Stories That Never Were: the Harvey Dent we DIDN'T see in Tim Burton's "Batman" movies

[about_faces]

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There's a lot more to Billy Dee Williams' portrayal Harvey Dent from Tim Burton's Batman (1989) than you might have suspected. I know that I certainly didn't think there was much to say, which is why it's taken me this long to finally write about one of the most famous portrayals of Harvey in pop culture.

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[about_faces]

Something I meant to mention in the article: I've learned that both of Burton's films benefit GREATLY from being watched in black and white. Just change your TV screen settings to black and white, and all of a sudden, all the German silent film influences come through. They gain so much by losing color. Well, except for the Joker, it's definitely a loss to not have the vibrant, colorful Joker amid the drab Gotham, but the film still benefits from B&W so much that it's an acceptable loss. Try it sometime. It makes both films not just "watchable," but GOOD.

Man, one of these days I really hope I can get Henchgirl to write out her thoughts on Batman Returns. Maybe for Christmas we can collaborate on a review?

So not really written with an actor of Nicholson's features in mind, then.

Heh, you think that's jarring compared to what we saw on screen, did you catch the description for Bruce?

We get our first good look at the smiling face
of BRUCE WAYNE: 32, tall, athletic, impeccably mannered...
and intensely handsome.

Well, they got the intense part down, at least!

Frankly, I've always found it a rather bland look, especially as a fan of practical SFX and the nearly limitless stuff you can achieve with the right makeup.

While I don't dispute that, I have a certain fondness for the makeup job they went with here. I think he looked downright ghoulish when he put on flesh tone makeup to play "normal":



That said, have you ever seen this life mask of an early makeup test for the Joker where they tried to make him more clearly Bolland-like? Not sure that would have been an improvement, per se, but I find it interesting that they tried to pull off a classic Joker look with an actor who really didn't look the part. Despite that, I think Jack did great with the job, half because it fit his own style, and half because I think he really tapped into something purely, legitimately JOKER in spirit.

I dunno, I want to elaborate more, but I'm a little brain-fried from being woken up by the baby in the middle of a serious, horrible diaper malfunction (he's fine, but the clean-up... oh god, the clean-up....), so bear with me here.

Okay, here's the thing: Hamm's Watchmen... yeah, all right, that one's an abortion. Right from the get-go, he completely misunderstands the concept and characters, and it's all downhill from there. I'm so glad that Terry Gilliam didn't waste any more of his precious time and energy on getting that project made, so that he could have so much more precious time and energy to waste on several OTHER, more original projects.

But Daniel Waters' Catwoman is brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. I don't mean in a way that anyone at the time would have considered it brilliant, but it would have been have embraced as a cult film long after it flopped horribly. The tone is perfectly in keeping with other Waters-penned projects like Heathers, Demolition Man, and especially The Adventures of Ford Fairlane (such a brilliant movie as long as you can stomach Andrew Dice Clay) and Hudson Hawk. Not coincidentally, those two films bombed like crazy, but they're also his most fun, self-aware, and (like all his films) quotable as hell. Give his Catwoman a reread with that mindset, and it's brilliant insanity.

[mothy_van_cleer]

I've actually tried out that "black and white" theory since I read it on your Tumblr, and, yes, the results are positively striking. It doesn't really work for the Schumacher films, though, because everything's lit up in atrocious neon and suddenly you're having a staring contest with a blank test pattern.

Looking back, it's the mouth design I object to the most. For a character that's supposed to be highly expressive, it vastly limits the emotive faculties of the actor wearing it, and Jack doesn't really do much with his body to make up with that. Also, it looks like a female reproductive organ mangled in a car accident with two little sets of Chiclets stuck inside, and I'm firmly of the opinion that a proper Joker smile should show more teeth than that.

No, I absolutely love Catwoman, but given its bizarrely campy mix of female empowerment and cravenly sexist gender stereotypes, it's a movie that could only ever work on paper. Same goes for my feelings on Watchmen, actually. (Moloch does a few lines of blow in the restroom! What's not to love?)

And, really, you shouldn't be preoccupied with talking to other people about stuff that doesn't matter on the Internet when Henchbaby needs TLC. Go ahead and be a good father, I'll be here when you get back.

[about_faces]

Yeah, we also tried watching the Schumacher ones in B&W, and you're absolutely right, it doesn't work at all. Whereas Burton's films are full of deep, rich shadows and light, Schumacher's is bland and washed-out.

Thing is, I'm not sure that this Joker was really intended to be highly expressive, since there's this popular, wrong-headed idea (going as far back as Neal Adams, who said as such in an interview) that the Joker can ONLY grin. Adams said something along the lines of how much he hates when artists show the Joker being expressive, since that's somehow not the Joker. Never mind that the character was shown to be able to frown in the very first page he ever appeared in.

Considering that the movie's Joker was explicitly shot through the face and that the rictus grin is the result of a scar, I think it was explicitly intended that he COULDN'T be expressive. Given that's what they'd be having to bring to the screen and Nicholson's own grin (which, while legendary, isn't the right full mouth-fulla-teeth grin of the Joker), I think their options in terms of makeup and prosthetics were sadly limited.

Heh, man... go figure, the Joker's next onscreen portrayal would also be one with facial scars, but they would be used to do the smiling FOR him, and that he himself would rarely smile and never grin.

Oh good, I'm glad that I'm not the only one who loves Catwoman! And okay, maybe it's time for me to reread Watchmen. I couldn't do it before since the source material was sacrosanct, but between Snyder's deeply-flawed-but-could-be-worse adaptation and DC's current soulless attempts to squeeze every goddamn cent out the original story's integrity, I imagine that the Hamm script would now come off as fun and quaint!

Don't worry, you weren't distracting me! The Baybeh was already back down for his nap when I responded! It was just a bit insane for an hour there beforehand. Poop, poop, everywhere pooooop!

[napoleoncheese]

I pretty much prefer a highly expressive Joker. It adds to his 'unpredictable' look if his expressions are as impossible to predict as him. Part of the best about DCAU Joker was the kind of faces he could make at times. Who can forget his face in the "Look out! He's pulling out... a fish?" in the comics version of Mad Love?

Even The Batman's Joker had some nifty wild take expressions that really worked.

[about_faces]

Completely agreed, even with the The Batman Joker point. Look, I can get why some people would want an only-smiling Joker: that makes him more of a creepy ghoul, albeit a one-note one. But ugh, I'm sorry, expressiveness is key. Sometimes the Joker is at his most effective when he's NOT smiling anymore.

[psychopathicus]

Whenever you do do it, I would be all for your doing a Batman Returns examination. That movie gets too little love, and even its major failures are such fascinating failures - I'd love to see how a couple of Bat-buffs like you could give it a good thinking-over.

[about_faces]

Awesome! I'll shoot for around Christmas, then. Hopefully I'll be able to pull it off.

[psychopathicus]

I'll be looking forward to it! A holiday treat!