Welcome to the fifth installment of “10 @ a Time: Batman v Superman.” Last week we talked about the way the film portrayed its interpretation of Lex Luthor, and we’re going to continue that conversation this week.
[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 0:40:45 to 0:53:05.]
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| Inverted by request of the owner. |
Last time I mentioned somewhat obliquely Lex Luthor’s “daddy issues,” and I think we should begin there. (We’ll learn later in the film that this backstory involves abuse.) It should come as no surprise that the superhero genre has by and large been obsessed with issues of fatherhood and paternity, so it’s interesting that Lex too labors under this condition. In the comics, Lionel Luthor has been depicted as alternately embarrassed by his criminal genius son or himself criminally negligent and/or abusive. Here, Alexander Luthor, Sr., is implied to be something of the latter, and although Lex dismisses the idea that his father might one day come back from the dead when he sees how well his son has preserved his legacy, I can’t help but wonder whether this Lex actually wants that.
What Lex scorns as “the magical thinking of orphan boys” dominates much of the film. Clark Kent is an orphan twice over, having lost two fathers who held very different ideas of what their son should be; Bruce Wayne, of course, bears innumerable painful scars from the death of his parents. (Interestingly, the third point in the Trinity has no father – Wonder Woman was brought to life by Zeus, who otherwise had no conventional role in her conception, formed as she was by her mother out of the clay of Themyscira.) Each of the men in this movie is looking to live up to the shadow of his father, to prove something to his father’s ghost.
We might say that the difference, though, between Lex and the heroes is that our protagonists have found surrogate fathers; Clark bristles under the stern guidance of Perry White, who guides him writing for the sports and society pages, while Bruce has his fascinating relationship with Alfred. But as we’ve seen and will see, these foster fathers do not replace the literal ghosts of the dead parents. Clark will lament to Lois the way he labors under the shadow of his father, later visiting his spectral apparition in a transfiguratively religious moment. Bruce, meanwhile, is haunted by the decaying ruins of Wayne Manor, which he no longer inhabits (one more way this is overtly not the Batman we have come to expect), and by the memories of that night in Crime Alley, which return like Freudian nightmares.
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| "I made a vow on the graves of my parents that I would rid the city of the evil that took their lives." |
Batman v Superman is positively littered with dream sequences – well, nightmare sequences, really, or perhaps even visions of the future – and although I absolutely love these sequences for the insights they give into Bruce Wayne’s psyche, I almost wonder if they’d have been better served as “Ultimate Edition” content, excised from the theatrical release in order to give the story proper sufficient room to breathe (I feel similarly about the “Wonder Woman checks her email” sequence, which we’ll discuss down the road). But here’s our first one, which is rife with symbolism that Bruce Wayne fundamentally misunderstands. On a narrative level, it’s Bruce Wayne lumbering into his family crypt, passing a stained glass window of Superman; upon laying his flowers at the bleeding grave of his mother, Bruce is attacked by a bat-creature that erupts from the tomb. We understand by his waking moments that Bruce is terrified by this dream, jolted back to life after what looks like a one-night-stand. (Again, #NotMyBatman, but it’s not supposed to be.) Bruce, like Luthor, misreads the signs, and his redemption at the film’s end is an epistemological one – the precise interpretation of evidence, girded by belief, transformed into knowledge.
What this dream ought to tell Bruce is that he’s headed down a path toward death, mired in decay, walled off by ruin. Superman could be his savior, an angel, though Bruce believes (like Lex) that Superman is far from an angel; devils, Lex tells Senator Finch, “come from the sky,” and for now Bruce believes it. The bat-creature, then, represents at once the fear of bats that inspired the mantle of Batman, but it’s also a sign that Bruce’s alternate identity is consuming him, turning him into something monstrous. “How many good guys are left?” Bruce will ask Alfred. “How many stayed that way?” If only Bruce could see that he’s headed down that path, too, becoming something monstrous in pursuit of what he thinks is justice.
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| Not pictured: Harley Quinn, accomplice. |
We have the decaying vacant Wayne Manor, but there are two more quick moments that deserve mention, if only because of how large they loomed over the marketing for this film. What’s striking about these moments is how elegantly they’re composed to carry all the weight of a finely crafted comic book panel. I’ve long believed that Zack Snyder is the definitive comic book film director because he treats each shot like an image from a comic book; you can freeze-frame any scene and find something of remarkable depth, something that connects to something else in the film. First, there’s the shot of Bruce Wayne staring down the empty Bat-suit, which we can read both in the vein of Bruce being haunted by the costume and by his longing to wear it, almost like Linus’s security blanket, to Lex’s charity ball. Then we’ve got the vacant Robin costume, emblazoned with taunting graffiti courtesy of The Joker: “HaHaHa JoKe’S on YoU BATMAN” It’s a nod, of course, to the iconic presence of Jason Todd’s costume, preserved in the Batcave after the second Robin was murdered by The Joker in the 1988-1989 comic storyline “A Death in the Family.” It’s also a symbol of the DC film universe’s depth, darkness, and rich storytelling history which we join, like all the best myths, in medias res. Finally, it’s a link to Suicide Squad, in which we learn that – unlike the comics, where she didn’t yet exist – Harley Quinn was an accessory to this murder. Whether Snyder has this all mapped out or whether he’s merely opening paths for future films, I’m very much looking forward to how the tapestry will look when all’s said and done. And unlike the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which functions very much in a straight line, the DC film universe appears recursive in its structure, returning and beginning again, alluding forwards and backwards like the noblest of comic book continuity. Wonder Woman will take us back to WWI, then Justice League will pull together ancient history to tell a story about the birth of the Justice League after Superman’s death. It’s storytelling that demands patience, and it makes for a meditative moviegoing experience that tickles this cinephile’s cerebrum.
We see in these twelve or so minutes, then, that Bruce and Lex are ideologically closer than anyone might find comfortable, perhaps less of a surprise when we consider that Lex is pulling Bruce’s strings in order to manipulate him toward fighting and possibly killing Superman. And as this excerpt of the film winds down, we can almost hear the conductor tapping his baton as the overture concludes and all the major players are brought together under Lex Luthor’s roof. Clark’s covering the charity ball Bruce attends, which Lex hosts, and Diana Prince – the Wonder Woman herself – makes her onscreen debut. I have to admit, I got a little chill up my spine when I heard Tina Guo’s electric cello as Diana watches Bruce; something about that riff captures perfectly the mystery of Wonder Woman, and it gels wonderfully with her action theme “Is She With You?” The party cues up the next two hours with the intrusion of Wonder Woman into the plot, the first meeting of Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne, and Lex Luthor’s inability not to gloat when he feels like the smartest man in the room.
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| "I am the man who can." |
I’ll close out this post by taking one last look at Lex Luthor, as a way of saying I’m not quite sure why people don’t like this take on Lex Luthor. He’s Zuckerberg-esque, yes, but he’s not a cheap Riddler knockoff like a lot of people lamented. He’s as smart and manipulative as The Riddler, that’s true, and he shares Riddler’s pathological need to prove his own intelligence. But this Lex is also wrapped up in a quagmire of self-loathing and daddy issues, which he feels both tethered to and embarrassed by. His speech at the charity ball is proof positive of this. He begins by satirizing his own verbosity – “speech speech blah blah blah” – before launching into an extended and self-congratulatory etymology lesson in which he likens himself to the Greek hero Prometheus as an unapologetic lover of humanity, a philanthropist in the strictest sense of the word. But then his disdain for anyone less intelligent than him shines through: “Books are knowledge, and knowledge is power. And I am... what am I?” Lex becomes so consumed by what is actually his hatred of mankind that he can’t focus on his speech, subsequently frustrated by his inability to articulate his thoughts, embarrassed at being the center of attention in a moment of vulnerability.
In order to restore his sense of self-worth, he gets a winking moment where he gleefully remarks about bringing Clark and Bruce together, all the more sinister when we know that he knows that they’re both the titular heroes of the film. “You should not pick a fight with this person,” he warns of Clark Kent, all the while knowing he’s orchestrating exactly that.
Next time, Superman saves everyone, even though no one likes to admit it.
Observations and Annotations
- Lex is perennially unable to finish his sentence about “the
oldest lie in America.” As we’ll see later in the film, the answer (spoilers)
is “that power can be innocent.” This from the guy who spends the whole film
jockeying for power!
- In this section of the film, Alfred makes two references to
Bruce Wayne settling down and starting a family, sardonically dismissing the
ideas of a woman making Bruce honest and of there being a next generation of
Waynes. If Bruce is this far in his crimefighting career, it’s entirely
possible that his son – Damian Wayne, the son of Talia al Ghul – might already
be out there, unbeknownst to his father.
- There’s so much I love about Ben Affleck’s portrayal of
Bruce Wayne. He’s pitch-perfect at the playboy routine (“Wow, pretty girl, bad
habit. Don’t quote me.”), but I also love the small moments of tenderness he
displays, like when he makes coffee for Alfred.
- While Lex is rambling on about Greek mythology, there’s a
quick cut of Diana Prince rolling her eyes. As a warrior princess brought to
life by Zeus, she’s probably met these guys. “I knew Prometheus. Prometheus was
a friend of mine. And you, sir, are no Prometheus.”
- Clark hears Alfred talking to Bruce at the party – is this
how he figures out that Bruce Wayne is Batman? It’s a question I’ve always had
about this movie, and this is the best answer I can devise.
- “Maybe it’s the Gotham City in me, but I just have a bad history with freaks dressed like clowns” is a dynamite piece of dialogue.
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