Batman and Batman Begins.

CONCEPT

vs.

Warning. Spoilers ahead.

At a glance, everyone loves Batman Begins. A quick perusal of about thirty reviews showed that nobody gave it less than a 3.8 out of 5, and Roger Ebert gives a full 5. Not bad. I liked the movie very much myself, and clearly there's not comparison with Returns, Forever, and and Robin, but as I've thought about this movie over the last several days, I've had a tough time stacking it up against the original Batman. I thought, for awhile, I could cranially deal with this one through memory alone, but last night, hot and sticky and unable to sleep, I decided to watch the original again.

Here's what I came up with.

WHAT I WANT TO SEE.

I'm not even the remotest comics afficionado. I've always enjoyed Batman chiefly as a counterpoint to Superman, and I think I (and many others) have mainly enjoyed Batman more because of the vulnerability and fragility of heroes, villains, setting, and so on. The idea that so much can be lost, and lost very easily makes for a more gripping story. A hero who struggles, and evildoers who manage to sparkle with misery even while perpetuating others' gives a romantic air to the compromising struggles with which we're all more familiar. This is the "vulnerability" factor.

A second line runs along the same lines as the first: Batman as a counterpoint to Superman. They're night and day, Metropolis and Gotham, one being a place so perfect that it must seem a prize to any brazen lunatic and the other being a place so debased that brazen lunatics can prey without fear of reprisal. As such, Superman seems to emphaise the noble, beautiful, and affirming in its characters relying on the villains for relief. Batman does the opposite. But that's just one aspect of the light/dark split. If Batman is painted on a dark canvas with a vocabulary of social debasement, then its mode is gothic. From the imposition of social and literal isolation, soaring architecture, the criminal underworld, superstition, suspicion, and awareness of (even if such awareness is not accompanied by a belief in) the supernatural), to conventions down along the lines of family curses and secret passageways, Batman is set in a thoroughly gothic milieu. I mean, Hell, the city's called "Gotham." Why am I even arguing this? The darkness of the story, then, as defined by the gothic mode is the "gothic" factor, and is another aspect of Batman's appeal.

Finally, the third factor, and the easiest to describe, is simply the "badass factor." I want to see Gotham and its characters, and more, those all-important fight sequences as totally unexpected and awesome, with death-defying shows of physical prowess, the victory of ingenuity over ill-prepared numbers, and people pulling off shit you know they shouldn't really be able to. And making me believe it. The action needs to be good. It is not enough for it to be good. It has to be hot. To quote a cliche, good and hot leads to cool, and by cool I mean totally sweet.

I would say, then, in the perfect Batman movie, I'll see a thorough use of and successful deployment of vulnerability, gothicity, and badassness. This does not disavow the film of the obligations of consistent and engaging acting, writing, directing, cinematography, etc. In fact, it depends upon them.

All this in mind, then, let's compare Batman and Batman Begins. For convenience, I'll refer to Batman as I and Batman Begins as V.

BATMAN HIMSELF
Batman Begins.

V wins in spades here.
The two are evenly matched for raw vunlerability, but the vulnerability in V is more consistant. It makes sense that a man in a costume, for example, who regularly kicks the shit out of machine-gun wielding crooks (either film) takes a nasty fall and wrecks a fire escape (V). That the same superhero would endanger himself by knocking over every single last pew in a cathedral (I) seems a bit forced. I is slightly less gothic on account of the flashy yellow badge and lack of ninja garb, but both are far ahead IV and V with their rubber nipples. In fact, keeping Robin out of the picture automatically makes the film more gothic.
The main victory, however is in badassness. As the primary vehicle of badassness in ths movie's Batman has be able to throw down primally. And V's Batman, without doubt, threw more down, and threw down better. The ninja training did much to explain this.

BRUCE WAYNE
Batman.

I wins here.
Christian Bale does a nice job, but Michael Keaton has a hunted, haunted look in his eyes that says more for Wayne's past than the best of maudlin flashbacks. Much of the superiority, too, comes back to simple acting and writing here. Even a young Bruce Wayne has been to Princeton and knows how to conduct himself with a level of social ease that was missing in Bale's performance. Keaton's "I don't want to be at this party, but I'm still the most charming host you could possibly imagine," even makes him seem more vulnerable (and hence, as Batman, more badass) in the end. But in particular, the murder of the Waynes, which is handled so differently, and is of such critical importance in both films, has an organic texture in Keaton's performance that is missing with Bale. Bale's got the cause and effect, but he doesn't have the subtlety. When Keaton's Wayne is laying the roses down in that alley, it affects the very way he walks.

THE VILLIAN
Batman.

No question.

Jack Nicholson sets the bar impossibly high with his vascillating, solipsistic, and bizarrely charming reading of the Joker. He manages to come across as a victim (even though we never see him involved in any abuse in the film in which he is not somehow the instigator), but given his charisma and the grandeur of his plans (destroying Gotham for the sake of destruction), we are just as inclined to admire his audacity.
Of course, there weren't any actors in V who could've accomplished what Nicholson accomplished crazyvillianwise, but even with that against them, the script distributed the Joker's two oustanding traits (his insanity and his charisma) among two characters... that is, Ducard walked off with the charisma and Dr. Crane inherited the insanity. I'll give them both the Joker's intelligence.
Neither Scarecrow nor Ducard are villians to turn the nose up to (remember the days of Mr. Freeze?), but the moral of this story is that you can't win against a guy who routinely destroys TVs with hand-lever controlled boxing gloves.

THE GIRL - STYLE
Batman

I'm convinced that Katie Holmes was cast to walk around and look cute.
Kim Basinger as Vicky Vale walks a careful tightrope along bold, sophisticated, and reassuring. In the end, though, she projects an in-tuneness with the dolor and dilapidation of Gotham, with its filmed-over old money sheen and remembered glory, that is more supple and pervasive than even Wayne's. Considering that she's the outlander in the film, this is quite an accomplishment. That said...

THE GIRL - SASS
Batman Begins

... it's remarkable how useless Vale actually is. In fact, she's a downright liability; if she'd stay out of the whole mess in the first place, well, there wouldn't have been much of a story, frankly. I don't think she was included to help Joker, however. It's annoying hearing her scream for the 10,000th time over something stupid like some dead flowers or the Joker's face makeup. Give me a break. Rachel Dawes, however, as both Assistant DA and a friend to Bruce Wayne is a force of reckoning (you notice Bruce doesn't blow off calling her) and is actually the more impressive character.

In short, I think Kim Basinger was wronged by the writing of Vicky Vale, and I think Rachel Dawes was wronged by the casting of Katie Holmes.

ALFRED
Batman Begins

This one was close, but decisive.

Michael Gouge certainly looks more like the Alfred of our youth, and in his fragility and age puts a particularly delicate emphasis on the importance of Batman's hidden identity. He is also a positive force in the movie; he is not a mere cypher, he does have opinions and actions. For all this, however, Alfred is almost preoccupied. His strongest moments are reminiscences ("well, I think I've embarassed master Bruce enough,") or unheeded warnings ("I'd rather not live out my few remaining years mourning the loss of old friends, or their sons,") but Bruce, who needs most of all to listen, does not. I think at least a part of that is that Aldred seems on the outside of Wayne's individual struggles; he's put Bruce's parents to rest it seems. So he must help, but he can only help, as a means to Bruce's own goals. Any therapy here will fall on deaf ears.

The opposite is applies with Michael Caine. While the premise of V suggests this active role (Batman's formation will require steady guiding characters), it's hard to believe that this Alfred, who physically saves Bruce's life on at least one occasion, will be relegated to the background in the future. Add to this an unlikely character conflict, the wish to speak his mind pitted against his buttling duties, and an Alfred who clearly faces the same pangs and doubts as Bruce is perhaps the most determining external force in his actions. Michael Caine finds just the right balance of restraint and tempered observation to make this authentic. More then ever in this movie, I saw Alfred as an essential character.

SUPPORTING CHARACTERS
Batman Begins

Without question. I often fell back on stereotypes... Gordon was a puffing Irishman, Dent, a good leader with just enough political savvy, and Eckhart a wheezing clot of corruption. Alicia as Napier's mistress is probably the most compelling, as she ranges from a transparently vacuous socialite to a tragically vacant ghost. V may have begun with stereotypes, but it quickly moved beyond them. Finch trumps by Eckhart by adding some mean ambition to the Lieutenant's bloated ambition. Falcone rules Gotham with flair and drama and probably would've eaten Boss Grissom for dinner. My favorite of these, however, was doubtlessly Gordon. This was largely because the writers of V transformed Gordon as they did Alfred into something of an essential character. In fact, without Gordon, the whole "good guy" mission falls apart. What makes Gordon so compelling is that he's an offhand genius at the game he's ranging against... as a "good cop" he is keenly aware that whatever good he can accomplish will carry no external benefit, and more, can only be brought about under the most compromising of conditions. This awareness is taken a step further in deceptions: his shuffling gait and clumsy appearance. To the villians, he seems to be passive, weak, and possibly incompetant, and while we don't get any direct clues that this act is intentional (I don't think he trusts us quite that much), the veneer is awfully consistant to be accidental. In action, however, he never falters.

GOTHAM CITY
Batman

But this was the most agonizing and difficult call of them all. Both films present Gotham as a plausible, unique place perhaps most comparable to Detroit set on the East Coast, and did a particularly good job (something neglected by almost every other film in the franchise) as showing its leaders and institutions as fighting a losing war with corruption.

V had some special offerings that that I did not. We get a sense of Gotham's size and its diversity. We get a sense of neighborhoods other than simple "downtown" and "ghetto" designations. We get enough arial views to form some sort of objective physical impression, and this may sound incidental, but consider that our first experience of most real cities is tied up in landmarks and boundaries. V presented a better city.

But I presented a better Gotham. Whatever valid complaints we might raise about the place's homogeneity (or the apparentness of set pieces), the actual design, doubless inspired by Burton's obsession with the macabre, has a timeless quality... not in the sense that objects to not age, but more that they do not progress. The closest we get to technology outside of Batman and the Joker's goons' "toys" are some late 80s Cadillac-type vehicles. Otherwise, the prevailing architecture is art moderne and gothic, and pedestrians are perpetually wearing porkpies and fedoras. The underlying implication, which is never directly or indirectly addressed, is that Gotham was incredibly prosperous until the 1930s and has been mired in catastrophe ever since. Nothing has been built. There's no option for new construction. It just... all... stopped. V offers a Gotham city where much has gone wrong, but I offers a Gotham that is wrong.

GRIPES

First, at the risk of sounding histrionic, the genuinely upsetting choice in I was the portrayal of the Joker's thanatos scheme... in the clips preceding the parade we see the Joker's telecast from the perspective of hair salons, bars, on the street by punks. At the parade itself, with the exception of our two erstwhile reporters, all of the partiers are the unwashed proletariat, jeering Batman and applauding the Joker whose already confessed to holding the city hostage and murdering dozens. Perhaps we are to take this ironically? Or perhaps it can be taken critically, as an indication of the desperate means to which the people of Gotham are driven. But then, Alexander Knox, in a prelude to his only dignified moment, ominously intones, "the greed of Gotham." Nice. Real nice.

My other big "bitching with" I is its flagrant denial of the laws of physics. Most blatantly that, if one falls fifty stories and hits concrete pavement, or is immediately brought to a halt by a cable, the result the same: dismemberment and plenty of blood. They could've very easily fixed this in the film.

My biggest problem with with V was how conspicuous some of the Chicago shots were. They seemed to stop editing once they got the Hancock and Sears out of the picture, but for those of us who go downtown every day, seeing the Aon and Prudential buildings, the Wrigley and Trib towers, and for the love of God, Marina City, it got hard to maintain any suspension of disbelief.

FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCES

I was only a limited mystery... the only arc in as much as deception was concerned lay with the Joker learning Batman's identity and vice versa. It was rather, an epic battle of wills, and this was reinforced over and over by granting the two equal screen time, highlighting the powers and fallibility of each, and scrutinizing their characters in such details that all others were forced into the margins. In this structure, I has perhaps a more unique premise.

V, on the other hand, is a true mystery, even if most of its components were a little predictable. None of the characters have "all the juice," and it's in their maneuverings and alliances that any get finally close to figuring the puzzle out. For all this, however, V is the more plausible storyline, since characters are preoccupied with with both the extraordinary and banal consequences of their actions, and seem to exercise deeper thought into where they fall in the scheme of things.

IN CONCLUSION

By most counts, V is a superior movie. The main characters are just as compelling as in I, the supporting characters are far more compelling, the plot is more plausible, better constructed, and better executed. The themes have internal consistency beyond the characters with which they are indentified. The writing is better on the whole. As the gothic horror that we recognize as the trademark of the Dark Knight, however, I is the superior movie. There's a pervading sense of dread and claustrophobia, and the infectious violence unleashed by the Joker and Batman, and haunting Vale and Alfred, threatens to overhwelm all civilized convention.

In the end, I have to call it a tie.

But I also have to applaud one move that had, perhaps, unintended consequences. Clearly the writers of V were not concerned with franchise consistency, since their version of Batman's creation (and for that matter, the Joker's) is irreconcilable with I. This challenges us to a more holistic and self-aware viewing of both films. Instead of accepting them as better and/or worse telling of episodes in a larger epic, we are confronted with a quest for the "historic Batman" just as we might be confronted with contradiction in the historic Jesus or the historic Jefferson.

Which version will we accept?

Or better, assuming we like parts of both, what concessions are we willing to either make to validate our favorite reading?

END OF POST