From the Archive: Mars Attacks (1996)

I distinctly recall reading a review of Mars Attacks! which stated unequivocally that the act of directing the bio-pic Ed Wood (1994) had finally caught up with director Tim Burton. After all, here he was - making an absolutely terrible 1950s-styled sci-fi movie all his own.

Something about that particular comment struck a chord with me at the time (though I don't remember the reviewer...). And yet the uncharitable remark doesn't tell the entire story of this 1996 Burton film, either.

Sure, Mars Attacks! might be considered a bad movie from a certain perspective. The actors, especially Jack Nicholson, go way over the top, and the first thirty-five minutes of Mars Attacks! -- before the Martians arrive -- are pretty dire.  It's a mystery too why certain actors and their characters are present in the film at all, save for marquee value (Danny DeVito, j'accuse). The film feels burdened with subplots that go nowhere, and characters who serve no narrative purpose.  The entire Art Land (Jack Nicholson) interlude is poorly-acted and contributes little. It just dies on-screen.

Yet despite such apparent flaws, Mars Attacks! works effectively as a diabolical subversion of the Hollywood blockbuster format (see: Independence Day [1996]), and simultaneously as a commentary on American political life, circa 1996. Specifically, the alien Martians as depicted by Burton are a kind of joyful physical representation of Loki or Chaos. They happily rip to shreds both the pillars of contemporary American political thinking (and PC thinking, specifically...) and the conventional pillars of Hollywood decorum. 

Simply stated, these cinematic aliens are a politically-incorrect, gleefully monstrous lot: a walking, quacking embodiment of the philosophy that to save a village (or planet...) you must destroy that village (or planet). Everything from the Martian's bizarre croaking language to their byzantine technology and unhealthy obsession with Earth women (!) is thus fodder for outrageous laughs. 

For instance, these alien creatures go (far...) out of their way to murder boy scouts, or to sneak up on an unsuspecting granny with an over sized laser canon. In toto, their wanton behavior makes tolerance of them an absolute impossibility. And that's what's so funny. 

The Martians reveal absolutely nothing of themselves beyond unloosed Id; beyond the devilish inclination to destroy everything, everywhere.  And yet the world-at-large keeps attempting to treat these invaders as if they're just poor, misunderstood foreigners. Earth men give the Martians second chance after second chance, and every time the Martians revert to bloody, rapacious form.

This is a notable inversion or up-ending of the typical Burton aesthetic about sympathy for misfits and outsiders. Mars Attacks! is not a heartfelt plea for tolerance (like Edward Scissorhands) but rather a pointed suggestion that tolerance can absolutely be taken too far in some instances.

As you may guess by the tenor of my comments thus far, my thoughts on this Burton film are decidedly mixed.  Mars Attacks! drags and sputters throughout its running time, often falling flat.  And yet it occasionally rises to the occasion too, with Burton's trademark, brilliant visual invention.  I also love how the picture looks for instance; how it successfully and gorgeously evokes its unusual source material from the 1960s.

In the end, I must respectfully refuse to dismiss outright any film that ends with crooner Tom Jones breaking into a rendition of "It's Not Unusual" (accompanied by alighting birds...) as a re-assertion of order and nature, I suppose.   This just isn't something you see every day, especially coming from mainstream, conformist Tinsel Town.

Accordingly, Mars Attacks! is one of those rare cult movies that entertains me just about every time I choose to watch it. I always enjoy it on some ridiculous, fun level, even while openly acknowledging that parts of the enterprise flatly don't work.

"Why destroy when you can create?"

Mars Attacks! is based on Topps' popular trading card line from 1962, a perennial collector's item which featured some fifty colorful cards depicting Earth's invasion by nefarious, big-brained Martians. 

The Topps cards were a source of major controversy in their time for depicting Martians capturing and torturing human females. Much of the Mars Attack imagery also revealed brave American servicemen being burned alive ("Saucers Blast Our Jets"), frozen to death ("The Frost Ray"), bloodied, and otherwise abused by the sadistic Martians.

In Tim Burton's version of Mars Attacks! the imagery is arguably just as violent, but played in a much lighter vein. 

As the film's story commences, the world is taken by surprise when Martians land on Earth and prove not to be good-will ambassadors, but a wholly malevolent and destructive force. 

Although the President of the United States, James Dale (Jack Nicholson) again and again attempts to forge a peace with the alien invaders over the objections of his top General, Decker (Rod Steiger), the Martians persist in their all-out war on humanity. 

Finally, it is up to a shy teenage boy in Kansas, Richie (Lukas Haas), to locate the unlikely key to destroying the aliens: his grandmother's Slim Whitman records!

Once broadcast across the air-waves, the strange Slim Whitman performances pulp Martian brains and end the invasion of Earth once and for all.

If one boasts any familiarity with the Mars Attacks card set, the first significant thing to note about the Burton film is that the handsomely-mounted production goes to great lengths to accurately capture the pulpy, 1950s/early-1960s vibe of the set.  It does so by visually aping a few of the more notable, specific cards. 

Cards such as "Burning Cattle," (pictured above)  "The Shrink Ray" and "Robot Terror" are all staged directly as action sequences in the film. "Burning Cattle" actually opens the film, in a memorable scene set in Lockjaw, Kentucky). 

Meanwhile, another Topps card "Panic in Parliament" seems to be the direct inspiration for the Martian attack on both houses of Congress seen in the film.

Likewise, the card "Burning Flesh" reveals the full (disgusting) impact of advanced Martian weaponry on the human body; a perspective which is repeated (on Jack Black) in the film during the Martians' first landing in Nevada. 

Some of the more spectacular and bizarre card imagery is left deliberately unvetted ("Saucers blast our jets," "Terror in Times Square,") and the film also wisely avoids staging several Topps cards which shifted the focus from the Martian invaders to giant, overgrown hazards to mankind's domination of Earth (giant flies, giant spiders, giant tidal waves, etc.).  

The film incarnation of Mars Attacks! also features a different denouement than the card set.  In the cards,  the last act saw Earth man take his fight back to Mars, smash the Martian cities, and ultimately destroy the red planet.

Despite such notable differences, the movie version of Mars Attacks! does a fine job of bringing the imagery of the card set to vivid life, particularly in regards to the Martians, their colorful biology, their space age costumes and their wanton acts of violence.  These aspects of the film are delightfully and memorably rendered.

Some amusing scenes aboard the Martian saucer in the film even find the aliens in a surprising state of undress (wearing just tiny little underpants!) in much the same mode of trading card examples such as "Watching from Mars," which similarly saw Martian citizens luxuriating (but in their Martian homes) while watching the destruction of Washington D.C. on wall-sized television screens.

After the distinctive and impressive look of the film, however, Burton's Mars Attacks! plays an entirely different game.  Where the cards were gory and bloody, and sought to present a truly terrifying invasion of Earth by nightmarish monstrous creatures, the movie is played entirely for laughs, both as a satire of disaster movies and of Washington politics.  The Martians, though evil, are cinematic figures of fun and jokes, not of surreal, outer space terror.

"This could be a cultural misunderstanding."

In impressive fashion, Mars Attacks! knowingly adopts the familiar cliches and traditions  of 1950s era science fiction alien invasion film and then gazes at them through the prism of 1990s political correctness. 

The film is not overtly partisan in its targets, but rather casts blame across the entire spectrum of Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives. 

The film rather definitively does not find hope in politics (in Nicholson's president), in the military (as represented by Steiger's character), in big business (in Nicholson's Art Land), in the media (in Sarah Jessica Parker and Michael J. Fox's attention-seeking but vapid reporters), in parental authority (represented by -- shudder -- Joe Don Baker), or in science (as represented by Pierce Brosnan's egghead character, Dr. Kessler). 

To one extent or the other, each human character in every one of those above-listed "categories" seems blinded by agendas which don't fit the pertinent debate (about how to handle the Martian invasion). In other words, nobody really seems to address the pressing problem effectively. There is never a compromise between the scientists and the military, for instance, just an "either/or," binary approach. 

And again, in real life this was the era of  hyper partisanship as exemplified by opponents President Clinton and Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. It was the era of government shutdowns because successful compromise could not be broached and diverse viewpoints were not accommodated.

Here, Nicholson's Commander-in-Cief must deal with Steiger's jingoistic general, who rabidly wants to use nuclear weapons despite the fact that such weapons would render Earth largely uninhabitable for the human population.  That's a non-starter.

On the opposite side, the same President must also deal with Brosnan's bleeding-heart scientist, who can't seem to accept overt hostility for what it is, and keeps foolishly preaching peace in the face of definitive Martian malevolence.

Both sides of the debate are blinded by pre-existing belief systems.

Meanwhile, the mass media merely views the Martian invasion as another ratings-grabbing circus to cover endlessly, and redneck Joe Don Baker and his wife decide quickly that -- in times of war -- it's okay to write off Grandma (Sylvia Sidney) first.  That's the patriotic thing to do. 

Again, not a pretty picture in either case.

In the middle of all this turmoil stands an irresolute U.S. President who seems terrified to act one way or another, and keeps trying to contain the situation in decidedly milquetoast, half-measure terms.  Delightfully, this President isn't a jab at any specific Chief Executive in American history, but rather a lethal combination of at least three of 'em.  Nicholson's character boasts the cluelessness and affability of Reagan, the wimp factor of the first Bush, and Clinton's love of polls (to help him decide which way the wind was blowing.)

As I noted above, the president's unfortunate character traits represent a lethal combination for the Earth in this situation. This President just won't stand up and fight, stating in PC-terms instead that the Martian bad behavior could be but a "cultural misunderstanding." 

Later, he invokes that famous plea for tolerance from another 1990s celebrity, Rodney King: "can't we all just get along?"   That's an interrogative later Burton revived, also jokingly, in his 2001 Planet of the Apes. 

Regardless, the overall effect of such ineffectual presidential leadership is the wholesale destruction of the Earth, and a kind of "Pox on Both Your Houses" message of principle from the film itself.

To wit, in Mars Attacks! last act, it is the next generation by necessity that takes the helm after the destruction of the military, scientists, parents and the ruling political class. 

With the establishment wiped out by its own dottering, indecisive ways, it's up to the president's resourceful  young daughter (Natalie Portman) and likable, common-sense Richie to lead the planet to a better future.

And again, the film's last scenes -- notably post-Martian and post-establishment -- re-assert visually a sense of natural order. Even the cute little animals of the Earth can finally come out of hiding because both the Martians and human nincompoops are finally gone.

On the ash heap of history, as I wrote above, are the politicians, businessmen, generals, scientists, parents, and the mainstream media.  And ensconced among the survivors, notably, are recovering alcoholics (Annette Benning), blue collar African-American folks (Pam Grier, Jim Brown), and idealistic kids (Portman, Haas).  

In other words, the disenfranchised of America.  A new world order? 

Regardless, the Martians thus function in Mars Attacks! as a kind of wicked (but necessary?) "clean-up" crew, one malevolently destroying Earth and yet also taking out the very players that seem to keep our culture from ever truly moving forward: politicians, businessmen and even lawyers, in the case of DeVito's character.

Burton doesn't reserve all his satirical jabs for politics, either. His film comments on generic Hollywood blockbusters too.  Mars Attacks! thus concerns an in-vogue American  obsession of the 1990s  (alien invasions), one featured on TV in the X-Files and in theatrical productions such as Species (1995), The Arrival (1996) and Independence Day (1996). He also revives the Irwin Allen template for disaster films.  In other words, big, expensive casts, and lots of destruction. Only in this case, he plays both aspects not for spectacle...but for humor.

Alas, one gets the impression that Burton is overwhelmed by the colossal cast (Nicholson, Glenn Close, Steiger, Martin Short, Lisa Marie, Christina Applegate, Jack Black, Paul Winfield, Haas, Jim Brown, Danny De Vito, Michael J. Fox, Natalie Portman, Pierce Brosnan, Sarah Jessica Parker, Pam Grier, and on and on...). 

Contrarily, the director seems to have a good time demolishing national monuments. In Mars Attacks! Mount Rushmore gets re-painted with a Martian (not Martin) sheen, and the Washington Monument gets tipped over upon a squad of helpless Boy Scouts.  These moments are emblematic of a diabolical vicious streak, and accordingly, Mars Attacks! comes across as Tim Burton's nastiest picture. 

And yet, simultaneously, by the end of the movie, Mars Attacks! writes itself off as a lark, breaking into song with Tom Jones and lunging full-bore into tongue-in-cheek laughs. This is a daring and wicked, if precarious, creative combination. I can't  really say it's a very commercial one, either.  

Think about it: Tim Burton spent over eighty million dollars to create a schlocky, big budget satire of a 1960s trading card franchise in the same summer that Independence Day premiered. Talk about brass balls.  But his film is schizophrenic too. It's a little too gory to go over as easy comedy, and much too comedic to be taken as a serious sci-fi epic.

Instead, Mars Attacks! occupies a weird terrain in the Burton canon. It's a box office disappointment of tremendous invention but also scatter-shot execution.  Really, Mars Attacks! is the Cannonball Run of alien invasion movies. The movie is girded with recognizable stars and top-notch production values, occasionally uproarious, and yet strangely self-indulgent all at the same time.

But damn if those Martians aren't completely awesome creations. Someone should give them their own TV series. The time is ripe for another mean-spirited, gory alien invasion, if you ask me...

From the Archive: Ed Wood (1994)

"Greetings, my friends! You are interested in the unknown. The mysterious. The unexplainable. That is why you are here. And now, for the first time, we are bringing you the full story of what happened. We are giving you all the evidence based only on the secret testimony of the miserable souls who survived this terrifying ordeal. The incidents, places. My friends, we cannot keep this a secret any longer. Can your heart stand the shocking facts of the true story of Edward D. Wood Jr.?"

-- Criswell (Jeffrey Jones) narrates the opening of Tim Burton's Ed Wood (1994)

It would have been abundantly easy to make the bio-pic Ed Wood (1994) a mean-spirited film about the so-called "worst director of all time."  It would have been safe -- and it would have gone mostly unquestioned -- if director Tim Burton had created a film version of Wood's life that aped the mocking tone of books such as the Medveds' popular Golden Turkey Awards. 

But Burton does not select that easy, familiar route here. 

Instead of crafting a film about someone who -- by accepted and widely-held standards -- made incredibly "bad" movies, Burton creates a film about someone who was inspired by and actually in love with the movie-making process. 

In other words, Tim Burton's Ed Wood is not about those characteristics and talents that separated Ed Wood from Orson Welles.  It's about the qualities those legendary cinema talents have in common. 

And that simple conceit makes Ed Wood not merely a heartfelt, emotional story of artistic endurance, but, in some sense, an inspirational tale about overcoming obstacles (including the entrenched obstacles of Tinsel Town...) and the primacy of pursuing one's own vision. 

Naturally, this film is not strictly "true," since Ed Wood never really met Orson Welles, and since details of Bela Lugosi's career and life have been altered to some degree for dramatic purposes.  And yet Ed Wood feels emotionally true because Burton sees in Wood an indomitable figure -- an eternal optimist -- who despite the mocking of the masses and the disinterest of  Hollywood power did precisely what he desired...and is remembered and even loved for it.

Like so many Tim Burton films, Ed Wood concerns a protagonist who is far afield from what society-at-large terms "the norm."   However, Wood's response to his own apparent "strangeness" is not isolation, resentment or even bitterness.  Instead, as the film reveals beautifully, Ed Wood creates a "bubble" of acceptance for those "hunted" and "despised" individuals who don't conform, either socially or sexually to society's rules or standards.   Importantly, Ed's world of film making is one entirely without harsh judgement...or judgement of any kind for that matter. 

In fact, Burton views that very absence of judgement as the critical key to an understanding of the film's lead character. 

Off-the-set, Ed judges no one's individual strangeness, and on set, he does not judge at all when an actor knocks over a cardboard tombstone, bumbles his lines of dialogue, or otherwise missteps during a take.   It is not in Ed's nature to pass judgement on others, according to Burton, only to enthusiastically support the world he and his friends now share.  The director thus paints a picture of a man who was more interested in the act of film making than, necessarily, the results of that process.

Filmed in crisp black-and-white, Ed Wood is a fairy tale about one man's triumph over a world that systematically shuns him.  Accordingly, the film is visually represented as a collision between cruel, harsh Tinsel Town and the individual fantasy worlds of Wood's unique imagination.  Burton does not shy away from harshness or ugliness in expressing this conjunction of spheres.  The needle tracks on Bela Lugosi's arm speak of a terrible world and a terrible personal surrender. 

And the ubiquitous white "Hollywood" sign looms over the film in a powerful way too: a constant shadow and explicit reminder  of the crushing "weight" of silver screen dreams.  And yet, contrarily, in some very lovely two-shots, Burton expresses well how there can be friendship and companionship  "outside" the normal world, if only one is willing to forgo "judgement."

In showcasing a special friendship -- the friendship of Bela Lugosi and Ed Wood -- Burton creates in Ed Wood "a tender, midnight-madness parable about a determined moviemaker."  And yet it's more than that colorful description too.  In some manner, Burton's film is actually about how to cope with the reality of Hollywood.  You can't change a monolith.  No, you must change how you see (and treat) the industry, and through that trajectory navigate your own path to an individual version of success. 

In the final analysis, that's the lesson of Ed Wood.  Be your own man; have your own vision...and stick to your goals tenaciously.  Despite Eddie's hardships in the film, Ed Wood is uplifting because Burton suggests the character is nothing less than indomitable.

"Ed, this isn't the real world. You've surrounded yourself with a bunch of weirdos."

Ed Wood tells the story of a young artist on hopeful but rocky ascent.  Although Ed (Johnny Depp) has assembled an entourage of colorful actors, including girlfriend Dolores (Sarah Jessica Parker) to support his work, he's bedeviled by bad reviews and a lack of interest by the public at large. 

When Wood's new play, Casual Company opens in L.A., it is met with disinterest and negativity, but Ed is able to see the silver lining around every cloud.  When a famous movie critic comments positively on the Army costumes that appear in the play, Ed trumpets his production's "realism."

Soon, Ed learns that Screen Classics is preparing a movie based on the sex change of Christine Jorgensen.  Because of his own fetish for angora and women's clothing, Ed pitches himself as director for the project.  At first he is rebuffed, but then, serendipitously, Ed meets Bela Lugosi (Martin Landau), the former screen Dracula who has not worked in years.  Ed returns to Screen Classics and pitches Bela as a participant in the sex change picture, and history is made.  Before long, Ed shoots Glen or Glenda, an autobiographical film about men who "feel comfortable" in women's clothes.

After Glen or Glenda bombs, Ed dives into his next project, Bride of the Atom (soon to be titled Bride of the Monster).  He casts wrestler Tor Johnson (George Steele) as the monstrous henchman Lobo, and Lugosi as a villainous mad scientist.  Loretta King (Juliet Landau) becomes his lead actress when she intimates (falsely...) that she has the money and inclination to support the production, a fact which alienates Dolores.  While they make Bride of the Atom, Bela and Ed deepen their friendship, and Ed learns that Bela is a morphine addict.  After the film is completed, Ed helps Bela check into rehab.

Following the disappointing reception of Bride of the Monster, Bela passes away, leaving a despondent Ed.  But with a small film reel consisting of footage of Bela that he shot before the actor passed away, Ed realizes he possesses "the acorn" of a great tree.  With funding secured from a fundamentalist Baptist church, Ed plans to resurrect Lugosi on screen one last time for his magnum opus: Plan 9 from Outer Space.  Committed to making a final film "for Bela," Wood pulls together his friends, including Bunny Breckinridge (Bill Murray), the great Criswell (Jeffrey Jones), Vampira (Lisa Marie) and Tor Johnson.

Finally, countenancing interference from the baptists on the set, Ed stands to lose everything until a fateful chance encounter with Orson Welles...

"Eddie is the only fella in town who doesn't judge people."

In Ed Wood, screenplay by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszweski, the audience meets a number of outsiders and misfits who discover a sense of belonging in the movie-making world that Wood creates. 

Primary among these characters is the great (if prideful and foul-mouthed...) Bela Lugosi, who has been shunned by Hollywood because of his drug addiction.  Lugosi lives in a tiny house, in near-poverty, and hopes to somehow turn everything around; to return to greatness.  

"Eddie, I'm obsolete," he tells Wood.  "I have nothing to live for."   He also notes that no one in Hollywood "gives two fucks for Bela."  This is the tragedy of Lugosi.  He has gone from being a movie star to less than zero, and this is a story we see played out again and again in Hollywood, across the decades.

By participating in Wood's films, Lugosi once more feels good about himself; that he is doing again, the very thing he loves. The dark side of this equation, which Ed Wood hints at but doesn't delve into, is the specter of exploitation.  Was Wood merely "using" Lugosi to get his films made? 

That question has been raised many times, but in terms of the film itself, it's clear that Wood is on the side of the angels, and that he cares deeply for Bela and Bela's well-being.  In fact, it is widely reported that Burton's mentor/student relationship with the late Vincent Price helped him to identify and understand the Wood/Lugosi friendship.  Those of us who have been fortunate enough to interact with "famous" personalities in the industry understand very well the nature of the film's central friendship.  A relationship that begins as hero worship becomes one, very shortly, in which we start to detect the foibles and flaws of a real human being.  Someone who is an icon becomes exposed as a "real" human being, and as time goes on, we see that this is exactly as it should be.  Out of that realization of common humanity comes a new, deeper form of friendship, one eminently more meaningful and "real" than celebrity worship.   Ed Wood captures this type of relationship beautifully, and in sometimes haunting terms.

Importantly, the Bela/ Wood  relationship is tinged with tragedy in Ed Wood from their first fateful meeting.  When Wood initially encounters the faded star of Dracula, he sees him in a store window....shopping for a coffin. 

Therefore, the audience first sees Lugosi in repose, with his arms folded over his chest...apparently already dead. 

This particular composition recurs in the film at least two times: once when Lugosi is in rehab, and once, finally, when he has passed away.  From his first appearance in the film, then, Lugosi is associated on screen with death, and that's very much the point.  Before he meets Eddie, Lugosi is indeed "dead" in terms of his screen career.  He claims he has not worked in four years and that he is obsolete.  Ed "resurrects" Lugosi for his films, just as -- finally -- Eddie resurrects Lugosi in Plan 9 from Outer Space, bringing the actor once more to life for audiences after his death.

The friendship between Lugosi and Wood is very much at the heart of Ed Wood, and both roles are impeccably performed.  Landau earned an Academy Award for his heartfelt, often very funny performance as Lugosi, and rightfully so.  Again, in a notable example of art imitating life, Landau himself had gone through a kind of "career death" in the mid-1980s before a resurgence that saw him headlining in films such as Tucker: A Man and His Dream (1987) and Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989).  Landau is at his expressive best here portraying a man who is not just addicted to morphine, but to movie-making itself...to the magic of the silver screen.  It's clear that only one thing makes Lugosi well: the opportunity to practice his art. 

When Lugosi delivers an impassioned speech for Wood's Bride of the Monster, the words are highly self-reflexive.   He says: "Home. I have no home. Hunted...despised...living like an animal -- the jungle is my home! But I will show the world that I can be its master. I shall perfect my own race of people -- a race of atomic supermen which will conquer the world!" 

In a weird, science-fictional way, this strange speech is very much about identity; about the homes we choose to make, rather than the "homes" from which we came, or which others attempt to assimilate us into.  Lugosi's character here is talking about not merely independence, but about re-shaping the world to his desires and needs.  And in a very real way, that's clearly what Ed has accomplished in his life.  In his film world, Wood has "perfected" his own "race of people," in his entourage, hasn't he?  "Hunted and despised" that entourage may be, but together, the group is doing what it wants to do, and in Eddie's mind, making art; telling "the stories" that he wants to tell.  On Eddie's own terms, he is a success.

Other than Lugosi, other individuals also thrive in Ed's "safe" and non-judgmental world.  Bunny Breckinridge, an openly homosexual man, is accepted without question.  In fact, he is so inspired by Ed's "coming out" in Glen or Glenda that he plans to undergo a long-anticipated sex change operation.  "It's something I've wanted to do for a long time," he says. "But it wasn't until I saw your movie that I realized I have to take action! Goodbye, penis!" 

As silly as that dialogue clearly plays, it does a good job of revealing Ed's positive influence on those around him.  His creation of a "bubble of safety" allows people like Lugosi and Breckinridge to find a safe harbor in an often-cruel town.   Notably, the woman he falls in love with, Kathy, passes the same test.  Ed informs her up front about his cross-dressing habits and she accepts them, no ifs, ands or buts.  Once Eddie knows that Kathy is accepting, little else matters.

Watching Ed Wood, we come to understand and realize the magic of this specific Burton "outsider."

 "How do you do it?"  Bunny asks Wood.   "How do you get all your friends to get baptized, just so you can make a monster movie?" 

In large part, Burton's film is about answering that very important question,  What the director finds is that Ed boasts two qualities that draw people to his cause: passion and optimism. 

In the first case, Eddie believes wholeheartedly in the films he creates, whatever their (obvious) short-comings.  And on the other front, Ed is indomitable in spirit.  The only way to survive in Hollywood (or as a writer, even) is to believe in yourself, and keep trying, no matter what.  Because you will face failures, you will face criticism, and you will deal with acerbic, cruel gatekeepers who want to keep you out of their privileged domains. 

But Eddie never lets those assholes get him down, at least for very long, and the script often references this fact.  When Eddie is told by a studio head that he made "the worst movie ever," his immediate response is "my next one will be better."  

When at the end of the film, Eddie suggests driving to Las Vegas, his girlfriend Kathy (Patricia Arquette) reminds him that it is raining, and that it is a five hour ride to Vegas.  Wood's response is, again, characteristic of his optimism: "It's only a five hour drive and it'll probably stop by the time we get to the desert. Heck, it'll probably stop by the time we get around the corner. Let's go."

Those upbeat words embody Ed Wood as a person and also, not to a small degree, the nature of film making. 

If you're going to let yourself be stopped by a little things like the rain, you'll never make it as a director. 

Orson Welles knew it...and Ed Wood knew it too. They didn't stop making films when confronted with rain, weird casting decisions (Charlton Heston as a Mexican?) or funding problems.  No, they soldiered on, and their films became famous and beloved.

Again, considerations of quality don't necessarily enter the picture here.  There are as many people out there, no doubt, who love Plan 9 as there are those who love Citizen Kane.  And, as I wrote above, Ed Wood is much more about the qualities those films and their directors share, not the ones that separate them.

If Ed Wood has any sense of cruelty in it, it likely involves the unsympathetic treatment of the Dolores Fuller character.  In the script, she is the voice of the outside world; of harsh reality.  She calls Ed and his friends "weirdos."  She passes judgement on the movies (calling them "terrible") and she has trouble accepting Eddie for who he is (a cross-dresser). 

This unsympathetic description may not match reality, but it works for the film, because it's absolutely critical that there is an "outside" voice for society encoded in the narrative.  We need to see how Ed is seen by the world at large, and the movie depiction of Fuller is the one who provides that perspective.  There must be a doubter in Eddie's world, and Dolores drew the short straw, I guess, in the script-writing phase.

Ed Wood gives the director of Plan 9 From Outer Space the happy ending his real life plainly did not have.  In real life, Ed Wood died relatively poor while writing pulpy novels and making soft-core nudie/monster flicks.  In Burton's romanticized version of Wood's life, however, Wood finds the adoration of the masses at a well-attended movie premiere, and heads off for brave new horizons with his true love, Kathy. 

"This is the one they'll remember me for," Wood declares triumphantly, of Plan 9 From Outer Space. 

Of course, Wood was right in this assertion, but not in the way he may have wished to be right. We do remember him for that film today.  But it's because the film is so bad.

And yet, even so ironic a line is not played cheaply by Depp or by Burton.  Instead, there's a breathtaking innocence and vulnerability in Depp's line reading.  Wood is happy with what he has accomplished, and uttering a comment that is, to him, accurate.  Burton's film ends with a pounding rain storm outside the premiere-- a sign that Wood's journey is not to remain a smooth one -- but as we leave the film, he is happy and resolute.  He has honored his friend and told his story the way he wanted. He has succeeded.  I absolutely love that this film boasts the audacity to turn the world renowned "worst movie of all time" into, essentially, a high-point for Wood rather than his Waterloo, and that's such an inventive, ingenious way of countenancing this biography.  Where others see failure and derision, Burton shows us success...a valediction.

Burton's films are often extremely colorful and extremely lush, and Ed Wood stands in stark contrast to that normal approach.  The director often holds up misfits and outcasts as heroes or role models too, but in Ed Wood, there's a special alchemy to consider on that front.   The milieu of movie making adds a kind of extra layer of meaning to the tale.

Artists can control their art to some degree, but they can't control the response to it.  Hence the insecurity of so many filmmakers, writers and actors.  What if we bomb?  What if we step up to bat...and strike out?   Ed Wood is very much about that notion; with Tim Burton himself exploring the idea of being an Ed Wood, a talent "hunted" and "despised" for sticking to his own, admittedly-bizarre perspective of the world. 

And for that reason, "this is the one" I'll always remember Tim Burton for.  I admire many of his films (namely Edward Scissorhands and Big Fish), but Ed Wood is the one that really gets to me on a deep, emotional level.  It reminds me that failure may be inescapable, even inevitable, but that our response to failure is the thing that separates the real artist from the wannabe or poseur. 

Make the worst movie ever made?  The next one will be better...

Cult Movie Review: Dark Shadows (2012)

The feature film remake of Dark Shadows has arrived in theaters and Tim Burton fans are faced with his least-satisfying genre comedy since Mars Attacks (1996).

While I don’t feel that Dark Shadows is a Planet of the Apes (2001)-sized creative debacle, it’s probably a close call.  This is one wildly uneven, incredibly incoherent movie.  Those who will feel most abused by Burton’s Dark Shadows re-imagination are likely the long-term fans of the afternoon soap opera, which ran on TV from 1966 – 1971.  

And that’s because this is a jokey and campy update of the serious Gothic material presented there.  The themes, tropes and situations of the much-cherished series have been spun to support an entirely Burton-esque fish-out-of-water comedy, but one lacking the heart and emotionality of Big Fish (2002) or Edward Scissorhands (1992).  Barnabas -- the great Byronic vampire who came before Anne Rice’s Lestat, Forever Knight’s Nick Knight, Joss Whedon’s Angel and Stephanie Meyers’ Edward Cullen – is now a confused misfit tilting at lava lamps and other fads of the 1970s.

And I’m afraid that’s the good news...

Dark Shadows recounts the tragic life of noble Barnabas Collins (Johnny Depp).  Born in Liverpool, he traveled to America with his family in the late 18^th century and watched as his father created a fishing and cannery empire.  Unfortunately, as he became a man, Collins caught the eye of a lustful family servant, Angelique Bouchard (Eva Green).  Barnabas rejected her romantic 

advances, and she cursed him for it. 

First, Angelique killed the love of his life, Josette (Bella Heathcote), and then she used black magic to turn Barnabas into a vampire.  Angelique then turned the ungrateful people of Collinsport against him, and Barnabas was buried in the woods…for eternity.

But in the year 1972, Barnabas is freed from captivity, and sets out to restore his family business and reputation, and find love in the person of young Victoria Winters (Heathcote).  The bad news is that Angelique is still nearby, and still carrying a torch for Barnabas…literally.

Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows works best – for a short while, anyway -- as a comedy of manners in which a 200-year old vampire struggles to understand life and etiquette in the year 1972.  He mistakes McDonalds for Mephistopheles, rock star Alice Cooper for the world’s “ugliest woman,” and judges sexy women by the size and shape of their “birthing” hips.  He doesn’t know about cars, roads, television, female doctors, psychiatry, or even Erich Segal’s Love Story (1970). 

While John Boorman’s Deliverance (1972) plays at a local theater, Barnabas hopes to be delivered from his eternal curse of vampirism.  But what he really suffers from is permanent befuddlement at a world that has passed him by.

I can’t lie about this fact: some of this fish-out-of-water material is quite funny. The film’s jokes work more often than not, especially in Depp’s capable, deadpan hands.  One exceptionally funny bit involves Barnabas’s introduction to the Collins family at the breakfast table, wherein he comments on how, specifically, he knows the family silver utensils have been replaced.  Another funny – if decidedly low-brow – moment involves Barnabas’s description of “balls” (meaning a celebratory gathering, not testicles), and the ensuing double-entendres and innuendo on the topic.

Burton also does a tremendous amount of heavy lifting – probably a little too much -- with the abundant 1970s era soundtrack, which is utilized as biting contrast to Collins’s serious but antiquarian proclamations of purpose and nobility. 

Accordingly, before the movie is over, we are treated to Superfly, My First, My Last, My Everything by Barry White, and the Carpenters’ Top of the World. These songs work splendidly in context of the film’s fish-out-of-water humor, and so for a while Dark Shadows is actually pretty damn entertaining.  The first half-hour or forty-five minutes rollicks along with good humor, grace, and Burton’s trademark visual ingenuity.

Yet my sense of conflict and ambivalence about the film emerges from the inescapable fact that the sturdy premise is played entirely for laughs. In no sense is the subject matter respected or vetted in a faithful manner.  This Barnabas is not a tortured, tragic, Byronic figure, and his relations with the Collins family are mined for humor but not pathos or even intrigue.  The film’s sense of reality is thus paper thin and easily crumpled.

The upshot of this lampoon-style approach is that by Dark Shadow’s third act we’ve lost all sense of concern about this universe, and so don’t really care at all what becomes of the characters.  Spectacular special effects inform the film’s fiery finale -- with Angelique starting to crack and crumble like a porcelain doll -- but you can’t move yourself to care about who wins or who loses the conflict.

Long story short: Burton can’t ask us to laugh at Barnabas’s reality for most of the film, and then suddenly attempt to turn Dark Shadows into a serious and consequential battle between good and evil.  For one thing, the movie never quite squares the fact that Barnabas is indeed the protagonist, but that he wantonly murders innocent people too.  Thus the movie never decides what Barnabas should be as a character, except a non-stop joke-producing machine.  It reminds me of the 1998 Godzilla.   There, no effort was made to determine whether we should love the monster, consider him just an animal, or consider him an evil terror.   Similarly, in Dark Shadows we are never sure to how to categorize Barnabas.  He’s funny and likable, but he’s also weird and murderous.  We might want him to find love and happiness, but he should also be held accountable for his blood shed.

What can Dark Shadows fans hold onto here? 

Since this is a Burton film, many of the visuals dazzle.   That’s a claim you can’t really make of the original TV soap opera, which was constrained by low budgets and cardboard interior sets.  The prologue of Burton’s film is breath-taking in terms of landscape, camera movement and special effects.  I’ll go out on a limb and even state that the world of Dark Shadows – from the town of Collinsport to the Collinswood Estate – has never appeared in such epic or impressive terms.  The sweeping, majestic prologue, which is Gothic Extreme (literally, with a double cliff diving stunt…), is very impressive. 

By the same token, Burton’s Dark Shadows’ benefits from the fact that it knows the full “story” of Barnabas from beginning to end. The soap opera was often painfully slow, and moved along in fits and starts.  As I recall, Barnabas did not even appear until sometime early into the run.  And Angelique appeared even later than that.  This Dark Shadows gets to dramatize the whole epic, century-spanning story, and without daily soap opera distractions.  And yet – again – it does so entirely with tongue-in-cheek, and with little coherence or point.

Watching Dark Shadows I felt firmly that it was more a Burton fantasy than a legitimate adaptation of Dan Curtis’s beloved series.  Here, we get an allusion to Martin Landau’s Bela Lugosi (from Ed Wood) in Barnabas’s hypnosis-by-hand.  We also get the outsider attempting to build a family for himself while facing the scorn of the community (Edward Scissorhands).  We get the tragic back story of a child, like we saw in Sleepy Hollow (1999).  And like Beetlejuice, the supernatural world is portrayed here as half-crazed and half-frightening. 

But the script is hopelessly incoherent, with long periods of narrative inertia and dullness. Victoria Winters – the love of Barnabas’s life – disappears from the action for long stretches of the film with no explanation.  And the opening and closing narrations are trite, meaningless book-end bromides about “blood” being thicker than water.  Yet the ending quote shows no development and no knowledge learned since the opening quote.  Everything between these book ends is just episodic hemming and hawing.

Sure, Burton can forge lyrical, unforgettable imagery.  Here, that imagery includes the ghost of Josette clinging to a luminescent chandelier, or a death-defying plunge from the Sleepy Hollow-esque Widow’s Hill.  And I love the idea of the brittle Angelique cracking like a porcelain doll, hollowed out inside because of her centuries of consuming hatred.  In almost rapturous moments such as these, Burton summons meaningful visuals from the depths of his twisted imagination.  But there’s no compelling hook on which to hang them, and so they are interesting momentarily but without larger resonance in the body of the film.

If you’re a fan of Dark Shadows, I recommend you stay away from this remake and continue to enjoy the series for what it was.  And if you’re a devoted fan of Tim Burton, you may get a kick out of the film’s first half, if not much more

Just try to imagine Burton and Depp – to quote Elizabeth Collins (Michelle Pfeiffer) -- “on a better day.”

Movie Trailer: Dark Shadows (2012)

CULT MOVIE REVIEW: Batman (1989)

"I don't know if it's art, but I like it!"

- The Joker, in Tim Burton's Batman (1989)

Bob Kane and Bill Finger's Batman character has gone through nearly as many cinematic and television incarnations, perhaps, as Bram Stoker's Dracula or Shakespeare's Hamlet.

The Adam West Batman TV series of the 1960s showcased a colorful world of campy characters, stereotypical comic-book affectations (ZAP!) and obsessively-labeled Bat gadgets and devices (like the Batcave's clearly marked "Lighted Lucite Map of Gotham City").

Contrarily, Christopher Nolan's currently in-vogue interpretation of the mythos adopts the opposite tack, grounding absolutely every aspect of Batman's universe in kitchen sink, War on Terror Age reality.  Here, the Batmobile is more Hummer than hot rod, an all-terrain military vehicle adapted by the Dark Knight for urban use.  The Caped Crusader's costume, according to Batman Begins (2005)  is actually a "Nomex Survival Suit" not a mere "costume," and Gotham City appears to be a very real, very grounded metropolis (actually Chicago in The Dark Knight [2008], if memory serves).

Between these opposite poles of  tongue-in-cheek comedy and naturalistic, gritty realism, director Tim Burton presented his own unique take on the Batman legend in the final year of the 1980s.  Given what we understand of Burton's aesthetic at this point in our retrospective series, it's not at all surprising that his vision for the Caped Crusader is largely expressionistic; one that distorts reality, essentially, to create an overwhelming sense of mood or psychological and emotional experience. 

In short, Burton's blockbuster 1989 film largely concerns two men (Bruce Wayne and Jack Napier) who  owe their very identities (and their mutual senses of alienation...) to the failed city-state where they dwell.  Batman and Joker could conceivably exist, according to this film, nowhere but in Gotham City.  The city -- heir to skylines like those seen in  Metropolis (1927), Blade Runner (1982) and Brazil (1985) -- functions  itself as a character in the drama, and as an important player in the action.  In some ways, the very architecture of the city  reflects the mental landscape of the Joker and Batman.  All three "characters" are strange, jumbled, "new" edifices (psychological and concrete) built upon old, shaky, crumbling and "dead" personalities or foundations.  Or as Jack Napier notes, "decent people shouldn't live here."

If you remember the summer of 1989 at all, you'll likely recall the "Bat Frenzy" that seized the nation upon release of Burton's film.  It was an authentic and unforgettable Zeitgeist moment. Although many fans had grown concerned about the casting of "comedic" actor Michael Keaton as Batman, most complaints evaporated once the film was screened.  Never before on-screen had Batman been taken so "seriously," and his world rendered so impressively and expensively.

Accordingly, most critics raved about the picture and the power of Burton's vision.  Ken Hanke, writing in Films in Review, called the film "a work of brilliance" (October 1989, page 480), and David Sterritt of the Christian Science Monitor commended Batman's "haunting tone." (June 29, 1989, page 10). 

For me, those things that remain so vital and and impressive about Burton's Batman are the canny psychological underpinnings.   Batman becomes an understandable/relatable personality only because Burton erects the Caped Crusader's universe from the ground-up.  In other words, Gotham is indeed the "prime actor" on Batman's psyche, and the very thing responsible for making one man "The Bat" and  another The Joker.   In focusing on the surrounding universe (rather than merely the people inhabiting it), Burton's Batman more readily functions as an epic fantasy than either its comedic antecedent, the Batman TV series, or Nolan's big-budget pictures, which are basically action-films played straight, with few fantastic or fantasy elements at all.

Burton's Batman also thrives on its two central performances: Michael Keaton as a man dwelling in the past and wholly absent-minded about the details of the present, and Jack Nicholson as a monster who leaves behind day-to-day matters of concern (like his physical appearance) to dwell on a more abstract (if terrifying...) plateau; that of a "fully functional homicidal artist."  These men, joined by their twisted "origins" -- or more accurately their twisted resurrections -- fight to control Gotham City, and also the love of a woman, Vicki Vale (Kim Basinger).

"Haven't you ever heard of the healing power of laughter?"

In crime-ridden Gotham City, crooks and thieves fear a new presence in town, the nighttime avenger known as "The Bat." 

Actually, criminals fear Batman, the alter-ego of millionaire philanthropist Bruce Wayne (Michael Keaton), who each night patrols the mean streets of Gotham and recalls (and relives?) the crime that robbed an innocent child of his parents.

As a nosy reporter, Knox (Robert Wuhl) and a beautiful photographer Vicki Vale (Kim Basinger) plot to learn more about the mysterious Batman, Gotham's Underworld undergoes a dramatic shift.  After a confrontation with Batman at Axis Chemicals, thug Jack Napier (Jack Nicholson) is transformed into the mad Joker, and murders crime boss Carl Grissom (Jack Palance).  He assumes control of the Grissom operation and begins a reign of bizarre terror.

While Bruce and Vicki embark upon a romantic relationship, the Joker terrorizes Gotham with his deadly Smilex toxin.  After Batman unravels the Smilex puzzle, the Joker challenges Batman to meet him during the nighttime parade celebrating the 200th anniversary of Gotham City.  For the people of Gotham, the big question is: who do you trust?  The clown, or the man in a bat suit?

"You can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs."

The Batman character first appeared in May of 1939 in an issue of Detective Comics.  Importantly, Burton's Batman film seems to seize on that era of American history (say 1939 - 1945) and to forge a sense of reality with that epoch as its creative basis. 

Accordingly, the Gotham City featured in Batman is one in which the Art Deco and "futura" style of the late 1920s and early 1930s has given way to the terrors of both fascism and more utilitarian architecture.  The beautiful deco Gotham -- representative of elegant, stylish and streamlined modern architecture -- has been "built over" willy-nilly by a melange of industrial grunge and blight.  It's as though someone constructed a beautiful contemporary city in one decade, and then just kept building and building upon it randomly for generations, with no thought or strategy about how to expand.  And each expansion is uglier, less stylish...less optimistic than the last.

You can detect the late-1930s early-1940s touches not merely in the architecture featured in Gotham in Batman, but in the costumes as well.  The policemen wear leather jackets, and male citizens are adorned in fedoras and other hats.  Also, aspects of the dialogue purposefully play up this era of American history.  Knox (Robert Wuhl) talks like he's out of a snappy, 1940s-era Howard Hawks movie (perhaps His Girl Friday [1940]) and Joker's base of operations is called Axis Chemicals.  As other critics have rightly pointed out, "Axis" is the name of the military alliance between Germany, Italy and Japan circa 1936 - 1945, and so again, a particular era of world history is alluded to, at least sub textually, in Batman.

If we remember what was happening in the world at the time of the Axis Powers perhaps we can understand why this reference is important to an understanding of Burton's Batman.  After the defeat (or death) represented by World War I and the Treaty of Versailles, Germany was "resurrected" as a global player...and terrifyingly so, as a monster; as the much-feared Nazi movement. The Joker's journey in the Burton film actually mirrors Germany's in some odd fashion  Jack Napier meets his Waterloo (or Versailles) at Axis, and is resurrected from the toxic (primordial?) goop as the Joker...only to ascend to greater power and tremendous madness.  Like Nazi Germany, he nearly wins his battle for domination too. 

Thus, in some sub textual fashion, Batman seems to be about the idea of a "good" world going very, very wrong, taking a nearly fatal wrong turn; of art deco modernity giving way to industrial blues, and the rise of fascism.  Incidentally, this is also the very production design pattern that George Lucas utilizes in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999), showcasing in that film how a chrome, Art Deco Republic transforms into a  utilitarian, totalitarian state, where the ugliness of the movement is reflected in the ugliness of the new architecture.  In both cases, production design and wardrobe represent audience cues to express for us something important about the film's milieu. 

Another way to explain this aspect of the Burton Batman:  It's as though the film maker's took a snapshot of Batman's world in 1939, on the comic book's very parturition, and expanded that snapshot into a full-length film.  Also encoded in that "snapshot" is the idea of one "free" man (Wayne) utilizing his resources and wealth to challenge a system that isn't working.  In Gotham, the police are mostly helpless and citizens cower in fear because of the rampant crime.

In 1939, as America saw Nazi-ism rise overseas and countenanced the ascent of a more socialist state in America, some people would have viewed a capitalist crusader Batman as the express antidote to both: an entrepreneur using his own resources, by his own will, to restore justice.  Some no-nothing hipsters have (only half-seriously, no doubt...) suggested that Batman is actually the "Nazi" symbol in this movie's equation, though that interpretation ignores the obvious fact that the Joker is explicitly linked to Axis; that he ascends from a terrible defeat (like Versailles) and then, afterwards, grows more powerful than before (as the Joker), and -- finally -- that, at the Art Museum, he defaces works representing mainstream Europe (the Allies, essentially).  All these incidents suggest that the Joker is a grotesque, fascist threat to the Art Deco order.

Interestingly, both Bruce Wayne and Jack Napier are depicted in Burton's Batman as victims of what Gotham City has become.  Even as an adult, Bruce remains obsessed with the death of his parents in Gotham, a result of out-of-control crime and the failure of the establishment.  To  characterize this on-going obsession, Burton features at least two similarly-staged scenes.  In the film's opening scene, Batman arrives (too late) to save a family of movie-goers as they are accosted by criminals.  Later, Bruce remembers the death of his parents (in flashback) after a similar night at the movies, and an encounter with young Jack Napier.  These scenes are very similar, right down to the single-child nature of the family, and they suggest that Bruce is caught in a kind of endless, obsessive loop, unable to put the past down.   His nightly ritual of crime-fighting is in fact an attempt to exorcise the images he can't get out of his head: the death of his parents.  A third scene adds meaningfully to this conceit, showcasing Bruce brushing off the optimistic present (a date with Vicki) to return to the alley where his parents tragically died, and lay flowers at the spot where they expired.

This approach is intriguingly contrasted with Bruce Wayne's inability to focus on the details of the present.  He can't be bothered to pay attention to a gala being hosted at his house (in support of the 200th anniversary of Gotham City), and is glib about his wealth and belongings, even offering Knox a "grant" for his work, seemingly off-the-cuff.  A later scene involving Vicki and Bruce on a date at Wayne Manor, in a vast dining room, purposely seems to reflect a famous scene in Citizen Kane (1941) that -- through the spatial gulf across a colossal dining room table -- expressed the idea of marital alienation between an obscenely wealthy man and his emotionally-desolate wife.  Here, the scene reveals the gulf between Bruce and his present.  He can't quite reach it; can't quite touch or embrace it.  Again, notice how the focus in this Batman is upon the psychological state of the characters; on an expression of their interior dilemmas.  And also notice, please, how a visual film allusion to Citizen Kane also functions as a call-back to the time period I mentioned above, say 1936 - 1945. 

It all fits together.

In Burton's Batman, Bruce as he appears now was "created" in the crucible of his parent's death, and has never been able to step outside that person.  He can't live in the present.  He can only live obsessively in the past; the past that Gotham City made for him.  In fact, Bruce has used all his considerable resources to trap himself in a cage, a technological cage in which he becomes a strange alter-ego; one who is always seeking to avenge the one act he cannot undo.  He can't quite reach across that dining room table to Vicki, even though a part of him desires that outcome.  "Are we at least going to try to love each other?" Vicki asks Bruce at one point, and his answer is determinedly a "no."  He's got work to do; a job to do.  Avenging the past.

By contrast, the Joker cannot live in the past.  After being dropped into toxic chemicals and suffering botched plastic surgery (in a very dark, very creepy scene...), the present doesn't interest the Joker.  What interests him, instead, is the very act of creation, or perhaps, more accurately, of transformation.  He focuses on what he can make of himself, the world, and other people around him, like his unfortunate girlfriend.  The Joker realizes that he can be an artist: skilled at the very activity (with some sensitivity and imagination) of destroying and resurrecting lives.  The past is dead to the Joker, and he is characterized in the film by his need to "re-paint" or tarnish the present, which we see during his efforts at the museum.  The Joker survives his pain -- like a true artist -- by making the world share it with him. 

For this reason alone, I must confess that I prefer Nicholson's Joker to Heath Ledger's in The Dark Knight.  Nicholson's Joker is engaged in the act of becoming; of transforming the world into a nightmare reflecting his own point-of-view (again, remember the fascism/Nazi subtext I noted above). By contrast, Ledger's Joker seems more like a force of pure chaos; one whose only purpose is to have no express purpose; destruction for the sake of destruction.

Both performances are powerful, but for me, Nicholson is both funny and terrifying, whereas Ledger was merely terrifying.  The powerful idea underlining a villain like the Joker is that he both attracts and repels; he's both charismatic and totally untrustworthy.  You can readily believe that Nicholson's "showman" Joker would inspire followers and "believers," whereas that's not exactly the case with the character in The Dark Knight.  Also, Burton expresses the hows and whys of the Joker's parturition in this Batman, granting the character a distinctive world view as a "homicidal artist."  The character in The Dark Knight, in my opinion, remains a bit charmless and opaque, if undeniably menacing.  Again, people of good will shall differ on favorites, and perhaps the bottom line is that Nicholson's Joker can exist only in Burton's vision for the mythos, just as Ledger is appropriate to Nolan's vision.

The idea or resurrection looms large in Burton's Batman.  The once beautiful Gotham City has been resurrected as an industrial nightmare of out-of-control crime, Bruce has taken his obsession with is parents' death and resurrected himself as Batman, and out of the battle at Axis Chemicals Jack has been resurrected as that homicidal artist, the Joker.  Each character suggests what happens when a trauma isn't diagnosed or handled, but merely scabbed or built over.  The results, in all cases aren't "exactly normal" to quote Vicki's description of Batman.   The intertwining of Joker/Batman and Gotham is made explicit in the Batman screenplay as Joker and Batman fight atop Gotham's abandoned cathedral and argue "I made you?"  "You made me."

Batman premiered near the end of the pre-CGI age in terms of special effects, when miniatures, animation and other older creative tools were still widely in use.  For some audiences, the effects will seem dated, but for others, they will feel appropriately more tactile and bizarre, in some fashion, than what we have grown accustomed to in the digital era.  Like so many Burton films, this is a messy, organic effort.  We see acid burned on human faces, the bloody instruments from a botched plastic surgery, sweat-drenched criminals and other distinctive horrors.  There's always very much a feeling here that these horrendous events are real and happening, not fleshless, gravity-less affectations superimposed after the characters were actually there.  This fits into the psychological underpinnings of the film, the idea of people living in a nightmare state, in a nightmare city.  You can't achieve that effect that so easily with green screens, or CGI blood spurts.  This movie is about making us feel we live in Batman's world, and for that reason, it's very successful as a work of art.

Back in 1989, I had a high-school friend whom I absolutely loved, named Amy, who described Burton's Batman -- humorously -- as "pretty darn plotless," and perhaps there's some truth to that complaint.  The film is about a  lengthy grudge match between two men in a place "synonymous with crime."  The narrative details are less crucial than the expression of the locations, and the emotional, psychological particulars of the two combatants.  Danny Elfman's magnificent score adds to the aura of a moody, introspective rumination, one overcrowded with ideas, and in some cases, authentic horrors. 

I realize that Batman is far from Burton's favorite film, and yet it does, quite readily, reflect much of his nature as an artist, stressing visuals as psychological symbols of fractured and damaged mental states. The film also diagrams the story of misfits and outsiders, a frequent Burton leitmotif.  As Bruce Wayne might characterize Batman in terms of Burton,  "some of it is very much me," and "some of it is not."   Though there's much of the film's director personal taste evident in the mix, Batman Returns (1992), in some ways,  is an even more perfect representation of the director's aesthetic.  It's weirder and wilder, even, than the gruesome sights on display here.  That film, in my opinion, is some kind of twisted Christmas, Burton high-point, a second run at the Batman legend that improves on the expressive, psychologically-adroit ruminations of this admirable 1989 effort.

[Note: After two months, we've come to the end of the Burton Brief schedule I originally set out, even though we're a week behind and I didn't get to Batman Returns.  I hope you've enjoyed this retrospective on Burton, and rest assured, we'll get to Batman Returns (and Batman Forever, Batman and Robin, Batman Begins and The Dark Knight) in time for the release of The Dark Knight Rises. 

In terms of Burton rather than Batman, I'm very much looking forward to his adaptation of Dark Shadows, which, of course, concerns another misfit outsider:  the vampire Barnabas Collins.  I think what I took away from this Burton series -- and which I did not expect going in -- is that there is really a method to his madness once start gazing across his work.  It's very easy to casually dismiss Burton as weird-for-weird's sake, but while reviewing many of his projects, I've begun to see the discipline and psychological touches he imbues each project with.  I hope you've noticed them too.]