Christopher Nolan’s passion play is the most successful super-hero movie series to date, in my mind. The action set pieces are arresting and the cast is of the highest possible caliber--at least without including Robert Downey, Jr. While I will admit there are some rough edges in the writing and plotting of the individual movies, the true genius of the series is only apparent when examining it as a whole. It is only at that scale can we see what this movie series offers that others do not: a emotional journey that evolves over more than one film, and provides real closure for that arc.
Batman Begins is still my favorite film of the series. Like the foundation of a house, the first film sets up the success of the later ones by building a character that is grounded in an emotional reality that is earned through effort. Anyone remotely familiar with the Batman mythos knows that it is his parents’ murder that drives Bruce Wayne to do the inhuman, but Nolan and the writers show us every step of this process. Thomas Wayne is more than just a name in these films. We see him be a father to his son, and that causes us to feel Bruce’s loss in a way we never have before.
Bruce’s parents are mostly set aside for the second film. The Dark Knight is a movie that is ruled by the villains, and Batman is too busy reacting to the chaos caused by Two-Face and the Joker to reflect much on the loss of his parents. Hell, in The Dark Knight, Bruce doesn’t even live in stately Wayne Manor. His ancestral home was destroyed in the first film and Bruce takes up a swinging city apartment for the duration of Part 2 (a nod to the bachelor pad that served as Batman’s headquarters in the 1970’s run of the comics). Nolan has moved Bruce out from underneath the shadow of his parents, so to speak, but that is because the second film sets up a whole new trauma for the Caped Crusader: the death of his one true love.
Women do not have much of an active role in the first two acts of Nolan’s Batman saga. They are either spectators or mother figures, symbolic or otherwise. Martha Wayne does little except look pretty and stop a bullet. But I think we can explain Bruce’s romantic obsessions through her absence in his life. For the first two movies, his only significant emotional connections with women trace back to his childhood. We are told later that Bruce’s feelings for Rachel Dawes are romantic, but this does not follow the evidence. It is as if Rachel is the stand-in for the mother Bruce lost. He is driven to protect her, certainly, but there seems to be no sexual passion between them. Batman seems more interested in having Rachel recognize his honor and commitment, just as a child would itch to have Mother mount a nice piece of artwork on the refrigerator. Likewise, Rachel seems to have little romantic interest in Bruce. She thinks fondly of him, and has--as a mother might--suffered disappointment when he has failed to meet her expectations. Recall Rachel’s withering indictment when Bruce admits he planned to murder Joe Chill: “Your father would be ashamed of you.”
Rachel is not significantly remade as a character for The Dark Knight, even if she is played by a different actress. Her relationship with Bruce takes on a different tone because another variable is added to their equation. The introduction of Harvey Dent as Rachel’s new love interest brings out a jealousy in Bruce Wayne that adds some emotional crackle to the proceedings. Bruce’s devotion still seems sort of arbitrary, since he can and does attract other women. But since his mother is gone, Rachel is the woman to whom Bruce has to prove himself worthy. And he seems to have decided that is the same thing as love.
Though Rachel’s death closes the second act of The Dark Knight, Bruce does not really show the toll of events until The Dark Knight Rises. The action scenes that end the second film do not leave much room for feelings and girly stuff. Wayne’s emotional ruin is the center around which the third film turns. Bruce’s broken body is made evident by a deft physical performance from Christian Bale, and his broken heart is made all the more poignant by our knowledge that Rachel had in fact rejected him. Bruce’s delusion that he could eventually have had a happy life with her is ironic given that in The Dark Knight Rises we find him a recluse, hiding out in a rebuilt Wayne Manor. Poor Bruce spends his days mourning a relationship he could never have had, inside a mausoleum to the happy family he once lost. Returning to the family home must have put Mom and Dad on Nolan’s mind again because we see him return to using their deaths to define Bruce Wayne and drive the plot of the last film. Bruce’s father appears in flashback again, gently urging his son to soldier on. There is even a symbolic passing of the torch, as Selena Kyle becomes a new woman for the Batman to obsess over when she steals his mother’s pearl necklace.
Part 3, The Dark Knight Rises, is where the series is solidifies its emotional truth. Cite as you will any individual plot holes in any of the films, but it took people with a true understanding of story-craft to realize that this series’ emotion groundwork must be resolved. Indeed, if the final film had not resolved Bruce’s issues, it would be in danger of blundering on indefinitely as the Burton and Schumacher films had before. So the filmmakers turn the story headlong into emotional confrontation and catharsis. Bruce is forced to acknowledge his romantic naiveté in the wrenching farewell dialogue he shares with Alfred, and we see him fumbling to move on and consider other women as romantic partners. We also see our hero move out from underneath the weight of the expectation associated with both his identities, Bruce Wayne and the Batman. He does this the only way he can...by killing both of these men and being reborn anew.
Confronting his emotional baggage and deciding to try be happy? Not the most heroic of accomplishments for Nolan’s Batman, but I find it his most dramatic.
