Reisz Batman

Batman and The Joker

      Tim Burton practices film noir to create a unique mood throughout his version of Batman. A major element of film noir is the use of stark dark angular shadows mixed with an off-balance feel of the world. Burton’s set embodied this darkness with shadows in almost every frame and a 2-D comic book feel that created an off-balance feel for Gotham City.  Urban modernity is another key element of film noir, which is seen through Gotham city’s filth, industrialization, and heavy population. This urban element aided the dark and detached feel of the city that rubbed off on many of the characters. The urban modernity helped explain why the characters thought and behaved in the dark ways that they did. Burton himself despised suburbs and cities that looked all the same, like Gotham City. He believed that they cut people off from expressing themselves and promoted categorization. Gotham City's dark limitations clearly rubbed off on its citizens as many have become corrupt and backhanded figures.

Another revolutionary element of film noir that is especially prominent in Burton’s film was the depiction of femme fatales characters. The femme fatales characters use their powers of seductive in attempts to attain greater supremacy in society. Vicki Vale embodies this seductive siren role as she is first seen as a pair of long legs in heels. Knox is immediately drawn in as she continues seducing him in order to attain assistance in her quest for the Batman. She then continues to do a similar act with Wayne until she actually begins to fall in love with him. This shift in her motives is a common element in film noir in which the femme fatales becomes domesticated in society.

Other elements of this new seductive woman are portrayed in Jack’s mistress. This plays off of the original reason for the femme fatales characters which was the fear of men during World War II that their wives would cheat on them while they were away at war. Other small details Burton adds to the film that farther promote this include the portraits of harlot women that hang in the gangsters’ rooms and the tight low-cut dresses that many of the women wore. This picture of a woman was something forbidden and scandalous, which adds to Burton’s dark mood and corruption that shocked many viewers.

While many of these film noir techniques enhance the mood of the film, I think that it makes Burton stray from his traditional opinions and his film characteristics. Burton himself said that he felt the most emotionally detached from this film because of the creative restrictions that came with the scripts preproduction and constant changing. While I think that Batman and the Joker prove that people are complex individuals, the overall Manichean worldview of the characters and narrow categorization of women that film noir presents goes against Burton’s usual beliefs. Normally straying from stereotypical archetypes, Burton does fall more in line with it through his depiction of femme fatales women and quick idiotic romances. However, while many of the women are objectified, Burton is also presenting a type of woman that strays from society’s ‘norm.’