Batman Rises: Conclusion of an Epic

The cinemascope has seen Batmans in the past and it’ll continue to see Batmans in the future. But none like Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of the caped crusader, presented across, contemporarily. And do I say this for sure, with absolute confidence, taking into account the technological advancements to cinematography and the whole concept of special effects?

Yes I do. But not because I believe that Nolan’s picturisation of Batman is cinematographically superior and will be, for years and years to come; but because of the simple fact that his plot combines a unique blend of complexity and an easy interpretation of the same.

Even while firmly reckoning that the world of cinematography is not impervious to advancements by way of technology, the construct of a movie’s plotline becomes necessary to make the whole movie a success. And perhaps this is where Nolan’s has reaped rewards. Starting with the Batman Begins, then onwards to the Dark Knight and now, with the Dark Knight Rises; Nolan has moulded the comic book character singularly, to represent an entity far separate from the Batman comics.

An entity different from the sketches created for and in the comic books and resultantly, an entity polar opposite to the fans’ perceiving. While all superheroes, be it Superman, Spiderman, Ironman or any other cape-clad, mask-wearing and shying-behind-an-armour, man; have displayed emotional weaknesses, Nolan’s Batman depicts the battle between a daytime narcissistic and a night-time soldier’s struggle unlike any other. And this dichotomy of Bruce Wayne effortlessly commingling with the persona of Batman is an extrapolation, unique only to Christopher Nolan.

Of course this isn’t to say that all previous efforts to recreate Batman for the movie-going audiences were directorial failures. While a select assorted, out of the few Batman movies made, did work well, a couple of hoi polloi Batman movies filled with idiosyncrasies and uncorrelated characterisations left behind a sorry aftertaste. Maybe these latter ones were tailor-made for those enthusiasts who knew the ‘who-what-where-why-how’ of each character, without the director having to spell it out loud. But regardless of being implicitly informative, fact remains that the whole experience of watching Batman come to life was led amok and astray by these adaptations.

Every clichéd comic caper has a bunch of good guys and bad guys surrounding his lead act. While directors in the past have resorted to reducing the side-kicks and the cronies to a loose parody of themselves, Nolan has taken them and spread them out over a three-movie jigsaw puzzle and leaving his audiences to connect the dots and put the pieces together. Each sidekick and crony depicted, seems to have a purpose – thus emphasising the raison d’être for Batman doing what he needs to do.

And if the director has sought to bring the characters to life, it’s the actors’ portrayal of each role that has magnified the construct and the premise of each character throughout the course of each of the three editions. The brilliant association of actors with their assigned on-screen personas throughout the course of the movie series made the audience connect better with not just the script but also with the overall acting prowess, culminating in a crescendo with the Dark Knight Rises.

It’s in fact in this climax that the director seems to have set the perfect backdrop for a new start. The start of a new journey of a new man wanting to break the ‘shackles of structuring’ and thus attempting to live up to his newly bequeathed legacy left by a predecessor, whose paradoxical existence not only governed the life of the fictional Gotham cityite’s, but also formed a part of the zillions of movie-goers across the world. And this alteration of the synonymy of Bruce Wayne and Batman to incorporate a completely new semantic, without hindering the flow or the expectancy of what’s to follow, is what demarcates Nolan’s directorial efforts from the rest, at its highest.

Society: Of Ironies and Hypocrisies

Irony – the society’s full of it. Anywhere and everywhere one looks, even in the most mundane of situations, irony springs up like the ultimate Jack-in-the-box. But there again, the irony is, people have started to expect and accept irony for what it is, rather than question its credence and bring the whole establishment down completely. 

In this whole schematic of ironical establishments, one uniquely twisted relation is between the cinemascope, men and the female actors. The most recent example in this context being, the agog among movie-going patrons, read men, to watch a particular, made-to-ordered, B-grade flick. The irony, in the scenario above, wasn’t that men wanted to watch the movie, the irony was that the same men who went to watch the movie, came home with the expectation that their wives, daughters and sisters would avoid the flash and glitter of the entertainment world, not to mention even think about a probable – however improbable – career in the domain.

 And alongside irony there features hypocrisy; not just among mere moviegoers, but also amongst the professionals themselves. A lot of veteran actors have been known to remark that they would rest well in the knowledge that their daughters haven’t followed their footsteps. Similarly there are those who don’t want their actor-sons to get married to fellow actresses.

 Considering that many such male professionals have been in relationships, and eventually married fellow-actors in the first place, isn’t such a reaction a tad bit over-the-top? And even if, the downside of the profession can be taken as extremely dark, making such statements isn’t exactly showing favourability and solidarity for a domain, one has been associated for most of his life. 

This is where the whole jibe about irony and hypocrisy reverts back to the argument about societal norms and its expectations. A society that premeditates, that women are in a lot of ways inferior and men, in every way, superior. And it’s the breaching of this barrier that’s difficult, irrespective of the numerous professional barriers that women break – breaching the barrier of set outlooks in the minds of the people. 

 An optimistically indifferent person mightn’t even try to breach this barrier, but fact remains that each and every one of us, at some time or the other, gets ‘pessimistically vulnerable.’ And since the society makes judgemental calls, instead of merely raising its opinion or voicing its thoughts; the paradigm of vulnerability increases by quite a few notches. 

 But the major positivity that arises amidst these dreary lookouts is that the vulnerability doesn’t affect the regular chain of events. Movies are made, women do play their part in them – at times better than their male counter-parts and people do flock to cinema-houses in huge throngs. As for the mind-sets themselves, one can always prognosticate a much positively appealing future, can they not?

Roger Federer: The Man, The Maestro

It wasn’t about regaining a trophy,

As much as it was about retrieving splendour...

 It wasn’t about living the moment,

As much as it was about re-living it...

It wasn’t about winning,

As it was about conquering...

Different usance of words,

Each like a dissimilar homophone

Yet with the same context

‘tween the past and present,

 As though there were no lags...

Numbers uncountable,

Stats and figures underrated,

The visage of time and age...

Uncontested and unquestioned

Making no difference to passage rites...

Peers and contestants

Flitting time brings more of them

Each better than before,

Each shrewder than ere,

The champion tho’ with his mettle

Prevails all over, like none other...