(jet engine roaring)
(epic music)
- [Rick] This is Gotham City.
So is this.
And this.
And even this.
There are many different
versions of Gotham
just as there are different
versions of Batman.
One of the most beloved is the version
by Christopher Nolan in
his Dark Knight Trilogy,
a realistic vision of
the character and city.
One that takes them seriously.
But after I saw "The Dark
Knight Rises" in theaters,
something kept bothering me.
Well, a number of things bothered me,
but one still bugs me to this day.
This Gotham.
After a lot of stylized,
larger-than-life takes on the city,
Christopher Nolan finally gave us
something grounded and real.
And then he changed it.
To me, this was Gotham City,
but this was not.
(epic music)
For the 2005 film, "Batman Begins,"
director Christopher Nolan
and his production team
created a Gotham City
that perfectly suited
their goal of a superhero film
set in a world believably like our own.
It was constructed using
a variety of locations,
including sets built on sound stages
even for sequences that
theoretically take place outdoors.
Some miniature and model work
also came into play
as well as fully computer
generated cityscapes.
Locations for Arkham
Asylum and Wayne Manor
were found in England,
and then all these pieces
were joined together
with footage of a real city, Chicago.
For the 2008 sequel, "The Dark Knight,"
not only was a much larger portion
of the production shot in Chicago,
the city in the final film
appears largely unaltered.
Dropping most of the
CG skyline enhancement
as well as just using Chicago's
existing elevated train.
I'm from Chicago
and I'm very proud of the
city's cinematic history.
Because the majority of
American film production
happens in Los Angeles and New York,
it feels like a treat to see a story
being told in my hometown.
I don't mean to make it
sound like Christopher Nolan
and his DP, Wally Pfister,
were the first to shoot Chicago well.
A lot of memorable films have used
the city's locations to great effect,
but Nolan made it look like this.
As a Chicagoan, a lot
of the fun of watching
"The Dark Knight" was
recognizing bits of the city.
I can't help it.
Daley Plaza, LaSalle Street,
Upper Wacker Drive,
Lower Wacker Drive,
Navy Pier,
the Twin Anchors Pub in Old Town.
Nolan's first two versions of Gotham
were different from each other,
but they were both built
around the same real city.
My home city.
So even though I felt a disconnect
between the two versions,
I was able to get over it.
But this didn't happen with
"The Dark Knight Rises."
This wasn't just a new version of Gotham.
It was a completely different Gotham.
For me, the change from Batman begins
to "The Dark Knight" was manageable
because both cities had the same core.
But "The Dark Knight Rises"
doesn't use anything
from the previous cities.
Obviously, this is a personal gripe
and it is totally appropriate for New York
to finally get to stand
in for Gotham in a movie,
given that New York City has carried
the nickname "Gotham" in real life
for over two centuries.
Nolan has also said in interviews
that he based his vision of Gotham
in large part on New York,
even when he was making "Batman Begins,"
none of which he got to shoot in New York.
But having lived in both cities
and being a nerd who loves worldbuilding,
it's hard for me to believe
that three different visions of
what are ostensibly the same city
all exist in a consistent story universe.
For example, when Bane
destroys the bridges
over the Gotham River to
keep out the military,
it's an effective tactic
if the rivers look like this.
But it makes way less sense,
if the river looks like this.
Christopher Nolan is a director
known for the specificity
of his tone and vision.
So why would he create three
films set in the same city,
but actually set them in
three different cities?
Well, first a bit of history.
When Batman first appeared
in the pages of Detective
Comics Number 27,
in 1939, he was the protector of New York.
Or maybe just Manhattan.
Or was it Metropolis?
It wasn't for another two years
that the name Gotham City
would be officially adopted,
establishing the fictional city
as a place distinct
from any real location.
This allowed the writers and artists
to tell stories in a
city that, in many ways,
could resemble any major city,
but wasn't representative
of a particular city.
The side effect of this was a city
that creators could interpret differently
depending on the needs of their story.
And as Batman stories changed
with the introduction of the Comics Code,
from dark and gritty crime stories
to colorful and campy superhero yarns,
Gotham was able to change with them.
Today, this is one of the
defining characteristics
of the Batman and his universe.
Just as Batman himself has been
revised, reinterpreted and reimagined,
so too has Gotham.
Because Batman, more
than most superheroes,
is inextricably linked
to his natural habitat.
Gotham City created Batman
and is the continuing
reason for his existence.
On film, the interpretations
have varied wildly.
The classic camp of the
1966 film and TV series
are matched by a bright and sunny
Southern California Gotham.
This is the fun Batman.
The Batusi Batman.
Tim Burton's 1989 film
features a Deco-Industrial-Gothic style,
and then a more urban
Gothic style for the sequel.
Appropriate for a darker,
more brooding Caped Crusader.
And the Joel Schumacher films
create a sort of blend of these two styles
into something all new and unique.
A kitschy Batman for the 90s.
All these Batman, and more besides,
can coexist because they basically
don't connect to each other,
and the stories of one
have no bearing on the others.
In comics, things are a bit different.
Batman is a part of the
DC Comics Multiverse.
He has more than three
quarters of a century
of history, stories
and here's the big one, canon.
Canon is very important to the world
of comics and its fans.
It's not just the stuff
that happened in the past,
it's the characters and stories
that laid the foundation for
the stories happening now.
The ups and downs, and twists and turns,
and all the emotions that come with,
which imprint themselves into
the living memory of the fandom.
But here's the thing.
Most Hollywood filmmakers
don't care about canon.
They don't feel beholden
to the works in comics that came before,
even if they borrow from them extensively.
Filmmakers want to tell their own stories
to do their take on the
characters and universe.
That's why Joel Schumacher's films,
though technically in continuity
with Tim Burton's films,
might as well be in completely
different corners of the multiverse.
Nolan didn't care about
making a version of Batman
that could fit into existing continuity,
and he didn't care about
building an evolving universe
beyond the end of "The Dark Knight Rises."
Fortunately, given Batman's constant
need to reinvent himself,
like the Madonna of the DC Universe,
He has a relationship with canon
that is a little looser than his peers.
Even though characters like
Spider-Man or Wonder Woman
do see periodic reinventions,
we always tend to think of them
in their iconic forms.
But my favorite Batman might
not be your favorite Batman.
And even though our favorites
are wildly different,
they're all still Batman.
This is how so many
different versions of Batman
can exist in the same universe
without upsetting the canon.
And it follows that this is true
for Gotham City as well.
And this is what makes Batman a character
so ripe for constant reinvention on film.
Reinvention has been
built into the character.
It's no wonder filmmakers
have returned to Gotham
again and again over the years.
I'm going to take a slight detour here
and talk about a different city.
The 2002 film "City of God"
is a movie about a place.
The drama that fills the
lives of its many characters
occurs over more than a decade,
from the late 1960s to the early 1980s.
The people we are
introduced to as children
grow into adulthood before our very eyes.
And so does the "City of God."
We first see this suburb of Rio de Janeiro
in its early form,
as rows of small homes
set along unpaved streets.
Literally, just tiny houses
plonked down in the dirt.
But these are just seeds.
Inside the homes are people
with aspirations and dreams.
Some want to rise above,
others want to dominate.
And as they make their moves,
they rise, they grow, and they adapt.
And in doing so,
they affect each other
and they affect the city.
They change the world
and the world changes around them.
Tiny houses become apartment buildings,
dirt paths become asphalt streets,
kids become adults,
the innocent become the damned.
And over time, we revisit the same spots
in the city again and again.
We learn its flaws and quirks
just as we do with the human characters.
Before our very eyes,
the city begins as a child,
grows through adolescence,
and becomes an adult.
Rise. Grow. Adapt.
And the characters of "City of God"
are tied to that place
like Batman is tied to Gotham.
Gotham isn't just a setting,
it's a character.
It's the second most important character
in any Batman story.
In most modern interpretations
of the character,
it's understood that Batman
is the real character
and Bruce Wayne is the mask he puts on
to walk around in the daylight.
The opposite of most superheroes.
But in Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy,
this is not the case.
This is the story of Bruce Wayne
becoming the Batman,
being the Batman,
and eventually giving up the Batman.
What this Bruce Wayne wants to establish
is Batman as a symbol
against the darkness.
He knows that he cannot end all crime
within his own lifetime,
so he wants to create something
that can live beyond him.
Bruce Wayne is a man with
a dream, a life's work.
And if you view these
movies with that in mind,
you begin to see them as
the story of a great man's life.
Bruce's father, Thomas Wayne,
was a doctor who spent much of
his multi-billion dollar fortune
trying to unite the
city and fight poverty,
but high ambition casts
a very long shadow.
And given that Thomas and Martha Wayne
were murdered during the
height of the Wayne era,
that shadow never had
a chance to fade away.
And this is the legacy thrust upon
the young Bruce Wayne as a child.
all that was expected of him
was to get an education
and grow up a little
so he could continue his father's work.
Bruce did grow up a little,
but he grew into a very angry young man.
Then he left town to get his education.
People usually go to college for this,
but Bruce had other plans.
He found a mentor to guide him
who then turned out to be an asshole.
It's okay though,
because even though he
didn't get a degree,
he still graduated.
But as anyone who has been out of college
for a significant length
of time will tell you,
growing up doesn't stop at graduation.
When you get out into the real world,
a familiar emotion takes hold of you
in a new and terrifying way, fear.
The world is big and scary,
and it throws a lot at you.
But you learn to cope,
you learn to deal
and maybe along the way,
you rise to the challenge
and make a difference.
But then it starts getting hard.
Now Bruce is all grown up
and having to deal with the
complexities of real adult life.
There are so many other people,
so many moving parts.
As Batman, Bruce is having
a big effect on the city.
Petty crime starts dropping.
but organized crime gets
more desperate, more violent.
Black and white ideas of morality
go out the window
and all Bruce can do is
all any of us can do.
Grow and make the best choices we can
with the information we have.
Sometimes your choices are good
and sometimes they're bad.
And sometimes they're so bad
you force yourself into early retirement.
In the final act,
Bruce is on sabbatical,
but he cannot escape his old life
and must return one last time.
Age may have slowed him down,
but this is no excuse.
Life doesn't care if you're old,
but it has to be him.
After all the work he's put in,
he is now, after all,
the foremost expert in his field.
But the new challenges overwhelm him.
For eight years,
he'd left this world behind
and it changed while he wasn't looking.
Thus, Bruce had to find a way
to change with the times, to adapt.
This is where Bruce
finishes his life's work,
the work of creating a
living symbol for Gotham
that will live beyond him.
His own legacy,
outside the shadow of the name "Wayne."
And then he retires to Europe
with his sexy new girlfriend,
so someone else can
have the job for awhile.
The life of Bruce Wayne.
Rise, grow, adapt.
And rise.
But of course, it's not just
Bruce Wayne that changes.
Okay, back to the city.
Here's where I try and explain,
to myself as much as to you,
why I think we are meant to accept that
fake Chicago,
regular Chicago,
and mostly New York
can all be the same city.
The Dark Knight films were never
originally planned as a trilogy,
which means that Nolan and company
could tell each story on its own terms.
As a result, the three films
exist in three different genres.
"Batman Begins" has the
feel of noir about it.
It's a Hollywood version
of a film noir version
of a comic book version of a city.
We do get this one aerial shot
to appreciate the scope of the city,
but the buildings extend
past the edges of the frame.
A dark sprawl that may as well be endless.
This is Bruce Wayne's city
at the start of his journey.
Vast, frightening, a caricature of a city.
But one that is still filled
with people living their lives
and needing to be saved.
It's an imaginary city,
one that can be fixed by a
force for good like Batman.
At least, that's what
Bruce Wayne believes.
When we're young and idealistic,
this is how we see the world.
It's ours.
And what Bruce wants to do
with his world is to save it.
It's a mythic vision of Gotham
for a mythic version of Batman.
"The Dark Knight," on the other hand,
is a crime saga in the vein
of Michael Mann's "Heat."
The Gotham of this film
feels like a real place,
and that's because it
basically is a real place,
and the real world pushes back.
So gone are the computer
generated cityscapes,
art-deco triple-decker elevated trains,
and the gimmicky comic book villains.
That's not what this Gotham is about.
This is a Gotham of the mob,
corrupt cops, and murder.
This is Gotham City for grownups,
with a healthy dose of reality
and a little dash of chaos.
So what was Nolan's approach
to "The Dark Knight Rises"?
Historical epic.
At the start of "The Dark Knight Rises,"
Bruce Wayne has been a
recluse for eight years.
While that's not really enough time
for a whole city's skyline to change
from this to this.
It is enough time for the world to change.
As we get older, we start to slow down,
making the world feel like
it's accelerating past us.
Recently, with the
expansion of the internet
and all its related services,
apps and conveniences,
the world is in many ways
accelerating at an unmanageable rate.
This is what has happened to
Gotham in Bruce's absence.
The presence of the Batman in Gotham City
didn't stop crime.
It made criminals more
brash and more violent.
And then with Batman gone,
they were the ones who started
changing the world around them.
Not the street-level thugs, though.
The capitalists, the businessmen.
People like Bruce Wayne,
but without the sense of
morality that Bruce treasures.
They twisted the city.
Its skyscrapers and spires grew dense.
Its roots burrowed deep.
The city became something different,
something Bruce could barely recognize.
It's so different, in fact,
that Nolan chose to shoot
it in another city entirely.
Actually, several other cities.
That's because this
telling of a Batman story
has a scope beyond Gotham.
Not just because part of the movie
takes place in a hole in
the middle of the desert
half a world away,
but because Bane turns
Gotham itself into a weapon.
Rather than a story merely
set within Gotham City,
"The Dark Knight Rises"
is a story where a city
is turned against its country.
This film isn't trying
to play on the same level
as "The Dark Knight,"
it's going for David
Lean-level epic storytelling.
Three genres, three Gothams.
And just as every Batman is still Batman,
every Gotham is still Gotham,
whatever it may look like on the outside.
Moving the Dark Knight films
from Chicago to New York
was not an accident
or a decision made on a whim.
It was a conscious choice
that reflects the themes of
the final film in the trilogy.
Nolan created three
different versions of Batman.
Or, more accurately,
a Batman at three different
stages of his life.
And then he used them to tell
three very different stories.
And each of these stories
had to be paired with
an appropriate Gotham.
Reinvention is part of Batman.
Christopher Nolan just
reinvented him slightly
within his own franchise,
as did Tim Burton.
While I may not have loved the choice
to switch real cities,
it is still a valid one
and it falls in line with what
many creators have done
with Batman in the past.
But more than that,
it reflects an intention on
the part of the storyteller
to convey the evolution of the characters
through the evolution of
the space around them.
The world of our real
lives changes on timescales
small enough for us to see.
we watch our friends
grow up and move away,
we watch familiar corner stores close,
and we watch as gentrification
swallows up the old
and replaces it with the new.
Hell, the Chicago skyline I grew up with
is not what it looks like today.
We change and the world changes around us.
Rise. Grow. Adapt.
Thanks for watching.
