The Intimidation Game or: Why did we love “Batman Begins” and still loving it.

Over the years, many superheroes have emerged out of the many comic universes. So what makes Batman, an almost 80-year-old character stay around? What makes him different from others? He is not a superhero with superpowers. He is very human and like any human he is flawed. He too has fears. What matters is what he has done with it.

Christopher Nolan has used this very fear in a way that the viewers can relate to the character as the character learns and adapts himself to confront his fear. No one else before, even in the comics, has shown us how Bruce Wayne became Batman. The origin story. The psychology of Batman becoming Batman.

Let’s start with the death of the family. See what Nolan did here. In comics, you read that the family goes to a movie on the night they were killed. In the movie, they go to an opera. This subtle change makes an impact deep down psychologically. When they go to an opera, you don’t think that you are watching a movie within a movie. This very fact of not having that thought makes it more immersive.

Just before Thomas Wayne dies, he looks at a young and frightened Bruce and says “It’s ok Bruce. Don’t be afraid.” Out of all the things he could say, he says this. It tells us that it is all about Bruce overcoming his fear. The immediate scene cuts to young Bruce looking at James Gordon. James Gordon says “It is okay. It is okay.” and comforts the crying kid suggesting us that Gordon is a man whom Bruce can trust. What a way and timing to introduce a character!

In another scene, after being thrown out of Falcone’s joint and before he leaves on a ship Bruce gives his coat to an old man in the narrows and leaves Gotham for good. After his training in the Himalayas, he comes back to save Gotham from the mobs wreaking havoc on his city. For the very first time when he dresses up as Batman and takes out a mob and says “I am Batman”, the first civilian he sees is the same old man he lent his coat years back. He looks at him and says “Nice coat”. This is a very simple addition to the scene. But it gives the viewers a sense of awe that who left Gotham has come back to save it. The next scene Batman stands tall on top of a skyscraper brooding over the city suggesting us that his watch has begun marking a turn of events. Now that is a great screen direction.

Rachael once identifies Bruce as this billionaire playboy and in disappointment, she says “It’s not who you are underneath, it is what you do that defines you”. Later she again reidentifies Bruce as Batman when he says

“It’s not who I am underneath, it is what I do that defines me”.

[And Batman turns and leaps off the roof]. What else can you call this if you can’t call it a “great theatricality” to reveal Batman’s identity to a person who matters to him?

Nolan is a man of small details and perfection. In the scene when Bruce arrives in a fancy hotel, we see him coming in a Lamborghini Murciélago. In Spanish, Murciélago means “Bat”. We don’t know for sure if it was intended or just a coincidence. But if it is not a coincidence, look how Nolan shapes the character of Batman with such details.

He plays the humor card very carefully. He makes humor a reality based rather than an intended one. Be it when Bruce asks Fox “Does it come in Black?” or in the climax when Bruce asks Alfred “In the southeast corner?”. These scenes don’t make us laugh. They leave a Duchenne Smile on our face making the experience of movie watching even more awe-inspiring.

People fear what they don’t see and what they don’t understand. The notion of Batman using his fear against those who would fear themselves makes the character as frightening and as intimidating as possible. When a man seeks revenge for the death of his parents, his desire for revenge makes him no more than a vigilante. There is a struggle in overcoming your fear and desire. In Nolan’s own words that struggle makes the thematic basis for this movie. In fact, that is the point of the story.

It is an account of a cowardly man with a gun transforming to something else entirely with his ideal. Taking a story of hope, starting from the scratch, making it contemporary and still sticking to the original creations has made the movie timeless and has made Nolan’s Batman as someone who is forever permeated into our consciousness.