Post by The Human Being on Dec 11, 2013 14:47:32 GMT -6
2013 CZ Advent Calendar - December 10th
Batman Returns
by Forgetting Sarah Connor
Who’s Who in Gotham? A Christmas Compendium
As big fat friendly flakes started to fall outside, I settled in to watch snow—as well as some decidedly unChristmaslike forces—descend on Gotham City. Batman, my lifelong favorite superhero, has been difficult for filmmakers to effectively translate to the big screen, and throwing him in a holiday setting doesn’t simplify matters. However, 1992’s Batman Returns is a better movie than Tim Burton’s previous Batman outing, it’s the best film of the 80s/90s series from a purely artistic standpoint, and it’s the only one of the four to obtain something of a cult status. It’s not the best Batman movie ever, though. While I haven’t seen the serials from the 1940s, it’s hard for me to imagine two Batman movies more perfect than 1966’s hilarious Batman, directed by Leslie H. Martinson, starring Adam West, and based on the classic campy TV series, and 2005’s Batman Begins, Christopher Nolan’s first turn at a Batman film before he would make them overlong and overly serious (notice it’s the last Batman movie to date to contain the word “Batman” in the title).
After over 20 years had passed since Batman ’66 and still no screen portrayal faithful to the brooding comic books had emerged, Batman fans could have been forgiven for being skeptical of Tim Burton and Michael Keaton’s involvement in a new movie. Not only was Keaton known for his comedic roles, Burton’s only feature credits at the time were Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985) and Beetlejuice (1988). Based on this filmography, he actually wouldn’t have been a bad choice to resurrect William Dozier’s lightheartedly weird vision of Batman. Instead, Burton, Keaton, and Jack Nicholson, in a signature role among many, took Batman and even the Joker seriously. Their Batman was mostly applauded by critics and could be considered a new beginning for the superhero genre (the Superman series had fizzled out two years earlier). But in hindsight, I don’t think the movie holds up all that well. Nicholson’s a ton of fun, but shouldn’t Batman be interesting, too? (Not that this problem hasn’t plagued the entire series, but it’s most pronounced here.) The unfocused, rambling plot lends itself to some unique visual set pieces, some more watchable than others, but doesn’t really keep my attention.
Interestingly, Batman Returns, written by Daniel Waters from a story by him and Sam Hamm (ha-ha, that’s his name), solves many of the problems present in Batman in part by adding more villain and antihero characters. If Keaton’s Caped Crusader and Nicholson’s Joker weren’t quite enough to make for a satisfying movie, surely Keaton along with the grotesque Penguin, played with relish by Danny DeVito, Michelle Pfeiffer’s femme fatale Catwoman, and original character Max Shreck, a powerful and corrupt businessman portrayed by the always reliable Christopher Walken, should keep us occupied for two hours. And they do, mostly. Batman Returns takes place at Christmastime, and in an early scene, Max Shreck is introduced as “Gotham’s own Santa Claus” as he tosses a couple presents into a crowd gathered at a Christmas tree lighting. He shies away from the label, and rightly so. Let’s take a peek at all five main characters of Returns and see where they fit in vis-à-vis a Christmas narrative.
Max Shreck: Batman Return is in love with German Expressionism, even beyond the debt that Burton’s entire visual style owes to films like Robert Wiene’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920). Returning and expanded from Batman is a dark, gothic, off-kilter look and feel to all of Gotham. The cinematography, set decoration, and lighting cast much of BR in a shadowy darkness that, for all its moodiness, is more accurate to the time of year than most Christmas stories. And Danny Elfman’s great score contributes to the twisted grandeur.
Side notes on the score: Elfman’s orchestrations are more prominent here because last time Burton was also working with a soundtrack from Prince (which is a highlight of that movie although the album was panned upon its release). Given the Christmas setting, it’s perhaps no surprise that there are passages in the score which sound remarkably like Elfman’s masterful work on The Nightmare Before Christmas, his next film collaboration with Burton, to which he also lent his wonderful singing voice and memorable lyrics. Perhaps working on BR helped spark a desire in the two men to more explicitly explore a story where darkness and holiday cheer intermingle. In fact, “Halloween meets Christmas” is not too bad of a distillation of Burton’s gleefully morbid approach to many of his movies.
Anyway, Walken plays Shreck, a wealthy industrialist who pulls the strings from his high perch in an office that towers over the common people, much like Joh Fredersen in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927). As in that classic, dramatic camera movements suggest just how far above everyone else Shreck sees himself. Shreck has an adult son, Chip, whom he is grooming to take over his empire, again like Joh Fredersen. Although Joh’s son Freder sympathizes with factory workers, whereas BR’s Shreck family is never humanized (except by their love for each other), Max and Chip both physically resemble Freder to my eyes, mostly in their hairstyles. But Chip is a kind of Donald Trump, Jr. figure: exactly like his wealthy father in every way except younger and with more normal hair. Max’s appearance, on the other hand, also borrows from wild-haired Metropolis character Rotwang, a mad scientist.
If these cosmetological features don’t convince you of an affinity for German Expressionism, how’s this: Max Shreck’s name is a letter away from being the same as the star of the most beloved German Expressionist movie of them all, besides the two I’ve already mentioned. Max Schreck, whose last name comes from the German and Yiddish word for terror, played the hauntingly grotesque Count Orlok in F. W. Murnau’s Nosferatu (1922). And like his namesake’s most famous role, Max Shreck abuses the trust of others to leech off them like a nosferatu sucking its victims’ blood.
Shreck has a great deal of resources and influence, but in order for his vaguely-sketched evil plan involving a power plant to succeed, he needs to exert direct control over the city’s governance. And even though Chip is referred to as Gotham’s “favorite son” and Max is called the city’s “leading citizen” (two titles we might expect Gotham to associate with Bruce Wayne in a Batman movie) Max decides to go outside the family to find a mayoral candidate to back after inciting a recall election to oust the uncooperative incumbent. Like Joh Fredersen in Metropolis, who convinces Rotwang to help him quell a nascent uprising, Max Shreck turns to man, a creature, whom he cannot possible understand or control. Fredersen and Rotwang have a mysterious history involving a mutual affection for Fredersen’s late wife, and Rotwang has knowhow in advanced robotics. Shreck turns to a disfigured sewer dweller to do his bidding, also for personal reasons. Fredersen and Shreck also both play an indirect hand in the creation of a fearsome, overtly sexual female figure who shakes things up a bit.
So which Christmas character does he represent, already?? Given his hidden vampiric intentions for Gotham’s power supply, he’s decidedly more Grinch than Santa, although the people of Gotham are fooled, Cindy Lou Who style, into thinking he’s giving to them while he’s actually taking. He’s a duplicitous Scrooge (or Frank Cross/Greenblatt) who works through the holidays and grinds his perceived inferiors under his boot heels; only instead of displaying open contempt for Christmas, he makes a show of being in the spirit.
The Penguin a/k/a Oswald Cobblepot: The Penguin was one of the weirdest famous comic book villains before he was Danny DeVito with sharp teeth and black drool. In Batman ‘66, he was portrayed by Burgess Meredith as a pointy-nosed, tuxedo-wearing, cigarette-in-a-long-holder-smoking, squawking, scheming leader among the four villains. Also sporting top hat and monocle, he was the “gentleman of crime.” Burton and DeVito’s interpretation veers away from the character’s gentlemanliness, although he sports a version of the famous costume (sans monocle, unfortunately) for some of the film. The most obvious holdover besides the pointy nose, stature, and villainy is a nifty umbrella rigged with gadgets. In BR, the Penguin’s connection to his namesakes comes from deformities such as his flipper-like hands and from growing up around penguins in the sewer. DeVito creates some real menace and has fun with the sometimes disgusting character. Like his role as Frank on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, it’s one that allows him to make greater use of his unique physicality than he’s usually allowed. BR’s opening sequence deals with the Penguin’s birth to physically normal parents who, perhaps in a nod that this will be a departure from goofy portrayals of the villain, are played by Paul Reubens and Diane Salinger, who played Pee-Wee and Simone in Burton’s debut. They’re disturbed by his appearance and the sounds he makes and, after he eats the family cat, they decide to send his bassinet over a footbridge and into a stream.
After an opening-credits ride through the sewer that plays like a warped Disneyland attraction, he ends up in an open chamber in the sewer near a place called Artic World, the source of his penguin friends. By the time he’s grown up, the once vibrant amusement park/zoo looks like one of those abandoned Soviet monument parks. The whole film’s architecture also has Soviet and fascist elements besides its Expressionism. Given the historical moment of the movie (the fall of Communism) and its focus on the evils in capitalism and politics, I’m choosing to read the similarity as significant. Batman later deduces that the Penguin spent some time in a freak show as a child, and in the story’s present day he’s somehow the leader of a circus crime gang, many of whom wear clown makeup (odd for a series that has a clown-type villain).
After getting some buzz in the local papers and causing a general panic, the Penguin kidnaps Shreck. The Penguin is ready to emerge from the sewer, and he blackmails Shreck into helping him emerge already part of the elite. Max decides to kill two penguins with one stone and get the vile man cleaned up and ready for a mayoral run. The Penguin is also interested in finding out who his parents are. He discovers that his birth name is Oswald Cobblepot, but alas, his parents are deceased. Besides being “the bird that cannot fly” he is also an orphan like Bruce Wayne. Of Wayne’s suspicions of Cobblepot, Alfred wonders if he’s just disappointed to find Batman no longer “the only lonely beast-man in town.” The Penguin’s political campaign and his designs against Batman make up much of the non-Catwoman material of the plot.
Who is he? Don’t ask me what it means, but the Penguin embodies all that which is at the very essence of Christmas, beginning with its biblical origins. An abandoned baby in a basket calls to mind Moses, but his Yuletide birth, the 33 years that pass from then until he gains notoriety, and his protests that he’s misunderstood and persecuted all draw parallels to the Reason for the Season Himself. In the last act, after facing repeated failure, Cobblepot orders his penguin minions to take a drastic step that echoes both King Herod’s role in the nativity story and certain Old Testament events. And in his ardent but impossible desire to be reunited with family, his story gets at the importance of spending time surrounded by loved ones. But he is denied loved ones. The Penguin is all the children in the world who can’t expect a visit from Santa Claus, so can you really blame him for chomping on a guy’s nose until it gushes blood?
Selina Kyle/Catwoman: Selina/Catwoman spouts a lot of cat-related puns and catchphrases. But in the way she constantly plays on her femininity, her gimmick is just as much “woman” as it is “cat.” She’s this movie’s Female Character. At the end, Bruce Wayne wishes “Good will toward men” before thinking and adding “and women,” as if his run-ins with Catwoman/Kyle have made him realize for the first time that women are people. Michelle Pfeiffer sexes it up for the role, donning a shiny black outfit so tight that it was difficult for her to breathe, and Catwoman uses her feminine wiles against the Penguin and Batman. Also, licking oneself is a lot less suggestive when it’s a cat doing it.
But that’s not to say that Catwoman is entirely an object. She does kick a little ass after all. And as Selina Kyle in the film’s first act, she’s probably the most human and relatable character. She’s Max Shreck’s overworked and harassed assistant (secretary?) and her apartment and life are a total mess. She also pries into her cat’s sex life and desperately wants a husband. When Max catches her snooping around files in his office, he pushes her out a top-floor window. She miraculously survives, and as she lays on the ground she is swarmed by cats, including a radioactive one that bites her finger and fuses radioactive cat DNA into her DNA (prove me wrong). Returning home feeling “so much yummier,” she decides that being bad never felt so good, and doing what any bad girl would do, cuts up and sews her one leather jacket into a sexy cat suit. Her mission is never really clear, besides causing problems for Shreck. Despite their brief and counters, she builds a convincingly complicated relationship with Bruce/Batman. While Selina Kyle’s ability to fool and seduce Wayne is essential to the plot of Batman ’66, here their real mutual attraction comes from some recognition in each other of the duality at their own cores.
Like some female pop music stars today and as part of the tradition of costumed comic book women, Selina/Catwoman treads a line between pin-up and empowered independent, exuding pre-feminist ideas of the role of women as well as back flipping her way to her own destiny. At one point, she falls through a window and ends up on a slab holding flowers to her chest. She looks more corpse than bride, but the brief image evokes Dickens’ Miss Havisham, who was betrayed by a man and became an eccentric shut-in ever after. Selina tosses the flowers and jumps back up. The movie’s original ending, before interference from Warner Bros., had Selina facing the conventionally dire consequences for a woman who transgresses by violently resisting passivity.
Who is she? She’s the woman in the movie, but she’s so much more fun and important than, say, a Mrs. Claus or a Clarice from Rudolph. Maybe she’s St. Mary, who is arguably the most important subject in the nativity story, but who of course is impossibly complicated to deconstruct from a feminist perspective. Or maybe she’s the Christmas Cat.
Alfred Pennyworth: Michael Gough played Alfred, the Wayne family’s longsuffering butler, throughout the entire original Warner Bros. series, one of the few members of either cast or crew to work on all four. He’s the first of these five characters we get a good look at in Returns, as he intuitively eyes a sewer grate the Penguin had just been peeking out of. Alfred is Christmas shopping, and although Bruce Wayne has no family and never really seems to interact with people who aren’t crucial to the plot, one can imagine that a man of his stature has more than a few names on his Christmas list. Satisfying them is up to Alfred. So there; Alfred’s the Santa of this movie!
Not so fast. Later, we see Alfred putting ornaments on an enormous tree as Bruce sits nearby and watches TV, paying no attention to the festive labor. Bruce is probably one of those who doesn’t think he cares about presents and decorations, but would sorely miss them if they were absent one year. We get the impression that this is in some sense the same spoiled kid who’s had Alfred to look after him his whole life. Bruce’s parents were killed when he was a boy, but come Christmastime, Alfred easily slips into the role of parent who makes the holiday come together for their child, often without thanks or even notice, so that the kid can feel the magic of Christmas. Who secretly does all the work of Santa so that the child can keep on believing in him.
Bruce Wayne/Batman: Last and least, but for Alfred, is our title hero. Batman is important to this movie, but it’s mostly about what’s going on between Shreck, the Penguin, and Catwoman. Bruce/Batman is an interloper who has a couple of encounters with Shreck and of course an interesting thing with Catwoman/Selina, until his fate becomes linked with the other lonely man-beast in town. He’s sort of an audience surrogate through which we are better able to process all this weirdness. Part of the Penguin’s plot involves discrediting Batman, but there’s never a big push to find Batman and lock him up like in Nolan’s films, and the public seems to know better. Or maybe they’re ambivalent. Maybe they don’t believe in Batman anymore. No, the villains and Catwoman may have been able to work everything out by themselves, but I think the people of Gotham need Batman on their side as long as freaky stuff like this continues to go down , if only as a symbol. So naturally, Batman is their Santa Claus, an archetypal figure in which to invest all the goodness of the world, even as Bruce laments his inability to connect with people personally. The Bat-Signal projects on the perpetual clouds above Gotham City and instill its inhabitants with hope, just like looking into the sky on Christmas Eve and almost catching a glimpse of Santa’s sleigh.
If you got through that, congratulations! And thanks so much for reading. You must be in possession of a little patience and a lot of tape!
Questions
1. Am I right about Batman? Or does he figure in this story more than I think? How would the movie be different if he were more, or even less, involved in its action?
2. What do you think of my movie character to Christmas figure matchups? Who would you say that these characters are most like?
3. What, if anything, is BR saying about world and US politics through its story, character, aesthetics, and references to other films?