Batman Begins
—Overview
—Photos
—About this Film
—Spiritual Connections
If there were a formula for action hero movies, most would go something like this—Bad guy does bad stuff, hurts people, kills people, cheats people, and generally attempts to amass some sort of power, control, and/or large sums of money. Good guy tries to stop bad guy, save people, and stop bad from overcoming good. There would probably be a damsel in distress. Superheroes would indefinitely struggle with identity issues. Throw it all together with some choreographed fight scenes, near death scenes, and heroic rescues, and you’d have yourself an action hero movie.
Batman Begins, however, is surprisingly different. It goes beyond fight scenes and formulas. It even goes beyond simple good versus evil.
Taking us back to Batman’s beginnings, the movie also takes us to the core of formulaic good versus evil stories. While there is good and evil in Batman Begins, the interesting thing is that both the main “good guy� and the main “bad guy� have their sights set on overcoming evil. Instead of simply telling us a story in which the good wins and evil fails, Batman Begins addresses the reality that we all must face evil and darkness, and that in the end, the way we choose to deal with them is what will define who we are and how we live.
The movie opens during the childhood of young Bruce Wayne. A mugger kills his parents as he watches. The movie then skips many years to the appeal trial of his parents' murderer. The man is set free, Wayne is ready to kill the man himself, but someone else takes care of it. He is mad that he could not get his revenge, all he wants is justice, all he sees is injustice, and so he gives up and leaves to wander Asia.
While in an Asian prison he is met and “recruited� by Ducard, a member of the League of Shadows and follower of Ra's Al Ghul. When Wayne arrives at the League of Shadows’ compound, Ducard asks him what he is seeking. His reply: “I seek the means to fight injustice.� Their answer to his quest—destruction of the center of that corruption and injustice, his hometown of Gotham City. “Gotham’s time has come,� says Al Ghul. “The city has become a breeding ground for suffering and injustices…it is beyond saving and must be allowed to die.�
For the League of Shadows, the people and world of Gotham are not even worth trying to save. “Only a cynical man would call what these people have lives,� Ducard tells Wayne. Even as Wayne seeks to fight injustice, he disagrees, determinedly stating, “Gotham is not beyond saving.� Al Ghul and Ducard chastise Wayne for his compassion, an understanding they say allows criminals to thrive. Wayne, however, holds firmly to it, for as he sees it, it is one thing that truly separates him from the criminals he desires to see brought to justice.
From there the movie unfolds with Wayne becoming Batman and attempting to fight evil and the League of Shadows attempting to combat evil by destroying Gotham. The story, however, is more than merely a tale of some imaginary city facing destruction and pleading for salvation. As we see the different ways that the movie’s characters face evil, we are confronted with the questions of how we face evil and how evil is dealt with in our own world.
On a global scale, the movie pushes us to think about injustices such as oppression, starvation, genocide, and terrorism. Closer to home, we picture local corruption, hatred, unkindness, abuse, and the like. We cannot deny that our world is clouded with darkness and evil. The question is, will we, like Wayne, choose to believe that our world is worth saving? Or, like other characters, are we too unable to believe in its value to even consider saving it?
As we watch Wayne face darkness even closer to himself, we are also prodded to ask those same questions about ourselves. In this movie, Wayne is tortured man. He struggles with guilt. He questions his own self-worth. We do the same. We feel guilt for things we have done or things that have simply happened. We look at ourselves and wonder why we are even here? Often, we feel so flawed and damaged we wonder if we are even worth saving.
When it comes down to it, the belief that seems to separate Wayne from Al Ghul is hope. Wayne chooses to hope, while Al Ghul chooses hopelessness. Wayne believes in trying to save his world from darkness. Al Ghul doesn’t even see that world and those people as worth saving.
Looking at the world around us, we cannot deny that it is filled with darkness. We cannot pretend we don’t see injustice every day. We cannot even keep a straight face and truthfully say we have never done anything wrong. No matter what I do, I cannot dismiss that reality of evil, and, as such, I cannot help but think that if there were someone like Al Ghul in our world with the power to destroy me and it, we would be gone. Surprisingly though, we aren’t. We’re still here, even in our failings, even in our corruption.
Even as evil and darkness attack us in so many ways, we have survived, and, in the same way that Gotham needed Batman to survive, I don’t think we have done it on our own. If there is truly a God, powerful enough to create us and powerful enough to destroy us, I cannot believe anything other than the fact that He believes in hope, that He believes in our value enough to fight and sacrifice to save us, and that He has sacrificed and fought to combat the evil and darkness that exists both around and within us.
If I met God with my hopelessness and questioned the rationality of His caring so much for a person so flawed and a world so imperfect, I cannot help but believe that our conversation would be no different than one between Alfred and Wayne many years after Wayne abandons Gotham and his life for dead.
“There are those of us who care about what you do with your future,� says Alfred.
“You haven’t given up on me yet?� Wayne questions.
With firmness and resolution, Alfred simply responds, “Never.�
—Photos
—About this Film
—Spiritual Connections
If there were a formula for action hero movies, most would go something like this—Bad guy does bad stuff, hurts people, kills people, cheats people, and generally attempts to amass some sort of power, control, and/or large sums of money. Good guy tries to stop bad guy, save people, and stop bad from overcoming good. There would probably be a damsel in distress. Superheroes would indefinitely struggle with identity issues. Throw it all together with some choreographed fight scenes, near death scenes, and heroic rescues, and you’d have yourself an action hero movie.Batman Begins, however, is surprisingly different. It goes beyond fight scenes and formulas. It even goes beyond simple good versus evil.
Taking us back to Batman’s beginnings, the movie also takes us to the core of formulaic good versus evil stories. While there is good and evil in Batman Begins, the interesting thing is that both the main “good guy� and the main “bad guy� have their sights set on overcoming evil. Instead of simply telling us a story in which the good wins and evil fails, Batman Begins addresses the reality that we all must face evil and darkness, and that in the end, the way we choose to deal with them is what will define who we are and how we live.
The movie opens during the childhood of young Bruce Wayne. A mugger kills his parents as he watches. The movie then skips many years to the appeal trial of his parents' murderer. The man is set free, Wayne is ready to kill the man himself, but someone else takes care of it. He is mad that he could not get his revenge, all he wants is justice, all he sees is injustice, and so he gives up and leaves to wander Asia.
While in an Asian prison he is met and “recruited� by Ducard, a member of the League of Shadows and follower of Ra's Al Ghul. When Wayne arrives at the League of Shadows’ compound, Ducard asks him what he is seeking. His reply: “I seek the means to fight injustice.� Their answer to his quest—destruction of the center of that corruption and injustice, his hometown of Gotham City. “Gotham’s time has come,� says Al Ghul. “The city has become a breeding ground for suffering and injustices…it is beyond saving and must be allowed to die.�For the League of Shadows, the people and world of Gotham are not even worth trying to save. “Only a cynical man would call what these people have lives,� Ducard tells Wayne. Even as Wayne seeks to fight injustice, he disagrees, determinedly stating, “Gotham is not beyond saving.� Al Ghul and Ducard chastise Wayne for his compassion, an understanding they say allows criminals to thrive. Wayne, however, holds firmly to it, for as he sees it, it is one thing that truly separates him from the criminals he desires to see brought to justice.
From there the movie unfolds with Wayne becoming Batman and attempting to fight evil and the League of Shadows attempting to combat evil by destroying Gotham. The story, however, is more than merely a tale of some imaginary city facing destruction and pleading for salvation. As we see the different ways that the movie’s characters face evil, we are confronted with the questions of how we face evil and how evil is dealt with in our own world.
On a global scale, the movie pushes us to think about injustices such as oppression, starvation, genocide, and terrorism. Closer to home, we picture local corruption, hatred, unkindness, abuse, and the like. We cannot deny that our world is clouded with darkness and evil. The question is, will we, like Wayne, choose to believe that our world is worth saving? Or, like other characters, are we too unable to believe in its value to even consider saving it?
As we watch Wayne face darkness even closer to himself, we are also prodded to ask those same questions about ourselves. In this movie, Wayne is tortured man. He struggles with guilt. He questions his own self-worth. We do the same. We feel guilt for things we have done or things that have simply happened. We look at ourselves and wonder why we are even here? Often, we feel so flawed and damaged we wonder if we are even worth saving.
When it comes down to it, the belief that seems to separate Wayne from Al Ghul is hope. Wayne chooses to hope, while Al Ghul chooses hopelessness. Wayne believes in trying to save his world from darkness. Al Ghul doesn’t even see that world and those people as worth saving.
Looking at the world around us, we cannot deny that it is filled with darkness. We cannot pretend we don’t see injustice every day. We cannot even keep a straight face and truthfully say we have never done anything wrong. No matter what I do, I cannot dismiss that reality of evil, and, as such, I cannot help but think that if there were someone like Al Ghul in our world with the power to destroy me and it, we would be gone. Surprisingly though, we aren’t. We’re still here, even in our failings, even in our corruption.Even as evil and darkness attack us in so many ways, we have survived, and, in the same way that Gotham needed Batman to survive, I don’t think we have done it on our own. If there is truly a God, powerful enough to create us and powerful enough to destroy us, I cannot believe anything other than the fact that He believes in hope, that He believes in our value enough to fight and sacrifice to save us, and that He has sacrificed and fought to combat the evil and darkness that exists both around and within us.
If I met God with my hopelessness and questioned the rationality of His caring so much for a person so flawed and a world so imperfect, I cannot help but believe that our conversation would be no different than one between Alfred and Wayne many years after Wayne abandons Gotham and his life for dead.
“There are those of us who care about what you do with your future,� says Alfred.
“You haven’t given up on me yet?� Wayne questions.
With firmness and resolution, Alfred simply responds, “Never.�
3 Comments:
Yes, but, Elisabeth, is it really a SUPERHERO movie? I get what you are saying about thinking outside the "formula", but movies are also made within GENRES... don't they have to be part of their genre to truly succeed?
I've never REALLY admired Tim Burton, but at least he has a distinctive VISION; and is able to create a fantasy city we can believe in, and that is sufficiently different from the world we know to be worth visiting, as part of this fantasy/sci-fi/superhero genre.
I mean - would YOU like "Star Trek Next Generation" - to look like your local ferryport? Or supermarket??
If I want Chicago, instead of Gotham, I'll go to Chicago!
Maybe you can see what I'm getting at... Kevin Miller the HJ reviewer, now, I tried to tell him, and he deleted me! Because he said I had posted a 'countervailing' review!
Personally I'm quite depressed when everyone on a review site looks like they're singing off the same hymnsheet... But I've checked out several reviews from U.S. broadsheet newspapers, eg. Roger Ebert's, and most of them seem to say the same sort of thing too... It's almost as if all the commercial critics get together behind the scenes whenever a "big" movie is released, and they all decide what to say about it before they get back to their desks... I feel this often happens, or has the semblance of doing so. America is a conformist society.
Mm. The acting performances, particularly that of the supporting cast, were very good: but basically I feel that "Batman Begins" was Nolan's Bat-documentary - not a superhero nor a comic book movie!
And it tried for a complex and coherent plot, and NEARLY succeeded therein, unlike the Burton movies... but WHAT was all that about "a depression" being caused by the machinations of a strange Oriental cult?!
Try telling that to Michael Moore...
Hello, Elisabeth,
You bring up some interesting points. When I saw the movie I was interested in what is the place of the exceptional human being in society? If it is not to be merely exceptional, but to be a responsible, thinking, and active human being; who struggles against the stupidity, denial, and ignorance that pervades a city, then you end up with a hero/anti-hero. In this case, depending on your perspective you have the Batman. The Batman's strategies and actions emphasize heroic virtue and use of pragmatic force.
Unfortunately, the majority of people in human society are rather predictable,robotic, afraid, obedient to the destructive forces of ignorance, denial, and stupidity. Critical thinking is openly despised by the majority, but you can depend upon them to be influenced by various emotional appeals to their baser instincts when mixed with effective imagery.
Those exceptional individuals who try to correct the problems of society are largely unknown, they have no organization to support them, however, the destructive forces are organized, fast-acting, and they have the help of the majority to back them up. The majority will largely side with destructive forces because of their ignorance, denial, and stupidity. They aid the elite inimical forces to maintain a status quo, which is a breeding ground for the criminal element. It is very evident where I live. Problem-Solvers, those who try to correct the situation, can expect to lose their jobs, careers, reputations, health, financial security etc.; while the great majority helps the harmful elite in ruining the Problem-Solvers. After all, the majority want to keep their jobs, careers, reputations, and financial security, and they know in their hearts that all the religion in the world will not save them from the elite's wrath. After all, they need to pay the bills. They'd rather live their silently miserable lives then to end up like the Problem-Solvers.
In Batman, you have a Problem-Solver, an exceptional human being, who has superior resources, intelligence, courage, cunning, and physical fitness to save lives.
I favor exceptional individuals who channel their powers to help the human condition. Channel # 16 (PBS), featured a documentary called, "The New Heroes," hosted by Robert Redford. The documentary gives examples of what real people are doing in various countries to motivate people out of the cycle of ignorance and denial to a better quality of life. It shows how some of these new heroes are trying to achieve benefits for their people in spite of corruption etc. *It is well worth watching.
Sincerely,
Sam
Oh Sam, that sounds great! I wish we had PBS in Britain... Maybe I can get this documentary with Redford on DVD.
"The Batman's strategies and actions emphasize heroic virtue and use of pragmatic force." This analysis I like!
"Unfortunately, the majority of people in human society are rather predictable,robotic, afraid, obedient to the destructive forces of ignorance, denial, and stupidity. Critical thinking is openly despised by the majority, but you can depend upon them to be influenced by various emotional appeals to their baser instincts when mixed with effective imagery"... eg. "Sin City", it seems to me!
"Those exceptional individuals who try to correct the problems of society are largely unknown, they have no organization to support them,"
TELLING ME! I OFTEN FEEL LIKE THAT... and yes, I sometimes do feel myself to be "exceptional"... however it's a quiet exceptional... ie, publicity means ZILCH to me, and I do nothing purely for ego reasons... but there you are, Batman himself hides behind a mask, doesn't he... not out of "shadiness" like a CIA-man, but because he REALLY doesn't like publicity.. not that sort! Not the sort that says: Bruce Wayne is doing all this to make himself famous! Oh, I feel I understand him so well... Unfortunately, as Kevin Miller will probably tell you, I also suffer from another complaint... I happen to identify with the Batman villains AS WELL... part of this is because of my "archetype"... you can intepret all that in whatever manner you like!
"However, the destructive forces are organized, fast-acting, and they have the help of the majority to back them up. The majority will largely side with destructive forces because of their ignorance, denial, and stupidity."
All true. But of COURSE... it does depend how one identifies, or is prepared to identify, "the negative forces." I personally identify them as the Right wing in society, the neo-liberal economists + authoritarian social policists - THEY have been on our tails since the days of Thatcher and Reagan.
I also have no time for the Religious Right, Falwell (wish someone, WOULD push him down a well I can tell ya, even if it were only the Joker in a comic - I would have drawn that scene before now, if I could draw), Robertson... all these depressing people.
Oh, send me a e-mail, will you?? Please make yourself "contactable" - you really SHOULD have your own website/blog, you know, as Maurice told me about myself. I've started one, but there's nothing startling on there as yet; nothing much about religion. Ideally I want about 3 blogs!!
Anyway, I DID presume to "question" some of the mythological details you put up connected to Batman - FASCINATING as they were, I'd just like to say I recognise in you another person with TRULY original theories based on comic books/folklore, the relation between each, etc.
However, I did question them a bit - because there ARE a lot of jokers on the web these days... and they don't all have green 'air, if you see what I mean!!
I want to hear more, though, Sam, formidable folklorist, I want to hear more!! I hate putting up e-mail addresses; but please mail me here: ekonlineATbtinternet.com.
With anything further you can come up with!
(Was that "Boatman" stuff true?!)
Post a Comment
<< Home