Rekcufrehtom
11-24-2010, 11:02 PM
There are many differing opinions as to which is the best Batman film, and which way suits the character and setting the best.
In watching Batman, Batman Returns, Batman: The Animated Series, Batman: Mask Of The Phantasm, Batman & Robin, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and Batman: Gotham Knight, I've realized that none of them are, in my opinion, the ideal depiction of my perception of the character of Batman. I have my favourite, of course, and that is, far and away, Batman: The Animated Series. Keep in mind, though, that I've never read a Batman comic (soon to be rectified!).
Batman: The Animated Series shows Gotham City to be a dark and scary place, and you genuinely feel the immediacy and sense of danger of living in such a city. The feeling of unease is palpable. There is crime at every turn. Turn down the wrong street and you are in danger of being attacked.
This is just the mood, but even the design of the city itself is the best out of all of the different depictions. It is filled with hundreds of impossibly tall skyscrapers, connected together by endless narrow streets. It is supremely claustrophobic. It is not a safe place by any stretch of the imagination.
Watch this clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEx9r5enZsk
It is the introduction to the show, and features many of these elements that make the show so great and my favourite depiction of Batman and Gotham.
Notice how the very first shot, panning downwards from the canopy of the skyscrapers, fades into the next one as we reach street level. It gives the impression of great height, that the building is far too tall to fully "comprehend”, or, in this case, to show. In other words, we feel that there is something supernatural, and not very friendly, at work in this place.
Another striking thing about this clip is the prominence of the police. In the single shot of the sky at the very beginning, we see no less than three police blimps, each with two spotlights. The police is on constant high alert. They are not namby-pamby about their commitment to policing the city. This is some seriously scary shit! Not only does the ordinary citizen have reason to be scared walking through the city, but so do the criminals. With surveillance this intense, eluding the police must be the most heart-pumping, adrenaline-fuelled, and amazingly exciting challenges a person could ever face. Imagine running from street to street with the loot in your hands, dodging spotlights and police cars at every turn, getting more and more scared that the Batman is going to come and finish you off.
What does all this have to do with my ideal Batman film?
My ideal Batman film would have great emphasis on the visuals and cinematography, and score, to set the mood, and to establish Gotham as a dark and scary place with criminal activity around every corner. This is what we see in Batman: The Animated Series, so you're probably wondering, unless you're familiar with my film tastes, where I'm going with this, and why Batman: The Animated Series is not the ideal.
I'd have the film be a live-action, feature-length, dialogue-free adaptation of that clip.
The film opens, and for around the first third, we see nothing but Gotham City. It will reveal itself gradually to the viewer. At first it's purely black, then slowly each new element of the city comes into existence. This gives the impression of a city steeped in darkness, and is only temporarily bathed in some sort of light, only to give us outsiders a glimpse. It will be like in the show: very tall skyscrapers, narrow streets, heavy police blimp surveillance, red-tinged sky.
The robbers will enter some way into the film, but they won't be characters. As in the original clip, we won't see their faces clearly, and they will remain unidentified to the viewer. It has been noted that in other adaptations of Batman, after the backstory of Batman himself has been told, the villains enter the picture and steal the show entirely. If the "bad guys” are kept anonymous and unseen, then Batman can still impart his vigilante justice, but we are concentrating on him, rather than the bad guys.
You can guess that up until the bank robbery, the film is very slow-paced and measured. After all, when you're establishing a setting and atmosphere of increasing unease with just images and sound, you need time. The bank robbery, not really explained in the clip, will have more detail, and the robbers' plans won't seem as foolhardy as merely blowing up a bank building. Everything leading up to the explosion will still be quiet and slow-paced, but once those bombs go off, all Hell breaks loose. In my version of the story, the reason they blow up the bank is so that evidence of their presence in the bank is erased, so that, assuming they get away, no one would ever figure out that they were the ones that did it.
The bombs go off and the chase starts. A chase on foot through the narrow streets of Gotham, police cars are racing around, spotlights are scanning the streets. The robbers are running through this maze, adrenaline pumping.
After some time, the chase has calmed down, and the robbers believe they have escaped. It is here that we begin to fear for them, as we sense the entrance of a force more powerful than the police, one that will not let them escape: Batman.
Batman first enters only in vibe. We see the robbers sensing the presence of something dangerous to them, the cinematography and music will adjust accordingly at this point too. When Batman the character finally enters, he is a truly terrifying figure. Bathed in red moonlight, he looks like some kind of medieval warrior, unstoppable, merciless, invincible.
The fight between Batman and the robbers is not thrilling or "action-packed”, but instead, every move that Batman makes is of great cosmic importance. If Batman is to throw a punch, then it is the most powerful and epic punch the world has ever known. Everything occurring around when this punch is being thrown is of little importance. Everything frames this.
After the fight is over, Batman leaves the two robbers tied up so the police may find them and arrest them without difficulty. The police spotlights will shine on them suddenly, and the feeling of having been defeated is tangible. Imagine you're sitting on the ground, tied up, unable to move, and your pursuers are surrounding you, shining lights on you, staring at you, treating you like a pack of wolves would treat a lamb. This is what Batman did to you.
After this, we catch a split-second glimpse of Batman silhouetted against the night sky, a dark force, unstoppable and invincible, a police force on his own, to a city beyond the policing capabilites of normal humans. Gotham City's Dark Knight.
No dialogue necessary, 80 minutes long, total emphasis on cinematography and music, as a means of characterizing the film's only character, Batman. Here, Batman is given the depiction he deserves.
In watching Batman, Batman Returns, Batman: The Animated Series, Batman: Mask Of The Phantasm, Batman & Robin, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and Batman: Gotham Knight, I've realized that none of them are, in my opinion, the ideal depiction of my perception of the character of Batman. I have my favourite, of course, and that is, far and away, Batman: The Animated Series. Keep in mind, though, that I've never read a Batman comic (soon to be rectified!).
Batman: The Animated Series shows Gotham City to be a dark and scary place, and you genuinely feel the immediacy and sense of danger of living in such a city. The feeling of unease is palpable. There is crime at every turn. Turn down the wrong street and you are in danger of being attacked.
This is just the mood, but even the design of the city itself is the best out of all of the different depictions. It is filled with hundreds of impossibly tall skyscrapers, connected together by endless narrow streets. It is supremely claustrophobic. It is not a safe place by any stretch of the imagination.
Watch this clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEx9r5enZsk
It is the introduction to the show, and features many of these elements that make the show so great and my favourite depiction of Batman and Gotham.
Notice how the very first shot, panning downwards from the canopy of the skyscrapers, fades into the next one as we reach street level. It gives the impression of great height, that the building is far too tall to fully "comprehend”, or, in this case, to show. In other words, we feel that there is something supernatural, and not very friendly, at work in this place.
Another striking thing about this clip is the prominence of the police. In the single shot of the sky at the very beginning, we see no less than three police blimps, each with two spotlights. The police is on constant high alert. They are not namby-pamby about their commitment to policing the city. This is some seriously scary shit! Not only does the ordinary citizen have reason to be scared walking through the city, but so do the criminals. With surveillance this intense, eluding the police must be the most heart-pumping, adrenaline-fuelled, and amazingly exciting challenges a person could ever face. Imagine running from street to street with the loot in your hands, dodging spotlights and police cars at every turn, getting more and more scared that the Batman is going to come and finish you off.
What does all this have to do with my ideal Batman film?
My ideal Batman film would have great emphasis on the visuals and cinematography, and score, to set the mood, and to establish Gotham as a dark and scary place with criminal activity around every corner. This is what we see in Batman: The Animated Series, so you're probably wondering, unless you're familiar with my film tastes, where I'm going with this, and why Batman: The Animated Series is not the ideal.
I'd have the film be a live-action, feature-length, dialogue-free adaptation of that clip.
The film opens, and for around the first third, we see nothing but Gotham City. It will reveal itself gradually to the viewer. At first it's purely black, then slowly each new element of the city comes into existence. This gives the impression of a city steeped in darkness, and is only temporarily bathed in some sort of light, only to give us outsiders a glimpse. It will be like in the show: very tall skyscrapers, narrow streets, heavy police blimp surveillance, red-tinged sky.
The robbers will enter some way into the film, but they won't be characters. As in the original clip, we won't see their faces clearly, and they will remain unidentified to the viewer. It has been noted that in other adaptations of Batman, after the backstory of Batman himself has been told, the villains enter the picture and steal the show entirely. If the "bad guys” are kept anonymous and unseen, then Batman can still impart his vigilante justice, but we are concentrating on him, rather than the bad guys.
You can guess that up until the bank robbery, the film is very slow-paced and measured. After all, when you're establishing a setting and atmosphere of increasing unease with just images and sound, you need time. The bank robbery, not really explained in the clip, will have more detail, and the robbers' plans won't seem as foolhardy as merely blowing up a bank building. Everything leading up to the explosion will still be quiet and slow-paced, but once those bombs go off, all Hell breaks loose. In my version of the story, the reason they blow up the bank is so that evidence of their presence in the bank is erased, so that, assuming they get away, no one would ever figure out that they were the ones that did it.
The bombs go off and the chase starts. A chase on foot through the narrow streets of Gotham, police cars are racing around, spotlights are scanning the streets. The robbers are running through this maze, adrenaline pumping.
After some time, the chase has calmed down, and the robbers believe they have escaped. It is here that we begin to fear for them, as we sense the entrance of a force more powerful than the police, one that will not let them escape: Batman.
Batman first enters only in vibe. We see the robbers sensing the presence of something dangerous to them, the cinematography and music will adjust accordingly at this point too. When Batman the character finally enters, he is a truly terrifying figure. Bathed in red moonlight, he looks like some kind of medieval warrior, unstoppable, merciless, invincible.
The fight between Batman and the robbers is not thrilling or "action-packed”, but instead, every move that Batman makes is of great cosmic importance. If Batman is to throw a punch, then it is the most powerful and epic punch the world has ever known. Everything occurring around when this punch is being thrown is of little importance. Everything frames this.
After the fight is over, Batman leaves the two robbers tied up so the police may find them and arrest them without difficulty. The police spotlights will shine on them suddenly, and the feeling of having been defeated is tangible. Imagine you're sitting on the ground, tied up, unable to move, and your pursuers are surrounding you, shining lights on you, staring at you, treating you like a pack of wolves would treat a lamb. This is what Batman did to you.
After this, we catch a split-second glimpse of Batman silhouetted against the night sky, a dark force, unstoppable and invincible, a police force on his own, to a city beyond the policing capabilites of normal humans. Gotham City's Dark Knight.
No dialogue necessary, 80 minutes long, total emphasis on cinematography and music, as a means of characterizing the film's only character, Batman. Here, Batman is given the depiction he deserves.