Holy BatMovie!

[osprey_archer]

I watched the 1966 Batman yesterday.

IT IS THE BEST MOVIE EVER. EVER. EVER. By which I mean it is completely terrible, so completely and utterly terrible that it’s hard to believe its creators didn’t intend it as a parody, so terrible that I may have to watch it five or six more times just to appreciate the full extent of its awfulness.

Just to show you how awful yet fantastic this movie is, I offer this quote, in which the Batman, the Boy Wonder (they actually call Robin the Boy Wonder in this movie! Really!) and Commissioner Gordon discuss BatVillains. (Did I mention that the word bat is attached to everything in this movie? EVERYTHING. There’s a special BatLadder!)

Commissioner Gordon: It could be any one of them... But which one? Which ones?
Batman: Pretty *fishy* what happened to me on that ladder...
Commissioner Gordon: You mean where there's a fish there could be a penguin?
Robin: But wait! It happened at sea... Sea. C for Catwoman!
Batman: Yet, an exploding shark *was* pulling my leg...
Commissioner Gordon: The Joker!
Chief O’Hara: All adds up to a sinister riddle... Riddle-R. Riddler!
Commissioner Gordon: A thought strikes me... So dreadful I scarcely dare give it utterance...
Batman: The four of them... Their forces combined...
Robin: Holy nightmare!

Robin also gets wonderful lines like “Holy Long John Silver!”, “Holy Captain Nemo!”, and (as an answer to a riddle) “A sparrow with a machine gun!”

Inevitably I have to compare Batman (1966 version) to The Dark Knight.

Cinematographically speaking The Dark Knight beats Batman absolutely hollow, (Batman features sound effects that are written on the screen, comic book style: Pow! Kerplunk! Splat!), and similarly in any contest in acting, soundtrack, or pretty much anything else it pulverizes Batman—

But it pulverizes its viewers, too. The Dark Knight is top-heavy with its own darkness, self-importance, moral seriousness—and if it delivered on that last I might forgive the fact that I left the theater like I’d just suffered through a calculus exam, but insofar as The Dark Knight is morally serious it’s pernicious.

The Dark Knight’s moral crescendo is Commissioner Gordon and Batman’s pact to lie to the people of Gotham, because if the people realize that Harvey Dent wasn’t made of awesome they’ll whither away and die. Really? The people of Gotham have dealt with social disintegration, endemic crime and corruption, the rise of the Joker—and Batman has the audacity to believe that they’re incapable of dealing with Harvey Dent’s fall? That he ought, for their own good, lie to them as if they were children?

The man is morally unfit to wear his cape. He isn’t trying to save the people of Gotham City because he believes they’re good people crushed by venal, greedy, lying elites, he’s trying to save the people of Gotham City because he wants to run around fighting evil and looking cool, never mind he thinks of the people in precisely the same terms as his enemies. They’re pathetic, they’re sheep, they can’t handle the truth.

In which case the end of The Dark Knight isn’t Batman heroically sacrificing himself for the greater good. It’s Batman running away from the fact that he’s about to be cornered into revealing his secret identity, and then all the fun and games will be over, while providing himself with a quasi-noble rationalization for his actions.

…I am not going to write “Five Reasons Bruce Wayne is a Failure as a Human Being.” It will not help.



Superhero secret identities are inherently problematic—you just can’t solve corruption by lying to the people, just like everyone else—but it’s one thing to build silly flicks on moral absurdities, and another to build films that are hailed as masterpieces.

Comments

[exuberantself.livejournal.com]

I wasn't as personally offended by The Dark Knight as you seem to have been, but I don't think it was nearly as good as Batman Begins. As a lifelong reader of comic books, I completely fell for the morally ambiguous need to lie to the general public in order to maintain the symbol of hope. That said, I only saw it once because I couldn't take subjecting myself to the heavy-handed depression-inducing three hours again.

Other hand? Old school Batman just plain rocks.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

The absolute worst thing - even worse than any of the moral flaws - about Batman Begins/The Dark Knight is that they've totally taken over Batman-ness in the public consciousness. Batman is just not quite Batman when it's mired in misery instead of high camp.

I buy the idea that the Gothamites need a symbol of hope, but surely the truth that their fellow citizens didn't blow up those two ships should be enough?

I feel like producers use "We have no choice but to lie to the people!" when they want to fake moral ambiguity - not because it couldn't be morally ambiguous, but because the characters saying it are either deepest evil, or good guys who never have nasty consequence blow up in their faces.

If, in the next Batman movie, people start getting killed as a consequence of Batman's lies, and Batman accepts responsibility (or at least is told he ought to, by Commissioner Gordon or Alfred or someone else morally authoritative), then I'll accept the ending as morally ambiguous. Until then, I think the producers meant it as - and I think most viewers saw it as - a heroic sacrifice on Batman's part, not ambiguous at all.

[exuberantself.livejournal.com]

Realistically, though, the story that Nolan is telling was taken directly out of Frank Miller's Batman and it was genuinely morally ambiguous and sometimes downright wrong. Personally, I look forward to people suffering because of Batman's choices because these things happen to him.

Also, if you ever have the opportunity, "The Killing Joke" by Alan Moore is brilliant and disturbing.

Side note: Gary Oldman is perfect as Jim Gordon.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

So people will suffer because of Batman's bad decisions? I feel better.

Re: Jim Gordon - he's my favorite characters in Batman. My only disappointment with the 1966 Batman was that Gordon was such a nebbish.