This movie is campy as hell
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Picnic10 — 9 years ago(August 13, 2016 04:05 AM)
Nicholson's Joker is part 1940s gangster, part Caesar Romero acid bright clothes, hair and makeup. So dark camp describes 1989 Batman well. It is dark - the handbuzzer scene where you see the flames consume from the inside and, in gruesome acting detail, take hold of their throat, the charred corpse, the melodramatic music as Joker, dressed like a clown at a funeral, plunges a pen in to someone's neck, the 'but you can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs' part. Nicholson said it's pop art and he's right. His performance is actually Oscar worthy, it's so believably tragic - young kid brought up on the wrong side of the tracks becomes a gangster , has to keep on upping his game to be popular with Grissom, is betrayed by Grissom over 'a woman!., is made in to a 'mad artist' by Batman 's inability to save him from the chemicals (although you can also suspect that Batman could have used his utility belt).
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OLD_ACCOUNT_skribb_Mk2 — 9 years ago(August 13, 2016 07:05 AM)
I've never thought about the juxtaposition of darkness and camp leading to a new genre. If something's campy I'll just call it camp.
DISCLAIMER: If the post above is stupid, explain my stupidity instead of name-calling. -
Picnic10 — 9 years ago(August 13, 2016 12:10 PM)
it has dorky moments, sure. Wayne sleeping upside down like a bat was too weirdly 'urban' to seem true of laid back billionaire Wayne. The Joker downing a plane with his huge pistol. The Bat shape against the moon. Definite out and out camp in there that wasn't present in Returns unless you count the brilliant yellow motorised duck. It is very unusual in a film to have such well judged darkness (the cosmetic surgeon being forced to stand in eerie darkness as 'Mr Napier' leaves) alongside lighter elements. It greatly helped to have 2 comedic and dramatic titans in Nicholson and Keaton to shift to the required tone. It has always struck me, from when I first saw it in the cinema, how breathlessly, tightly made, claustrophobic it was (and it feels more like Gotham than any other Batman film). Every little scene seems to propel us to a new height of maniacal glee from the Joker and further in to Batman 's torture of the tragedy of Wayne's parents' murder. Yet there is a camp sheen to it in Knox's eagerness. It hits a lot of buttons that feel true to a comic book style sense of theatre but it doesn't hang around any of them long enough to become what I think this should have been - an epic 2 and a half hour film with more of gangster Napier.
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hiitsmewutsup-953-300236 — 9 years ago(August 13, 2016 12:20 PM)
It has campy moments, but they're mixed with dark, and disturbing ones. I don't want to sound like I'm insulting your intelligence, but a movie can have both qualities, without being aggressively, simply one thing or the other. It's a not a strict binary, although it would be easier to judge a movie if things were so black and white. To me, that would be excessively reductionist, however. Modern movies are sort of to blame for encouraging simple-minded movie going, because they tend to spell things out and overexplain so even the slowest audience member is on board (even the Nolan movies had some of this, with all those speeches on "becoming a symbol", and "introducing anarachy" blah blah blah)
It helps that Michael Keaton plays the movie like an 80's drama, whereas Adam West is very William Shatner in his approach. It's definitely a hard movie to digest for someone who just wants simple thrills. I would say the worst thing about it is the sappy romance with Basinger, which is totally unconvincing - I'm glad they made fun of it in
Batman Returns. -
OLD_ACCOUNT_skribb_Mk2 — 9 years ago(August 13, 2016 02:29 PM)
Of course they're not mutually exclusive but I've never heard "dark camp" before and I just spontanously thought that, if something is campy, who cares if it's dark or not, it's still campy you know? That being said , yes it has darkness. And if you include Returns, even moreso, because Penguin is quite disturbing, visually and conceptually.
Glad we agree on the Basinger romance lol
DISCLAIMER: If the post above is stupid, explain my stupidity instead of name-calling. -
Movie_Riggs — 9 years ago(August 14, 2016 01:59 PM)
I never cared for Burton's nor Schumacher's films. I like that you pointed out how Nicholson was just playing himself with makeup, whereas Ledger and Leto were actually the Joker. Good reason as to why they're superior
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Picnic10 — 9 years ago(August 15, 2016 12:55 PM)
Nicholson wasn't playing himself in makeup. Nicholson had never been that creepily camp in a role before. Furiously, scarily, violent but never that creepily camp. And, no, Nicholson isn't creepily camp in real life. Nicholson's the American Oliver Reed -totally robust and totally delicate, gentlemanly, at the same time.
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Movie_Riggs — 9 years ago(August 15, 2016 03:20 PM)
Maybe he'd never been that camp before. Maybe it was creepy. But all in all he was still another Nicholson villain, and felt like it too. Ledger and Leto really lost themselves in these roles to the point of being virtually unrecognizable, as the OP said. I don't see an incredible amount of difference between sayhis villain in the 'The Shining' and 'Batman'. Sure, one may be more violent while the other is simply creepy, but the point is, a lot of big-name actors have their trademarks. And while that's not necessarily a bad thing, I'm simply pointing out that Jack Nicholson felt like a Jack Nicholson moreso than a Joker. And I fail to see where his "camp" comes into play. Usually "campy" means cheesy to me. Take the '66 Batman movie/TV show. That's always been described as camp, and I don't know if I'd call Nicholson camp in comparison. Besides, to a certain B-movie level of enjoyment, camp may be alright. That seems to be what a lot of people enjoy about the '66 Batman these days. But I don't like Batman being reduced to that in all honesty, and I don't think I'd like it if Nicholson DID come across as camp to me.
I know, this is all being used for "my definition". I might not be using camp in the complete correct context. It's just my opinion.
"We're not too old for this sh*t!" -Riggs and Murtaugh, 'Lethal Weapon 4' (1998) -
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OLD_ACCOUNT_skribb_Mk2 — 9 years ago(December 09, 2016 10:12 AM)
Well, I'm sure you are aware of other Batman movies that are much less campy. Nolanverse in other words. So a Batman flick need not be as campy as Batman 89.
Perhaps your definition of camp is broader than mine. When someone says camp I think of John Waters movies and Batman 66. Now of course, this movie is from 89 which was a very campy time to live in I guess, altho I'd prefer to use the term cheese when referring to the 80s and 90s.
In any case, it is not necessarily bad if you convince me to see your point of view. I can be convinced of anything if the arguments are good enough.
.and then the bong hits him on the head and he falls RIGHT over the realitY -
FMT — 9 years ago(December 09, 2016 09:23 PM)
Well, I'm sure you are aware of other Batman movies that are much less campy. Nolanverse in other words. So a Batman flick need not be as campy as Batman 89.
The Nolanverse? The Nolanverse is hammy as hell, I had a harder time taking TDK and TDRK seriously than I had with B&R. B&R features absurd characters in an absurd world, the Nolanverse on the other hand somehow thinks it's a good idea to place these absurd characters in a supposedly real world. A guy dressed like a bat, a clown, a Sega Genesis boss character, all doing cartoony voices, all being taken seriously by the police, the DA, etc. I'm sorry, I just can't buy it. Maybe they were all too busy delivering the most pretentiously unnatural monologues to notice. Still, I'll take camp over ham any day.
Perhaps your definition of camp is broader than mine. When someone says camp I think of John Waters movies and Batman 66.
I agree.
Now of course, this movie is from 89 which was a very campy time to live in I guess, altho I'd prefer to use the term cheese when referring to the 80s and 90s.
The 80s were definitely more about cheese than camp, although keep in mind that, when dealing with a character like the Joker, who is, literally, a clown, the camp is supposed to be there. Sure, it was toned down in TDK but, makeup aside, he didn't act like a clown in that movie, which just went against the core of the character, in my opinion. -
HellboundHero — 9 years ago(September 10, 2016 01:46 PM)
It's as campy as your average comic book, and comic books are taken WAY too seriously. I'm not saying they should be comedy but dang, the Joker dances to a Prince song and you over-obsessive fanboys absolutely lose your s*** over it.