As DC's Dark Knight returns, the writer-director describes how his take on Batman contrasts with previous movies.
Batman hits theaters Friday, sending Robert Pattinson on a moody adventure as the Dark Knight detective. The film is directed by Matt Reeves, whose job was to take a fresh look at Batman after several previous films. So he turned to the noir roots of comic and classic films to create a chilling, apocalyptic film that's more serial killer chiller than superhero adventure.
The Hunt for the Riddler (Paul Dano) sees Batman working alongside Selina Kyle (aka Catwoman, played by Zoe Kravitz) and GCPD Lieutenant James Gordon (Jeffrey Wright), Bruce Wayne's beloved butler and mentor Alfred. Pennyworth (Andy Serkis) has the backup. Their journey takes them deep into the corrupt depths of Gotham, engulfing mobsters, murder and mayhem from a horrific-infested opening scene to a thrilling ending.
The new film is one of Batman's best cinematic adventures, but it's no surprise given the quality of director and writer Reeves' previous work, including 2008's Cloverfield and 2010's Let Me In, as well as his gripping blockbusters. Includes Dawn of the Planet. The apes and war for the planet of the apes.
I chatted with the energetic but thoughtful Reeves (who co-wrote the film with Peter Craig) on Zoom, and we touched on the creepy opening scene of the DC film, returning to Batman's spy roots, and giving us a raw and Angry hero.
Here is a transcript of our conversation, lightly edited for clarity. We don't go into major spoilers, but reading this can give you an idea of some of the events in the film. If you want to remain completely clueless about Batman's journey, come back after watching this.
I was stunned to see how intense and charming The Batman was. The opening shot of the Gotham City mayor's home set the tone so well; It has a volatile, voyeuristic quality. Why did you decide to start the film this way?
Reeves: I wanted to put you in the place of these characters. I'm very attracted to Alfred Hitchcock's storytelling because the act of going to the cinema is voyeurism, isn't it? We are all watching the lives of people on screen. And I thought the idea of putting the audience in the shoes, or in this case, Riddler's binoculars, and spying on him from the beginning, would be an unexpected way to start a Batman movie.
These movies usually start with a lot of action - something dynamic and crazy happens. But starting with Ave Maria [a classical piece by Schubert] gets you off-kilter. You start to realize, "Oh, nothing good is going to happen." And so it gets you into this kind of mindset.
It certainly happened, I was deeply upset. Was Meyer's family designed to wake the Wayans?
Yes, absolutely. It was important to me that when Batman sees the mayor's son seeing what happens, he is actually seeing himself. I wanted to find a way to touch his core without seeing the original.
In a way, Bruce and the boy are so deeply bound in that moment, because not many people experienced the same trauma he had when he was 10 - to see another kid go through that. Will really affect him deeply. And hopefully it will captivate viewers without seeing it all again, without Martha murdering Pearl and Wayans in Crime Alley.
Then the second part of it was to show you moments where things are not as they should be. It seems to be a very warm family and yet, in the wake of that murder, you learn that this mayor is not what he said and that he is involved in an extramarital affair.
So people who are supposed to be legitimate are not who they claimed to be. We looked at the family and then uncovered a truth that could not be understood from that initial vignette.
I like that it was a proper detective story because it's a core element of Batman's character that the previous movies haven't leaned on as much. Why did you decide to take that focus?
For exactly that reason. I realized that the other movies did reference some spycraft, but that was not the thrust of the narrative. I thought it would be really interesting to do something that goes back to the roots of noir and focuses on the world's greatest detective.
I thought it would allow us to make a movie that felt very different tonight, a kind of psychological thriller, almost a horror movie, with this serial killer's game of cat and mouse. I thought it would probably be very true for many comics, but also for something that would be very new to movies.
It takes a lot of inspiration from comics. I was surprised to see that it looked like you were going with Scott Snyder's Zero Years as well as Jeph Loeb's The Long Halloween.
Among other things, yes. Zero years is something I definitely read about. I think Long Halloween probably had a greater influence on the narrative because it was what sparked the idea of doing a serial killer movie. I just went past that and wondered what it would be like in the real world; It got me thinking about the Zodiac Assassin, leaving ciphers and puzzles for the police, which got me thinking about the Riddler.
Darwin Cook's ego was really influential because it delved into the psyche of the beast within being Batman, this drive for vengeance, this instinctual side.
And of course The Long Halloween. Jeph Loeb was my screenwriting teacher at the University of Southern California - he was the one who told me I should be a writer. While I was doing my [Batman] deep dive, I realized what he wrote: Hush, Dark Victory and Long Halloween — so many iconic classics. so inspiring.
Also, the tone of Year One, the Frank Miller/David Mazuchelli story. The way it felt very practical and real and the way it referenced '70s gothic noir cinema like Taxi Driver. There are some notes that Frank Miller wrote to Mazuchelli that refer to the taxi driver and how, in a particular scene, Bruce Wayne is supposed to look like he won a Travis Bickle lookalike contest.
That tone made me see those films as a way to revisit neo-noir because this whole thing comes from the noir tradition. So there were many different comic books that influenced different aspects of the film.
Gotham's elite are pretty much a morally compromising bunch. Would it be accurate to say that criminal figures like Carmine Falcone [played by John Turturro] are a rot set in?
Yes. It's funny because there was noir sensibility in the Bob Kane/Bill Finger comics and late 30s and early 40s. And that sensibility took me back to the Warner Brothers gangster movies, but they also took me back to the movies that inspired me when I was really young in the '70s. They were what you would call neo-noirs, they were the redefinition of noir.
One of those that was really important was [the 1974 spy film] Chinatown. The way Los Angeles and Chinatown become a character in that film and its corruption is central to this question about human nature and how corrupt we are. I thought that's what Gotham should be.
Falcone, I thought, was like the John Huston character, Noah Cross, that he's this supposedly legitimate man of power that you realize is a terrifying presence in that movie. I just wanted Falcone to be a decent mobster, but he has a very dark history behind him.
Falcone's introduction is almost cut short, when Selena sees him at the club and Bruce looks at her through her.
Yes, you are seeing Falcone through Bruce's eyes as Selina's. To me the whole concept of that scene was putting Batman in Selena's shoes, who would have to be a woman in this corrupt world and the object of all these liars.
And then suddenly see Falcone looking at her in a way that you don't understand and start making certain assumptions about her that may or may not be true. That scene was a mysterious, evocative, and understated way of introducing John [Turturro] into the film.
Selena and the Riddler challenge Bruce's point of view in different ways. How would you say Bruce's point of view develops over the course of the film?
I think it develops dramatically. The concept from the very beginning was "How can we keep this character through Awakening?" I wanted him to be Batman, not the origin story. But I wanted him to be in his years of being Batman early enough that he had room to improve and change and evolve.
As a two-year-old Batman, he's not as conscious as he should be about what's driving him. The shadow side, his desire for revenge, and this personal animosity and anger, are pushing him in a way that leaves him a little out of control.
The way he and the Riddler are two sides of the same coin is pretty troubling; They are both kind of after the same thing. And the way there is this interaction between them, I thought it might be bothering him.
Over the course of the story, he may come to realize that the path of vengeance is not necessarily the path to becoming the hero he wants to be. This movement from a symbol of vengeance to eventually a symbol of hope was one of the early conceits that shaped the film.
All three of them were orphans - with Selena and even with the Riddler. But he didn't have the resources that Bruce had. When Bruce went through a tremendous trauma at the age of 10, he also had the safety net of being Wayne. He had so many privileges that he never realized he had.
His association with Selena is an awakening of this as well. He makes some assumptions that because he exists in a corrupt world, he must be corrupt. But it all comes because he has been sheltered and doesn't know what he needs to survive and doesn't have the resources to survive in a place that is tough and brutal like Gotham.
Kinda like Evelyn Mulray (Faye Dunaway's character) in Chinatown; [The detective] thinks she is a killer to start the story, that she is somehow lying to him and that she must be a classic femme fatale. But when you peel away the layers, you realize that her story is too sentimental and too sad and dark, and she wasn't who she thought she was. And he becomes very attracted towards her.
It seemed like Bruce had a relationship with Selena. In those two ways, Batman's entire outlook on the world changes by the end of this film.
Mayoral candidate Bella Real [a new character played by Jaime Lawson] sounds like a possible solution to Gotham's problems.
The Riddler wouldn't think so, but yes. She represents hope.
Bruce does not appear to see it. And is it related to his dependent approach?
Yes, he thinks he's doing everything he can. When people say, "You're not doing much," it's like "What are you talking about? I go out and I re-watch my parents' murder scene every night. , and I'm trying to influence crime in the city. My life is on the line."
He is not yet refined enough to feel the responsibility, power and influence that could come from the resources he had, which was his birthright. So if he can figure out how to use them, he might be able to help. And Bella is in the sense of a potential awakening for that side of her. He's only starting it all, and the fact that she wins the election represents the possibility of that future.
In many ways he has rejected what it means to be Wayne, and he engages in this kind of compulsive, almost addiction to being Batman, which is about trying to make sense of his life for who he really is. does not make. If he is going to mature and develop into the character we know he becomes, there is much more to him than he needs to face and take responsibility.
What do you think is Alfred's view on this?
Alfred is deeply troubled by the parenting work he has done. He was never emotionally capable of becoming a father, he was suddenly in the position. He's former MI6, he knows a lot about spying and fighting, but he doesn't know anything about child-raising.
He is realizing now as Bruce approaches his second year of being Batman, in what seems like a very dangerous path, that somehow his upbringing has allowed this to happen. She worries that Bruce might be consumed in this obsessive journey, and feels deeply guilty.
When you see some fathers and sons, they may have a hard time connecting directly through emotions. But they may be able to communicate through something like play. In this case, the idea of espionage, solving crimes, and fighting - that's something they can associate with. In a way, their love for each other is expressed in very indirect words. And then when it comes to trying to express his love, he doesn't know how to do it.
How did Batman and Jim Gordon get so tight? It's a fascinating relationship.
There was a scene in the beginning where you heard what it was that shaped their relationship, but I don't want to reveal it yet, because we might get a chance to do it. He too was inspired by Year One.
In that story, there is an incident in which Batman proves his worth and is trustworthy to Gordon. And since then, in the first year, they fight side by side against this tide of corruption.
And I likewise wanted the idea that in the beginning, Batman turned out to be helpful to Gordon in a way that was very unexpected, and let Gordon know that there was more to him than just being a vigilante. And so I realized they were like Woodward and Bernstein, trying to solve this All The President men-like mystery — how high the corruption is — and trying to find the serial killer.
More than any other film, they are like partners. It's like they're two cops together - it's just the one in a cape and cowl. And the other is this lone person lieutenant in the GCPD who doesn't really have that many allies. And so they are both bound in their fight against corruption, crime in the city, and they are really partners and they solve this case together. I think it's really funny to see how central their relationship is to the film.