***1/2 (out of ****)
Starring Jack Nicholson, Michael Keaton, Kim Basinger, Robert Wuhl, Pat Hingle, Billy Dee Williams, Michael Gough, Terry Hall, and Jack Palance
Directed by Tim Burton & written by Sam Hamm and Warren Skaaren, from characters created by Bob Kane
1989
126 min PG13
Tim Burton’s “Batman” is not about crime, crime-fighting, superheroes, or even Batman, for that matter. It is about Tim Burton, and that is why it is among the best movies based on comic books, alongside “The Crow” and “Sin City.” The inert and meandering Marvel films of recent years—“Daredevil,” “X-Men,” “Spider-man,”—are advertisements in awe of something else (the comic books upon which they are based). But Burton’s “Batman” is a final product, made by a man who by his own admission has never read any “Batman” comic book. He has taken the art of another and made it his own, using it to describe himself.
It’s not that I think Tim Burton’s life is more interesting than “Batman” creator Bob Kane’s life. But, as something of an auteurist, I find the artist who tells his own story is more likely to create good art than the artist who tries to tell someone else’s story. The appreciation most diehard “X-Men” and “Spider-man” fans feels for those movies is because their pre-existing appreciation of the comic books is being acknowledged. Similarly, fans of the “cinema of noise” are having their pre-existing appreciation of explosion movies uncritically congratulated. The disdain most diehard comic book “Batman” fans felt for Burton’s “Batman” is because he was not interested in making a fan-boy appreciation festival, but in making a piece that spoke to him about his needs.
The auteurist theory, in one of its most reduced states, says that the auteur filmmaker is always trying to make the same movie over and over again, about himself. Stanley Kubrick, for instance, never visited the same subject matter twice (okay, “Paths of Glory” and “Full Metal Jacket” were both war movies, made 30 years apart). But the same themes always cropped up, regardless of whether he brought them to 18th century Europe, outer space, or the bedroom.
With Tim Burton, the “one movie” begins with his live-action short “Frankenweenie,” about a lonely boy in an exaggerated suburb who brings his only companion, his beloved and dead dog, back to life. The image Burton has cultivated for himself is that of a lonely boy, misunderstood by others and unable to understand them, taking solace in gothic architecture, old Vincent Price movies, and lonely hours left to himself. Burton films project that he has never gotten past his childhood alienation. His protagonists invariably share this alienation. Jack Skellington lives outside normal social and familial interactions in “The Nightmare Before Christmas.” Edward Scissorhands is equally separated by his bizarre physical affliction. Pee-Wee Herman has so little to do with the real world that we wonder if he even, flickeringly, knows that it exists outside of his private universe. And, of course, there is Burton’s magnum opus, Johnny Depp as Ed Wood, the outcast, untalented genius.
In “Batman,” Burton sees the battle between Batman and the Joker as the internal struggle of the eccentric outcast. Batman has basically forgiven the “normals” for rejecting him. In a way, he has accepted what he perceives as their negative judgment of him. Batman says to himself (although in not so many words): “I am different and I am a freak. Because of who I am and what brings me pleasure, others are half-right to call me a freak, but I will continue to do what pleases me anyway. I will make a truce with those who fear me because they do not understand me.” The Joker, on the other hand, is Batman’s alter-ego. He will not stand idly by and accept the fear and revulsion heaped on him by the “normals.” He will hurt them back. These two ideologies collide. It is the essence of drama.
Once we accept that “Batman” is about the internal conflict of the eccentric, the gaping plot holes and logic gaps that criss-cross it can be tossed aside. Yes, the movie starts slow. Yes, it has characters that do nothing (Billy Dee Williams, a fine actor, as District Attorney Harvey Dent, for instance). Yes, it is rife with undeveloped threads, about Gotham City’s 200th anniversary or a tertiary disinterest in crime. But I can forgive it.
The third character in “Batman’s” triangle is not love interest Vicki Vale but Bruce Wayne, Batman’s other alter-ego. Batman is, apparently, the real man: comfortable, confident, powerful, aggressive. He is the complex within Bruce Wayne that craves to be. The Bruce Wayne we see is a front, a fake, a façade. He is awkward and incapable of even putting down a champagne glass, or any other task that would be immensely easy for Batman. As played by Michael Keaton, both Wayne and Batman move in a way that most people would consider strange. The first time we see Batman in action is at once fearsome and ridiculous: he raises his arms and his cape, and the bad guys gun him down. He gets back up, raises his arms and cape again, and when the bad guys stare at him in disbelief, he gets frustrated and kicks one. Watch the sequence in the right frame of mind and you don’t see a superhuman monster but a little boy in a vampire cape, making an allusion to something no one quite gets.
Yet Batman is comfortable with his odd, neck-less motions. Like Ed Wood in his girlfriend’s dresses, Batman only feels good in costume, in his car, or in his cave. Bruce Wayne’s motion are odd and unnatural because Batman, in Wayne’s skin, is trying his best to impersonate a “normal.” Mostly, he fails.
To illustrate this, Burton has some magnificent production design at his disposal. Wayne Manor is transformed into Wayne/Batman’s concentric circles of eccentricity. Photographer Vicki Vale (Kim Basinger) walks through the rooms of the manor as if through Wayne’s physically realized subconscious. Some rooms are defenses and decoys, some rooms are the real thing. They are all places too carefully attended to by a lonely boy who should get out more. The secret Wayne wants to tell her isn’t so much “I’m Batman” as “I’m weird.” “I’m not the normal kid that a girl like you would usually date.” The idea of her getting past his defenses and thus rejecting him is terrifying.
Burton’s set designers and art directors don’t stop there. They render a Gotham City that is one of the most splendid places in all the movies. Art deco and the gothic collide in a nightmare city of shadows, skyscrapers, back alleys, and noisy factories. Neon signs perpetually blink on and off while manhole covers brood and steam. The technology of 1989 crops up here and there, in cars, television, and the clothes underneath the fedoras and trenchcoats, but this is basically still 1948. A 13th-century cathedral seems to pop out of nowhere for the movie’s climax, and no real explanation is made for why any of the characters should go into it. Except that it looks cool.
Page two of "Batman." Back to home.