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| "Batman" 1989 |
Here’s a theory: Superman is for
squares, Spiderman is for nerds, and Batman is for mysterious outsiders who
watchfully linger on the fringe of society – ya know, people like me. I love
Batman. He’s always been my favorite comic book hero. Most of my bedrooms have
been a bit like the Batcave - dimly lit, a little messy, utilitarian
furnishing, grandiose music often echoing from wall to wall. I get Batman.
Maybe even more than the hero
himself, I love Batman’s hometown. When my parents took me into Boston as a
kid, we’d often find ourselves walking underneath the now-demolished Central Artery, which was an elevated section of I-93 that ran through downtown. It was
an atrocious 1950s urban renewal project that divided the city and made for
horrendous traffic jams. By the late 1980s, it was all rusted girders, steaming
storm drains, and ominous shadows in which I imagined all sorts of nasty
characters were lurking, waiting to strike on naïve suburbanites on their way
to the New England Aquarium. In other words, it was very Gotham-esque.
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| Boston's Central Artery - 1950s |
Gotham City provides a fantastic
canvas on which anyone can project his or her nightmare vision of an American
city gone crazy. When Tim Burton’s “Batman” came out back in ’89, my knowledge
of the Caped Crusader was limited to the 1960s TV show (weirdly, I have never
been a big fan of comic books themselves, only the movies they inspire).
Burton’s flick rocked my little world – it was dark, scary, looked totally
fake… and it was awesome. More than any other film, “Batman” marked the end of
my movie-going childhood and the beginning of my movie-going adolescence. For
the first time I looked at a movie and realized that there was a design behind
it. Actual people made creative decisions to create something distinctive on
screen – Gotham didn’t look real, but damn, was it atmospheric! It looked like
hell, but an intriguing and vaguely familiar hell I wanted to don a trench coat
and walk around in for a while.
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| Anton Furst's Concept Art for Gotham City |
As much as I’ve loved Christopher
Nolan’s Dark Knight movies, there’s one thing that has always bothered me about
them – Gotham looks too real. In my imagination, Gotham exists in a parallel
universe with no recognizable landmarks from the world I know – no Sears Tower,
no Brooklyn Bridge, and certainly no trips to Hong Kong. Obviously, Nolan had a
different agenda with his movies than Burton did with his. The writing, acting
and action set-pieces leave Burton’s efforts in the dust, and he certainly
knows how to push those cultural hot buttons (those explosion-filled aerial shots
of lower Manhattan in “The Dark Knight Rises” made me very twitchy). In The Art and Making of The Dark Night Trilogy, Nolan and production designer
Nathan Crowley state that one of the aesthetic guidelines upon which they
agreed for their vision of Gotham City was “no whimsy.” Gotham would look like
a real city. Fair enough. They put together three first-rate flicks of epic
scope and detail. But I still miss the twisted “whimsy” of Burton’s sunless
Gotham. I love all those crazy skyscrapers, grotesque statues, and most
especially, Burton’s and production designer Anton Furst’s Batmobile. Dear God,
would I love to drive that around!
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| The REAL Batmobile |
As a man of 33, I wonder why I continue to be so fascinated
by the world of Batman. Shouldn’t that movie-going adolescence have progressed
into adulthood by now? Shouldn’t I
be more excited by the prospect of Paul Thomas Anderson’s new movie than I was
about “The Dark Knight Rises?” Surely, 33 year-olds of generations past would
scoff at my enthusiasm for what was initially a fantasy character made to
appeal to children. But then, I am hardly alone. Millions of people around the
world have flocked to see Batman and other comic book heroes on screen, and I’m
guessing that most of them are adults. Every generation gets the blockbusters
it deserves.
When it comes down to it, Batman movies are just filled with
stuff that I dig – inventive design, terrific performances, explosive action,
vivid music, distinctive villains, a mysterious hero, and a fantastic, mythic
city in which all these elements clash together. Christopher Nolan seems to
have served his term in Gotham. Someday, I hope they give me keys to the city…
and the Batmobile (the real one, not the Tumbler).
By the way, Batman doesn't like Hyundais.
