The Dark Knight LA Times Nolan Interview Part III - "Batman doesn't play well with others"

[FlawlessVictory]

Christopher Nolan says his Batman doesn't play well with others

06:43 AM PT, Oct 29 2008
EXCLUSIVE
The director of "The Dark Knight" talks about the problems with teaming up Batman with other superheroes and also discusses the potential for an Oscar nomination for the late Heath Ledger.


This is the final installment of a three-part interview with Christopher Nolan, director of "The Dark Knight," the second-highest-grossing film in history and, by many accounts, the best superhero adaptation ever. But the London native has also shown a flair for intricate and sophisticated thrillers ("Memento," "The Prestige" and "Insomnia"), and in today's interview he makes it clear that he sees his Batman character as being separate and apart from the crowded superhero cinema of today.

GB: Chris, this summer, "Iron Man" and "The Incredible Hulk" signaled the true start of the "crossover era" in comic-book films with Marvel Studios putting an emphasis on the fact that their heroes coexist in the same world. DC and Warner Bros. may embrace a similar strategy, especially if the Justice League film project is revived. Does that concern you? Your Gotham doesn't seem suited to that.

Nolan: I don’t think our Batman, our Gotham, lends itself to that kind of cross-fertilization. It goes back to one of the first things we wrangled with when we first started putting the story together: Is this a world in which comic books already exist? Is this a world in which superheroes already exist? If you think of "Batman Begins" and you think of the philosophy of this character trying to reinvent himself as a symbol, we took the position -- we didn’t address it directly in the film, but we did take the position philosophically -- that superheroes simply don’t exist. If they did, if Bruce knew of Superman or even of comic books, then that’s a completely different decision that he’s making when he puts on a costume in an attempt to become a symbol. It’s a paradox and a conundrum, but what we did is go back to the very original concept and idea of the character. In his first appearances, he invents himself as a totally original creation.

GB: That doesn't lend itselt to having him swing on a rope across the Metropolis skyline.

Nolan: No, correct, it’s a different universe. It’s a different way of looking at it. Now, it's been done successfully, very successfully, in the comics so I don’t dispute it as an approach. It just isn’t the approach we took. We had to make a decision for "Batman Begins."

GB: A different path...

Nolan: Yes, completely different. It would have given a very, very different meaning to what Bruce Wayne was leaving home to do and coming back home to do and putting on the costume for and all the rest. We dealt with on its own terms: What does Batman mean to Bruce Wayne, what is he trying to achieve? He has not been influenced by other superheroes. Of course, you see what we’re able to do with Joker in this film is that he is able to be quite theatrical because we set up Batman as an example of intense theatricality in Gotham. It starts to grow outward from Batman. But the premise we began with is that Batman was creating a wholly original thing. To be honest, we went even further than the comics on this point. I can’t remember at what point in the comics history the idea came about that he was a fan of Zorro as a kid. I haven’t researched that, but I don’t believe it goes back terribly far.”

GB: I remember the movie-theater marquee with a Zorro film in Frank Miller’s “The Dark Knight Returns” in 1986. ...

Nolan: It definitely goes back before that. I’m pretty sure. I’ll have to ask [DC Comics President] Paul Levitz about it, but my sense is that it does go back further ... but either way, we changed it. We didn’t have young Bruce going to see Zorro because a character in a movie watching a movie is very different than a character in a comic book watching a movie. A comic-book character reading a comic book is more analogous to a character in a movie watching a movie. It creates a deconstructionist thing that we were trying to avoid. That was one reason. But another reason was to remove Zorro as a role model. We wanted nothing that would undermine the idea that Bruce came up with this crazy plan of putting on a mask all by himself. That allowed us to treat it on our own terms. So we replaced the Zorro idea with the bats to cement that idea of fear and symbolism associated with bats.

GB: Which you did by putting Bruce and his parents in the opera house watching "Die Fledermaus," which also gave you an opportunity to enhance the operatic feel of the film.

Nolan: Precisely. That took us into that very realm that seemed to work on screen.

GB: You've said you aren't sure what you next project will be. But clearly Warner Bros. looks at Batman as a core part of their movie business, perhaps now more than ever, and there are marketplace pressures on them to schedule the next installment of the franchise. Are you getting a lot of pressure to make a decision?

Nolan: They’re being extremely gracious. I have a very good relationship with the studio. They know that I really needed to go on holiday and take some time to figure what I want to do next. They’ve been very respectful of that, which is terrific and one of the reasons I enjoy working with Warner Bros.

GB: The nominations for the 81st Academy Awards will be announced in January. How meaningful would it be for the cast and crew of "The Dark Knight" if the late Heath Ledger is nominated for best supporting actor?

Nolan: I think the thing that has always been important to me in light of Heath’s death is the responsibility I’ve felt to his work. The responsibility of crafting the film in such a way that his performance came across the way he intended. Clearly, that has been the case. That’s one of the reasons I take such pride in the film. I felt a great wave of relief, really, as people first started to see the performance and it was clear that they were getting the performance. It’s easy to forget with everything that’s happened what an enormous challenge it was for Heath to take on this iconic role. He rose to that challenge so admirably that any expression of people being excited or moved by his performance is a wonderful thing. Whatever form that takes. People coming to see his performance and getting it. It's been extremely satisfying for all of us already. Anything that adds to that would be wonderful.


-- Geoff Boucher

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/herocomplex/2008/10/christopher-n-2.html

 

[goh78]

Anybody who argues for Bale to be Batman in a Justice League film, or that other Superheroes exist in Nolan's Bat-world but "just aren't mentioned" needs to read this article.

 

[Anita18]

Yay another Nolan interview! Thanks!

Nolan: I don’t think our Batman, our Gotham, lends itself to that kind of cross-fertilization. It goes back to one of the first things we wrangled with when we first started putting the story together: Is this a world in which comic books already exist? Is this a world in which superheroes already exist? If you think of "Batman Begins" and you think of the philosophy of this character trying to reinvent himself as a symbol, we took the position -- we didn’t address it directly in the film, but we did take the position philosophically -- that superheroes simply don’t exist. If they did, if Bruce knew of Superman or even of comic books, then that’s a completely different decision that he’s making when he puts on a costume in an attempt to become a symbol. It’s a paradox and a conundrum, but what we did is go back to the very original concept and idea of the character. In his first appearances, he invents himself as a totally original creation.

Completely agree. In BB, the approach they took was putting a superhero in an ordinary world, and a crossover with Superman or JL wouldn't feel right, because a world with superheroes in it is simply not ordinary.

Nolan: It definitely goes back before that. I’m pretty sure. I’ll have to ask [DC Comics President] Paul Levitz about it, but my sense is that it does go back further ... but either way, we changed it. We didn’t have young Bruce going to see Zorro because a character in a movie watching a movie is very different than a character in a comic book watching a movie. A comic-book character reading a comic book is more analogous to a character in a movie watching a movie. It creates a deconstructionist thing that we were trying to avoid. That was one reason. But another reason was to remove Zorro as a role model. We wanted nothing that would undermine the idea that Bruce came up with this crazy plan of putting on a mask all by himself. That allowed us to treat it on our own terms. So we replaced the Zorro idea with the bats to cement that idea of fear and symbolism associated with bats.

GB: Which you did by putting Bruce and his parents in the opera house watching "Die Fledermaus," which also gave you an opportunity to enhance the operatic feel of the film.

Nolan: Precisely. That took us into that very realm that seemed to work on screen.

Ah, very cool explanation there.

Nolan: They’re being extremely gracious. I have a very good relationship with the studio. They know that I really needed to go on holiday and take some time to figure what I want to do next. They’ve been very respectful of that, which is terrific and one of the reasons I enjoy working with Warner Bros.

Sounds good!

 

[Bim]

GB: The nominations for the 81st Academy Awards will be announced in January. How meaningful would it be for the cast and crew of "The Dark Knight" if the late Heath Ledger is nominated for best supporting actor?

Nolan: I think the thing that has always been important to me in light of Heath’s death is the responsibility I’ve felt to his work. The responsibility of crafting the film in such a way that his performance came across the way he intended. Clearly, that has been the case. That’s one of the reasons I take such pride in the film. I felt a great wave of relief, really, as people first started to see the performance and it was clear that they were getting the performance. It’s easy to forget with everything that’s happened what an enormous challenge it was for Heath to take on this iconic role. He rose to that challenge so admirably that any expression of people being excited or moved by his performance is a wonderful thing. Whatever form that takes. People coming to see his performance and getting it. It's been extremely satisfying for all of us already. Anything that adds to that would be wonderful.

Indeed... i'd love for Heath to get nominated but even if he gets no Academy nomination, the fans and the general public have already given Heath the recognition that matters the most.

Thanks for posting this third part... great read

 

[Paradyme]

Yet another good read. Really enjoying these.

 

[gqxsensazn]

Oooh, I get what Nolan was trying to do in the first film. He wanted to show that Bruce created the persona of Batman on his own without being influenced by a movie or comic book. They wanted to show that it was an original idea. It makes sense!

 

[I am Batman]

Oooh, I get what Nolan was trying to do in the first film. He wanted to show that Bruce created the persona of Batman on his own without being influenced by a movie or comic book. They wanted to show that it was an original idea. It makes sense!

It is a good idea what they did with Bruce in Batman Begins, but they can integrate other heroes into this universe. All they'd have to say is that other heroes popped up around the same time Batman showed up or sometime after. Hell they could say Clark Kent and other heroes were operating discreetly before they decide to walk out in broad daylight in tights.

 

[Merkel]

I really hate when they mingle Batman with other super heroes

 

[Dr. Fate]

I really hate when they mingle Batman with other super heroes

It's very difficult to do, since Batman wasn't designed to deal with the kind of things that Superman, Wonder Woman, & Green Lantern deal with. He was designed to deal with human criminals, so when you place him in the midst of an alien invasion or something like that, you're basically taking him out of his natural environment. We've seen the many writers of Justice League struggle with this.

 

[jmc]

It is a good idea what they did with Bruce in Batman Begins, but they can integrate other heroes into this universe. All they'd have to say is that other heroes popped up around the same time Batman showed up or sometime after. Hell they could say Clark Kent and other heroes were operating discreetly before they decide to walk out in broad daylight in tights.

That would be a massive cop out.

 

[-Arya-]

It's very difficult to do, since Batman wasn't designed to deal with the kind of things that Superman, Wonder Woman, & Green Lantern deal with. He was designed to deal with human criminals, so when you place him in the midst of an alien invasion or something like that, you're basically taking him out of his natural environment. We've seen the many writers of Justice League struggle with this.

Oh ya. Although most of the episodes where the JLA delt with supernatural forces, Batman was noticably absent during those encounters. Most of them.

 

[Crook]

Anybody who argues for Bale to be Batman in a Justice League film, or that other Superheroes exist in Nolan's Bat-world but "just aren't mentioned" needs to read this article.

Anybody who actually read the article would see he sidesteps the question a bit. Instead of arguing against the co-existence of Batman with other heroes, he tackles the issue of heroes existing before Bruce creates Batman. Not wanting an influence, he makes it so that Batman is the first guy to dress up like one.

And that's fine.

However, nothing there would contradict heroes popping up thereafter. There always has to be a first, in this case it's Batman.

Oooh, I get what Nolan was trying to do in the first film. He wanted to show that Bruce created the persona of Batman on his own without being influenced by a movie or comic book. They wanted to show that it was an original idea. It makes sense!

I'll just copy and paste what Guard wrote in another thread because I couldn't write it any better:

Clearly he doesn't want his Batman in the JLA or mentioning other heroes during this franchise, but he seems to realize it could work, because it has worked. Which is fine.

No, correct, it’s a different universe. It’s a different way of looking at it. Now, it's been done successfully, very successfully, in the comics so I don’t dispute it as an approach. It just isn’t the approach we took. We had to make a decision for "Batman Begins."

I fail to see why Nolan insists on implying that somehow other heroes existing at some point would create a problem with Batman creating himself. Besides, his Batman was essentially handed the idea of being "more than a man" by someone else, as well as handed the idea to help Gotham. The "bat" elements would always be Wayne's. But being a masked freedom fighter or a vigilante isn't a "new" concept, even in the DC Universe, or Nolan's.

Which is why, in BATMAN BEGINS, he almost gets handed the idea to do so. I occassionally wonder if Nolan's ever actually sat down and watched the movies he talks about.

 

[Anita18]

That would be a massive cop out.

I've seen suggestions that BB could have taken place in the 5 years where Superman was gone before SR and that would tie the two franchises together, but that just seems off to me. If other superheroes already exist when Bruce makes the decision to adopt the Batman persona, it changes everything ENTIRELY. His whole schpiel about needing a "symbol to shake people out of apathy" would be moot, since there would be crimefighters already doing that. Superpowered crimefighters, to boot. He would be completely out of his element if there were already people who could actually do whatever he wanted people to think he could do.

Oh ya. Although most of the episodes where the JLA delt with supernatural forces, Batman was noticably absent during those encounters. Most of them.

Yeah, he probably wouldn't be able to do much aside from show off a bunch of detective skills. Which would be cool, I guess, but there wouldn't be a lot of physical ass-kicking he would be able to do.

 

[Anita18]

However, nothing there would contradict heroes popping up thereafter. There always has to be a first, in this case it's Batman.

I think fans of the big blue boy scout make take offense with that.

I'll just copy and paste what Guard wrote in another thread because I couldn't write it any better:

Not sure if I should address it here or there, but...anyway.

The LoS gave Bruce the skills and the idea of being "more than just a man," but he took it one step further by adopting the persona of a bat. The LoS were a group of ninjas who infiltrated cities and thus were legends in their own right, but nobody in their right minds would describe them as running around being giant bats or tigers or whatnot.

Ra's said it himself, "You took my advice about theatricality a bit...literally."

 

[Crook]

I think fans of the big blue boy scout make take offense with that.

Screw 'em. Batman is the most relevant, so he rightly deserves to be the first in this continuity.

I don't know if I saw this in the comics/animation, or it just came to my head, but I like how Bruce sets the precedent for the superhero archetype. Because then that paves the way for Clark to take it in a different direction. Instead of masking himself and propagating fear, he wants to be maskless to show he's got nothing to hide. The bright suit also evokes a sense of hope, that Batman doesn't really offer with his presence.

So here we have Bats and Supes as being the first two, and setting the standard for which other heroes aspire to be. Pretty cool.

Not sure if I should address it here or there, but...anyway.

The LoS gave Bruce the skills and the idea of being "more than just a man," but he took it one step further by adopting the persona of a bat. The LoS were a group of ninjas who infiltrated cities and thus were legends in their own right, but nobody in their right minds would describe them as running around being giant bats or tigers or whatnot.

Ra's said it himself, "You took my advice about theatricality a bit...literally."

As Guard said, the bat-motif will always be Wayne's. That's fact. But everything else, and anything leading up to choosing the bat as imagery, is handed to him on a silver platter. If not, the very concept is archaic and unoriginal in the first place. Which is why Nolan's comments seem odd.

 

[JaD]

Completely agree. In BB, the approach they took was putting a superhero in an ordinary world, and a crossover with Superman or JL wouldn't feel right, because a world with superheroes in it is simply not ordinary.

That reminds me of in Spider-Man when Aunt May says "You're not Superman you know?" (in the hospital bed) What if Alfred had said that to him when seeing his bruises in Begins? Batz VS Supez reference!!1!!1

 

[Anita18]

As Guard said, the bat-motif will always be Wayne's. That's fact. But everything else, and anything leading up to choosing the bat as imagery, is handed to him on a silver platter. If not, the very concept is archaic and unoriginal in the first place. Which is why Nolan's comments seem odd.

They are odd if you think Nolan means that their Bruce Wayne came up with the entire package (skill set, notions of theatricality, and being a legend) completely by himself, but he's not saying that. Nolan says, "If Bruce knew of Superman or even of comic books, then that’s a completely different decision that he’s making when he puts on a costume in an attempt to become a symbol........We wanted nothing that would undermine the idea that Bruce came up with this crazy plan of putting on a mask all by himself."

The most important decision in this case, that makes Bruce different from LoS or Ra's or anything else that the film claims came before, is putting on the batsuit. THAT is the decision Nolan is talking about. If Superman already existed, if Wonder Woman already existed in the same world, Nolan's Wayne then has to make the choice in a different light.

Or at least, we would view that choice in a different light, more akin to "What does this fool think he's doing, trying to play with the super-powered big boys?" than the heroic, altruistic, operatic path that BB sets up for TDK.

 

[metalhead_dave]

All I have to say here is that in case anybody has forgotton... the DCAU STARTED with Batman. HE was the first hero in that universe thanks to Batman TAS.

I know this, not just because Batman TAS was the first show, but because somewhere in the pilot of Superman TAS, I remember Clark Kent was discussing with his parents what kind of superhero identity he was going to have.

And Ma Kent said something "Certainly not like that lunatic from Gotham City." Something along those lines... but she DID mention Batman in that way. So Batman was around before Superman in the DCAU.

So as far as I'm concerned, if the DCAU can start with Batman, and nobody seems to mind... then the DC MOVIE Universe(I hope) can start with Nolan's Batman.

 

[I am Batman]

All I have to say here is that in case anybody has forgotton... the DCAU STARTED with Batman. HE was the first hero in that universe thanks to Batman TAS.

I know this, not just because Batman TAS was the first show, but because somewhere in the pilot of Superman TAS, I remember Clark Kent was discussing with his parents what kind of superhero identity he was going to have.

And Ma Kent said something "Certainly not like that lunatic from Gotham City." Something along those lines... but she DID mention Batman in that way. So Batman was around before Superman in the DCAU.

So as far as I'm concerned, if the DCAU can start with Batman, and nobody seems to mind... then the DC MOVIE Universe(I hope) can start with Nolan's Batman.

You're right. And it's not like Batman has to start the whole costumed hero bit, just be one of the first. And Ma Kent said "I don't want people thinking you're like that nut from Gotham."

 

[namtaB]

O'rly Chris Nolan? Not my diagnosis.

 

[Bat-Mite]

O'rly Chris Nolan? Not my diagnosis.

Perhaps you should read the entire interview first.

Nolan: No, correct, it’s a different universe. It’s a different way of looking at it. Now, it's been done successfully, very successfully, in the comics so I don’t dispute it as an approach. It just isn’t the approach we took. We had to make a decision for "Batman Begins."

 

[El Payaso]

Finally someone that gets it!

Comics are comics and cinema is cinema. To mix those characters in movies has always felt a bad idea to me. Like an Avengers movie or a JLA movie. Even the inclusion of Robin.

And yes, changes are necessary for the sake of the story you're telling.

Bravo, Nolan!

 

[goh78]

It is a good idea what they did with Bruce in Batman Begins, but they can integrate other heroes into this universe. All they'd have to say is that other heroes popped up around the same time Batman showed up or sometime after. Hell they could say Clark Kent and other heroes were operating discreetly before they decide to walk out in broad daylight in tights.

Aliens, supernatural beings, magic golden ropes, and mystical magic green rings do not exist in this world. Period. Nolan, the creator himself, has said this. What else do you need to understand it? A realistic Batman up next to SUperman would have nothing to offer. That's why they aren't there and will never be there, no matter how many posts are made to the contrary.

 

[isaias7]

I still think IT CAN BE DONE!!!and it will be DONE,with or without nolan,hopefully with Bale.

 

[El Payaso]

I still think IT CAN BE DONE!!!and it will be DONE,with or without nolan,hopefully with Bale.

Oh, it has happened before, we all know. Great things can be ruined with or without the great minds behind them. Far from impossible.