Batman Returns. (15.)
Directed by Tim Burton.
Starring Michael Keaton, Danny De Vito, Michelle Pfeiffer, Christopher Walken, Michael Gough, Michael Murphy. 123 mins
The enormous success of the first film meant that Burton had wheedled himself a bit of leeway for the follow-up. From the inch that was given, Burton took the most glorious of miles. Working with a deranged script by Heathers writer Daniel Waters, with Batman Returns Burton made one of the most daring and inventive big-budget Hollywood films ever. It has often been speculated over what might have been produced if Terry Gilliam had been given control of a really big, mainstream production, a Harry Potter perhaps. The answer, I think, would be something much less audacious than this.
Second time out Burton stripped the production of any realistic grounding. The locations in Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire used in the first film have been replaced with a Gotham made entirely of sets, crazy German expressionist fairy tale sets spiralling and twisting up into the sky. The result is a film that flows in a way that no other Burton film, before or since, does. The stop-start of the first film is gone and great ideas and moments of visual inspiration spring effortlessly up from it.
Waters' script takes place over a hazily defined Christmas period, and its vision of the Penguin as a mutant figure rising from sewers to reclaim his birthright is a mixture of the Dickensian and the biblical. The plotting is way out there, but what really gets you are the characterisations. Keaton's Batman/ Bruce Wayne is just as effective as before, Pfeiffer's Catwoman/ Selina Kyle is an ongoing nervous breakdown, De Vito's Penguin/ Oswald Cobblepot is a slimy reptile trying out being human. And somehow Walken outdoes all of them as venal businessman Max Shreck. Walken is at his most Walken, his delivery more staccato than ever, as if - he had seen - every single - Walken impersonator - and was – determined - to show them - that he could do him - better - than anyone else.
There's something operatic about it, not just in its gaudy scale but in the way characters are defiantly non-realistic, that characters are developed externally rather than externally. They are not drawn psychologically but sprayed out over their environment. The most obvious example of this is when Selina Kyle comes back to her apartment after surviving being pushed out of the top of his skyscraper office by Shreck, she swings her stilleto at a neon sign that says Hello There to knock out a couple of letters leaving Hell Here. Everything in this world ties in together.
I do truly love this film. The moment Selina and Bruce, the only ones without masks at a masked ball and dancing to Siouxsie and the Banshee's Face To Face, simultaneously realize the other's alter ego is the perfect expression of Burton's cosy gothic glee, the dark embrace that is so life affirming.
Next Batman Forever
Directed by Tim Burton.
Starring Michael Keaton, Danny De Vito, Michelle Pfeiffer, Christopher Walken, Michael Gough, Michael Murphy. 123 mins
The enormous success of the first film meant that Burton had wheedled himself a bit of leeway for the follow-up. From the inch that was given, Burton took the most glorious of miles. Working with a deranged script by Heathers writer Daniel Waters, with Batman Returns Burton made one of the most daring and inventive big-budget Hollywood films ever. It has often been speculated over what might have been produced if Terry Gilliam had been given control of a really big, mainstream production, a Harry Potter perhaps. The answer, I think, would be something much less audacious than this.
Second time out Burton stripped the production of any realistic grounding. The locations in Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire used in the first film have been replaced with a Gotham made entirely of sets, crazy German expressionist fairy tale sets spiralling and twisting up into the sky. The result is a film that flows in a way that no other Burton film, before or since, does. The stop-start of the first film is gone and great ideas and moments of visual inspiration spring effortlessly up from it.
Waters' script takes place over a hazily defined Christmas period, and its vision of the Penguin as a mutant figure rising from sewers to reclaim his birthright is a mixture of the Dickensian and the biblical. The plotting is way out there, but what really gets you are the characterisations. Keaton's Batman/ Bruce Wayne is just as effective as before, Pfeiffer's Catwoman/ Selina Kyle is an ongoing nervous breakdown, De Vito's Penguin/ Oswald Cobblepot is a slimy reptile trying out being human. And somehow Walken outdoes all of them as venal businessman Max Shreck. Walken is at his most Walken, his delivery more staccato than ever, as if - he had seen - every single - Walken impersonator - and was – determined - to show them - that he could do him - better - than anyone else.
There's something operatic about it, not just in its gaudy scale but in the way characters are defiantly non-realistic, that characters are developed externally rather than externally. They are not drawn psychologically but sprayed out over their environment. The most obvious example of this is when Selina Kyle comes back to her apartment after surviving being pushed out of the top of his skyscraper office by Shreck, she swings her stilleto at a neon sign that says Hello There to knock out a couple of letters leaving Hell Here. Everything in this world ties in together.
I do truly love this film. The moment Selina and Bruce, the only ones without masks at a masked ball and dancing to Siouxsie and the Banshee's Face To Face, simultaneously realize the other's alter ego is the perfect expression of Burton's cosy gothic glee, the dark embrace that is so life affirming.
Next Batman Forever
