The writer/director of The Batman explains how he dragged this iconic character back to his detective roots.
Interview by KAMBOLE CAMPBELL Illustration by MICHAEL DUNBABIN
In Conversation
From the camp antics of Adam West in ’66 to the character’s gothic reinvention in Tim Burton’s films and Batman: The Animated Series, to Nolan’s crime epics – one might think we’ve seen all there is to The Batman. But with Robert Pattinson now taking the cowl, director Matt Reeves, known for his thoughtful genre flicks (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Cloverfield), proves there’s still more to be discovered about the World’s Greatest Detective.
LWLies: Your vision of an early days, Batman-in-progress reminds me of Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli’s ‘Batman: Year One’ comic. Reeves: Totally, that was one of the comics that was important when I did a deep dive at the beginning of this. I started by looking at all of the Bob Kane and Bill Finger stuff because that is totally noir – it made me think of Chinatown. But there was something about rereading ‘Year One’, tonally, that really resonated, because one of the things I find exciting about Batman as a character is that he’s got a kind of compulsion and is essentially just trying to cope.
Also, while I was re-reading that one, I was trying to figure out, well, how do you really go around being Batman? You can’t go around Gotham Square dressed as a bat because people will look and go, ‘Oh, there’s that guy again? What’s he doing?’ So in ‘Year One’, before he becomes Batman, Bruce goes to the East End. He goes as a drifter, because he can’t go as Bruce Wayne either. He’s high profile whether he’s Batman or not, so he had to become a third alter ego. As grounded as Nolan’s movies were – and they’re fantastic – he still leaned into the fantasy. I think he made a great joke of it too, with that whole idea that he could just disappear and reappear.
Mazzucchelli has this note about how he sees Batman as Bruce repairing his childhood. Can I tell you something? That is something that I was talking to Rob and the crew about. Here’s the thing, he’s still 10 years old. That’s the thing, and I don’t mean that in a way to say that he’s totally immature. What it means is he’s emotionally wounded in that place where he hasn’t been able to move on. While the story is not an origin tale, his origins are constantly present psychologically. He just hasn’t gotten over it, and this is his attempt to make meaning. He’s driven in a compulsive way. I think that’s exactly right, that that boy is still in there somewhere, and that’s why he’s fig
