Gritty and Gothic: The magic of Michael Keaton and Tim Burton’s Batman and Batman Returns
David Farnor | On 12, Mar 2022
“You wanna get nuts? Come on, let’s get nuts!” It’s hardly the most memorable line of dialogue from Batman’s big screen history, but those words – uttered by Michael Keaton in Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman – mark the moment when Keaton became perhaps the best Batactor of them all. Over the Caped Crusader ‘s many screen incarnations, he has always been a dark and brooding sort, but Keaton’s unique take on the Dark Knight manages the rare feat of being both an excellent Batman and a brilliant Bruce Wayne.
Christian Bale’s stint in the Batsuit saw him play vengeful and angry young man to a bitter tee, but Nolan’s trilogy was driven by the struggle of Bruce Wayne to push himself to become Batman – complete with over-the-top angry voice. Val Kilmer was good as a more experienced Bruce who had learnt that revenge should never be the end goal, but didn’t get a chance to do much Batmanning amid the shallow, garish spectacle. George Clooney was a natural casting decision to play a suave playboy but failed to convince as Batman at all, not even altering his voice for his Caped Crusading. But Michael Keaton’s interpretation was a rare opposite to all those: he played Batman rather than Bruce.
Keaton was a cool and calm Dark Knight (despite the neck-restricting rubber headwear) and a more awkward, eccentric Bruce – he portrayed the reclusive billionaire as not sure of himself, with Wayne the real mask for a man more comfortable when sporting pointy ears, confidently juggling fight moves and gadgets and convincingly intimidating goons when they cross paths. “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever been in this room before,” Bruce quips to journalist Vicki Vale (Kim Basinger) when showing her round Wayne Manor – a line that Keaton improvised with the blend of humility and dry wit that he alone brought to the role.
What’s special about Tim Burton’s Batman and Batman Returns is that both Keaton and the director are on the same Bat-page, which allows this gloomy figure to ground the Gothic world built around him. And it really was built: Burton took over 90 acres of Pinewood, across 18 sound stages, to realise his believable, sprawling metropolis full of Art Deco architecture and twisted flourishes. This definitive vision of Gotham has influenced every other depiction of the comic book city since, not to mention a whole heap of other sci-fi cityscapes. It’s a heightened backdrop against which grotesques such as Jack Nicholson’s Joker and Danny DeVito’s Penguin can exist, and Keaton’s offbeat presence allows Burton to stretch our imaginations without breaking them. Even Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman, when she appears in Batman Returns, is a believable middle of a woman, not emerging with a fully formed villainous plan but trying to work out who she is and what she wants – a journey that we sense Bruce has already gone through without needing to overly dwell on his origins story.
The gritty and stylised aesthetic runs through both of Keaton’s outings, with Nicholson’s Joker a gangster gone off the rails and DeVito’s Penguin oddly sympathetic but also matched by Christopher Walken’s even more dangerous Max Shreck – a reminder that crime is rooted in corruption of public officials as much as outlandish super-powered individuals. But in this universe of practical elements – soundtracked by Danny Elfman’s iconic, melancholic theme – if people wanna get nuts, the beauty is that we and Keaton know that there’s someone ready to go nuts right alongside them.
