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Keaton - For & Against
by Cinefantastique, as featured in the May 1989 issue of Cinefantastique
Posted by raleagh on Sat, 19th January 2008 at 9:25am
This article has been viewed 82 times
Before the Summer of 1989, controversy over the choice of Michael Keaton reigned supreme. One magazine offered readers the chance to express differing views....
FOR
OK, Bat-fans. Listen up and listen good. Layoff Michael Keaton. You know what I'm talking about. Ever since Warner Bros announced that Keaton would be playing the caped crusader in the July release of their new movie BATMAN, you've been mercilessly attacking the poor guy in letters and magazine articles. Pow!
Michael Keaton is a wimp with a receding hairline. Ka-blam!
Michael Keaton doesn't have a macho-man voice. Riff!
Michael Keaton has no muscles and couldn't pass as a comic book super hero if his career depended on it! Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've heard it all. And I'm tired of it.
Since you hard-core Bat-fans began grumbling in public, The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, and Comics Scene Magazine have given your anti-Keaton ravings enough coverage to turn Warner Bros executives into nervous wrecks with pre-maturely graying hair. You panicked the studio so badly that it hastily released some terrible-looking color stills of Keaton in his Bat-Costume to Newsweek and The L.A. Times. Next, it gave some scenes to ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT to counteract the sudden case of bad press. Then the studio rustled up some fast promotional trailers to stick in theatres around the country.
I've seen the trailer and - Holy Metamorphosis! - the new BATMAN bears no resemblance to the old Adam West/Burt Ward TV camp- shtick from two decades ago. Whatever the new movie is, it's not a comedy. This bat is one violent, mean mammal. He drops from the sky with his bat-cape spread like steel wings. His haunt, Gotham City, is no average metropolis. It's a dark, gothic location seeping with crime and oppression - the futuristic flipside of the Land of Oz.
And the Batmobile - Wow! - it looks like a Corvette reworked by the set designer for ALIEN. Lean, muscular, and organic in appearance, the heavily armed black car should fulfill the promise of excitement left by the exhaust of the Green Hornet's Black Beauty and 007's Aston- Martin. I'm excited about BATMAN. This movie could be just as revolutionary as the TV series was in its hey-day. Why?
First, because I got a copy of the original screenplay by Sam Hamm and, from what I read of it, the script looks pretty good.
Second, because Tim Burton is directing. With his background as an animator and his knack for engineering surrealistic, provocative visuals (he also directed PEE-WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE and BEETLEJUICE), the picture should be technically spectacular. And third, because Michael Keaton is playing Batman. All right Bat-fans, I understand where you're coming from. Of all the actors who could have played the DC comics hero, the director picked MR. MOM and Mr. BEETLEJUICE. Keaton has been taking it on the chin ever since, even if he doesn't have one. It's time somebody went to "bat" for him.
Let's look at your so-called objections to Keaton's casting:
"He can't handle serious drama." Obviously, you didn't see CLEAN AND SOBER. In that overlooked 1988 drama, Keaton created a gritty, realistic portrait of a yuppie on the fast track to a crack-up. Fueled by a volatile mixture of alcohol and cocaine, Keaton's character, a real estate executive, wakes up one morning to find a nameless bed-partner dead from an overdose. He knows something's out of whack, so he checks into a detox unit. The rest of CLEAN AND SOBER traces his arduous attempt to beat drugs and stay on top of old expensive habits.
"But he's a comedian." You obviously didn't see James Belushi in THE PRINCIPAL, Jerry Lewis in KING OF COMEDY or Tom Hanks in PUNCH LINE. Otherwise, you'd notice that a great many comedians are not only capable of playing it straight, but excel in the task. (Bill Murray in RAZOR'S EDGE was the exception.)
"He's not tough enough." You obviously didn't see TOUCH AND GO, a 1986 feature in which Keaton played a Chicago hockey player. Those guys aren't cream puffs. In an early scene, Keaton checks a group of would-be muggers in the parking lot with a couple of powerful kicks and some basic man-handling. Late in the story, Keaton chases down a rapist on the beach and beats the stuffing out of him. Trust me, this guy is tough enough to be Batman.
"He's no Schwarzenegger." You obviously haven't seen any Schwarzenegger movies. In real life, the Schwarz may be a bright and savvy business man. On film he invariably comes across, in the words of a New York critic, as a tree trunk. True, he has the perfect DC comic book hero build. True, he has physical presence. But is that what Batman should be, a crime-fighter who looks as if he could crush an armored car, but flunk a TV Guide crossword puzzle? No, the Batman character is a dark and disturbed figure whose childhood memory of his parents' slaughter by a street thug has left him an obsessed man. Maybe even psychotic. He's probably paranoid, and definitely schizo-phrenic. Nobody zips around town in an animal costume doing this vigilante thing unless he's got some bats in his belfry. Keaton, with his angular eyebrows and piercing eyes, is fully capable of capturing that on-the-edge quality inherent in Batman's personality. That's a far more intimidating feature than steroid-created tissue.
Of course, the jury's still out on that beef-cake molded body-armor Keaton wears in his guise as Batman. Judging from the Newsweek photo, the muscle-enhanced costume doesn't look too convincing. But if Keaton is convincing, everything else will be, too.
AGAINST
With a great deal riding on their $32 million summer release, Warner Bros has cracked the veil of secrecy just enough to offer a tantalizing view of their new, controversial BATMAN movie. The trailer, apparently put together in a hurry to dissuade a mounting tide of concerned comic fans, has no narration, no titles, nothing at all that indicates that this is the BATMAN film, save for showing the Dark Knight himself. Still, nobody in the audience fails to grasp what it is. Michael Keaton, as Batman, is buried in a large suit which sports fake chest muscles, thick wings for a cape, and the most unwieldy headpiece one could imagine.
As one writer for the Comic Buyers Guide put it, Pee-Wee Herman would look impressive in this suit. It does, however, look similar in style to the older Batman comics, a style the current comics are trying to regain.
If Keaton looks impressive as Batman, he comes off as less than stalwart or suave as Bruce Wayne, a bad omen, since it is here that Keaton must conjure up his best acting. Dressed to the nines as a millionaire playboy, Pee-Wee is still Pee-Wee. Bruce Wayne should be tall, handsome, and brooding or self-assured by turns.
Jack Nicholson, world-class ham actor , may or may not have a ball with his part as the Joker. It's difficult to tell from the trailer's shots of him, both as the hood, Jack, and later as the traditional villain, which are played close to the vest, rather than broadly. Most of the fuss centers around the film being too outrageous, so it's not surprising Warner Bros showed only Nicholson's quiet scenes. The trailer does have some strong points, particularly evidence of the film's creative production design.
The Batmobile, no longer a long, sleek sedan, is now something akin to an armor-plated European sports car with fins. Surprisingly, it retains the popular flame-spitting turbine engine from the '60s TV series. Director Tim Burton's strong visual style is in evidence, as he displays an innate ability to capture a comic book feel, yet retain due respect. His images don't look comic bookish. When Jack Palance gives Nicholson orders in their criminal hideaway; you honestly feel as if you are in the under- belly of society. But the image of Keaton as Bruce Wayne still niggles.
Why did Burton feel it was necessary to hire a comic actor? Why choose someone so physically unlike the character? David Rasche, for example, late of ABC's SLEDGE HAMMER, looks the part, has demonstrated the wide range required to play both roles, and needs the work.
And why did Warner Bros hire a director who would cast Keaton and then turn around and commission another writer to revise Sam Hamm's highly acclaimed screenplay for the film? Hamm's script is one of the most talked about to circulate in Hollywood in ten years. And yes, it is filmable. The first ten pages, setting up the tone for the film, are pure, strong, unquestionable Batman.
Warners plans to give BATMAN fans a further peek at their work in progress. A second trailer for the film is expected to hit the theatres in late February with the possibility of a third preview before the film's summer release. Will fans accept Warners' mixed bag of director, star, and guest star in packaging the property?
The studio has $32 million on the line. For comic fans what's at stake is the salability and respect that has long been overdue the comics industry. |
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