Viewer's Commentary: Batman (1989)

00:00:00:              Despite being a confirmed Bat-fan, when I was a kid, I wasn’t interested in Batman.  I didn’t like the character or any of his stories.  The reason for this is that the only exposure I had to the character was through repeats of Adam West TV show.  Cultural historians like to claim it was ironic, archly self-aware, even subversive pop art.   But it was unexciting, emotionally empty and formulaic.  Worse still it took arguably the greatest character to come from comic book literature and reduced him to a primary coloured, jobbing idiot.  It was produced at a time when comics weren’t considered anything other than for kids, so it was irreverent and forgettable.  But the main problem was that it wasn’t remotely thrilling.  The title sequence, where an animated Batman and Robin fought a crowd of armed thugs was the most exciting part.

As for a lot of people, this film introduced me to Batman as a dark avenger and a character with a tragic origin and the psychological issues rising from that.  I won’t say this is what Batman should be like, but it was the first time I felt Batman and his world could deliver excitement and intrigue.

00:00:18:              The camera tracks through canyons etched in stone that are revealed to be the Bat insignia.  We also have Danny Elfman’s often derided theme music.  It suits this melodramatic take on the character and this main theme became pretty much definitive for a long time.  It was subsequently used in Batman: The Animated Series.  Check out this with-lyrics version by Goldentusk - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUPBgYeanZ0.

00:02:28:              Is the ‘Gotham City’ caption here really necessary?  We know Batman lives in Gotham City so it’s basically saying ‘this is a Batman movie’.  What have the last 2 ½ minutes been about then?

00:02:47:              This opening scene with the family being mugged at gun point echoes the murder of Bruce Wayne’s parents, seen later in the film.

00:04:25:              This shot of Batman on the balcony and the way the mother’s scream is faintly overlaid at the start suggest Batman is watching the mugging take place.  Why doesn’t he intervene?  He appears to wait for the crime to be committed in order to then take down the criminals.  Cool shadow effect at the end of the shot though.

00:04:50:              The exchange between the 2 muggers on the roof introduces the ‘urban legend’ element of the Batman character nicely.  The weaker, more cowardly criminals are scared of Batman, while the bolder ones don’t believe he’s real.  Both these things could work to his advantage.  But this conversation also shows one of the problems with this version of the character by suggesting Batman killed “Johnny Gobbs” – more on that later.

00:05:35:               We get our first clear view of Batman.  While Michael Keaton has a volatile intensity that suits the role, he lacks the physicality for it, being shorter than the other lead actors and not athletic enough.  Much of what he does as Batman seems to be for effect and it’s often rather slow going.

00:06:45:              Enter Billy Dee Williams, aka Lando Calrissian, as Harvey Dent.  It’s not clear what Harvey Dent is doing in this film.  This scene and a few other hints suggest he’s attempting to prosecute Gotham’s mobsters in his role as District Attorney.  The rest of the time he seems to be a glorified mayoral aide.  There’s no hint either that he might one day become the villain Two-face.  Williams did take the role on the agreement that he would play Two-face if a sequel was made.  He had a clause in his contract to that effect which Warner Bros. then had to buy out when Tommy Lee Jones played the character Batman Forever (1995).  If Williams had portrayed Two-face, you have to wonder if he would have had half a moustache.

00:07:30:              The late Pat Hingle as Commissioner Gordon.  At 65 when this film was made, he feels like a jobbing detective with a week left until retirement.  This James Gordon is such a non-person that he doesn’t even fill the function of providing exposition – he’s simply here to direct the uniformed policemen.

00:07:48:              Jack Nicholson as Jack Napier is smooth, sinister and vain; a very eighties gangster.

00:09:24:              Lieutenant Eckhardt, played by William Hootkins, is a combination of two comic book characters.  He has the appearance of Detective Harvey Bullock, but is corrupt and serves a mob boss, like Arnold Flass from Frank Miller’s Batman: Year One.  He also has some wonderful lines: “Shoot to kill, know what I mean?”

00:09:27:              Alexander Knoxx, (Robert Whul) was created for this film.  His line about Batman being on the police payroll might be a reference to comics from the 1950s and 60s and the Adam West TV show when Batman and Robin were deputised into the Gotham Police Department in order to remove the moral ambiguity of their crime fighting.

00:11:54:              Burton’s version of Gotham is, predictably, a mixture of Brutalism and Gothic architecture, as seen in this establishing shot, with industrial buildings next to City Hall.

00:12:40:              This cartoon of a bat in a pinstripe suit and the trademark boxed signature in the corner is the closest thing to a cameo by Batman co-creator Bob Kane in any Batman film.  He was going to cameo in this film but was ill and time constraints meant his scene couldn’t be rescheduled.  Whilst he visited the set of this and the next two films, he never appeared on screen.  Kane died in 1998.

00:13:11:              Enter Kim Basinger as Vicki Vale.  The list of people that were considered for, approached or auditioned for this role is huge.  Sean Young (Bladerunner) was originally cast, but broke her collarbone filming a horse-riding scene that was subsequently written out of the film.

00:14:41:              The scene with Jack Palance as the mob boss Carl Grissom.  This scene has several things foreshadowing Jack Napier’s transformation into the Joker, such as his purple suit.  This seems to be put there to bridge the gap between the character he is now and the character he changes into, as well as to suggest the inevitability of his fate.

00:17:27:              The fundraiser at Wayne Manor.  Here we first see Bruce Wayne.  Keaton’s Bruce Wayne is suitably distracted and playboy-ish.  He’s definitely better out of the batsuit than he is in it, but there’s not sufficient difference between his public and private versions of Bruce Wayne for the playboy act to feel like an effective of a cover-up.

00:19:15:              The scene in the armoury.  The implication here seems to be that Bruce Wayne got the inspiration for the bat suit from various suits of armour from around the world.

00:23:13:              The shoot-out at Axis Chemicals.  There are some great 1940s visuals in this sequence, such as the trilby sporting gangsters and the police in their Chicago style jackets and uniforms.  The composition of some of the shots here is very similar to panels from Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke one-shot comic, one of about five landmark Batman stories that also informed Christopher Nolan’s take on the character.

00:25:09:              In a particularly vicious moment, Batman appears to fire his grapple hook into a man’s face and leave him hanging over a precipice by his ruptured cheek.

00:26:03:              The classic punching the guy without looking trick.  This was taken up by the Animated Series and used in several episodes.

00:27:42:              Napier shoots Eckhardt.  Batman is in the vicinity and does not intervene, much like he didn’t intervene in the mugging earlier.

00:28:13:              Jack falls in the vat of acid.

00:28:30:              First instance of the problem that dogged every Batman in every film until The Dark Knight; the weight and stiffness of the bat suit meant the actor had to perform a full-body ‘bat-turn’ rather than turn their necks.

00:29:53:              The scene with the giant dining table, which optimises the Keaton Bruce Wayne.

00:32:51:              The cosmetic surgery scene.  There’s a hint of Frankenstein’s monster, combined with a dig at the 1980s’ obsession with plastic surgery.

00:36:16:              Enter the Joker.  Every great villain needs a great entrance and here’s (this) Joker’s; you hear the voice, then the laugh, then you kind of see his face, but not quite.  Finally he steps into the light, all chalk-white skin and red lips and shoots Jack Palance.

00:37:33:              Bruce Wayne sleeping upside down.  Firstly, all the blood running to his head would cause brain damage, loss of motor skills and eventually death.  Secondly, Vicki Vale wakes up, so potentially sees him hanging from his feet - like a bat.

00:37:50:              Back to the Joker.  The Joker’s static grin was actually invented for this film.  The Joker never had a fixed facial expression in the comics.  In fact in his earliest stories from 1940, not only does he not have a fixed grin, but it’s not emphatically stated whether his skin is chalky white or he’s just wearing make-up.

00:38:46:              “I’ve got to go out of town for a few days.”  Why does it take ‘a few days’ to mark the anniversary of Bruce’s parent’s deaths?  Or is he dumping Vicki?  It’s not clear.

00:40:06:              The Joker in flesh coloured make-up is freaky.  His mouth looks like some sort of tropical plant.  This shot is really over-saturated for some reason, as if it was from the sixties’ TV show.

00:43:34:              Vicki finds the newspaper’s file on Bruce Wayne is empty.  As wealth and celebrity go hand in hand, especially when the person in question doesn’t seem to work for their money, (think Paris Hilton), surely there would be photos of him.  Bruce Wayne would need to stay in the public eye to some extent otherwise this reclusiveness would raise suspicions.

00:47:29:              The shoot-out at city hall.  There’s only one cop outside and he does nothing when the Joker kills the mobster right in front of him.  Bruce does nothing either, mind you.  He seems stunned at Napier’s return, but he could trip him up or something.

00:53:42:              The Joker hijacks the news transmission to announce he has put his poison into Gotham’s cosmetics.  This story device is used in most iterations of the character.  Of course it’s a useful means of exposition, but it’s more fundamental that that.  The Joker wants the attention: why else would he dress as a clown?  It also allows him to announce his crime to the general public, ensuring maximum fear and chaos.  The Joker in this film has a number of plans, most of which he succeeds in.  First he takes control of Gotham’s crime syndicates.  Then he spreads death and fear with poisoned beauty products.  Then he plans to “improve” the paintings in the museum by childishly defacing them.  Then he plans to seduce/ abduct Vicki Vale.  It’s generally held that Nicholson steals the film from Keaton’s Batman and it’s not hard to see why.  In contrast to the Joker, this Batman has no plan.  He does not proactively fight crime or corruption, nor does he prevent crimes from occurring.  This Batman is entirely reactive.  When faced with this mass poisoning he finds out how the poison works rather than tracking down the perpetrator.

00:55:37:              The news readers look terrible, but the main characters look fine.  We don’t see Kim Basinger with a massive zit on her nose.

00:57:09:              The Fluegelheim Museum.  Even the art gallery looks like a factory.  Maybe this is where they got the idea for the Tate Modern.

00:59:21:              The Joker and his thugs vandalise the museum.  The goons have gone from being 1940s gangsters to dressing like 1980s pop stars, with ray-bans and fake leather jackets: another odd stylistic turn.  Whenever I see the Joker knock over the brass of the ballerina with his arm I think ‘ouch!’  The painting that Joker spares is Francis Bacon’s ‘Figure with Meat’ (1954).

01:04:07:              Vicki douses the Joker with water.  The different make up effects on the Joker are great.

01:04:11:              “Where does he get those wonderful toys?”  This is probably the most famous line in the film.  It belies, however, the many unexplored avenues of Batman’s character.  There’s so much emphasis on the mystery that we don’t really get to know Bruce Wayne or how he became Batman in the years since his parent’s murders or where his gadgets come from.

01:04:46:              The batmobile.  Referred to thankfully as ‘the car’, it’s certainly impressive, but watches carefully and it’s not very practical.

01:05:20:              It has a very wide turning circle due to its long chassis.  In a few more seconds it uses a grappling hook in order to turn corners.

01:06:20:              This alley way, which Vicki and Batman run down, in order to have a fight with some goons, is the same one in which the mugging occurs at the start of the film.  The desire to give Gotham a very specific look meant building sets rather than using locations.  The relatively small budget, or the way it was allocated, limited the number of sets, making the film world seem rather small.

01:09:25:              Out in the country lanes, this batmobile comes into its own.  It looks very cool, as it kicks up spray and leaves in these shots filmed near Pinewood Studios

01:11:17:              Vicki compares the Joker and Batman, to which Batman retorts “he’s psychotic.”  This Batman fires grappling hooks into people’s faces and throws people off buildings, so…

01:13:11:              Batman appears to knock Vicki out with bats from under his cape.

01:15:08:              Bruce goes to tell Vicki that he’s Batman on the basis of one night together.  This seems to undermine the importance of his mission as Batman.  Still, this scene is handled pretty well, with a mixture of vulnerability and machismo.  How would you tell someone your biggest secret?  Where would you start?

01:19:21:              Bruce Wayne faces off against the Joker.  This is a great scenery chewing moment for Keaton and about the only scene where he’s not entirely overshadowed by Nicholson.  At least until the “Never rub another man’s rhubarb” line.  It’s another give away that he’s Batman.  He then leaves while the Joker and his goons are still in the apartment.  Did he stop to think they could be murdering Vicki while he does his disappearing act?

01:23:03:              Bruce looks at a map with Axis Chemicals circled.  Now, if he knew Napier/ the Joker had become the de facto owner of Grissom’s businesses, including Axis Chemicals and that he was using chemicals to attack Gotham, why didn’t he make the connection and shut down Axis straight away?  Why didn’t the police work this out?

01:26:32:              We finally see the murder of Bruce’s parents.  It’s overtly stylised, with cantered camera angles and echoing footsteps in perfect time.  When Martha Wayne is shot, she looks more like she’s slipping on a banana peel.

01:28:14:              The Joker killing Bruce’s parents was unpopular decision in 1989, but it makes some sense in the context of this film, making the main conflict, that between Batman and the Joker, personal and helping contain it to a single movie, (they could not be certain the film would be successful enough to get a sequel in 1989) as does killing him at the end.  It does however beg the question of why Bruce continues being Batman after he has avenged his parents.

01:28:29:              Alfred lets Vicki into the batcave: another unpopular element of this film.  She’s a reporter and by being let into the cave, Alfred has essentially handed her the scoop of her career.  In all the Burton and Schumacher films, Bruce is readily prepared to tell the love interest his secret, despite the obvious danger to which that information would expose them.

01:29:27:              Vale asks why Bruce needs to be Batman. “Because no one else can.” is his rather empty reasoning.  That said, with such inadequate policing in Gotham, it’s not entirely untrue.  A better reason might be that Gotham needs him to be Batman or that he has to protect the innocent.  But the reasoning for this Batman might be more along the lines of “So I can randomly kill and maim criminals to make up for the short comings of Gordon’s police department whilst simultaneously making myself feel better about my parents’ tragic but also slightly comical deaths.”

01:30:03:              Vicki Vale is in the batcave.  Why doesn’t Bruce get her to stay there?  It would save him a lot of bother later on.

01:31:40:              Batman kills six people blowing up Axis Chemicals.  If you discount the unknown number of victims of his poison, the Joker and Batman kill 9 people each.  Interpretations of Batman where he kills at will undermine the heroism of the character.  Once you have Batman killing people then he’s no longer serving the law but an arbitrary version of justice of his own creation.  As someone who has witnessed murder first-hand, he should be working to prevent that happening, rather than becoming a killer himself.  This film actually has the morality of a western.  In an apparently lawless setting (Gotham), justice is metered out by a single sheriff, deputy or bounty hunter (Batman) against an outlaw or gang of outlaws (the Joker and his goons), with only a supposed moral high ground separating them.

01:34:13:              The batwing.  Whilst Batman had used planes in the comics before, this kind of bat-shaped jet was invented for this film and then carried over into Batman Forever and the Animated Series.  Unfortunately its appearance here leads to one of the film’s weakest moments about five minutes from now.

01:37:25:              Knox jumps on the bonnet of Vicki’s car, but she carries on driving.  Knox was originally going to be killed and this seems to be a hangover from that.

01:40:25:              Despite the massive targeting system on the batwing and its arsenal of mini-guns and missiles, Batman fails to hit the Joker.  The Joker then brings down the batwing with a single shot from a handgun.  This dreadful moment entirely undermines the credibility of Batman as a crime fighter and of the film generally.  And the batwing takes ages to crash land.

01:42:05:              Batman emerges from the wreckage of the batwing and follows the Joker and Vicki into the cathedral.  Typically for a Tim Burton film, this is an absurdly Gothic set.  It looks like nobody’s been in here for 50 years.  Maybe it’s so they can fill the ten minutes until the helicopter arrives, but everyone is walking very slowly.

01:45:07:              The Joker uses his acid-spraying buttonhole to send a giant bell crashing down the tower, narrowly missing Batman.  This is a great moment, encapsulating the ingenuity and nonchalant destruction which is central to the Joker character.

01:46:14:              The Joker’s goons attack Batman in the belfry, but how did they get up here?  The Joker’s helicopter presumably hasn’t arrived yet or the Joker would have left.  With the stairway blocked by the bell, they couldn’t have used the stairs to get up either.

01:46:55:              Batman fights a goon who looks like the soul musician Ray Charles.  This is the best fight in the film, with good blows exchanged, but Batman never kicks arse as much as he has his kicked in this fight.  There’s a nice contrast between Batman fighting and the Joker and Vicki dancing.

01:48:36:              Batman throws Ray Charles down the tower to certain death.  Hurrah for Batman.

01:50:25:              Batman fights the Joker, who doesn’t resist or defend himself.  So we have a blood-smeared Batman beating up a man who hardly seems able to throw a punch.

01:50:55:              ‘I was a kid when I killed your parents.’  This would appear to mean the Joker knows Bruce Wayne is Batman.  If so, why not kill Bruce Wayne when he’s not wearing the bat suit?

01:51:53:              The Joker referring into Batman as Batsy was taken up by Bruce Tim and Paul Dini, the creators of the DC Animated Universe, (including the recent Arkham computer games) to such an extent it became a sort of bizarre pet name.

01:54:18:              The Joker falls to his death.

01:55:53:              The bat signal is unveiled.  It seems strange that the city authorities would welcome the help from a man who has dropped someone off a high building and killed eight others.  Then again, when the police force is this ineffectual, maybe relying on a murderous, unhinged vigilante is your only option.

01:57:28:              The end credit roll.  It’s easy to find fault in this film when you compare it to Christopher Nolan’s take on the character and his world, which feels so accomplished, even definitive.  Nolan’s movies were made with a far larger budget between 16 and 23 years later.  That said, much of the source material that informed Nolan’s approach was written by the late 1980s.  Setting aside the preference for style over content arguably expected from a Tim Burton movie, the shortcomings of this film are primarily due to a lack of investment in the character of Bruce Wayne/ Batman.  In 1989, a primary goal was to have a Batman that was very different to Adam West.  Burton, perhaps inspired by Frank Miller’s (vastly over-rated) The Dark Knight Returns gives us a Batman who is not merely opposed to criminal activity, but fascistic in his dealing with criminals.  The moral difference between Batman and his enemies is smeared.  This Batman is also entirely reactive – the Joker does something and Batman responds.  The Bruce Wayne/ Batman character does not set the narrative in motion, his enemies and other supporting characters do.  So what we have is a version of Batman who waits for crimes or atrocities to occur and then responds with gratuitous force.  This is not a very compelling take on the character.  Being made at the tail end of the decade of “greed is good”, the character was perhaps bound to be more self-centred than altruistic.  While more hard-line or otherwise rougher-around-the-edges interpretations of the character exist, versions of Batman that confirm his humanity and altruism rather than his focusing on his monstrous side make him a character far more worthy of our attention, who is exciting and compelling.  Batman is a reasonably accomplished and enjoyable piece of cinema.  It earns a place in movie history as a year zero for comic book adaptations and for Jack Nicholson’s Joker.  But it’s not the real Batman.