We knew Bane was bad. Did he have to annihilate an entire stadium full of people to prove it? Or could we have figured it out? How did we ever know that Scorpio was truly bad...OK...a couple of long-distance murders and a buried kidnap victim...but it was not until he hijacked that school bus full of children and menaced them (because we knew he was a killer from before) and put the audience on edge that we all were rooting for Harry to give him a third eye!
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xmj714_school-bus-from-dirty-harry-1971_shortfilms
Yes...1971...yes there was violence...but it was not the wholesale destruction we get today. Point is this...Don Siegal (Director, Dirty Harry) had to build the tension throughout the theater throughout the first two acts. Scorpio was bad. Harry was always a step behind him. Would he vanish like the real-life Zodiac (now there is an alternate history idea)? Would Harry catch him without losing yet another partner? (Sardonic Humor) Would justice be served? It took work...a lot of creative work to get there. At any point the film could have slid into formula (yes, I know there was a formula...Harry would get the Scorpio in the end...and yes, Harry would stay true to his Avenger creed of being the instrument of the audience's justice) and become a parody.
Of course, it helped that Siegal (and Harry) had an audience with an attention span of more than 45 seconds.
But, what Don Siegal did with the help of the ever-internalizing Clint Eastwood was a lot of work...directing and acting work. Even Andrew Robinson (Scorpio) didn't call in what could have been an otherwise stereotypical nut-case. His Scorpio was slobbering, drooling insane...and clever.
Now I am not suggesting that Heath Ledger's Joker wasn't spot on. It was...and honestly, that issue of the Batman trilogy was so strong because of the menacing nature of the character and his threat. And that made it a more intense film experience.
OK...which is more terrifying...the shadow of Norman Bates on the shower curtain? Or the stabbing itself?
Menace takes work.
Destroying a fair chunk of downtown Chi/Gotham requires a lot of technical work...and certainly Nolan is great here on the technical stuff. But, how hard does the audience have to think? Everything is laid out on a platter so that even the most uninspired can get it. Oh...he blows up a stadium full of people...he must be really bad!
"Blockbuster" films feed us existential threats. Bane will destroy all of Gotham for the sheer (paradox here?) nihilistic pleasure of it. But, cartoonish as he was, Goldfinger did not want to destroy the planet. He wanted to rule it!
And, a lot of what we get is because of the rush for profit. These films make money precisely because they do not demand the audience to stay engaged with the plot. I call them "popcorn burners." This rush forces the filmmakers to appeal to the most basic and obvious human emotions and driving forces...survival against overwhelming odds, sex, violence, conflict and anger. Yet the core of the human being is often ignored because of the need for one more car chase...one more monumental blast. The actors work hard, but often they are merely decorations around the edges (or perhaps in the center) of one more action sequence.
These films ultimately are easy (and I am not talking about FX)...and are truly formulaic...and nothing really new...consider how the old style Westerns were cranked out. Peaceful setting...small town...bad guys show up...shoot up town, rob bank, kill honest, but kind of creaky old sheriff (town has been so peaceful that the job was a sinecure..see Andy Griffith without gun-play)...noble young man vows over the not too bloody but certainly dead sheriff to avenge the death...but, he has a conflict...the good-looking daughter of the store-keeper wants to see him in one piece and so has made him vow never to strap on a gun...so he walks it off...baddies return and harass her (maybe even rip her dress!) and beat up her Dad (maybe shoot or stab him...but if it is a knife, has to be someone greasy looking), but not fatally..daughter is distraught over both her virtue and her father...now the avenging angel arrives...and we see strength and leadership and nobility of purpose as our (now) hero proceeds to eradicate the bad guys with dynamite bombs and finally a flood caused by a blown beaver dam upstream from their hideout! No guns...so he gets the girl...and the baddies are once-again removed from the scene...oh...and the noble Sancho-Panza best friend gets to be the next sheriff as our hero and the storekeeper's daughter are married and leave town in a buckboard off into the setting sun. (Note...best friend could also not make it to the final reel because he takes a bullet because our 'hero' won't stand up when the bad guys come back to hit the General Store.) Sound a bit like the latest?
Only when the Batman and Alfred are alone together on the screen do we suddenly get the sense that this is something more than one more Ninja movie (replete with the heroic nobility).
Where does the Batman's loneliness come from?
I do feel a bit like Justice Stewart who said famously about porn "I know it when I see it." Got the same situation with creativity. Consider these films as markers of true creativity: Inception, Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Rear Window, Headhunters (Norwegian), Bob le Flambeur, The Professional, Ronin, The Raid: Redemption. Even if some are violent beyond belief, these movies establish an intimacy with the audience. You cannot view these films without being involved in the plot. If you ignore development, you will be lost. You cannot follow.
But you do not need insane violence...existential destruction...to understand that the bad guy in The Headhunters (go see it...the movie is set in Norway, not in the jungles of New Guinea) is really awful. Wait for this scene...the one AFTER the bad guy has slammed the police car off the road using a stolen 18-Wheeler (violence...but all core to the plot...in fact everything fits into the plot...everything)...when he comes to the destroyed vehicle and checks out the bodies. Tension and menace. And it is very up close and personal. Remember to breathe.
The audience has to work as hard as the directors and the actors. That is the creative process. Otherwise, what is it that you are creating? Or are you following the old Roman formula which knows that as long as the Lions win over the Christians, the Audience leaves with a smile and forgets just how crappy their lives have become. Bread and Circuses...the old equation that keeps the Patricians somewhat secure from the rest of the population learning who has picked their pockets.
No comments:
Post a Comment