Tag Archives: The Dark Knight

Jack Hulbert on ‘How The Knight Became Dark: How Media and Societal Changes Can Affect a Long Running Franchise’

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“How The Knight Became Dark: How Media and Societal Changes Can Affect a Long Running Franchise” traverses the history of the Batman franchise from the first television serial in the 1940’s, all the way to the most recent filmic entry in the Batman franchise: Matt Reeves’ The Batman[1]. In the subsequent 80 years, a plethora of Batman media and films have been released, all with their own styles, aesthetics and tones.

 

Posters for (from left to right) Batman[2], Batman[3], Batman Forever[4], The Dark Knight[5], The Batman[6].

 

This video essay demonstrates this history of Batman films, the history of changes in the cinematic medium, and the historical eras of comic books, to understand how nearly 100 years of constant change can be seen and felt in The Batman.

 

The Batman franchise is perfectly suited to exploring the nature of how 80 years can affect a franchise: be this through societal changes or through cinematic changes. Reflection theory suggests “that cinema, being a “popular art,” tends to embody some state of mind common to the millions of people living in a society”[7]. Using this idea as an approach, seismic shifts in the zeitgeist can feasibly be observed through tonal or story changes within a franchise. For this purpose, the Batman franchise is a unique example, being a franchise that had been going strong for almost a century. It has crossed ears of cinema, the Hays code era and the post 9/11 response for example, and it has also developed and crossed multiple eras of comic books, the overly safe silver and transgressive modern age for example. These changes will be explored by exposing and analysing where their influences can be found in 2022’s The Batman.

 

Before analysing The Batman however, it is logical to first explain the history of the Batman franchise and how, historically, it has interacted with seismic shifts and changes to the zeitgeist. To explain this history, every major film and shift must be explored chronologically, to concisely and simply explain 80 years of history in under 11 minutes. (“Major film” here refers to lie action. While the video essay will feature clips from animated films, this is both to show comic books in a more visually engaging way, using their film counterparts, and because pretending that they don’t exist would be disingenuous to the history of Batman films). The eras of Batman films will be explored by their director, splitting the eras neatly, almost by decade. This aligns with the shifts that have affected the franchise, mainly the Hays code limiting the 1960’s film (and its removal between Batman and Batman); the negative reaction to the darker Burton films ( which used the post Hays code freedom to explore “deconstructive and dystopian re-envisionings of iconic characters and the worlds that they live in”[8]); the shift towards dark realism post 9/11 (which was felt across all of cinema as “the omnipresent post traumatic response”[9] at the time was that it all “looked like a movie”).

 

Only after unveiling this history of change can The Batman be analysed. With an understanding of 80 years of cinematic and societal oscillations, sequences from and the overall tone of The Batman are rendered meaningful through their relationship to these changes. After working chronologically through the history of change, going back through each influential event can elucidate the notions of reflection theory: can the various zeitguiseds be felt in The Batman, or is it truly a standalone work?

 

When it was originally released The Batman was positioned as a standalone work. Obviously with the advent of The Penguin[10] series on HBO this is no longer accurate, but it is interesting to consider how standalone it truly was. The word standalone indicates that it is not influenced by other films or properties and is a singular work. However, this video essay attempts to disprove that notion, challenging the nature of how anything can really be singular or standalone. It posits that in reality, Reeves’ The Batman has been shaped by 80 years of changes and that each of these can be observed within itself. It is not a product of isolation but a product of constant change.

The Video Essay may be seen on Vimeo here:

 

Bibliography:

Bordwell, David, “Observations on Film Art: Zip, Zero, Zeitgeist”, DavidBordwell.net (2014), https://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/2014/08/24/zip-zero-zeitgeist/ accessed 3rd February 2025

 

Briefel, Aviva; Miller, Sam. Introduction, in “Horror After 9/11: World of Fear, Cinema of Terror” (University of Texas Press, Austin, 2011)

 

Filmography:

 

Batman (Leslie H. Martinson, USA, Greenlawn Productions, 1966)

 

Batman (Tim Burton, USA, Warner Bros, 1989)

 

Batman Forever (Joel Schumacher, USA, PolyGram Pictures, 1995)

 

The Batman (Matt Reeves, Warner Bros. Pictures, 2022)

 

The Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan, USA, Warner Bros. Pictures, 2008)

 

The Penguin (USA, HBO, tx.30.09.2024 – 11.11.2024)

 

 

 

[1] The Batman (Matt Reeves, Warner Bros. Pictures, 2022)

[2] Batman (Leslie H. Martinson, USA, Greenlawn Productions, 1966)

[3] Batman (Tim Burton, USA, Warner Bros, 1989)

[4] Batman Forever (Joel Schumacher, USA, PolyGram Pictures, 1995)

[5] The Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan, USA, Warner Bros. Pictures, 2008)

[6] The Batman (Matt Reeves, USA, Warner Bros. Pictures, 2022)

[7] Bordwell, 2014

[8] Quoted in Shadows of the Bat (USA, Warner Bros. DVD, 2005)

[9] Briefel, Aviva; Miller, Sam. Introduction, in “Horror After 9/11: World of Fear, Cinema of Terror” (University of Texas Press, Austin, 2011)

[10] The Penguin (USA, HBO, tx.30.09.2024 – 11.11.2024)

Eavesdropping at the Movies: 247 – The Dark Knight Rises

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Listen on the players above, on Apple Podcasts, or on Spotify.

We finish off Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy with The Dark Knight Rises, the most entertaining and enjoyable of the three films. In a Gotham free of crime thanks to the draconian Dent Act, passed in the wake of Harvey Dent’s murder at, so the story goes, the hands of Batman, who hasn’t been seen since, the intriguing, intimidating, revolutionary figure of Bane arrives to terrorise and occupy the city. A recluse since the events of The Dark Knight, the threat of Bane gets Bruce Wayne back in his cowl, but he finds he’s met his match.

We again question the film’s politics, Mike arguing that its fascism isn’t so much particular to this series as a core component of Batman in principle, and that maybe the most a Batman story can do is ignore it, rather than fix it. Its aesthetics come back into focus too, in its cinematic style and militaristic sensibility, José taking issue with both, though he loves the opening set piece. He finds a new appreciation for Michael Caine, and we take pleasure in the new additions to the cast, particularly Tom Hardy and Anne Hathaway, and we leave the series in agreement that no matter our problems, it ended on a fun note.

With José Arroyo of First Impressions and Michael Glass of Writing About Film.

Eavesdropping at the Movies: 246 – The Dark Knight

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Listen on the players above, on Apple Podcasts, or on Spotify.

Having established a muted tone in Batman Begins, Christopher Nolan’s Batman series receives a welcome injection of flair in Heath Ledger’s Joker, the villain and main attraction of 2008’s The Dark Knight. Ledger’s Joker captured imaginations and helped the film to a billion dollar box office gross, back when hitting that milestone was rare. José, as with Batman Begins, never got The Dark Knight, while Mike was so hyped for it that he saw it twice in IMAX before its official release. We discuss what holds up today and what doesn’t, what the appeal is, the 70mm IMAX cinematography, how and why the film became a cultural meme, and what ideologically drives it.

With José Arroyo of First Impressions and Michael Glass of Writing About Film.

 

Eavesdropping at the Movies: 244 – Batman Begins

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Listen on the players above, on Apple Podcasts, or on Spotify.

Cineworld’s reopening brings socially distanced screenings of past hits while the studios figure out their strategies for new releases, and with the highly anticipated and imminent release of Christopher Nolan’s new sci-fi, Tenet, his previous blockbusters are once again showing. José chooses Batman Begins, hoping to understand what he didn’t get when he first saw it in 2005, and why it matters.

To Mike’s generation and demographic, Batman Begins is, if not a great film, an important one, as its muted aesthetic and attempt to render Batman and Gotham as plausible entities, capable of existing in the real world, signalled a significant difference from the outlandishness of both previous and contemporary comic book adaptations, and its tone conveyed a seriousness of purpose – how honestly or successfully is up for debate – that contributed to the idea that superhero films could begin to be taken seriously and even considered as Oscar contenders. And, although his previous three films had all been successful, Batman Begins was the first blockbuster of Nolan’s career, and the financial success and cultural impact of his work would only increase, making him a dominant figure in cinema for people like Mike.

But Nolan’s Batman trilogy has always left José feeling lost – something that might be true of Nolan’s work overall – and he’s keen to work out what he might be missing, whether it’s more than just a generational thing, or whether, indeed, it’s the children who are wrong.

We think through how Nolan reimagines Batman, and how differently Batman Begins feels now that it’s fifteen years old. Mike suggests that the benevolent billionaire figure of Thomas Wayne, Batman’s dad, is no longer believable, if indeed it ever should have been, and José turns a peeve about Nolan’s almost entirely European casting into a working theory about the Britishness of his film, and what that means for its fidelity to the themes and tone of the comic books on which it’s based.

We’ll be following this up with discussions of the two successive Dark Knight films, as well as Interstellar and Inception, in this impromptu Christopher Nolan season. It’s all thanks to finally being back at the cinema, where, as José loudly shouts in the face of everyone who think their big telly is great, all films are best seen – especially Christopher Nolan’s.

With José Arroyo of First Impressions and Michael Glass of Writing About Film.