The Batman director Matt Reeves took inspiration from noir cinema.
Jonathan Olley/DC
The Batman hit theaters on Friday, sending Robert Pattinson on a dark adventure as the Dark Knight detective. The film was directed by Matt Reeves, whose task was to come up with a new take on Batman after many previous films. So he turned to his comic book noir roots and classic films to create a chilling apocalyptic film that feels more like a serial killer than a superhero adventure.
In hunting down the Riddler (Paul Dano), Batman works with Selina Kyle (aka Catwoman, played by Zoë Kravitz) and GCPD Lieutenant James Gordon (Jeffrey Wright) with the support of Bruce Wayne’s favorite butler and mentor Alfred Pennyworth (Andy Serkis). Their journey takes them into the corrupt depths of Gotham, unleashing mafiosi, murder and mayhem from a horror-inspired opening scene to a gripping finale.
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The new film is one of Batman’s finest cinematic feats, but that’s no surprise given the quality of director-writer Reeves’ previous work, including 2008’s Cloverfield and 2010’s Let Me In, as well as his thrilling blockbusters Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and War for the planet of the apes.
I chatted on Zoom with the energetic but thoughtful Reeves (who co-wrote the film with Peter Craig) and we touched on the creepy opening scene of the DC movie, harking back to Batman’s detective roots and introducing us to a gruff and evil hero.
Here is a transcript of our conversation, slightly edited for clarity. We won’t go into spoilers, but reading on may give you an idea of some of the events in the movie. If you want to remain completely unaware of Batman’s journey, return after you’ve seen him.
Reeves, seen at a screening in London, wanted to confuse the audience with the film’s opening scene.
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I was blown away by how intense and engaging Batman was. The opening shot of Gotham City’s mayor’s house set the tone so well; it has an unsettling, voyeuristic quality. What made you start the film like this?
Reeves: I wanted to put you in the place of these characters. Alfred Hitchcock’s storytelling appeals to me a lot, because going to the movies is voyeuristic, right? We all look at the lives of people on the screen. And I thought the idea of putting the audience in their place, or in this case the Riddler’s binoculars, and having him spy from the start, would be an unexpected way to start a Batman movie.
These films usually start with a lot of action – something kinetic and crazy going on. But starting with Ave Maria [a Schubert classic], you get confused. You begin to understand, “Oh, something bad is about to happen.” And so it brings you to this type of thinking.
It sure did, I was deeply unsettled. Were the mayor’s family designed to evoke the Waynes?
Yes, absolutely. It was important to me that when Batman sees the mayor’s son after what happens, he really looks at himself. I wanted to find a way to touch its origin without seeing the origin.
In a way, Bruce and this boy are very much connected at that moment, because few people he met have gone through the same trauma as when he was 10 years old when he saw another child going through this, which is really deep. would have affected him. And hopefully draw in an audience without seeing it all again, without seeing Martha’s pearls and the Waynes murder in Crime Alley.
The film hints at Bruce Wayne’s childhood trauma, but doesn’t show it.
Then another part of that was to show you the moments when things are not as they should be. They seem to be a very warm family, and yet after this murder, you learn that this mayor is not who he claims to be, and that he is involved in some kind of extramarital affair.
Thus, people who are supposedly legitimate are not who they say they are. We saw this family and then revealed the truth that could not be understood from the opening vignette.
I love that it was a proper detective story since it’s a core element of Batman’s character that previous movies haven’t leaned into as much. What made you decide to take that focus?
Exactly because of this reason. I felt that other films mentioned some spy tricks, but that was not the point of the story. I thought it would be really interesting to do something that goes back to noir roots and put the world’s greatest detective in the spotlight.
I thought that this would allow us to create a film that is tonally different from others, something like a psychological thriller, almost a horror film in places, with a cat and mouse game of a serial killer. I felt that this would potentially be very true for many comics, but also something that would be very new for films.
It draws a great deal of inspiration from the comics. I was surprised to see that it seemed like you were going with Scott Snyder’s Zero Year, as well as Jeff Loeb’s The Long Halloween.
Among other things, yes. Year Zero is something I’ve definitely read. I think The Long Halloween probably had more of an impact on the story because it was the one that opened up the idea of making a movie about serial killers. I just walked away from it and thought about what it would be like in the real world; it got me thinking about the Zodiac Killer, leaving the ciphers and puzzles for the police, which got me thinking about the Riddler.
Darwin Cooke’s ego had a big impact because it got into the psychology of the beast inside Batman, this drive for revenge, this instinctive side.
And, of course, The Long Halloween. Jeff Loeb was my screenwriting teacher at USC and he was the one who told me I should be a writer. When I dug deep into [Batman], I understood everything he wrote: Hush, Dark Victory, and The Long Halloween – so many cult classics. Very inspiring.
Also, the tone of the first year, a story by Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli. The way it felt very practical and real, and the way it referred to ’70s gothic film noir like Taxi Driver. There are several notes that Frank Miller wrote to Mazzucchelli that relate to “Taxi Driver” and how, in one particular scene, Bruce Wayne is supposed to look like he just won the Travis Bickle look-alike contest.
The 1976 film Taxi Driver inspired the tone of the iconic Batman: Year One origin story, which in turn influenced Batman’s mood.
That tone made me look at these films as a way to get back to neo-noir, since it all comes from the noir tradition. So there were a lot of different comics that influenced different aspects of the movie.
Gotham’s elite are quite the morally compromised bunch. Would it be accurate to say criminal figures like Carmine Falcone [played by John Turturro] are a rot that set in?
Yes. It’s funny because the Bob Kane/Bill Finger comics of the late 30’s and early 40’s had a noir flavor. And that sensibility brought me back to Warner Bros. gangster films, but they also brought me back to the films that inspired me when I was very young, in the 70s. It was what you would call neo-noir, it was a new definition of noir.
One of them that was really important was [the 1974 detective film] Chinatown. How Los Angeles and Chinatown become the characters in this film, and how their corruption is central to the question of human nature and how corrupt we are. I thought that’s how Gotham should be.
I thought Falcone was somewhat similar to John Huston’s character, Noah Cross, who is a supposedly legitimate authority figure whose presence, as you can imagine, is terrifying in this movie. I wanted Falcone to seem like just a noble mobster, but it turned out that there is a very, very dark story behind him.
Falcone’s introduction is almost understated, when Selena sees him in the club and Bruce sees him through her.
Yes, you see Falcone through Bruce’s eyes, Selina’s eyes. The whole concept of this scene for me was to put Batman in the place of Selena, who will have to endure so much more being a woman in this messed up world and being the object of all those smirking eyes.
And then suddenly seeing Falcone looking at her in a way you don’t understand and start making certain assumptions about her that may or may not be true. This scene was a mysterious, provocative and understated way of introducing John [Turturro] to the film.
Selena and Riddler challenge Bruce’s outlook in different ways. How would you say Bruce’s viewpoint evolves through the course of the movie?
I think it’s evolving rapidly. The concept from the very beginning was: “How can we do this character’s awakening?” I wanted him to be Batman, not an origin story. But I wanted him to be Batman early enough that he had room to improve and change and evolve.
As the Batman of the second year, he is not as aware as he should be about what drives him. The shadow side, his desire for revenge, and this personal animosity and rage, pushes him in such a way that he gets a little out of control.
The way he and the Riddler are two sides of the same coin is very unsettling; they are both after the same thing. And the way they interact with each other, I felt, might upset him.
As the story progresses, he may come to realize that the path of revenge is not necessarily the path to becoming the hero he wants to be. This move from an emblem of revenge to an emblem of, after all, hope was one of the first vanities that shaped the film.
With Selena and even with the Riddler, all three were orphans. But they didn’t have the resources that Bruce had. While Bruce went through a huge trauma when he was 10 years old, he also had insurance against being Wayne. He had many privileges that he didn’t even know he had.
His connection with Selena is also an awakening to this. He makes certain assumptions that since she exists in a corrupted world, she must be corrupted. But this is all because he was protected and has no idea what she needs to survive and he doesn’t have the resources he had to survive in a tough and violent place like Gotham.
Something like Evelyn Mulwray (Faye Dunaway’s character) in Chinatown; [the detective] thinks she’s the killer to start the story, that she’s lying to him somehow, and she must be a classic femme fatale. But when you peel off the layers, you realize that her story is very emotional, very tragic and dark, and that she was not who he thought she was. And he is very attracted to her.
It was like Bruce’s relationship with Selena. In these two ways, Batman’s worldview changes towards the end of this film.
Mayoral candidate Bella Reál [a new character played by Jayme Lawson] seems like a possible solution to Gotham’s problems.
The Riddler wouldn’t think so, but yes. She represents hope.
Bruce doesn’t appear to see that. And is that to do with his sheltered perspective?
Yes, he thinks he’s doing his best. When people say, “You don’t do much,” it’s like, “What are you talking about? I go out and revisit the scene of my parents’ murder every night and I’m trying to put my life on the line.”
He has not yet become sophisticated enough to realize the responsibility, power and influence that can come from the resources he has, which were his birthright. So if he could figure out how to use them, he might be able to help. And Bella, in that sense, is potentially awakening to that side of him. He is just starting all of this, and the fact that she is winning the election represents the possibility of such a future.
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In many ways, he has rejected what it means to be Wayne, and he is involved in a kind of compulsive, almost addictive nature of being Batman, who is really just trying to make sense of his life, which he really can’t do. He needs to face a lot more things and take responsibility if he’s going to grow up and grow into the character we know he’s becoming.
How do you think Alfred looks at it?
Alfred is very concerned about the parenting work he has done. He was never emotionally capable of being a father, he just suddenly found himself in that position. He is a former MI6 officer who knows a lot about espionage and combat, but knows nothing about raising a child.
Now that Bruce is in his second year as Batman, which seems like a very dangerous path, he realizes that somehow his upbringing has allowed this to happen. He worries that Bruce might be consumed by this obsessive journey and feels very guilty.
If you look at some fathers and sons, they may have difficulty connecting directly through emotions. But they can communicate through something like sports. In this case, espionage, crime detection, and the idea of struggle is what they can connect through. In a way, their love for each other is expressed very indirectly. And then when it comes to trying to express his love, he doesn’t know how.
How did Batman and Jim Gordon get so close? It’s an exciting relationship.
First there was a scene where you heard what shaped their relationship but I don’t want to reveal it just yet because we might have a chance to do it. It was also inspired by Year One.
In this story, there is an incident at the beginning when Batman proves his worth and that he deserves Gordon’s trust. And since then, in the first year, they have been fighting side by side against this wave of decay.
And I also wanted that idea to be that, early on, Batman was helpful to Gordon in a very unexpected way and let Gordon know that he was more than just a vigilante. And so I felt like they, like Woodward and Bernstein, were trying to solve this “All the President’s Men”-like mystery – how high the corruption is – and trying to find a serial killer.
More than any other film, they are like partners. It’s like they’re two cops together – just one in a raincoat and hood. And the other is a lone lieutenant from the GCPD who doesn’t really have many allies. So, they are both connected in the fight against corruption, crime in the city, and they are real partners, and they solve this case together. I think it’s really funny to see how much their relationship takes center stage in the film.
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