The Importance of Being Batman
I have been meaning to write this for eons now but as the Dark Knight is just round the corner, it felt as the right time to write this. God how clichéd am I….
Well what can be written about Batman? For those comic virgins, I have a small primer in the next 2 Para(s). For all those twats like me, who did nothing much other than read comics, live in a warped world of their own, gloss over the next 2 paragraphs as its my take on what comics are & who Batman is
There are comics and then there is a world outside that. I have for the past 27+ years unsuccessfully tried to battle between these 2 worlds but I can hardly say I have ever lived in one world for all time. Comics are a genre of books that can take you quite quickly into a world so rich and so wonderful that when you get back to reality, its so bloody depressing that you just reach out for the next comic. In India, we have some sort of a sub culture of Comics but for a long time, people have always assumed that Comics are for young kids and if anyone over the age of say 16 reads it, then he/she need to be put to sleep or treated for some malady. So we do not have these clubs or underground groups that constantly talk about comics or even comic exhibitions. That’s the background. So why Batman then? Why not all comics? Well Batman simply because he is Batman. If in the comic genre, if you seek superheroes you will get tons of them and I for maybe close to 2 decades now, have gotten only a buzz from Batman. I have read Superman, Spiderman, and Phantom, even Bahadur but nothing like Batman. Let me explain that in the next Para. The comic fanatics will kill me for the next Para and the virgins will read quietly.
Batman a.k.a Bruce Wayne is an heir to the Wayne Empire and has everything he can ask for. The everything above is money, glory, goods and all that whole life greed things. He has absolutely no super powers. No bat kissed him, no spider licked him, his mom never threw him in a nuclear reactor or he was not from Zrypton (no reference to Krypton… Honest…I swear). So if you think the basis of this comic is a rich kid who gets his thrills from beating up the baddies. Heck no. Bruce Wayne is as rotten & boring as they come. He has all the characteristics of an average rich Joe. He wants revenge for his parent’s death; he wants to get back to an earlier time where all was well in his life but he no longer can and that is his destiny. Well he does. He decides to fight for the just and help those oppressed. This is that definitive thing we start to like about Batman. This is why he is such a kick-ass superhero. He has no super powers, he has no ability to do a thing he is supposed to do and that is why he is so endearing.
We have had many avatars of Batman on Films and TV over the years. I have personally hated all of them and always gone back to the comic save for Nolan’s Batman. I loved that because he caught the personal grey of Batman and why he is who he is.
See in the superhero genre, there is always a deep dark sadness and secret in the superhero. Spidey can never tell MJ he is Spiderman, Clark wears glasses and Lois cannot tell he is Superman but with Batman he has the sadness of a personal loss he cannot share with anyone and also has the image of a flamboyant playboy who runs a large corporation. This is in itself a nice difference. Then the other reason is his want to do good. This is not associated to anything directly from his past but a want to do something that makes him special.
Another great thing about Batman is his cool rejoinders. He never is caught unawares with words and seems to know what to say at the right time. The other thing about Batman is he is a long ranger like the other superheroes. Yes there are references and instances of Robin, Bat Girl but all his real adventures are when he is alone and that takes him directly to the stratosphere of superheroes. The only one who actually is with Batman and knows his secret is Alfred, his Butler. Now this is a support system that Superheroes need. He does not judge nor does he feel for Batman (Bruce). Alfred knows why Bruce does what he does and there is no explanation needed. This rocks and anther perspective I love.
I always believed that if the Godfather (Movie & Book) do not have answers to life, then those questions do not need answers :-) it’s the same about Batman. If he says so, it means so.
Then there are those gadgets…man what cool gadgets. The utility belt. I remember trying to do one with disastrous results way back. The costume, the dedication to detail, its all there & this is another aspect of why the concept rocks
Well to put all this into perspective, Nolan’s Dark Knight is just round the corner and I loved his earlier Batman flick. Well I love all Nolan’s flicks and am a sucker for anything remotely related to Batman so it would be simply impossible if I am not excited about the Dark Knight.
This movie also has some great technical credits to it. Nolan has used an IMAX Camera to film the major action scenes, the suit worn by Bale has undergone change and this movie also has Joker as the villain. Man, what else do we need? See this movie is set at a time when Gotham City is almost empty of criminals and in enters Joker who is a man with no empathy for human life. This is that big confrontation when Batman finally meets his match. The grey, the personal struggle and of course, the final triumph.
Man, am I excited to see this film.
The link to the official trailer is pasted below but am sure the many fans of Batman on PFC must have already delved in a lot more. Have a Dekko when you get a chance (when your boss is not around or your wife…They are the same when it comes to Batman..They all cannot simply understand why a fully grown Adult like you loves it so much)
http://thedarkknight.warnerbros.com/US_trailer03.html
To all those comic nerds out there like me, well we all have a date now Dudes, to match with Destiny.
Long Live the Thailavar of all superheroes – Batman
Cheers,
Deepak
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
i share ur excitement mate….
deepak -nice article
cant wait for dark knight …
LONG LIVE THAILAVAR OF DARK,MYSTERY WAALI FILMS – CHRISTOPHER NOLAN !!!
Hail chris nolan…can’t wait for july13th….
Chris nolan is the one director that excites me
look @ his fimlography
The following
Memento
Insomnia
Prestige
Batman begins
I personally feel the following is his best film till date followed by memento and batman…I always thought just one thing….How could he possibly do what he did and what he is doing???….how could he???
July 18 th isnt that the release date? Nolan Baba ki Jai Ho..theres a buzz of it being really good on some cinema sites…some spoilers already in the web.
Nolan is the magician..Hes one of the gratest..imagine what Terminator 4 gonna be like..I suppose he is dorecting that..
Deepak – for that second paragraph, one word – Ironman.
i’m with you on this one.. i didn’t take too keenly to bale being cast in batman begins, but i must admit he did a damn fine job. i still have a bias with michael keaton though. he is quite simply, the man. bale is a VERY close second. this one’s gonna rock em sock em, and i’ll be watching first day first show.
nice writeup to get us in “the mode”.
deepak, you didn’t like batman the animated series? you’ve got to be kidding me. that is the defacto batman for most people. do me a favour, check out the animated movie mask of the phantasm which was supposedly the ending of this series. i’m really skeptical about heath ledger. i don’t think anyone can really top what mark hamill did with the character of the joker.
Interesting article & i do share & appreciate your enthusiasm for what may eventually turn out to be the best batman movie ever. However you missed out the most important point in being batman and that is the ambiguity. Batman in all the best work in any medium has always walked the tightrope between a guardian of justice & being a vigilante. This grey area defines who Batman is. He isn’t clean cut like most of the other superheros nor does he have any superpowers like spiderman or superman. He’s all self trained & self made relying on guile & his own strength. It’s his personal sense of loss over his parents that adds to his guilt most of the time. All of these things contribute to Batman being one of the most iconic superheros ever & to top it all Batman probably of all the superheros has the most challenging & interesting foes ever.
Am a comic virgin myself but I did watch Batman Begins and enjoyed it. Will be reading up some of the episodes to get a better feel of his character. BB did a decent job of explaining it of course. I adored Alfred in it.
As for Chris Nolan, I Loved Insomnia, not only coz I revere Robin Williams & Pacino & Hilary Swank but the movement and lighting was just awesome.
I saw Brokeback and am a fan of Heath Ledger. Interesting that KJ mentioned him: tho I haven’t seen Batman films (leave alone the animated series), I trust Heath would’ve been able to carry off the fear Joker is supposed to evoke. Really sad he’s no longer alive to receive the kudos.
Looking forward to Dark Knight for more reasons than one.
A trailer from the latest….check it out..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aj9MDHtRHTg
Is there a spoiler at the end?…