superheroes – The Life and Times of Ben Weinberg

Anatomy of a Scene – ‘Why do we fall?’

“It feels more real than any other comic book movie and the character development is better than most other movies due to the major scenes having a deeper meaning behind them that continue throughout the Nolan Batman trilogy.”

As I have written in a previous blog article, ‘Batman Begins’, directed by Christopher Nolan is one of my all-time favorite movies and still my favorite comic book movie. It feels more real than any other comic book movie and the character development is better than most other movies due to the major scenes having a deeper meaning behind them that continue throughout the Nolan Batman trilogy. One of the scenes from ‘Batman Begins’ that really sum up the core message of this trio of Batman films from 2005-2012 is asking the question of ‘Why do we fall?’. This question not only summarizes the trilogy’s main message of not letting adversity or failure keep us from trying and eventually succeeding but also regarding the need to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and keep moving forward in life.

This simple message of ‘why do we fall?’ is more than just about Batman’s own struggles in terms of having a traumatic experience of falling through a well, getting harassed by a swarm of bats, and injuring himself but it’s about our own setbacks in life and what we can do to put them behind us rather than dwell on them. This peculiar scene from ‘Batman Begins’ is central to the theme of the movie as Batman, an ordinary man who while having inherited obscene wealth and prestige, still suffers from tragedy early in life despite his well-to-do circumstances of birth.

This scene starts with a young Bruce Wayne falling into a boarded up well near his father’s mansion while playing with a childhood friend, Rachel, as they search for an arrow relic. Not only is the fall quite steep causing young Bruce to fracture his arm, after also falling to the bottom of the well, Bruce’s presence agitates a flock of bats who come out rapidly to surround and pester Bruce who is afraid by their mere presence. While his fright appears to be very real, it is likely that they are more frightened of him then he is of them. Luckily, Rachel tells Bruce’s father, Thomas Wayne, about the incident who comes rushing with Alfred to get his young boy out of the well. The elder Wayne is a doctor who can set the bone and care for his son as a doctor would for any patient.

As Dr. Wayne and Alfred carry Bruce to his bedroom, he asks his son, ‘Why do we fall, Bruce?’ and he answers his own question as he knows the boy to not have picked up on the inherent wisdom that comes from falling: ‘So we can learn to pick ourselves up.’ This is the exact kind of fatherly advice that Bruce will remember not only as a child but as an adult as well.

Facing adversity not only as Bruce Wayne but also as Batman will cause him to remember the quote that his father imparts on him. There will be challenges, failures, and setbacks that he must deal with but the only way to get through them is to ‘pick yourself up’ and to keep moving forward. Dr. Wayne’s advice is key also in imparting to Bruce that only through ourselves can we overcome adversity and that we cannot rely on others to do it for us. While he was there for Bruce to help him get out of the well and to heal his bones, he like all fathers will not always be there for his children. Any child including Bruce Wayne must face the passage through adulthood, often by themselves, and be forced to reckon with life’s challenges head on and by yourself without the help of family and friends even when you are an eccentric billionaire born into wealth.

“All creatures feel fear…even the scary ones? Especially the scary ones.” Another key part of the scene that resonates is that the Bats did not attack Bruce because of who he was but because of what he did. All creatures including humans tend to lash out when they are fearful sadly and that includes the bats when Bruce unknowingly invades their territory in the well causing him to be attacked. This part of the scene is also a precursor to a later scene in the Opera house where a man, seemingly both desperate and homeless, steals from the Wayne’s and kills them out of both out of fear, self-loathing, and pain as he murders them to be able to live off the stolen goods to keep himself from economic deprivation.

A good film like this one develops side characters like Bruce Wayne’s characters to show how much they meant to Bruce before their deaths and how devastating the memory is for the young boy whose unfortunate murders would change his life forever. You really feel for Bruce given how wise, caring, and kind he was both to Bruce, to his wife, and to Gotham City.

In the scene, you also see Thomas Wayne plan to surprise his wife with a necklace of pearls and to ask for his son’s opinion before he plans to give it to her on a family outing to the opera house. He cajoles his son out of bed, seemingly healed from his injury, to join them at the opera house.

My favorite part of the scene is Dr. Wayne’s philanthropic efforts directed not just at charities, foundations, and such but also right to the city that helped made the Wayne’s very wealthy as a family. Bruce asks his father, “Did you build this train, Dad?” His father responds, “Gotham’s been good to our family. But the city’s been suffering. People less fortunate than us have been enduring very hard times.”

He goes on to say, “So, we built a new cheap public transportation system to unite the city. And at the center, Wayne Tower.” His son asks if he works at the gleaming financial center with his name, but Thomas says that he works at the hospital where he is most needed and leaves his company’s financial dealings to those men ‘better and more interested’ in that kind of work than he is.

In this version of Batman, Thomas Wayne is a philanthropist and billionaire you can’t help but be proud of in a way. He doesn’t shirk responsibilities and puts the money directly to help those who are less fortunate in a real manner while he is running the company. He may like to direct attention to himself and his name by having the public transportation system be centrally located in Wayne Tower but it’s a small price to pay for an investment project like that for those who need to get around the city in a cheap and efficient manner. For a billionaire to not hoard his wealth, to invest in the city he loves with an actual, physical embodiment of helping others get to work or to school such as a public transportation network, so the city’s residents can have greater opportunities, it makes his untimely death that much more tragic.

Not only a doctor helping at a city hospital but a man willing to put money towards an actual public good like transportation is an example of the rich and powerful galvanizing resources together to help people less fortunate than they are in a concrete way. Whether its building new schools, constructing a train system, or adding more hospitals, that is a real kind of philanthropy to a city that the wealthy of a society should realize their civic duty to do so beyond paying taxes.

Beyond Thomas Wayne’s message of ‘picking yourself up’ when you have an accident, or a tragedy happen to you, his willingness to invest money back into a city that made his family wealthy is a real example in a movie of how to give a fictional character real development in just one two-minute scene. It is a good example for other filmmakers and directors how to really start to care for a character before an untimely demise and to learn about why drives the other characters in the film who were affected by their death or demise. I highly recommend viewing this ‘why do we fall’ scene to better understand character development but also the Batman film franchise of Christopher Nolan as well.

If there’s one thing I know for sure, our world today could use more men and fathers like Thomas Wayne from ‘Batman Begins.’

Movie Scene link here: https://www.youtube.com/watchv=CPvGLawULKw&pbjreload=101

‘Batman Begins’ – Film Review and Analysis

I know what you may be thinking as you read out loud the title of this blog post. You’re probably wondering why I would choose to review and analyze a movie based off a super hero from a comic book series. It may appear to be juvenile but I made this creative choice for a couple of good reasons.

Batman is not just any super hero. He is often ranked as being the most popular and well-known super hero worldwide up there with Superman or the ‘Man of Steel.’
Batman isn’t your traditional super hero to make a movie about due to the fact that he has no super powers, and is an ordinary man who strives to be extraordinary.

A superhero who has been around since the early days of comic books in the early 1930’s, Batman is a popular cultural figure who until the 2000’s came around was never done justice on the silver screen. I remember as a kid watching the overly cartoonish and god-awful early film adaptations such as ‘Batman Forever’ and ‘Batman and Robin.’ The best film up until ‘Batman Begins’ was Tim Burton’s ‘Batman’, released in 1989, and even that movie was a bit goofy and contrived at times. Luckily, Batman on film earned a well-needed revival due to the masterful directing, screenwriting, and casting for Batman Begins, which was released over a decade ago in 2005.

Christopher Nolan, who directed Batman Begins, and helped to write the screenplay, did an amazing job in bringing Batman to life again as a superhero that comes from a realistic setting. Compared to The Avengers or X-Men, this is as close to reality as a superhero film can get. Compared to all of the comic book movies I’ve seen, and I’ve seen a good amount, ‘Batman Begins’ is the most realistic. It never gets too fanciful, and it takes itself seriously as a film that falls under the ‘drama’ genre.

For those readers who are unfamiliar with the origins of Batman, ‘Batman Begins’ does a great job of setting up the rise of this super hero from his childhood to his 30^th birthday. You can see how much Bruce Wayne evolves into the role of the masked dark knight due to the painful tragedy that befalls him at an early age.

Bruce Wayne is a boy who grew up with everything a child could ask for: a loving family, a safe home, and a bright future. He has it all taken away from him when his parents are gunned down in front of him by one of the people they were trying to help. The Wayne family comes from immense wealth and they are tied to Gotham City through the generations. The Wayne’s are great benefactors to the city and try to help it out financially so that citizens can gain economic opportunities even during hard times.

The death of Bruce Wayne’s parents is the true beginning of his path to becoming Batman. This film does a great job in showing the phases that Bruce goes through after suffering a trauma such as the loss of his closest family members: his mother and his father. For many years, Bruce turns his deep-seated emotions onto blaming himself to feel the full guilt, the relentless anger, and the deep sadness fully. He is unable to use those powerful emotions, and turn them into constructive action.

An ever-present theme throughout ‘Batman Begins’ is Fear. As a young child, Bruce fell into a deep well near his parents’ mansion, and was unable to get himself out after experiencing a wave of bats surrounding him as they flew away into the sunlight. During an opera performance one night, young Bruce asks his father if they can leave the theater for a little while because he is frightened by the performers pretending to be bats in one of the play’s acts. Because of this fateful decision, for many years, Bruce blames himself completely for his parents’ death because they ended up being shot and killed by the mugger, Joe Chill, after Bruce asked them to leave the theater, and head into the nearby alley.

Bruce seeks out vengeance against the man who killed his parents and wishes to kill Mr. Chill as he leaves the courthouse. He buys a gun one day and wants to take justice into his own hands like a vigilante. Before he is able to do the grisly deed, Joe Chill is killed by one of Carmine Falcone’s men, a Gotham City mob boss. Although Mr. Falcone didn’t kill Bruce’s parents, the corruption befalling the city’s institutions, the unrelenting crime wave, and the lack of a respectable police force have led to more injustice than ever that has left Gotham City a shell of what it used to be.

One of the best scenes of ‘Batman Begins’ highlights the fact that Bruce has more to lose than he knows and should protect the people he cares about. He decides to use Batman as more than just a man flying around in a cape, but more as a symbol to be feared by criminals everywhere, and that anybody can become Batman if they have the will to act. Bruce is wise to use his fear of Bats and turn that fear into a powerful symbol, which criminals will one day fear themselves.

Despite the personal tragedy that befell him, men like Carmine Falcone lecture the young Bruce Wayne regarding his naivety about the world. “You always fear what you don’t understand”, and “people from your world have so much to lose.” Before becoming Batman, Bruce decides to travel the world, learn about the psychology of criminals, train himself in various martial arts, and harness the power of stealth to strike fear into the hearts of Gotham’s underbelly.

In order to learn fully about the evils of the world, Bruce has to go out there himself to experience what actually drives criminals to do what they do. He has to push himself physically and mentally in order to be able to stop them. In order to become Batman, he has to develop a strong moral code so that he can be incorruptible, and more than just a vigilante taking justice into his own hands. In this film, Batman doesn’t kill and he desires to make sure that all criminals face true justice to prove that it’s more than just vengeance for him.

In order to fully develop into Batman, he must complete his training under the tutelage of Henri Ducard (played brilliantly by Liam Neeson). Henri and Bruce have both suffered personal tragedies at the hands of ruthless criminals, but they decide to use their anger and pain to motivate them to strengthen, develop, and confront their adversaries whomever they may be. Bruce becomes Ducard’s best student and excels in different areas of physical and mental training. As Ducard imparts on Wayne, “Your training is nothing, the will is everything. The will to act.”

Batman Begins does an excellent job of showing the physical dexterity and the mental will needed to become a hero like Batman. In addition to that, the training scenes are spectacular in highlighting how Bruce must use deception, theatricality, and stealth in order to overcome his enemies with fear. Most similarly, he must play the role of an actual ninja. “In order to manipulate the fear in others, you must first master the fear within yourself.”

Batman is a symbol that cannot be bought off, corrupted, or killed. Ducard reminds Bruce Wayne of the fact, “If you make yourself more than just a man, if you devote yourself to an ideal, and if they can’t stop you…you become something else entirely…A legend, Mr. Wayne.” However, Ducard and Wayne have a fundamental difference of belief regarding the nature of criminals that puts them on an adversarial footing with each other, which leads to an inevitable confrontation later on. Bruce desires to bring criminals to justice but with the support of the police and the criminal justice system. On a fundamental level, he wants to uphold the institutions of Gotham City to be free of corruption in all of its’ forms.

We find out that Mr. Ducard is no fan of granting any leniency to criminals and wants them to be punished without any hesitation or limits. For Ra’s al-Ghul, Henri Ducard, and the rest of the League of Shadows, an organization that helped train Bruce Wayne to become Batman, crime cannot be tolerated and that criminals thrive when societies indulge themselves by not having them pay the ultimate price of death. Even if the criminal is a despicable murderer, Bruce still believes in the rule of law, wants them to be tried in a fair court, and does not desire to become a singular executioner.

Batman wants to save Gotham City in the right way even though he finds it to be an almost insurmountable task given the lack of allies he has. However, he discovers that he has help with the incorruptible Officer James Gordon of the Gotham City Police Department and his friend, Rachel Dawes, a district attorney who won’t be bought off.

Batman comes up against another villain who desires to strike fear into the heart of Gotham’s citizenry: The Scarecrow (played by Cillian Murphy) who uses fear toxin gas to poison people, and make them do horrible things to each other out of their fear of each other. Bruce Wayne must lead a double life, keep his secret safe, weed out corruption, and be able to combat two villains who use fear to prey on the fearful (Scarecrow and Ra’s al-Ghul).

Instead of using fear against the citizens of Gotham, Batman uses his terrifying appearance to strike fear into the hearts of criminals and villains everywhere. While he understands that justice is never ensured for all criminals, he does not want to be a murderer himself who decides the fate of all those enemies he fights and stops.

‘Batman Begins’ is a deep superhero movie that asks some philosophical and psychological questions regarding the nature of true justice, and how far individuals and a collective society should go in order to stop crime. The film also probes the feeling of ‘fear’ and how a person can master their own fear in order to become mentally and physically stronger.

Christopher Nolan asks the question of how do we control our own fear and keep it from controlling us. Batman is a flawed superhero, but he is able to control his fear to become a legend. His symbolism helps Gotham City to rise up against corruption, crime, and to fight injustice. While he is only just a man without any real superpowers, he is able to inspire others to fight the good fight with his moral example.

In a movie where there’s not much hope, the Batman inspires others to believe in themselves and their city again. He is a regular man, driven into action after going through a terrible tragedy. Instead of being broken by what happened to him at a young age, he uses his pain and sorrow to motivate himself so that others don’t suffer the same kind of tragedy in life of losing a loved one. As a superhero and as a film character, Batman sets himself up as an example to follow for the audience even if it is a fictional story.

Making a super hero film is an extremely difficult process, which is why director Christopher Nolan should be given a lot of credit. Mr. Nolan has directed a lot of great films including Inception and Interstellar. Batman Begins is the first of three movies in the Dark Knight film series, and it may be the most underrated of them all. He and his team did a great job of bringing this character back onto the big screen in a big way.

It’s a realistic take on the Batman, and its’ a film franchise that has produced three excellent, unique films. For myself and many other fans, Batman Begins is more than just a simple superhero movie. It is a morality tale about hope overcoming fear, how to overcome adversity to become a stronger person, and how to set an example for others to follow in your footsteps.

Batman has survived in our popular culture for so long because you get the sense that he is a relatable character for many people despite the fiction behind it. Ultimately, he is a man who has his strengths, his weaknesses, yet he is ultimately fallible. Still though, he is a powerful individual that strives to fight for justice, hope, and wants to bring the best out of others. It’s important to remember that you don’t have to become a superhero like Batman to emulate those characteristics. You just have to do the right thing and be a good person.