Bruce pointed out in “Batman: The Mask of the Phantasm,” what he does he cannot do if he has someone to come home to. He must walk alone – not in the selfish, short-sighted way Spider-Man feels, no, Batman truly must walk alone. Batman is a vigilante because something inside of him won’t let him be anything else, and it is that, not the danger and responsibility of his persona, which would not allow him to be romantically involved in any healthy way.
Two – the man she “loved” never existed. It’s not that he didn’t come back, he simply never was. The man she “loved” planned a cold-blooded murder, and would have carried it out had it not become unnecessary. If she saw something sweet and good in Bruce at that age it was because she was too blind to really see what he was thinking and feeling. Bruce has been twisted with his own guilt and anger his whole life; the only time I can imagine there being a sweet man for her to fall in love with is before his parents’ death.
I loved the last scene with soon-to-be-Commisioner Gordon, not for the fan service appearance of the Joker, but for what Gordon says about it. Right here, at the very start, he lays the responsibility for the wackos squarely at Batman’s feet. He’s right. It is escalation. And Batman is in that way responsible.
-Liam Neeson – I’d forgotten what a good action star he was. Watching him here, I was reminded not only of Qui-Gon Jinn, but of Darkman, a very Batman-like character that he originated.
-I have one nitpick. A microwave emitter vaporizing all water within its radius. Isn’t the human body, um, mostly water? Wouldn’t this pretty much kill people? I have long learned to tune out during the pointless exposition of the villain’s plot and recognize it for what it is – simply a means to get in a big show-down at the end and to make the audience feel like they didn’t just waste two hours of their time. But this plot seems overly convoluted. We’re going to smuggle in hallucinogens as drugs, extract it out of the drugs, put it in the water supply and then – wait for it – vaporize all the water in the city! Unh-huh. For a while I thought they were going to spike the herion so all the users went crazy and died. That would fit pretty well in with the Sodom and Gomorrah-esque view Rha’s has of the city. It would wipe out the bad elements exclusively. Ah, well. Guess that’s not dramatic enough.
-That was one hell of a stunt casting pick. Ken Watanabe for five lines in Chinese and bill him as the main villain? Glad they have that much money to throw into messing with our heads.
-I love Lucious Fox. And I love that Bruce Wayne doesn’t even have to try to stage a hostile takeover of his company.
-Anybody else want to see Bruce Wayne: The Princeton Years?
The Score
The soundtrack was composed by Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard – an odd combination, but an effective one. James Newton Howard has done all of M. Night Shyamalan’s films – beautiful, atmospheric music. “Signs” is one of my absolute favorite soundtracks. Hans Zimmer, as the NPR film music consultant says, is good for “sound by the pound.” He and his many collaborators are responsible for all the booming, drum-driven action scores of the last few years, including “Gladiator,” another one of my all-time favorite soundtracks.
Together, they create a new musical landscape for Batman. Danny Elfman took a step forward in his scoring for Tim Burton’s film by creating a dark, moody theme for the Dark Knight. This soundtrack has no themes at all. James Newton Howard often uses minimalism – mood instead of melody. And for a story about the Dark Knight before he has become that, it makes perfect sense that he has no theme music. There is no Batman theme because there is no Batman. Instead we get pounding drums during the fights (very “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”) and low threatening ostenatos from the orchestra. I will have to, of course, purchase the album for further examination, but I suspect it will not be as listenable as Danny Elfman’s scores. It worked perfectly in the film, but might not work on its own.
I wonder if this is a similar situation as the soundtrack for “Constantine,” where Klaus Badelt, one of Hans Zimmer’s frequent collaborators, was brought in at the last minute to give some punch to Bryan Tyler’s orchestral score. If so, it is an unusual marriage, but an effective one.
This film put on the screen every thought I have ever had about the character of Bruce Wayne. And for that I am thoroughly grateful. I can only hope that there will be many more from this mold and that they will all be as good.