Batman Begins

Written by: Bob Kane and David S. Goyer

Directed by: Christopher Nolan

An Origins Story

“Batman Begins” begins with an interesting vignette. Bruce Wayne as a child falls into a cave deep below his parents mansion and has his first encounter with bats. The depiction of these events serve two purposes. First of all, they introduce the main theme of the movie – fear and the effect it can have on people. But perhaps even more importantly, although they occur many years before the main action of the movie, they set in motion the whole train of events which lead to Bruce Wayne becoming Batman. For that is what “Batman Begins” is – an origin movie; indeed it is an origin movie in the most complete sense of that word. We not only see how Batman came into existence, we see why he did so. And in doing so we get to understand the complex psychology of the character and how it led to him becoming the sort of crime fighter he was. Plot and character and theme mesh seamlessly to create an immensely satisfying and coherent picture of the Dark Knight. 

The crucial moment in Batman’s development is, of course, the death of his parents. This could so easily have been a cheap and self-indulgent part of the movie. But instead of playing this aspect of the story for largely sentimental value, the writers invest it with real meaning and as a result create something which is fit to serve as the centerpiece of their tale. They do so by allowing us to see who Thomas and Martha Wayne really were and the nature of Bruce’s relationship with them. Through this we can see and understand what their deaths really meant to Bruce; how those deaths affected him. But also it allows the writers to develop the central themes of the movie by reference especially to Thomas’ values. These values serve throughout the movie as a sort of counterpoint by which to judge developments; most importantly his own son’s journey of discovery or perhaps rediscovery of those values.

Which brings me back to the introductory vignette I mentioned earlier. The fall into the cave and the frightening encounter with bats are traumatic. And indeed, throughout the movie, the bat becomes the symbol for fear. This is perhaps most strikingly illustrated by the sequence over the opening credits when we see a menacing swarm of bats which briefly form into the batman symbol. But we then become acutely aware of the contrast between this trauma and the presence of Bruce’s father. Thomas Wayne not only rescues his son but does so in such a calm fashion – declining even to take him to hospital – that we instinctively feel here is someone whose actions are dictated by compassion and love but never by fear. And this is reinforced when later he reassures Bruce that the bats were more scared of him than he was of them. 

                Thomas: “All creatures know fear.” 

                Bruce: “Even the scary ones?”

                Thomas: “Especially the scary ones”

This type of understanding can really only come from someone who was not himself a prey to fear. It can only come from someone who has an instinctive sympathy for all creatures. And this is certainly true of Thomas Wayne.

Nothing to Fear Except....

Everything we see about him points in the same direction. Being one of the most prominent citizens in Gotham, Bruce’s father was trying to change the city into a better place, as well as serving its citizens as a doctor. And when, on the fatal night, Thomas and Martha leave the theatre early it is because Bruce is scared by bat-like demons onstage. Even as he is confronted by Chill, Thomas tries to help him stay calm and he is actually killed because he is trying to protect his wife, after Chill tries to rip off her necklace. And Dr. Wayne's last thoughts were of his son - his final words to him being:

                "Bruce...don't be afraid."

“Batman Begins” is a movie about the connection between the inner person and the outside world. We see this best in Bruce’s journey to the monastery after he leaves the Chinese prison, and in his training. It is impossible to separate his physical hardships from his inner hardships, since he has to defeat his inner "demons" during the journey by forcing himself to go on even in the face of the pain, cold and hunger and all for a reward so insignificant that it really is for almost nothing tangible. No, the real point – and the real reward – lies in the inner person and the benefits of facing those demons to his soul.

In Thomas we see someone whose lack of “inner demons”, in particular his refusal to give in to fear, turns him into someone who can help others. We see this not only in the way he comforts his son in the aftermath of his trauma or helps the citizens of Gotham. We see it even in his death. It is revealed in the movie that the deaths of two such respected citizens as he and his wife encourages Gotham City's elite to bring it back from the brink of ruin (in the process temporarily foiling Ra's al Ghul's plan to destroy the city's economy). It is towards this ideal that Thomas' son struggles throughout the movie.  That is why it is so interesting that Thomas died while attending “Mefistofele”. This opera is a retelling of the Faust legend where the philosophers own inner demons – his dissatisfaction with his own life and with humanity in general – leads him into great evil and threatens to destroy him. But gradually there is born in him the consciousness that through service to humanity one lives in the memory of mankind forever. He undertakes work for the benefit of others and thus finally comes to his supreme moment of redemption. And it is this theme of redemption, of transforming oneself from a path of destruction and self-destruction to helping others by confronting and beating your own demons – especially fear – that runs right through “Batman Begins”.  To repeat Thomas aphorism:

                "Why do we fall?  So we can learn to pick ourselves up"

Fear is omnipresent throughout the movie.  Batman's main enemy for "Batman Begins" is the Scarecrow, whose special chemicals bring forth a person's greatest fears. The city of Gotham is afraid, as the criminal element has taken over the streets. Chill himself was not evil but someone who was driven by desperation to rob and who killed because he was afraid of what he was doing. Bruce's childhood love, Rachel Dawes says once the two are reunited.

                "I spent a lot of time being scared for you.”

Bruce, himself, fears the bats in the cave that he found as a child. Later Henri Ducard asks him:

                "Tell us, Mr. Wayne, what do you fear?" 

Initially we see how Bruce’s own sense of loss and fear of the echoing bullets that claimed the lives of his parents provides the impetus which drives the story of his change from happy and prosperous childhood. And it is this fear that almost destroys him. As we have seen, especially from his reaction to Bruce’s accident in the bat cave, Thomas was the “anti-fear” character and his loss represented Bruce’s own descent into fearfulness. 

Losing Yourself

There is a very interesting exchange between Bruce and Falcone after the latter has Chill murdered and deprived Bruce of his opportunity for revenge:

Falcone: “I wouldn't have a second's hesitation of blowing your head off in front of them. Now, that's power you   can't buy. That's the power of fear.”

Bruce: “I'm not afraid of you.”

Falcone: “Because you think you got nothing to lose. But you haven't thought it through. You haven't thought about  your lady friend in the DA's office. You haven't thought about your old butler. Bang! People from your world have so much to lose. Now, you think because your mommy and your daddy got shot...you know about the ugly side of  life, but you don't. You've never tasted desperate. You're... You're Bruce Wayne, the prince of Gotham. You'd have to go miles to meet someone who didn't know your name.   So don't come here with your anger, trying to prove something  to yourself. This is a world you'll never understand. And you always fear what you don't understand."        

From this we can gather that Bruce Wayne did after all have his father's strong sense of right and wrong.  When he contemplated killing Chill he was betraying that idea. But Rachel’s challenge

                  “Your father would be ashamed of you.”

hits home hard. And when he goes to confront Falcone it is in response to her chiding:

“Falcone floods our streets with crime and drugs, preying on the desperate, creating new Joe Chills every day. Falcone may not have killed your parents, Bruce...but he's destroying everything that they stood for.”

It was not just anger over what happened to his parents - Falcone had nothing directly to do with that.  Rather I think we can clearly see here that he feels impelled to do something about the corruption and crime he sees all around him.  The impulse to do the right thing is therefore within him.  But equally clearly we can also see at work here Bruce's anger over their deaths  and his guilt for being the one who had caused Thomas and Martha to leave the safety of the theatre.  Having already led him into attempting one stupid and self-destructive act, it is hard not see see the same considerations driving him into another.  The confrontation with Falcone that was never going to end well for him.  And the resulting confrontation not only brings home to him just how much even now he has to lose.  Worse still afterwards he is helpless and humiliated. Just as he was paralyzed in the cave by his fear of bats.  Just as he was thwarted in his desire for revenge on Chill. Just as he was a helpless bystander when his parents were killed. 

So,  the guilt and the anger and above all the fear – especially the fear of being helpless in the face of the loss of the people he loves – overwhelm the batter angels of his nature. They rather than his values and principles control him and jis actions.  He tries to understand the criminal world;  but these inner demons compel him to go further and further until he leaves all reasonable attempts at mere understanding very far behind him.  These inner demons drive him onwards until becomes part of the world of crime, living outside the society to which Falcone claims he still belongs. He goes so far as literally to lose himself in a Chinese prison; a man with no name and a man constantly at war with those around him. The prison is the place where he is trapped, alone and lost far from those he loves and who love him, shorn of any real purpose or meaning in his life. He exists there simply to find an outlet for his anger, guilt and fear, to brutalize criminals and in his turn to become brutalized – an inhuman existence. He has already rejected everything about his father. He rejects his profession by leaving college. He rejects his family home and he even rejects his father’s values by seeking revenge. He thus loses all contact with the world he had understood and was instead confronted with a world he did not and he was lost in it. And without any sense of who he is; without his own identity he is prey to his fears, especially fears about himself. As Ducard tells him:

“You've traveled the world to understand the criminal mind...and conquer your fears. But a criminal is not complicated. And what you really fear is inside yourself. You fear your own power.  You fear your anger...the drive to do great or terrible things. Now you must journey inwards.”

In the case of Chill we see the way in which fear controls and traps people and ultimately destroys their lives. Bruce almost threw his own life away on a stupid act of vengeance and he was well on the way to losing himself forever in the Chinese prison. His greatest challenge is to face his fears and overcome them. 

And here we see the importance of the central counterpoint in “Batman Begins” – the contrast between Batman and the League of Shadows. The connection between the inner and the outer struggle that I have already referred to means that we can see in the war that Ducard (or Ras al Ghul as he later reveals himself to be) carries on a reflection of his own fears. He explains that the League of Shadows have for millenia struck against civilizations they have judged to be mired in corruption. They sent the plague-rats to Europe, they helped destroy Constantinople. Now they have weighed Gotham in the balance and found it beyond saving, dismissing the lives of everyone who lives there as meaningless.  . So they intend to destroy it using the Scarecrow. But as we have seen they intended to strike at Gotham once before by creating an artificial depression to financially cripple the city. The fact that the citizens of the city were galvanized by the deaths of Bruce’s parents to save the city, however, shows that the Shadows’ judgements about civilizations deserving to die were false. 

When Bruce is invited to join the Shadows he is asked, as a test, to execute a criminal. The exchange between him and Ducard says everything about their respective views:

            Bruce: “I'm no executioner.”

            Ducard: Your compassion is a weakness your enemies will not share.

            Bruce: “That's why it's so important. It separates us from them.”

            Ducard: “You want to fight criminals. This man is a murderer.”

            Bruce: “This man should be tried.”

            Ducard: “By whom? Corrupt bureaucrats? Criminals mock society's laws.You know this better than most.”

Ducard’s fears color his judgments of everything and everyone. He does not see the world for what it is - with good and bad, innocent and guilty.  Rather he sees the world through a distorting mirror created by his own inner demons.  And this leads him to deny the very values he claims to serve. That is why he sneers at compassion.  That is why he dismisses Thoma as someone who could not act.  The fact that the Shadows had been conspiring with Crane to destroy Gotham by distributing a deadly toxin via the city's water supply, and vaporizing it with a microwave-emitter stolen from Wayne Enterprises, simply reinforces this notion that their actions are driven not by justice but by their own fears of evil. After all is Crane not just the sort of corrupt criminal they claim to fight? Yet they conspire with him to destroy the innocent. 

 Interestingly, at one point,  Scarecrow explains that the mentally ill often fix their inner demons to an outer figure, a tormentor they blame for their fears. This surely explains the way in Ducard and the other Shadows view the outside world. But it is not the way Bruce Wayne sees it and the movie is henceforth built around the conflict between them and Bruce.

Controlling Your Fears

The contrast to Batman is clearly spelled out. Bruce Wayne harbors no illusions about the corruption of Gotham. But when asked by Alfred how long he'd be staying in the city, he replies, 

                "As long as it takes to show the people of Gotham their city doesn't belong to the criminals and the corrupt."

In other words Batman knows there is evil in the world but his mission is to save the world from that evil and not to destroy both together. That is because Bruce Wayne embraces the idea of justice. And what enables him to do so is that he conquered his own fears and takes back control of his life from them.  And ironically it is Ducard, who rejected ideas of true justice and embraced a twisted form of it because he could not overcome his own fear of evil, who helps Bruce deal with those fears, especially in the training that he gave him:

“To conquer fear, you must become fear. You must bask in the fear of other men. And men fear most what they cannot see. You have to become a terrible thought. A wraith. You have to become an idea!. Feel terror cloud your senses. Feel its power to distort. To control. And know that this power can be yours. Embrace your worst fear. Become one with the darkness.”

It is only because he now understand this that Bruce can return to Alfred, to Rachel, to his family home and business – to Gotham. He resumes the life he had rejected. And having returned to Gotham following his years of training, he stands at the heart of the cave beneath the mansion, calmly allowing the bats to swarm around him; thus illustrating his new-found control of his fears. We see this best when Rachel is poisoned.  Losing someone else he cares for is Bruce's greatest nightmare.  So, when he talks to Alfred about becoming a symbol we have the following exchange:

And yet when Rachel was poisoned, he remains calm, in control and above all effective.  He defeats his own fear.  Indeed Batman learns to harness fear, to use it against the criminals of Gotham City. As for example when he goes after the Scarecrow.  His reputation so paralyzes the latter's men that it is easy to defeat them.  Conversely for the people of Gotham he represents hope and towards the end of the movie we hear the refrain "Batman will save us".  And it is in this we see the connection between Bruce's overcoming fear and his embrace of justice.

Alfred told Bruce that for Thomas helping others was not about proving anything to anyone, including himself.  When Bruce thought of killing Chill or when he confronted Falcone, it was personal - it was about his own feelings; his own inner demons.  For Ducard justice is personal too.  When he burns down Wayne Mansion and leaves Bruce for dead in it, he calls that justice when it is simply revenge.  This sort of justice is all about you and your own fears.  Ultimately, however, what we see in "Batman Begins" is that true justice is simply helping other people.  And it is when (and only when) you stop worrying about yourself that you can embrace the real thing. This is the lesson that Bruce ultimately grasps.  When confronted by seeming failure with his father's legacy in ruins and Gotham on the brink of destruction and confronted by his own inability to do anything to stop it, he realizes that it is not about him but about how he can help others.  That is why he says:

            "It's not who I am underneath but what I do that defines me"

And here we see the centrality of the idea of Batman as a symbol.  After he is reunited with Alfred he muses:

           "As a man......I'm flesh and blood, I can be ignored, destroyed.  But as a symbol...as a symbol.   I can be incorruptible.  I can be everlasting."

This reinforces the idea that Batman's importance lies in what he does and what that means for others.  It does not lie in himself or how he feels.  Again, ironically Ducard says it best:

Ducard: "A vigilante is just a man lost in the scramble for his own gratification. He can be destroyed or locked up. But if you make yourself more than just a man...if you devote yourself to an ideal......and if they can't stop...then you become something else entirely. "

Bruce: "Which is?"

Ducard: "Legend Mr. Wayne."

That is why fighting crime the right way is as important as fighting crime.  That is why, for all his methods of fear and intimidation, there are lines Batman will not cross.  In short that is why it is important that Batman is who he is.

So, what might have been a shallow platitude of revenge vs justice becomes something more complex, more insightful and more true to not only the character but the whole series. It takes seriously the darkness inherent in the character and builds a fascinating story – both thematically and in terms of the psychology of Batman – upon it. But it looks beyond the darkness to see the moral core of the character.  In “Batman Begins” we see not only how Bruce overcomes his sense of loss and begins his own fight for justice. We see how he became the character that is so quintessentially Batman. This is to say not just some generic superhero but someone with Batman’s superhuman dedication, his method of fear and his masked anonymity; but also someone with his repudiation of firearms and his principled commitment to justice rather than revenge.