10 @ a Time - Batman v Superman, Part 18

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice – Part Eighteen: The Postmortem

Welcome to the eighteenth installment of “10 @ a Time: Batman v Superman.” Over the past seventeen weeks, we’ve been on a roller coaster of film criticism, close-reading the film in deep dives of analysis, commentary, and review. That’s more than four months devoted to a film that proved one of the most contentious flashpoints in a particularly divisive 2016, and the fact that we’re still talking about it speaks to the film’s depth. Those of us who loved the film don’t want to let go of it, and those who didn’t like it nevertheless can’t stop talking about it.

Four months is a long time, and with Justice League making its debut this weekend (see how we synced that up?), we should mark the occasion with some sort of postmortem on the “10 @ a Time” project. For those playing the home game, we are and have been looking at the “Ultimate Edition” home video release of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice; the preceding installments in this series can be accessed below:

Part One || Part Two || Part Three || Part Four || Part Five || Part Six || Part Seven || Part Eight || Part Nine || Part Ten || Part Eleven || Part Twelve || Part Thirteen || Part Fourteen || Part Fifteen || Part Sixteen || Part Seventeen

I was watching the theatrical cut of Batman v Superman when I conceived of this project. I realized that, even without the benefit of the Ultimate Edition, there were things in the theatrical cut that were lining up for me, things that made more sense the more I watched the film. The goal of the “10 @ a Time” project, then, became the explication of these connections, the revelation of the clockwork mechanism operating behind the film. Boy howdy, I didn’t think it’d take as much effort as it did, but I’d say the results were well worth it. In recognition of what I take to be the twin remarkable achievements of Batman v Superman and my laborious analysis of the same, I present The Postmortem, in the form of ten takeaways (in no particular order) from my hermetic immersion in the film.

"When people ask you who's your number one bad guy, you say--?" "Superman!"

I. The Ultimate Edition is the definitive and more successful incarnation of Batman v Superman. Put another way, the theatrical cut of the film did it no favors.
The first takeaway is, I grant you, something of a freebie and perhaps goes without saying. In the case of Batman v Superman, the theatrical cut worked well enough in isolation, but the revelation (and I do not use that word injudiciously) of the Ultimate Edition demonstrated for me that many of the blanks I’d filled in from 25+ years of reading comics had been created by edits for the sake of time. A longer film would have preemptively addressed the criticisms, for example, of Lex Luthor’s “unclear” plot against Superman, would have given Clark Kent greater visibility, and would have given the stuffed film ample room to breathe by easing into new scenes or giving significant moments room to land. I don’t think the theatrical cut was in itself bad, but the Ultimate Edition revealed just how good we could have had it.

II. Batman v Superman is a careful film, thoughtfully crafted, and profoundly deeper than a number of otherwise enjoyable films.
I’m aware that any claims to depth or profundity might be met with cries of elitism or smug pseudo-superiority, so let me begin by saying that I don’t believe that BvS’s intelligence makes other films worse off. Upon rewatching Wonder Woman, I considered giving that film the 10@T treatment, but I found I didn’t have sustainable remarks for the film in ten-minute installments. In short, I had said everything I needed to say in my original review. That’s not to suggest that Wonder Woman is any worse off for not fitting this template, but BvS is a film that’s built differently – and in the words of Spencer Tracy, “Hooray for that little difference!” It’s a film with layers of meaning, layers that don’t reveal themselves immediately and benefit from this kind of close analysis. (I know, it’s a tautology: studying the film in this way reveals that the film can be studied in this way.) BvS is positively littered with small moments that add up once you notice them, like the echoes between the funeral sequences or the link between Lois’s hidden bullet and Clark’s hidden ring, the repeated frames of Bruce exiting a doorway. Put another way, where the second viewing of most films is about reliving an experience, a second viewing of BvS is about discovering something new.

III. Batman v Superman is a parable about the fallen nature of humanity and about our need to trust in a higher power to lift us up.
It’s a fair point to look at the opening of BvS and think, “This again?” Is there anyone out there that didn’t know that the murder of Thomas and Martha Wayne spurred the young orphan Bruce to become Batman? (True story, I’ve met one such person. Rest assured I took the opportunity to evangelize.) Then again, the film begins to answer that question when it does not give the origin story montage any treatment beyond the funeral. We don’t see Bruce training, we don’t see him adopting the mantle of the bat – all we see is Bruce Wayne falling down a well. Key is the juxtaposition between Bruce’s voiceover “What falls is fallen” and the visual fact of the bats raising him into the light. Mankind is obstinate in its rejection of redemption, and at that point only a spiritual power can do the work of salvation. In BvS, that spiritual power takes the form of Superman, a celestial being sent by his father to help mankind find its place in the sun.

Apokolips now?

IV. This is not “your” Batman, and that’s okay.
I have said it before, and I will say it again. Batman’s entire character arc in the film revolves around the transition from “How many good men are left?” to “Men are still good.” Consequently, this interpretation of Batman must start from a place that is largely unrecognizable so that we may see just how far he has fallen from his principles. Alfred hangs a lantern on this when he asks the Dark Knight about “new rules” and remarks, “Everything’s changed,” but the film’s detractors didn’t seem to notice that, leading me to believe that we didn’t all watch the same movie. And speaking of major misreadings...

V. “Martha” works.
“Martha” has become a lazy meme reliant upon the premise that the film’s audience isn’t smart enough to realize that the same-name coincidence isn’t even the tip of the metaphorical iceberg. When someone makes a “Martha” joke, my default response is somewhere between “You must be an idiot, then” or “You didn’t see the film, did you?” I broke down eight-plus ways to read the scene – it’s a packed two minutes, but I appreciate that the film respects me enough to assume I can keep up. We didn’t need a long monologue about the power of friendship or the value of human life; Bruce’s stunned stagger speaks volumes.

VI. Batman v Superman relies on visual storytelling.
Film is a visual medium, and Zack Snyder takes full advantage of that. It’s become possible and likely for audience members to hold a distracting mobile device in their hand while watching something, and in the world of television – where dialogue is often didactic and utilitarian – you might get away with that. But Snyder takes advantage of his Watchmen training and uses BvS to explore some of the ways that film can echo comic book panels and their inventive use of imagery. I mentioned earlier all the times Bruce Wayne walks out of a doorframe and the way those particular beats of repetition end up telling a narrative all their own. BvS is also visually symmetrical, almost as though you could fold the film in half to see the points of contact. When we first meet Batman, he’s branding a criminal; the last time we see Batman, he’s retiring the bat-brand. Again, Snyder is a careful, thoughtful filmmaker. The film also takes its Christological/Arthurian allegories into the realm of the visual – the particular circumstances of Supernan’s death echo that of Arthur in Excalibur, a not-accidental invocation of that kingly lore.

VII. Hans Zimmer and Junkie XL craft a bravura score.
For all the flak that Marvel has gotten over its whitebread musical scores, I do think the studio has some great melodies for its characters; it’s just that those melodies aren’t developed or repeated enough in the film for an audience to latch onto them. (No, Marvel’s better strength is in integrating songs into a soundtrack – see the “Awesome Mix” and Thor: Ragnarok’s “Immigrant Song.”) But in BvS, the dynamic duo of Hans Zimmer and Junkie XL create recognizable motifs for each of the main characters, the dominant moods of the film, and the deliberate echoes of moments from Man of Steel. The score and the visuals work dynamically well together, as when Lex Luthor playfully steps in time to his own theme tune or when an electric cello announces the arrival of Wonder Woman. It’s a score you can play over and over again – and believe me, I’ve tried. (I'm doing it now!)

Not pictured: Tina Guo, arguably the third person of the orchestral trinity.

VIII. Gal Gadot is a wonder.
Most of us agree that, despite what you made of the film, the casting was aces all around. (Funny how we can all agree on a lot of positives about BvS but come to wildly different conclusions about the film overall.) It takes a special kind of talent to enter a film about half an hour before it ends and steal the film from under the caped-and-cowled noses of its hypermasculine protagonists, but hey – that’s why she’s Wonder Woman. Gadot has a wonderfully expressive physicality, a remarkable ability to keep up with seasoned performers in rapid-fire dialogue, and a commanding presence that convinces you that this svelte socialite is actually a centuries-old warrior who’s “killed things from other worlds before.” On top of all that, she had to introduce the character to a cinema that might, might, still remember Lynda Carter. Small wonder we all agreed Wonder Woman was a smash success – 75 years we waited for Gadot, and her Diana is a real prince.

IX. Batman v Superman is a great second act for the growing DC Expanded Universe.
BvS is sort of a sequel, sort of not, to Man of Steel. It’s not a traditional sequel in that its spotlight shines on returning characters and new figures alike, but it’s incontrovertibly concerned with developing themes and issues from Man of Steel and mutating them in new ways. Man of Steel showed us ways that Superman might be accepted by a world just becoming aware of his existence, but rather than jump to a Man of Steel 2 where everything is hearts and flowers, BvS gives us the darker side of that coin. If Justice League is the lighter response to BvS most of us are expecting, it won’t be because of audience backlash to the dark tone of BvS. It’ll be because BvS was always already the middle act in a trilogy building on Jor-El’s prophecy: “You will give the people of Earth an ideal to strive towards. They will race behind you, they will stumble, they will fall. But in time, they will join you in the sun, Kal. In time, you will help them accomplish wonders.” In Man of Steel, Superman gave us an ideal; in BvS, mankind stumbled and fell. In Justice League, I expect humanity will join Superman in the sun and accomplish wonders.

X. Batman v Superman is critic-proof.
We’ve already dispensed with the “Not my Batman” argument (see IV above), and I think few would say the film mishandled Wonder Woman. Any time I hear “Not my Superman,” though,” again I think, “Didn’t you watch the movie?” The whole film is about the burden of expectation placed on Superman, whose chief superpower seems to be the ability not to crumble under said burden. Again, every time someone says Superman should be different, the film has a moment where a character says that and is clearly wrong. In a delightfully metafictional way, the film is about its own critical reception and about its insistence on telling the story Zack Snyder wants to tell, because – like his Man of Steel – “he’s just a guy” who wants to do good in the world. He wants to tell this audacious long-form story about why (after more than eighty years) we still tell superhero stories. Is it ponderous? You bet. But being intensively thoughtful isn’t a bad thing at all.

Takeaway XI: This film is beautifully shot. Every frame is worth mounting on a wall.

In that sense, maybe I do the film a disservice by (over)analyzing it for seventeen weeks. Maybe I should, as Superman does, not stoop to dignify the criticisms by responding to them. But I’m reminded of the words of Superman’s other space father, Marlon Brando: “They can be a great people, Kal-El; they wish to be. They only lack the light to show the way.” I hope that this methodical tread through the film sheds a little light on Batman v Superman. Whether you came into the series already loving BvS, whether you were its most ardent detractor, or whether you’d never known the difference between Batman and Superman until only just now, I’m sure that you’ve found something new to appreciate in Batman v Superman. This is not a film made carelessly, and I hope my analysis has done justice to what might, now that I’m thinking about it, actually have been my favorite film of 2016 all along. (Apologies to La La Land, but I’ve only seen you twice, whereas I’ve lost count on BvS.)

Postscript – the dirt on the coffin has only just begun to levitate. I’m thinking about the future of “10 @ a Time,” and just about the only thing I’ve concluded is that it will have one. Which film deserves this treatment? Which film can stand up to it? Share your thoughts and you might just find me locked in a room with the film of your choice.