The Dark Knight Rises Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle/Catwoman XXXIII

[Fudgie]

That Catwoman was a sicko,Catwoman in the comics is nothing like that(cant speak for the new-52 though)

Yup. The new 52 one ain't no looney either.

 

[Alex Logan]

I didn't say she was completely sane. I said she's not really depicted as any more/less insane as she generally has been at times in the comics, and that this can't really be used as an argument against the comic book faithfulness of the film. She may well have been insane in BATMAN RETURNS, but insanity covers a pretty large range of behaviors (Including much of her comic book behavior). I don't know that, on their own, licking yourself and putting a live bird in your mouth as a threat to its owner (which ultimately ends up being a bluff) really falls under the category of true insanity.

Keep fighting the good fight.

 

[Pfeiffer-Pfan]

Kim Kardashian dressed up as Michelle's Catwoman for Holloween... I'm no fan but she defs went for the right/most memorable outfit. t:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbi...team-comic-book-heroes.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

 

[The Guard]

That Catwoman was a sicko,Catwoman in the comics is nothing like that(cant speak for the new-52 though)

I can't take an argument that essentially says "Catwoman isn't like that now" seriously.

I'm aware of that. But BATMAN RETURNS wasn't written now.

It was written in 1990/1991, and Catwoman, while she did go through a gradual character evolution in the late eighties and early 90's (the latter largely as a result of increased popularity thanks to her role in BATMAN RETURNS), did have many of the basic character elements seen in the movie as part of her historical character, which is what the writers of BATMAN RETURNS drew from.

 

[Anita18]

Kim Kardashian dressed up as Michelle's Catwoman for Holloween... I'm no fan but she defs went for the right/most memorable outfit. t:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbi...team-comic-book-heroes.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Padded muscle Robin is HILARIOUS!

 

[AnneFan]

Kim Kardashian dressed up as Michelle's Catwoman for Holloween... I'm no fan but she defs went for the right/most memorable outfit. t:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbi...team-comic-book-heroes.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Yeah, because Kim Kardashian is classy and always makes classy choices.

 

[DACrowe]

I can't take an argument that essentially says "Catwoman isn't like that now" seriously.

I'm aware of that. But BATMAN RETURNS wasn't written now.

It was written in 1990/1991, and Catwoman, while she did go through a gradual character evolution in the late eighties and early 90's (the latter largely as a result of increased popularity thanks to her role in BATMAN RETURNS), did have many of the basic character elements seen in the movie as part of her historical character, which is what the writers of BATMAN RETURNS drew from.

I liked Batman Returns and Pffeifer is phenomenal in it, but the character doesn't pull from the comics much per se. If it pulls from any source, it is from the campy cat-isms and cat puns from the 1960s TV show. Most of it though is from the dark minds of Tim Burton and Daniel Waters who both like emotionally damaged, psychologically-twisted characters with fantasy and fairy tale elements. That is their version of Catwoman, most of your examples linked to the comics are fleeting or coincidental.

Here is Burton/Waters/Pffeifer's Catwoman: An allegory for feminism in early 90s/late 80s society. She is a single working girl in the big city who can't catch a break and is used and abused by the men who dominate her patriarchal world, most guiltily her boss who ignores her intelligence and instead berates her into servitude as a menial secretary. It reaches the point where he literally murders her and she is resurrected from the dead by supernatural cats who grant her the supernatural ability of nine lives. She becomes fetishistic about cats, but also rebukes her childhood toys that she nostalgically maintains in a fit of madness. She destroys all the symbols of our society that train women to be passive "princesses" and submissive in the culture and can only rebuild some semblance of sanity when she takes control of her life and embraces womanhood and sexuality--things young girls are trained to repress--in the form of a vinyl cat suit. Embraced with her sexuality she can take on her enemies, but as her suit (armor) is destroyed, her psychosis is destroyed with it and the more demented/wrong-doing she becomes. It leads to a split in personality to the point where she has to reject her soulmate (Batman) after a moment of clarity because she knows no "Prince Charming" can make her happy, just as the stuffed animals from her childhood could no longer do. Instead she is a confident woman alone.

Does that sound anything like the thinly-developed cat-themed villainess of the comics pre-1980s? Not really.

 

[The Guard]

I stopped reading at the part about supernatural cats and supernatural abilities.

That's just...wrong.

Ok, I kept reading. The rest, yes. You're correct, Burton and Waters (and the rest) very much did do their own take on the character. Again, no one has said that everything in the film is comics faithful or that it is only faithful to the "thinly developed cat-villainesses of the pre-1980s", only that there are several basic elements that clearly were drawn from various eras of the comics (cat puns made their way into the comics as well). They clearly drew from the 60's show, older comics, more modern (in 1992) stories, and various gender issues to create their version of the character. The same way that modern comic book writers did over the years to shape the comic book version of the character, interestingly enough.

 

[The Guard]

Double post.

 

[Schlosser85]

The "Catwoman" in Batman Returns, while well-played by Michelle Pfeiffer, was nothing like Catwoman from the comics.

The Dark Knight Rises' version is much more faithful.

Not a matter of Pfeiffer vs. Hathaway, just how it was written.

And I'm not even bashing Returns' Catwoman, just saying it's not the comic Catwoman.

 

[Pfeiffer-Pfan]

All Burton's Catwoman needed to do was a little bit of stealing... and she would have been PERFECT to me.

How I react to a character on screen, in terms of tone, look and feel is a hell of a lot more important to me that fidelity to the comic books.

Nolan's Catwoman just didn't get the same visceral reaction out of me and it never will. I love what he did (pleasantly surprised in fact) but it was nothing to jump up and down about.

 

[DACrowe]

I stopped reading at the part about supernatural cats and supernatural abilities.

That's just...wrong.

Really? Explain how she survives getting shot three times in the stomach and chest with a magnum and then frenches a taser while she holds electrical wiring in a shared kiss with Schreck that leaves him burned to a crisp and her perfectly all right?

You can choose to ignore the supernatural element, but this is Burton and he uses it like a fairy tale: A woman wronged by man is brought back from death by cats to seek her revenge. Such elements are in most of his films.

Ok, I kept reading. The rest, yes. You're correct, Burton and Waters (and the rest) very much did do their own take on the character. Again, no one has said that everything in the film is comics faithful or that it is only faithful to the "thinly developed cat-villainesses of the pre-1980s", only that there are several basic elements that clearly were drawn from various eras of the comics (cat puns made their way into the comics as well). They clearly drew from the 60's show, older comics, more modern (in 1992) stories, and various gender issues to create their version of the character. The same way that modern comic book writers did over the years to shape the comic book version of the character, interestingly enough.

They used cat-puns and a few cat-isms that I think, again, come almost entirely from the TV show and not from reading the comics. In fact, given how Penguin, Catwoman and Batman are presented in BR, I'd go ahead and assume that Waters nor Burton read many or any comics while writing this movie. Because again, I do not see any Catwoman of the comics whose entire arc is a representation of female feminism and an awakened sexuality that lets her break free from a patriarchal culture to exact revenge for the wronged femininity with a strong dose of supernatural abilities and resurrection thrown in.

It is a great character and a good movie. But do not strain yourself in saying it is faithful to the comics.

 

[The Guard]

Really? Explain how she survives getting shot three times in the stomach and chest with a magnum and then frenches a taser while she holds electrical wiring in a shared kiss with Schreck that leaves him burned to a crisp and her perfectly all right?

Well, seeing as how she survives several times due to luck during the rest of the film...probably luck again.

And artistic license.

Is it realistic? Not really. There is, however, nothing inherently "supernatural" about the event with the cats, other than the tone of the film itself, which is something else entirely. Surviving the taser incident/explosion at the end would probably be the only thing that in context could truly be considered "supernatural", and that's only in the vaguer sense of the definition, IE, defying the laws of nature.

You can choose to ignore the supernatural element, but this is Burton and he uses it like a fairy tale: A woman wronged by man is brought back from death by cats to seek her revenge. Such elements are in most of his films.

I’m not ignoring anything. I’m dealing with what the film actually shows us. Yes. She is reborn METAPHORICALLY. Not literally. Her rebirth is metaphorical. Her nine lives are metaphorical. She's not actually dying every time she "dies" any more than she actually died when Shreck pushed her out the window.

There's a reason the film bothers to show certain things along the way, IE, the awnings breaking her fall on the way down, the fact that she lands on snow, the fact that she's still alive...the fact that her becoming Catwoman stems from internal conflicts/mental issues...

It isn't because some random magic cats licked her and brought her back to life.

Burton used the structural and some of the thematic aspects of a fairy tale, he didn't suddenly plunge us into a world of magic and magic cats.

It's meant to have that TONE...to be a symbolic, almost supernatural moment. It's not meant to actually be a supernatural event. The supernatural "feel" created by the atmosphere and the music doesn't mean that the cats are actually supernatural, or that there's anything supernatural at play there. And there certainly isn't a "strong" dose of the supernatural in the movie. There's a single scene when she's attacked, and anything "supernatural" for the rest of the film relies on the idea that she has amazing luck/"nine lives", until the end when she survives something that should have killed her.

They used cat-puns and a few cat-isms that I think, again, come almost entirely from the TV show and not from reading the comics. In fact, given how Penguin, Catwoman and Batman are presented in BR, I'd go ahead and assume that Waters nor Burton read many or any comics while writing this movie. Because again, I do not see any Catwoman of the comics whose entire arc is a representation of female feminism and an awakened sexuality that lets her break free from a patriarchal culture to exact revenge for the wronged femininity with a strong dose of supernatural abilities and resurrection.

I think you can't possibly make that assumption and prove it.

It's like if I were to say "Well, Nolan made some changes to the character and some of them are similar to things from the TV show, so I'm pretty sure it's all related to the TV show, and my guess is he didn't read any comics while writing THE DARK KNIGHT RISES".

 

[DACrowe]

Well, seeing as how she survives several times due to luck during the rest of the film...probably luck again.

And artistic license.

Is it realistic? Not really. There is, however, nothing inherently "supernatural" about the event with the cats, other than the tone of the film itself, which is something else entirely. Surviving the taser incident/explosion at the end would probably be the only thing that in context could truly be considered "supernatural", and that's only in the vaguer sense of the definition, IE, defying the laws of nature.



I’m not ignoring anything. I’m dealing with what the film actually shows us. Yes. She is reborn METAPHORICALLY. Not literally. Her rebirth is metaphorical. Her nine lives are metaphorical. She's not actually dying every time she "dies" any more than she actually died when Shreck pushed her out the window.

There's a reason the film bothers to show certain things along the way, IE, the awnings breaking her fall on the way down, the fact that she lands on snow, the fact that she's still alive...the fact that her becoming Catwoman stems from internal conflicts/mental issues...

It isn't because some random magic cats licked her and brought her back to life.

Burton used the structural and some of the thematic aspects of a fairy tale, he didn't suddenly plunge us into a world of magic and magic cats.

It's meant to have that TONE...to be a symbolic, almost supernatural moment. It's not meant to actually be a supernatural event. The supernatural "feel" created by the atmosphere and the music doesn't mean that the cats are actually supernatural, or that there's anything supernatural at play there. And there certainly isn't a "strong" dose of the supernatural in the movie. There's a single scene when she's attacked, and anything "supernatural" for the rest of the film relies on the idea that she has amazing luck/"nine lives", until the end when she survives something that should have killed her.

I do think you are in denial. You're choosing to ignore it and write off all the signs as "luck" or "symbolism." I agree it is symbolism, because Burton is using gothic imagery and fairy tale elements to tell a tale of modern feminism in our sexist culture at the time the movie came out. It's really no different than how he uses supernatural elements in Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands and Sleepy Hollow.

You choose to deny it because it is a huge departure from the comics. But don't. Embrace it as a great artistic vision. You say it yourself, there is no way she could survive being electrocuted by the taser and wiring (Schreck doesn't). Nor could she survive being shot three times with such a powerful gun, much less walk over to him laughing. And she looks dead as a doornail when she is lying in the snow after going out the window. It's not about "magic cats" or whatever **** Pitof took away from it, but rather an allegorical fairy tale full of Gothic mystery. It is shrouded in darkness to give it a sense of "other" or unknown. They give you the awning to take what you will, but by the end it is confirmed she is supernatural. The only reason to deny this is because you don't want to accept that it's a departure from the comics.

I think you can't possibly make that assumption and prove it.

It's like if I were to say "Well, Nolan made some changes to the character and some of them are similar to things from the TV show, so I'm pretty sure it's all related to the TV show, and my guess is he didn't read any comics while writing THE DARK KNIGHT RISES".

Hardly. Nolan talks about which Batman stories influenced each of his films and you can clearly see it in all of them (BB=Year One and The Long Halloween, TDK=Th Long Halloween, The Killing Joke and possibly Batman #1, TDKR=Knightfall, No Man's Land, The Dark Knight Returns).

The only story I ever heard about Burton reading a comic in preparation for doing Batman was when he supposedly threw a copy of The Dark Knight Returns on the table in front of WB execs and said, "This is what I want to do." That was for the first film. Burton has since said countless times he never read comics and doesn't know them, he just relates to the idea of Batman. It explains why there are so many departures. He sees elements of the mythology and makes them over entirely in his own image. Which is fine. We got two great movies out of it. But with the sequel there was no talk of reading any comics. The Penguin entirely came from a drawing Burton did himself of Oswald as a child. Shreck is a made up character. He turned Catwoman into a feminist allegory and gave her a split personality of sorts.

Just accept it is not like the comics and enjoy it for what it is.

 

[Fudgie]

I liked Batman Returns and Pffeifer is phenomenal in it, but the character doesn't pull from the comics much per se. If it pulls from any source, it is from the campy cat-isms and cat puns from the 1960s TV show. Most of it though is from the dark minds of Tim Burton and Daniel Waters who both like emotionally damaged, psychologically-twisted characters with fantasy and fairy tale elements. That is their version of Catwoman, most of your examples linked to the comics are fleeting or coincidental.

Here is Burton/Waters/Pffeifer's Catwoman: An allegory for feminism in early 90s/late 80s society. She is a single working girl in the big city who can't catch a break and is used and abused by the men who dominate her patriarchal world, most guiltily her boss who ignores her intelligence and instead berates her into servitude as a menial secretary. It reaches the point where he literally murders her and she is resurrected from the dead by supernatural cats who grant her the supernatural ability of nine lives. She becomes fetishistic about cats, but also rebukes her childhood toys that she nostalgically maintains in a fit of madness. She destroys all the symbols of our society that train women to be passive "princesses" and submissive in the culture and can only rebuild some semblance of sanity when she takes control of her life and embraces womanhood and sexuality--things young girls are trained to repress--in the form of a vinyl cat suit. Embraced with her sexuality she can take on her enemies, but as her suit (armor) is destroyed, her psychosis is destroyed with it and the more demented/wrong-doing she becomes. It leads to a split in personality to the point where she has to reject her soulmate (Batman) after a moment of clarity because she knows no "Prince Charming" can make her happy, just as the stuffed animals from her childhood could no longer do. Instead she is a confident woman alone.

Does that sound anything like the thinly-developed cat-themed villainess of the comics pre-1980s? Not really.

Woot we agree on something.

Quoted for truth. Pfeiffer Catwoman was bat poop insane.

 

[Isis]

There is a good article on GothamAlleys that discusses how Burton's Catwoman was adapted from the comics, and also whether she is supernatural: http://gothamalleys.blogspot.co.nz/2011/01/catwoman-supernatural.html

The comic book adaptation of the movie shows that she wasn't shot in the gut, but only her legs:

And additionally: "As already mentioned numerous times throughout the blog, Bob Kane worked on Batman and Batman Returns, and Burton's movies faithfully reflect Kane's early vision more so then not. Not only the origins go all the way back, but also the whole ambiguity with Catwoman was there in the Golden Age comic books as well."

And the original comics:

 

[The Joker]

Comic book adaptions of movies have a lot of deviations from the movie. That is a classic example. In the movie, when she gets shot she falls to the ground in agony for several seconds. So saying she was shot in both legs and just kept casually walking doesn't look credible to me at all. That blog is pretty much the same content as the other link that was posted on the previous page.

In that second comic Catwoman switched the bullets in those guns for blanks to fool those thugs into thinking she was supernatural.

 

[The Guard]

I do think you are in denial. You're choosing to ignore it and write off all the signs as "luck" or "symbolism." I agree it is symbolism, because Burton is using gothic imagery and fairy tale elements to tell a tale of modern feminism in our sexist culture at the time the movie came out. It's really no different than how he uses supernatural elements in Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands and Sleepy Hollow.

In denial about what?

What's actually onscreen?

The use of any supernatural elements (and I mean this in the loosest sense, IE defying the laws of nature and somehow surviving the end) is VERY different from how he uses anything supernatural in BEETLEJUICE, or any other “fairytale” or “horror”, especially what he had done to that point (and most of it since) where Burton, not known for his subtlety, makes the supernatural elements OBVIOUS, and doesn't dance around them in the least. In that he uses and focuses on actual supernatural elements. He acknowledges and EXPLORES the concept of the supernatural when he uses them. He doesn't do that so much in BATMAN RETURNS.

Can you imagine a fairy tale where we’re supposed to believe there are magic or supernatural elements at play, but there’s not actually any set up for it, no mention of it, no magic or overt supernatural activity shown, and yet we're supposed to believe it's pure fantasy/supernatural stuff?

Because to me, that's kind of what you’re trying to suggest happened in BATMAN RETURNS.

That it's a film where despite this supposedly obvious supernatural event, none of the characters reference a supernatural occurrence, or even recognize it as such, and the concept is never returned to again, but it’s overtly supernatural...just because?

Nevermind that this is completely contrary to Tim Burton's general approach to the supernatural. The Tim Burton I'm familiar with doesn’t half-ass execute fantasy concepts like that. With the exception of BIG FISH (where the supernatural is still acknowledged and explored), he tends to go all the way with them. He always has.

Which is why I believe that the incident with the cats was not meant to actually be a supernatural event. You certainly can’t prove it is based on what the film shows. There’s no mention made of supernatural elements, supernatural cats, etc. There’s a woman who almost dies and has a mental transformation. It’s meant to have a supernatural/eerie “feel” to it, absolutely, but it is not meant to actually BE supernatural. Her surviving at the end could be considered supernatural in the sense that it does appear to defy the laws of nature, but we don't actually know what happened between her and Max at the end of the film.

I think you’re the one in denial about this for the most part. You seem to think there's only one way this can be interpreted (I've considered the other, and find no evidence for it), and you're ignoring the clues the film gives you and ascribing meaning to key events that simply isn't there in the film.

You choose to deny it because it is a huge departure from the comics. But don't. Embrace it as a great artistic vision. You say it yourself, there is no way she could survive being electrocuted by the taser and wiring (Schreck doesn't). Nor could she survive being shot three times with such a powerful gun, much less walk over to him laughing. And she looks dead as a doornail when she is lying in the snow after going out the window. It's not about "magic cats" or whatever **** Pitof took away from it, but rather an allegorical fairy tale full of Gothic mystery. It is shrouded in darkness to give it a sense of "other" or unknown. They give you the awning to take what you will, but by the end it is confirmed she is supernatural. The only reason to deny this is because you don't want to accept that it's a departure from the comics.

I deny it and don't want to accept it because the evidence for the supernatural interpretation just isn't really there, other than her survival at the end. The evidence for the other interpretation is actually in the film. Throughout.

I never said there's no way she could survive being electrocuted. I said it should have killed her, meaning "It looks like it would generally kill her". It appears to have been something that would kill her, but it's clearly left ambiguous for a reason, so obviously we're meant to consider that whatever happened, she may well have survived...again. As far as the gun goes, people have survived worse things than being shot with powerful guns in vulnerable parts of their body. She was clearly injured as she was being shot...it's a question of suspending disbelief that she could survive the gunshots, and I think the film handles that pretty well in context.

She looks like she might be dead when she's lying in the snow, but she certainly doesn't have to be dead based on what we actually see. Given what the movie shows, it's more likely she's meant to be knocked unconscious by the fall.

Hardly. Nolan talks about which Batman stories influenced each of his films and you can clearly see it in all of them (BB=Year One and The Long Halloween, TDK=Th Long Halloween, The Killing Joke and possibly Batman #1, TDKR=Knightfall, No Man's Land, The Dark Knight Returns).

I'm not talking about the actual influences. I'm talking about making inferences about a film's connection to the source material based on the film's content alone, without any other firsthand knowledge of the writers' influences.

The only story I ever heard about Burton reading a comic in preparation for doing Batman was when he supposedly threw a copy of The Dark Knight Returns on the table in front of WB execs and said, "This is what I want to do." That was for the first film. Burton has since said countless times he never read comics and doesn't know them, he just relates to the idea of Batman. It explains why there are so many departures. He sees elements of the mythology and makes them over entirely in his own image. Which is fine. We got two great movies out of it. But with the sequel there was no talk of reading any comics. The Penguin entirely came from a drawing Burton did himself of Oswald as a child. Shreck is a made up character. He turned Catwoman into a feminist allegory and gave her a split personality of sorts.

I think Burton has underplayed his use of comics quite a bit, but that's neither here nor there. There are plenty of things in BATMAN that are drawn from the comics. Burton was not the only source of creative input for these films. Hamm had a big role in shaping the character of Batman and his world, and Waters and Strick wrote the script for the sequel. Burton likely had conceptual and story input as well, but let’s not act like what we got in RETURNS is ALL his vision.

The Penguin entirely came from a drawing? So it's just a huge coincidence that the Penguin's basic costume elements, his use of umbrellas and birds, his big nose, short stature, etc, are all fairly similar to what they are in the comics? Tim Burton may well have done a drawing that led him to add elements to The Penguin. The Penguin, as seen in BATMAN RETURNS, clearly has elements drawn from the comics and TV series as well.

Just accept it is not like the comics and enjoy it for what it is.

I never said it was just like the comics. I do enjoy it for what it is.

By the way, the script for BATMAN RETURNS:

Seems fairly obvious what the original intention was, and I don't think the final film really changes that, it just adds a layer of ambiguity to whether she's alive at first. Since she's not pronounced dead, and doesn't spend much time "not moving", I'm gonna go with she never died, and that the "luck" theme seen throughout the film isn't random.

SELINA
(burst of bravado)
Okay, go ahead. Intimidate me, bully
me if it makes you feel big. I mean,
it's not like you can just kill me.

MAX
(almost pitying)
Actually, it's a lot like that.

Tense silence. Then Max smiles. Selina wipes away a
tear.

SELINA
For a second, you really frightened --

Max savagely pushes Selina through the window.

EXT. SHRECK ALLEY--NIGHT

Selina swirls downward through shattering glass and snow-
flakes with tragic beauty.

Her fall is (luckily) slowed by a protruding flagpole
with the smiling Shreck cat logo on its flapping flag.
Then she (luckily) lands in a deep snowdrift.

Her eyes creak open, fuzzily focusing on the happy cat above.

SELINA
(faintly)
Help me ... someone ... Miss Kitty ...

INT. SHRECK CONFERENCE ROOM--NIGHT

Max turns away from the window, stunned by his own
violence. Even more stunned, when he sees:

Chip, who's been standing in the doorway.

MAX
I ... it was terrible, I leaned
over, and accidentally knocked
her, out --

CHIP
(cool)
She jumped. She'd been depressed.

MAX
(beat, then nods)
Yes. Yes. Boyfriend trouble ..?

CHIP
(shakes his head)
PMS.

He turns and walks out. Max watches his son go, seeing
him in an entirely new light.

EXT. SHRECK ALLEY--NIGHT

Miss Kitty, summoned by her desperate owner, now appears
... leading cats of every shape, color and demeanor from
every direction. Selina's cat crawls up onto Selina's
blouse and begins to breathe into her mouth in an eerie
feline C.P.R. ballet.

A Siamese whispers in Selina's ear, aw-so-cute Tabbies
snuggle against the soles of her feet. A scraggly Tom
viciously bites her finger. Selina's eyes fly open.

 

[Nave 'Torment']

^ really great find there Isis! I never knew there was a panel like that during Kane's years! Though to be honest, a more honest interpretation would focus on that ambiguity rather than all-out truth. These characters are urban-legends and just as you have whispers of the Bat being a demonic creature, more wraith than human being, Ra's Al Ghul as an immortal who comes back from the dead, and our beloved District Attorney Harvey Dent really as a coin-flipping mob-boss who turned his back on his friends , so you got the Cat-Woman, a dame to die for who, as they say, has got Nine Lives.

They also say the nine-lives get renewed every time she visits Bat-Man in da cave if ya know waat I mean *Al Capone voice from The Untouchables* *wink wink, nudge nudge*

 

[Nave 'Torment']

So I'm writing this paper for school on Daniel Defoe's Moll Flanders, and aside from the fact that she pretty much resembles Selina Kyle in all her name-shifting, social-climbing, jewelry-stealing characterisation with an extended or otherwise ambiguous possibility of a prostitute-background through inter-textual association, I had to look into the wiki-entry on femme fatales to, y'know, see if there was someone who was a less obvious choice for comparison (but still popular enough). What I found got me thinking...

Although typically villainous, if not morally ambiguous, and always associated with a sense of mystification and unease,[2] femmes fatales have also appeared as antiheroines in some stories, and some even repent and become true heroines by the end of the tale. Some stories even feature benevolent and heroic femmes fatales who use their wiles to snare the villain for the greater good. In social life, a more malevolent femme fatale tends to torture her lover in an asymmetrical relationship, denying confirmation of her affection. She usually drives him to the point of obsession and exhaustion, so that he is incapable of making rational decisions.

Is Chris Nolan a sexist?! Now wait hear me out first guys. That description of a femme fatale is pretty much definitive Catwoman right there, but it also adds something else to Nolan's trilogy, because the true femme fatale in TDKR was Tatalia, straight from the bowels of noir-archetypes where there's an imminent betrayal in the end. But consider that last line about an asymmetrical power-relationship with her lover where nothing is confirmed or denied, that's pretty much Rachel flippin Dawes! The only other girl in the history of Batman who managed to friend-zone the Dark Knight detective and after her death drove the White Knight attorney to his very twisted double-life as a vengeful, spiteful, and ultimately suicidal maniac. Over in Inception you have Mal, a literal portrayal of Jung's Anima archetype alongside the other female-character relegated,mind you, to a plot-device and easily the most purposefully-annoying role in the entire film: that Paige girl. The Prestige is no different either since you have a) The Great Danton's conniving and manipulative assistant who uses her wiles to spy on The Professor, b) Angier's wife whose death had put him on to a path of self-destruction, c) Borden's wife who was again someone who was impinging on both his career and grew to become a sinuous lover who could never be satisfied or satisfy Borden, ultimately killing herself and leaving the kids for him to take care of (in fact, most of the "wives" are like that, even Mrs. Gordon lol). The trend of femme fatales continue in Memento and The Following and it seems that the only positive female figure Nolan's ever portrayed who wasn't somehow a part of the femme fatale archetype was Hilary Swank's character from Insomnia, who by the way was a) in a remake and b) still essentially the sidekick/successor/second-tier enforcer next to an older, experienced, and much more captivating male protagonist.

Or maybe he's... y'know... portraying them realistically

 

[ChrisB]

Anne Hathaway is hosting SNL again this Saturday, November 10th.

 

[Anita18]

So I'm writing this paper for school on Daniel Defoe's Moll Flanders, and aside from the fact that she pretty much resembles Selina Kyle in all her name-shifting, social-climbing, jewelry-stealing characterisation with an extended or otherwise ambiguous possibility of a prostitute-background through inter-textual association, I had to look into the wiki-entry on femme fatales to, y'know, see if there was someone who was a less obvious choice for comparison (but still popular enough). What I found got me thinking...



Is Chris Nolan a sexist?! Now wait hear me out first guys. That description of a femme fatale is pretty much definitive Catwoman right there, but it also adds something else to Nolan's trilogy, because the true femme fatale in TDKR was Tatalia, straight from the bowels of noir-archetypes where there's an imminent betrayal in the end. But consider that last line about an asymmetrical power-relationship with her lover where nothing is confirmed or denied, that's pretty much Rachel flippin Dawes! The only other girl in the history of Batman who managed to friend-zone the Dark Knight detective and after her death drove the White Knight attorney to his very twisted double-life as a vengeful, spiteful, and ultimately suicidal maniac. Over in Inception you have Mal, a literal portrayal of Jung's Anima archetype alongside the other female-character relegated,mind you, to a plot-device and easily the most purposefully-annoying role in the entire film: that Paige girl. The Prestige is no different either since you have a) The Great Danton's conniving and manipulative assistant who uses her wiles to spy on The Professor, b) Angier's wife whose death had put him on to a path of self-destruction, c) Borden's wife who was again someone who was impinging on both his career and grew to become a sinuous lover who could never be satisfied or satisfy Borden, ultimately killing herself and leaving the kids for him to take care of (in fact, most of the "wives" are like that, even Mrs. Gordon lol). The trend of femme fatales continue in Memento and The Following and it seems that the only positive female figure Nolan's ever portrayed who wasn't somehow a part of the femme fatale archetype was Hilary Swank's character from Insomnia, who by the way was a) in a remake and b) still essentially the sidekick/successor/second-tier enforcer next to an older, experienced, and much more captivating male protagonist.

Or maybe he's... y'know... portraying them realistically

Well, at least Nolan's male protagonists are very similar too. The guy does have a type....

 

[DACrowe]

In denial about what?

What's actually onscreen?

The use of any supernatural elements (and I mean this in the loosest sense, IE defying the laws of nature and somehow surviving the end) is VERY different from how he uses anything supernatural in BEETLEJUICE, or any other “fairytale” or “horror”, especially what he had done to that point (and most of it since) where Burton, not known for his subtlety, makes the supernatural elements OBVIOUS, and doesn't dance around them in the least. In that he uses and focuses on actual supernatural elements. He acknowledges and EXPLORES the concept of the supernatural when he uses them. He doesn't do that so much in BATMAN RETURNS.

You mean like how he explores Vincent Price made Edward Scissorhands? Or how Edward doesn't age despite being alive?

It is done as a sense of mystery and mystique. It is supernatural. There is no way she could be alive without a scratch after taking three magnums to the gut and being electrocuted to the point where the other party's skin is fried off the bone. You can pretend otherwise, but you are ignoring what is in the movie.

Can you imagine a fairy tale where we’re supposed to believe there are magic or supernatural elements at play, but there’s not actually any set up for it, no mention of it, no magic or overt supernatural activity shown, and yet we're supposed to believe it's pure fantasy/supernatural stuff?

Happens all the time. Explain to me how Dr. Frankenstein creates the creature in the original Shelly novel? Explain how Jekyll creates Hyde? Explain how Michael Myers cannot die in the original film without referencing the sequels not written by Carpenter? Writers constantly leave the unexplainable unexplained to create a sense of mystery and "Other." It is a classic trope.

That it's a film where despite this supposedly obvious supernatural event, none of the characters reference a supernatural occurrence, or even recognize it as such, and the concept is never returned to again, but it’s overtly supernatural...just because?

Pretty much. His resurrection is very overt, even if how it works is unexplained. Just as how she survives the unsurvivable is unexplained. It is not referenced because it is unimportant to the story. Another good example? Woody Allen films like Midnight in Paris or The Purple Rose of Cairo. He does not explain how these impossible things happen, because it is unimportant to the story. They do happen and the story continues giving it a fairy tale, fantasy element that is best left unaddressed. To paraphrase Allen, "It works because you don't explain it to the audience. It just happens and they accept it." Burton doesn't give you some bogus explanation as to how cats resurrected her or how she can survive the impossible. She does and the audience accepts it. The same way he will not explain how Price made Edward. It just is and the audience goes along.

I think you’re the one in denial about this for the most part. You seem to think there's only one way this can be interpreted (I've considered the other, and find no evidence for it), and you're ignoring the clues the film gives you and ascribing meaning to key events that simply isn't there in the film.

You say she survived the fall from the fawning. But deliberately ignore the ending of the film.

I deny it and don't want to accept it because the evidence for the supernatural interpretation just isn't really there, other than her survival at the end. The evidence for the other interpretation is actually in the film. Throughout.

There are two scenes with supernatural explanations. One leaves an ambiguous alternative. The other does not. Ergo, the one that is unambiguous is the best explanation for both.

I never said there's no way she could survive being electrocuted. I said it should have killed her, meaning "It looks like it would generally kill her". It appears to have been something that would kill her, but it's clearly left ambiguous for a reason, so obviously we're meant to consider that whatever happened, she may well have survived...again. As far as the gun goes, people have survived worse things than being shot with powerful guns in vulnerable parts of their body. She was clearly injured as she was being shot...it's a question of suspending disbelief that she could survive the gunshots, and I think the film handles that pretty well in context.

People do not walk away with three gunshots of that magnitude in their body (if they survive, it is from emergency medical attention). Never mind climb a rooftop and be perfectly fine later that evening. You dismiss it because there is no other explanation.

I think Burton has underplayed his use of comics quite a bit, but that's neither here nor there. There are plenty of things in BATMAN that are drawn from the comics. Burton was not the only source of creative input for these films. Hamm had a big role in shaping the character of Batman and his world, and Waters and Strick wrote the script for the sequel. Burton likely had conceptual and story input as well, but let’s not act like what we got in RETURNS is ALL his vision.

Hamm did put quite a bit into the first film. I do not believe Waters did after they threw out the Hamm script for the second film.

The Penguin entirely came from a drawing? So it's just a huge coincidence that the Penguin's basic costume elements, his use of umbrellas and birds, his big nose, short stature, etc, are all fairly similar to what they are in the comics? Tim Burton may well have done a drawing that led him to add elements to The Penguin. The Penguin, as seen in BATMAN RETURNS, clearly has elements drawn from the comics and TV series as well.

These are superficial things. The Penguin of the comics is not a mutated freak who was abandoned on Christmas Eve by his parents and raised by penguins in the sewer. He is not a monster in the Universal 1930s sense of the word. He is a criminal with a bird fetish and a long nose in the comics. Characteristically he considers himself a gentleman, not a freak who is more bird than man. Quite different.

 

[Nave 'Torment']

Well, at least Nolan's male protagonists are very similar too. The guy does have a type....

he's a sexist both-ways.

 

[DACrowe]

So I'm writing this paper for school on Daniel Defoe's Moll Flanders, and aside from the fact that she pretty much resembles Selina Kyle in all her name-shifting, social-climbing, jewelry-stealing characterisation with an extended or otherwise ambiguous possibility of a prostitute-background through inter-textual association, I had to look into the wiki-entry on femme fatales to, y'know, see if there was someone who was a less obvious choice for comparison (but still popular enough). What I found got me thinking...



Is Chris Nolan a sexist?! Now wait hear me out first guys. That description of a femme fatale is pretty much definitive Catwoman right there, but it also adds something else to Nolan's trilogy, because the true femme fatale in TDKR was Tatalia, straight from the bowels of noir-archetypes where there's an imminent betrayal in the end. But consider that last line about an asymmetrical power-relationship with her lover where nothing is confirmed or denied, that's pretty much Rachel flippin Dawes! The only other girl in the history of Batman who managed to friend-zone the Dark Knight detective and after her death drove the White Knight attorney to his very twisted double-life as a vengeful, spiteful, and ultimately suicidal maniac. Over in Inception you have Mal, a literal portrayal of Jung's Anima archetype alongside the other female-character relegated,mind you, to a plot-device and easily the most purposefully-annoying role in the entire film: that Paige girl. The Prestige is no different either since you have a) The Great Danton's conniving and manipulative assistant who uses her wiles to spy on The Professor, b) Angier's wife whose death had put him on to a path of self-destruction, c) Borden's wife who was again someone who was impinging on both his career and grew to become a sinuous lover who could never be satisfied or satisfy Borden, ultimately killing herself and leaving the kids for him to take care of (in fact, most of the "wives" are like that, even Mrs. Gordon lol). The trend of femme fatales continue in Memento and The Following and it seems that the only positive female figure Nolan's ever portrayed who wasn't somehow a part of the femme fatale archetype was Hilary Swank's character from Insomnia, who by the way was a) in a remake and b) still essentially the sidekick/successor/second-tier enforcer next to an older, experienced, and much more captivating male protagonist.

Or maybe he's... y'know... portraying them realistically

I think it is a huge stretch to say Rachel Dawes is a femme fatale. She is not coded as a sexist woman whose desire to be in a male world causes destruction. The destruction caused in her name is on the Joker's hands and Harvey's weakness. It is not an allegory for essentially why women should be ethereal (or in the kitchen) like say, Laura in Laura or Gilda in Gilda. Women who are not intentionally cruel or evil, but whose sexuality and independence unintentionally drive men to ruin.

Selina Kyle is a femme and I suppose so is Talia. Better examples of Nolan using that archetype are Carrie Anne Moss in Memento and Mal in Inception. The only film he has done where I can see a sexist reading, though I do not agree with it, is Inception. Women are nothing but plot devices and the dead wife is nothing but an evil shade who haunts a husband whose life she destroys. I disagree with that reading, but I can see it. After all, Arthur says "[Mal] was lovely," but that is not in the final film or in Cobb's sadistic projection of her.

Overall though, I think it is more Nolan does not write women well and is more interested in the male's perspective operating in morally dangerous worlds dominated by men in our patriarchal society. I do not think that is sexist per se. I just think that is a weakness in his voice.