The Hero We Deserve

 "Sometimes, there's a man, well, he's the man for his time and place." 

- The Stranger, Big Lebowski

We've just collectively witnessed the greatest comic book movie franchise of our time. It's not conjecture, it's fact. Whether you want to do a frame by frame comparison of the technical/aesthetic/cinematic merits of this trilogy versus every other superhero film ever made, or if you prefer the box office numbers' reductive quality, it's not even close. Also, no other series has done more for the comic book movies as "real" "cinema"  (...and labored quote fingers there) conversation than any other franchise. There are so many measurables to point to and say, these are the reasons Batman is the best, but Nolan's brilliance or financial returns or what critics think seems to small. This iteration of Batman is the visceral form of some postmodern distress we've projected into our hero worship.  

Since 1989--when Tim Burton's Batman hit so big it knocked the planet of its axis--a slow poison of darkness and humanity has crept into comic book films. We want our heroes to have our shitty problems. We want them to be sort of awful like us. We want our heroes to struggle with doing, and sometimes knowing the right thing. Superman isn't commercially viable because the franchise is missing some mythic ideal star or director. There just seems to be little this generation has to identify with an indestructible, alien being. And yeah, no...Bryan Singer's version super sucked.  

This golden age of comic book films has been all about the humanized hero. Iron Man--a dark horse comic book character, especially for the John Q. Public these films are intended--emerged as a huge favorite. Does Robert Downey Jr. playing himself give Iron Man an unfair advantage? Well, considering you can use every Robert Downey Jr. film as an analog for his life at that exact moment, I'm going to say no. Tony Stark is kind of a drunk dick. He's really selfish. He's meltdown prone. But when the clutches of circumstance close in around him, he rises to the occasion. He's a human being just like you and me. Captain America and Spider-Man were humans with super powers heaped upon them. Magneto and Professor Xavier battle to reconcile where human and mutant pieces fit in society and themselves. The modern hero must know how to suffer like we do, and Batman has emerged as our ideal.

So this article was originally going to be about Michael Uslan, a man without whom--no foolin'--Batman on film would not exist as we know it. Uslan bought the rights for Batman in 1979 and his goal from the beginning was to make a serious Batman film. He has been an executive producer on every Batman film since. I ended up not writing anything because this interview pretty much says it all, but as I read the following passage, a hope of 1000+ words of baseless speculation sprung anew: 

"[Nolan's] vision was to come at it with a complete sense of reality, in which audiences would completely believe Bruce Wayne was a real person, highly traumatized, on a lost horizon journey...Chris needed to convey that this is our real world today, which is grey – it’s not so much good vs. evil today as it is order vs. chaos." 

Are we beyond good and evil, Superman? It's an oversimplification, but the Man of Steel is a useful character from our mythology to represent this shift in perception. Superman is inherently right. He's right because he was raised by good people from Smallville, Kansas, USA. Superman models a complete kind of good and the evil in his world is the proportional reaction. Evil has a name and a face and a reason. Evil has a uniform and a border and way in which it can be unequivocally beaten. Superman is the kind of pervasive correctness designed to defeat such neatly defined badness. Superman has no limits or burdens and as such he is an omnipresent cloak around the innocent. No matter the severity of the situation, Superman can uncover some new found ability, save the day, and set all things in the world back to their natural state of good. It is an idealistic kind of hero to ascribe to as the definition of ourselves, and a hero perhaps better suited for a generation irreproachable enough to be considered the "greatest".

Batman knows the pain of having to stand by helpless. Batman is locked in endless struggle with dangerous and complex enemies, perhaps the most compelling one within himself. He's battled those who claim to be the righteous hero sent to cleanse the world, and others who have no agenda at all except to spread disorder like plague. The Dark Knight is often perceived as the enemy of the people he's out to protect. Gotham City is bloated with corrupt power brokers who use public office and the justice system like marionettes. Batman is an extension of his world, an imperfect place where hero, villain, good, and evil all know some fragment of the other.

The tragedies of today's world are in plain view. Senseless inhumanity from every corner of the globe churns through the endless information stream. Our heroes seem designed to fail, fated to derail in some self made scandal. The sowers of discord have no bottom, no basement where their evil ceases to uncover new and more despicable kinds of horror. Good intentions are dissected down to ambiguities, and bad deeds resonate with asphyxiating fervor. As this version of the world can seem so inescapable, Batman emerges as the outgrowth of a sick society.

When our cynical vision of hope is a masked vigilante forced into the shadows, driven to dangerous extremes, it is a vote of no confidence. Our faith in our leaders and our system so profoundly eroded, we accept a figure who has to operate outside societies values in order to save them. Batman seems like an idol built to commemorate our failure, but this is not our man and this is not our time. Batman is a rejection of our failure, a manic howl of resounding optimism. The man in the cape and cowl embodies what is and always will be our cinder of hope: It only takes one human being. This is not a generation in need of a superhuman savior, but one person still bound to the belief we can do good. Batman is the manifestation of uncountable acts of decency and kindness performed in unheralded silence one anonymous human at a time--the secret order of the invisible good lurking in the shadows. A champion of a world not made to be saved, but worth the fight. The cathartic titan of a flawed people, born into a flawed world, who can stare into the torrent of irrational evil and still dare to make something good in its place.

Prometheus, Moonrise Kingdom, and The Auteur

Prometheus has tons of problems. I don't think I know how to write a movie review, but "...laid the foundation for a mansion, and built a hobo's lean-to on top!" would be my quotable flashed in the 30 second teaser trailer. The film has a wonderful tone and instills a certain feeling, but the basic functionality of the story is, well...I have a feeling there is an abandoned writer's room in LA with overturned chairs and a white board wiped clean of everything save the phrase "We are still in control!" My favorite undercurrent in the Prometheus phenomenon is the manufactured sense of confusion. Ridley Scott pretty much spells it out, but in case the blunt force of the story isn't enough, he truncheons you with line "Sometimes in order to create, one must destroy."

The more pressing questions? Does the line "Are you a robot?" have the kind of hit ratio with the ladies this movie implies? Why didn't they just use a real old man instead of Guy Pearce? How can Jackass afford better old man makeup than Ridley Scott? Why do people keep taking their helmets off? Has any android survived an entire Alien film in one piece? Did this movie vacuum all of the joy out of the other Alien movies, or just most of it? Does it really take three dudes to pilot a spaceship? And most important of all, why did Moonrise Kingdom leave me so cold? 

At its crummy, alien engineered heart, Prometheus is a story about the relationship between creator and creation. The "Engineers" make us, we aren't quite up to snuff--or maybe we're too awesome (hard to believe), so they decided to violently eradicate us. I mean, you hate that, but I admire the Engineers for a willingness to do the hardest thing a creator can do for its creation, viciously attack. Challenge themselves to make it better. Step outside their expectations. Approach their creation in an unorthodox way. And after his most well received film in years, it's time for Wes Anderson to launch the xenomorphs into his shoebox diorama world.

Currently there are few creators as closely identified with their creation as Wes Anderson. Oh! The kerfuffle and ruminations on the auteur when it's time for a new Anderson joint. But this is what struck me this go round: in regard to Prometheus, the conversation is about the movie. With Moonrise Kingdom, the conversation always goes back to Wes Anderson.

Wes Anderson has become more of an adjective than a person. What were once stylish touches have become an iron clad grasp on his Bill Murray rich environs. It's like the North Korea of vintage prep and obscure vinyl where people starve for emotional attachment instead of food. Wes Anderson-ness is a quantifiable trait to where it could have a scientific unit of measurement. (The cross-section of the boat in Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou is at least 225 Andersons.) Did you see the Wes Anderson Bingo card generator Slate put together? Oof.

This laundry list of artistic preferences is a given, but these things make a Wes Anderson parody trailer, not a Wes Anderson film. Wes Anderson makes good movies. He has a sly wit and a keen sense of the little peculiarities that make life strange and beautiful. His films embrace bittersweet ambiguity. And I'll be damned if his slo-mo shots don't make a twinge in me every time (and by every time, I mean--literally, he uses it every time).

Wes Anderson is an auteur. It's no condemnation, it's part of what distinguishes a great filmmaker. I think Anderson gets it harder than anyone else because it begins to feel like the auteur comes before the art. His slavish devotion to canon allows ritual to seep into artistic intent. Everything is so positioned and blocked and love worn, Anderson's films take on a detached quality. The singularity of voice, theme, and aesthetic have fused into a barrier behind which elements like story and character wilt.  

Other auteurs do more to push the walls of their repertoire, and know when to leave fingerprints instead of ligature marks. Tarantino may have a certain milieu, but his exploitation film astral plain is littered with tonal shifts and creative dark matter. Speaking of, can you imagine when Tarantino does his b-movie sci-fi epic? I'd wager it's his first flop, but still...holy crackers. In space, no one can hear you chew scenery. Even Woody Allen has made films that are specifically not Woody Allen films. Match Point, a prime example, is the film I believe set the table for his current glory run. The Coen Brothers have even found ways to step outside their voice and make films still uniquely Coen. No Country for Old Men was finally just un-Coeny enough to win Oscars. PT Anderson may be the most sterling, recent example. He abandoned his signature LA born melodramas and built a quiet, vicious character piece in its place. Through this self imposed creative adversity, PT Anderson came out of the forge with the exceptional There Will be Blood--a film this dick with a blog thinks will echo in the annals of essential American cinema.

I wanted to like Moonrise Kingdom, I wanted to like it so hard. I went to my favorite theater, filled my belly with beers, felt my heart begin to open like the delicate fingers of a morning glory, and then the third act shattered to pieces. It was rushed, and a few critical moments were uncharacteristically ugly. The conflict resolution didn't stick to my bones, and all I could think about as I left the theatre was Wes Anderson. Kara Hayward and Jared Gilman are sublime as Sam and Suzy. New Penzance percolates with whimsy. The score captures the quirk and wonder of Anderson's fairy tale universe. And all the other same laudatory quotes heaped on Anderson for the last sixteen years. His films have become interchangeable, and as he is a rare kind of cinematic genius, that seems worse than making a bad film.

I'm not calling for an end to Andersonianism, or implying he's obligated to create in any voice but his own, but I love when an artist takes an irrational risk. Anderson has built a mountain of creative capital, and he is in a unique position to splurge it on anything he dares to dream. Sometimes it works, other times it doesn't, but the outcome is irrelevant unless an artist chooses to carry the weight of this ambitious task. To revisit David the Android's maxim, "In order to create, one must destroy," perhaps 'destroy' is the wrong way to look at it. I've heard a number of theories as to why the Engineers would undo such an impressive, if flawed creation. One notion in particular landed with some resonance, and it is something I hope a creator as skilled as Anderson would consider: this wasn't an attempt to destroy the creation, but to provoke its next step in evolution.