A taste of things to come for the big 2-5....

[DocLathropBrown]

I'm celebrating the 25th already... sort of. I'm working on the be-all, end-all article for the film. Yup. Like my Danny Elfman score article of a few years back, it's time for a long-winded article about the film. And not a short one, either. I'm still writing it and refining it (and trying to make it to-the-point), but I think my Preface is perfected. I don't know if anyone'll care, but here is the preface to whet your appetites and light a fire under my ass to finish the whole thing by June 23rd next year. This is your only taste until the final release, and I'm open to ideas about how to unleash this beast. I'm thinking it'll be akin to a college thesis! Without further ado...

Preface: Growing Up with the Greatest

   Twenty-Five years; wow. That's a quarter of a century! It makes me feel old to have memories (just about) as old as the film is, about said film! I've always referred to BATMAN as "The 1989 Masterpiece," a statement I have never and will never shy away from. It's just one of those films that gets better with age; as we move further from its release, it becomes clearer just how exceptional it is and how much it was a perfect storm of events. There isn't an aspect of the film that I can say falters. From the script, to the casting, to the music, the Academy Award-winning production design, the costumes, the tone, the direction and even the thematic elements. In terms of films about the character, I don't think I could ever find BATMAN surpassed.

   I vaguely recall memories about the craze surrounding the film from when I was two years old in '89. Not much, but even at such a young age, the buzz about the film gripped me. I was familiar with Batman from the reruns of the 1960s television series that were in-vogue because of the movie's release. My firmer memories start the following year when I was finally able to process the film on any kind of memorable level. I hadn't seen it before then, I don't think. From the first time I saw it, it became embedded in my head. By the time I was five, I had already become intimately familiar with the film, and as the years have gone by, there is now not a single element of the film that I don't have emblazoned in my memory. I can quote it verbatim, know the dialogue beats timed to the music score, and yet I still have that primal fondness for it that will never go away. I recall camera angles, specific shots, know endless behind-the-scenes stories and can describe whole elements with barely any hesitation. I think any film fan has their "one;" the film that they have become all-but-apart-of. BATMAN is mine.

   I daresay I may know the film better than Tim Burton does.

   But I digress. For as much as this film has meant to me, it's meant far more to the character of Batman than most people can realize. Many characters have their "lightning rod" showcase event. Batman has had a few, but I think it's arguable that were it not for this specific film, Batman would not be what he is today. Oh, he'd still be around in the comics, but BATMAN made the world fall in love with the character in a way that can never be undone now. Bats was a household name thanks to the 1960s series, but because of its tone and it's specific 60s-flavored niche, Batman was remembered as a relic of that time, no matter how long it had been and how much the comics had since moved away from it. Frank Miller's The Dark Knight mini-series is largely credited by the general populace with bringing Batman back to darkness, but it's untrue. The camp in the comics that mirrored the show was gone by the time that show had ended, and although the grittiness would take a few years to come back in, by 1969 in Batman #217, the character had went definitely back into "dark avenger of the night" territory. Elements that many mistakenly label "campy" today; such as Batman being well known by the citizenry and police, being kind to non-criminals and having larger-than-life adventures remained. But the tone was finally settled back into the seriousness (in comics, melodrama) that spawned the character. So Miller's mini only made a splash for the non-comic reading public, though admittedly it was far more sardonic than the character had even been seen before, hence the splash.

   Unfortunately for Batman, the general populace (even today) doesn't read his monthly adventures, so for almost two decades, people were unaware that he was a grim figure once more, or that he'd ever even been one to begin with. Batman was still portrayed like Adam West's square, dashing adventurer on a few cartoon shows such as the Superfriends franchise throughout the 70s and into the 80s. Any commercial using the character to sell its wares were a pastiche of the television series (Batman being used to shill for random corporations would be very unlikely today), including car commercials and ads for several types of retail stores. These commercial are abundant on YouTube, and it's pretty shocking to think that the world had not moved on from the Adam West stereotype. So pervasive was it that it pigeonholed the character from being seen in any new light until BATMAN came out. For all intents, the campy take was felt in the public consciousness as the default setting for the character, because what did they know of the original comics that had portrayed him darkly to begin with? The public at large wasn't paying any attention to the character in 1939 when those adventures were in print. Many of the average public didn't know about Batman until the 1966 series.

   Batman was a 'nothing' brand to anyone outside of the comics community. A campy 60s television property like Gilligan's Island or I Dream of Jeannie, and have those properties ever broken into bigger franchises? Well, had it not been for producer Michael Uslan and company, Batman would never have, either.

   Resistance to accepting the movie was strong. As well detailed in the film's Blu-ray special features, it took around six years to get any company to even give the property a fair thought. But once the production was moving, the public was divided. Many were sticklers for West's portrayal, and when the film's final direction was decided to be serious as opposed to campy, that was a whole group of fans alienated; arguably the largest group as that included any members of the general populace that cared to begin with. Comic fans were aghast at Michael Keaton's casting, and this rocked their faith in the production, a feeling that no comic fan would shake for certain until they actually saw the film. The famed teaser-trailer that was rushed out to quell fears of the film's tone only did that; it let people know the tone was dramatic as opposed to comedic. This did nothing to prove that the film would be good, so considerable doubt remained until the release.

   But perhaps the biggest power the film had was over the undecided. The people who didn't have an opinion either way and would be wooed based on if the film was any good at all, comic fandom or television loyalists be-damned. And it is here where the film's legacy was well-and-truly defined. To anyone who'd be open to that kind of film in the first place, you don't ever see anyone who doesn't like the film on at least some kind of level. It has an entertainment value and a resonance that works beyond words. If you're not a picky fanboy or a pretentious film-snob, the film will connect with you in some way. Many cite the film's marketing campaign as what won people over, but I cry foul on a logistical level. If the film hadn't been any good, the marketing would have just made it a colossal disappointment and it would have lived in infamy. Films like Super Mario Bros. and even the third sequel to our topic film (Batman & Robin) are perfect examples of the buzz helping draw attention to a weak product. It's one thing to create hype; it's another to live up to it.

   BATMAN was perhaps the most important "lightning rod" moment in the character's history because it broke all the rules of Hollywood productions of the time, shattered any-and-all audience expectations, and in one rare historical moment, altered public consciousness for all time. Although the 1960s television series is still remembered, the '89 film single-handedly re-wrote the way people thought of Batman the character so effectively that whereas Frank Miller's The Dark Knight made a ripple that had people saying "Hmmm, That's an interesting twist on Batman," Tim Burton's BATMAN made people everywhere realize "This is Batman!" A dark Batman was no longer the exception, but the rule. So the 1960s series had let people know he existed, but this new film made him a permanently appreciated phenomenon.

   It spawned sequels and a series that did for television animation what Disney had done for feature animation back in 1937. It also made Batman 'hip' for the first time since 1966, in a way that was more enduring than the fad that erupted in the 60s. Batman now resonated with a broad demographic and it made his celebrity universal. The star generated by the 60s show had become sour and ironic, but even beyond the '89 film, Batman himself was now forever cool. In a post-BATMAN world, the character would now be treasured in such a way that when the aforementioned Batman & Robin was considered too silly in tone, it was more than just Bat fans crying in disgust; it was all audiences. That's something that wouldn't have happened before '89.

   No one person involved in the production of BATMAN can be ascribed these honors for what they've done for the character, but it's certain that everyone involved in the product helped turn Batman from a well-known fictional character into a treasured pop culture icon. The heavy work had been done so effectively that when Christopher Nolan had to restart the film series after Batman & Robin, he didn't have anywhere near as difficult a job. All he had to do was make a serious film and the audience expectations created by Uslan and friends in '89 would do the rest. Seldom do character revivals and reinventions go well (in fact, almost never). But the summer of 1989 saw that rare feat happen with ease. Everyone saw the film upon its release. Men, women and children of all colors and countries were interested, an accomplishment that no comic book film has replicated until 2002's Spider-Man and more comparably, 2012's The Avengers.

   I titled this preface "Growing up with the Greatest" for a few reasons. After twenty-five years, the world has obviously grown and changed, and the film has remained strongly in the public consciousness. Its luster may have tempered during the reign of Christopher Nolan's "Dark Knight Trilogy," but only temporarily, as it seems the film is regenerating its appreciation every day as people rediscover it. Obviously, I've also grown with it; even today I can watch the film and find new elements I hadn't seen or thought about before; its layers are many and every time I peel one off, there's much more to see. Also reasoned for the title is that I think the film is the greatest single Batman story as it contains all of the elements one could want in a standalone tale of the Caped Crusader.

More-to-the-point, I chose the preface title because in 1989's publication The Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told, that was the title of its introduction by Dick Giordano. And coming from the same year as the film itself, I felt borrowing that title was appropriate because BATMAN is also one of those "Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told."

What follows is what I hope to be the final, definitive analysis of the film; from one of its most devout loyalists. The intention is not to summarize the film necessarily, but to explore its themes, ideas, subtext and overall brilliance, a little bit of both a text commentary and essay. We'll be analyzing all three acts of the film, with their themes and ideas, followed by a detailed look at the characters, concluding with a look at the film's narrative merits.