For our first run of “10 @ a Time,” we’re throwing back all the way to March 2016. The country was facing a divisive election and a divided populace, I had just submitted a full draft of my dissertation on (what else?) comic book superheroes, and Arrow was still terrible. Then came the movie we’ll be studying for the next four months – Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.
I’ve reviewed the film twice, once upon its theatrical premiere and again on the occasion of its “Ultimate Edition” director’s cut release. It became the first film of 2016 to make it onto the Personal Canon, and I’ve seen it at least a half dozen times in the last six months. Each time I watch it, I’m compelled to review it anew – in short, I have so much more to say about these movies that one or two reviews can’t hope to contain it all. And so, “10 @ a Time” was born.
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice – Part One: Diamond Absolutes
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| "My parents taught me a different lesson, dying in the gutter for no reason at all..." |
[For those playing the home game, we’re looking at the “Ultimate Edition” home video release; for today’s 10@T installment, we’re looking from 0:00:00 to 0:10:07.]
“There was a time above... a time before. There were perfect things... diamond absolutes. But things fall... things on earth. And what falls... is fallen.”
Before we get into the analysis portion of today’s ten minutes, can we begin by agreeing that this is a pretty perfect beginning? As opening ten minutes go, I’ll put this against any other opening scene from 2016. It’s eminently rewatchable, introduces a number of important aspects of the film to come, and sets a compelling tone. And whether you like the tone of BvS or not, it’s undeniable that director Zack Snyder goes for broke in an uncompromising way. BvS is a divisive film for good reason; it commits to itself and doesn’t waffle, and either you’re on board for that or you’re not.
I’ve said several times on this site that I for one adore the operatic and unbending attitude of the film, but I think the tone distanced enough viewers who subsequently didn’t give the film its due. That is, if you’re looking for a superhero movie with the fun of Iron Man, you won’t find it here. This is a film that takes itself deadly seriously and uses its iconic characters in service of a grand parable about gods and men, about how we relate to our own humanity, and how distinctly nonhuman superheroes can illuminate something about us mortals.
To begin to do this, Snyder goes back to 1939 for one more retelling of the murder of Thomas and Martha Wayne. This is a little like DC’s version of the shooting of Uncle Ben in all the Spider-Man films in that maybe we’re all a little bored of seeing it over and over again, but where The Amazing Spider-Man contorted itself into showing Uncle Ben’s death in a way that ended up feeling only perfunctory and obligatory, each retelling of the Wayne murders serves a different purpose. Burton’s 1989 version was a hallucinatory nightmare, while the Schumacher films raised it as a traumatic memory which Bruce couldn’t help but relive every so often, continuing to drive him on. In Batman Begins, to further his realist vision of Batman, Christopher Nolan staged it as an abrupt and random act of violence. And here, Snyder treats the murder as a prologue for the story he’s about to tell, one which reveals the core message of the film. The death of the Waynes is both tragic and inevitable; the somber piano notes and slow-motion footage present the Waynes as blissfully ignorant of their impending fate. When mankind is left to its own devices, men murder each other (“We fight. We kill. We betray one another,” Bruce will intone gravely at the film’s end) and leave the survivors among the bodies, careless of the difference.
You can see, then, why Bruce Wayne reacts so cruelly to Superman’s arrival, but I’m getting ahead of myself. As the solo male choral voice lingers over the scene (something Hans Zimmer borrowed from himself from Batman Begins) we cut to the funeral of the Waynes – note the mirror structure, as the film ends with a funeral – and we are reminded of the film’s opening incantation as the young Bruce Wayne falls into the once and future Batcave. “What falls is fallen,” but the fallen can rise, as young Bruce does, lifted by a greater power.
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| "Why do we fall, Master Wayne?" |
“In the dream, they took me to the light,” and if you get nothing else out of this series, it’s that Zack Snyder is deeply pessimistic about mankind’s capacity to save itself. The Joe Chills and Lex Luthors of the world are what we get when we look to ourselves for inspiration. Instead, we must be lifted; we must look to the skies. Batman’s arc in this film, then, is to relearn the lesson taught by this experience.
We then cut to the end of Man of Steel, and it’s bloody inspired to show those events from the perspective of a mere mortal on the ground. There is the assumption that we know what the Battle of Metropolis was, which might violate the first rule of films needing to stand on their own merits. But at the same time, isn’t that dissonance the point of the scene? New viewers, like Bruce, won’t know what the hell is going on, and they too might then be afraid of what Superman could do because – for all they and Bruce know – Superman might have been fully responsible for the devastation and loss of life that ensues. Man of Steel caught a fair amount of flak for depicting a Superman who’s surrounded by casual violence and who kills his enemy, but I have to think this was always the plan: Superman appearing more dangerous than we’d like has always been the point. Audiences want Superman to be so many things, and I appreciate that Snyder shows a Superman buckling under the weight of those expectations. Remember, he’s not been at this game long.
Again, Hans Zimmer’s score nails it in this scene, and it’s an interesting choice to have an action sequence in which the action happens around the protagonist rather than involving him directly. But the score, almost like that of a silent film, does the emotionally heavy lifting and puts us right next to Bruce Wayne in what becomes an impromptu Batmobile. There’s not much more to say here; it’s an exceptionally thrilling action sequence that helps us understand Bruce’s mindset – scared, confused, and angry. Once again his world has fallen – first his parents, then himself, now his corporate buildings, eerily invoked by the decaying Wayne Manor we’ll see later in the film – yet he remains trapped in the mindset of “What falls is fallen.” The dark knight of vengeance has lost the optimism of his vow to eradicate the evil that took the lives of his parents. The Knight, too, has fallen.
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| "Jesus, Alfred, count the dead. Thousands of people. What's next?" |
Next time, we’ll check in with our second protagonist and see what happens when Superman crosses international borders.
Observations and Annotations
- The phrase “diamond absolutes” seems to be drawn from Seamus Heaney’s poem “Exposure.” I never had much of a head for poetry, but my reading of the poem suggests the image of a fallen hero trudging through the ruins of his life, wondering what became of all the ideals he held. If I’m right in my explication, I hardly need to spell out the connection Snyder’s drawing.
- In most versions of the death of the Waynes, they’ve just
been to see The Mark of Zorro,
starring Tyrone Power as the masked vigilante. (Other versions of the origin
have it as the 1920 silent version, starring Douglas Fairbanks.) It’s often
been implied that Bruce’s bend toward vigilantism was inspired by Zorro. In Batman v Superman, though, it’s Excalibur, the 1981 King Arthur film
starring Nigel Terry and Nicol Williamson. While this chronologically makes
sense if 2016 is “present day,” the comics have often treated Mark of Zorro as being in a revival
theater, a favorite of Thomas Wayne’s that he wishes to share with his son.
Snyder’s choice to veer from established canon hints at the more mythical bent
he intends to take with Batman and Superman, treating them like the stuff of
Arthurian legend, with more than a few similarities in iconography (Lois and
the Kryptonian spear, for one, suggest the Lady in the Lake presenting, then
reclaiming, Arthur’s sword Excalibur).
- Is the close-up on Martha Wayne’s eye a reference to Psycho, which presents its murder victim
similarly?
- The falling pearls in the gutter are a classic motif in
Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns,
which also finds an aging Batman fighting Superman. But more recently, Batman’s
son Damian Wayne undertook an expedition into the sewers in order to retrieve a
fallen pearl for his father. This unbelievably tender moment aligns with the
film’s rejection of fallen-ness – what falls is not fallen forever; it can be
saved.
- Another reference to The
Dark Knight Returns seems to be the stray horse amid the carnage of
Metropolis. In DKR, Batman tames a
horse to ride into the city, rally the street gangs under his control, and
retake the night.
- Hans Zimmer scores Bruce’s experience of the Battle of Metropolis with Zod’s theme (heard on Man of Steel as “I Will Find Him,” on BvS’s soundtrack album as “Their War Here”). That’ll be very important once Batman fights Superman, and the cue gets repurposed. More on that in a few weeks.
- Contrary to what some might have (mis)heard, that’s not
Bruce’s dad in the Wayne building in Metropolis, though amid the din of battle
“Jack!” sounds a lot like “Dad!” Not sure why no one caught this in
post-production.
- Finally, Bruce saves a young girl from falling debris. How did that kid not grow up to be a Robin?
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