Glowering DC superheroes may now be the norm, but in 2005 it felt fresh and urgent. Nolan’s Gotham is one choked by wealth inequality, a city in which ordinary citizens cower in desperate fear at the corrupt structures keeping things from getting better. Nolan was intent on presenting audiences with a “recognizable, contemporary reality against which an extraordinary heroic figure arises,” which is why his Gotham feels indistinguishable from a real metropolitan city like Chicago or New York. Gone was the Gothic architecture of Burton’s Art Deco hellscape, as well as the gaudy neon aesthetic of the Schumacher films. From the ground up, all of Gotham City was conceptualized wholly anew. It’s not just Bruce’s relationship with Alfred that Nolan was content with reimagining, however. The two veteran actors craft a heart-warming friendship, and Alfred’s unflinching dedication to Bruce is showcased by his refusal to leave him in any situation, be it as a young boy in need of a hug or a grown man who needs help “lifting a bloody log.” In previous depictions of the character, Alfred was little more than an actual butler that Bruce was particularly fond of, but Nolan was the first director to showcase the complexities of their relationship and Alfred’s place as a father figure of sorts. While Bale nails Bruce Wayne’s tortured psyche, his relationship with Michael Caine’s Alfred is what pulls him back from the brink and makes up the lifeblood of the Dark Knight Trilogy. After returning to Gotham, Bale puts on Patrick Bateman’s uncanny mask of ego to shield his true intentions from the world at large, and as Batman, he leans into the vigilante’s theatricality and rigid physicality in a way that feels genuinely threatening. Bale’s incredible versatility as an actor carries the film through the many volatile points in Bruce’s life, shaping and reshaping the anger that consumes him into so many different faces. ![]() It’s a pulpy fusion of Lawrence of Arabia’s globe-trotting scale along with the simmering aesthetic of urban decay found in Taxi Driver, and the juxtaposition mines pathos out of its central hero.Ĭhristian Bale’s Bruce Wayne, unlike the brooding eccentricity of Michael Keaton or the suave charm of the Kilmer/Clooney era, was the first time the character felt like he was fighting himself. The result is a sweeping, bombastic adventure split into two parts: Bruce Wayne’s journey of self-discovery across the world and eventual training with the draconian Ra’s al Ghul, as well as his homecoming and crusade to topple Gotham’s criminal underworld as Batman. Goyer pored over Batman’s sacred texts, stealing bits from stories like Year One and The Man Who Falls to weave a story that centered Bruce Wayne just as much as it did the cape-and-cowl. While the broad strokes of the character’s trauma were well known, the particulars of how an angry, narrow-minded playboy became a city’s tortured savior were less familiar. Batman Begins was the reboot to write the book on reboots, stripping the hero down to his core and thrusting him into the cynicism of a post-9/11 world before ultimately rebirthing him in a baptism-by-fire.ĭespite four theatrically-led blockbusters at that point, the Dark Knight’s genesis had never properly been told on-screen, a prospect that fascinated Nolan. As it turns out, cinematic history was being made. With little more than a critical darling of a psychological neo-noir to his name, what Nolan had in spades was vision, and after a pitch meeting that lasted less than an hour, Warner Bros. As the years rolled by, the studio entertained every possibility from a live-action Batman Beyond film to a Darren Aronofsky/Frank Miller collaboration, but in truth, it was almost as if the bat was biding its time.Įnter an audacious firecracker by the name of Christopher Nolan. ![]() ![]() had somehow taken one of the most lucrative properties in their catalog and turned it radioactive. After the spectacular failure of 1997’s Batman and Robin, Warner Bros. As unprecedented as it is to say, we’re getting two completely different live-action Batmen on-screen at the same time in the next few years, which is a far cry from the uncertainty of the early 2000s.
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