Batman Film Analysis

From comic book pages to the big screen, creating a film adaptation of a beloved graphic novel series can be a challenging task. Talented writers and directors must work to devise a faithful adaptation without turning the audience’s attention away, as most loyal readers of a series can have high expectations. Whether a composition is praised or criticized, the greatest wish for a film that carries such immense weight with its audience is for it to succeed. One adaptation that has successfully captured viewers is Batman Begins, a superhero film based on the fictional DC Comics character Batman. Cowritten and directed by Christopher Nolan, the film reboots the series with an origin story laced with action and dark realism. The film premiered

Those who use dark realism tend to focus on tenebrous and often macabre subjects, injecting works with themes of death, madness, and torture. The genre envelopes itself with the idea of dystopian places and amoral beings, some that can be particularly violent or realistic. Nolan’s film captures the design perfectly, taking from comic book settings with its somber colors and the darker parts of Gotham City. To illustrate, in Frank Miller’s graphic novel, Batman: Year One, the city is painted with grays and browns. Throughout the comic, it is often depicted as crowded and murky, such as its opening page revealing Gotham’s train system and character James Gordon’s disdain. With a fatigued expression, Gordon thinks to himself how the “train’s no way to come to Gotham,” stating anyone would be a fool for “thinking it’s civilized” (2). With this, his derision for Gotham City is brought to life, shaping the reader’s expectation for the setting and its residents. The film mirrors the dystopian location, mimicking the style with grayish palettes and rainy streets, sounds of wailing sirens and bellowing sewers. Gotham city is not a beautiful, perfect society, but a broken one that the main hero believes can be saved. Even so, quite often Gotham is riddled with criminals, as shown in the comics and film adaptations. As dark realism depicts, violence is an existing feature that

Compared to Nolan’s work, these previous versions can be described as colorful and campy. Writer and academic professor, Will Brooker, expresses in his study, Batman: One Life, Many Faces, that these variations only aid the more recent adaptations. Because of their frivolous nature, Brooker states with “cinema’s [various] attempts to portray the Batman on screen, none of the films can be called an ‘adaptation’ of the comic book”. He goes on to say, “[the films] must be regarded as free interpretations built around a basic framework... [regarding] visual style, characterization and theme to their surrounding” (186). As mentioned, compared to Nolan’s films these previous versions fall into a different genre for their vibrant style and comedic dialogue. Unlike these past versions, Nolan embraces the comic series’ true sense, one that readers tend to prefer. Brooker continues to express his “preference for comics tending to the Frank Miller style,” mentioning how films like Batman and Batman Returns are quite the contrary. He claims the movies are “Tim Burton films before they are adaptations of any comic,” suggesting they rather “[adapt] a mood... than a specific comic” (192). Brooker also mentions this when discussing the 1960s TV series, having it described as “at best a misguided interpretation and at worst a