indefinite articles

I suppose I should start by admitting that my knowledge of Batman, and comics in general, is minimal. Furthermore, I confess that my interest in expanding my knowledge on the topic is lukewarm at best. On my list of Things to Do So I Can Be Awesome, it is above learning to play the ukulele, but below mushroom hunting. I am hopeful, however, that my naivete might provide for some interesting insights on the matter of the Batman.

Television was the foundation of my childhood existence. In the summers I’d lie in my plastic pool pretending I was somewhere far away until I got tired of imagining and wandered into the refrigerated comfort of the den. There I would sit on the cool wood floor in my towel and wait for the TV to take me somewhere my imagination couldn’t.

If the WB logo appeared, with two searchlights peering out of it, and the low, quiet sound of French horns loomed in the background, I’d sit straight up and adjust my position on the floor to get the best view. Sometimes I’d be so excited I’d clap. A set of sinister-looking eyes would peer out of the shadows of a bank before the doors blasted open and the theme rose up in a flurry of trumpets and thundering timpani drums. It was a glorious opening, and looking back on it, I see just how artful the series was.

Though the campy 1960s, Adam West Batman rescued the hero from the chopping block by reviving ailing sales of comics, I find it a great pity that Batman’s debut on film had to be so low brow. Many credit Tim Burton for resurrecting the image of the dark hero, but I found even this makeover cheesy after the age of 9. It was not until the animated series that I felt that a style, a mood, that suited Batman had been placed. What I crave in a character is subtlety, complexity, and somberness and I believe that this was the vision that Bob Kane and Bill Finger had in mind when they created the “grim avenger of the night”. The Noir-ish style of the animated series felt like a perfect fit. When I’d heard that Christopher Nolan, director of such twisted psychological thrillers as Memento and Insomnia, was directing the new Batman I was ecstatic. His protagonists have always been strong, silent types that secretly house a stormy conscience.

Nolan’s Batman is arrogant, temperamental, at times foolish. His anger can get the best of him, and when it does he is absolutely terrifying. Not someone you want your kids to take a picture with at the amusement park. He is not the benevolent alien, or the ostracized, and consequently holier-than-thou, mutant. In the lead role of Batman Begins, Christian Bale easily vacillates between an aloof, absurd playboy and a lone, brooding hero. This is the intricacy I love, and Nolan presents this to us with perfect clarity. He does not lose his characters in a tangle of moral dilemma or nihilism, but lets the humanity of his characters shine.

Christian Bale plays Batman as half-Jesus, half-American-psycho.

In The Dark Knight, Nolan extends his study into human nature by offering us characters that appear to embody ultimate good and evil: Harvey Dent, Gotham’s incorruptible DA, and the Joker, a villain so flippant toward human life as to use slaughter purely for comedic fodder. It is uncharacteristic of Nolan to create such rigid roles, and his mastery of creating an entire cast of characters with intriguing dimensionality, in addition to his measured plot-twisting, ensures that the film will not be a contrite disappointment that is tidy with resolution.

I’m scared to see the film, honestly. Scared and excited. Such emotional anticipation produces goosebumps to match the ones that stood out on my arms as I sat on the floor in my wet towel on those summer days long ago, waiting for the Batman to take me to his fantastically dark world.