posted by Scene -- @ 11:46 AM

THE CALL OF THE HERO

Revisiting Frank Miller’s ‘The Dark Knight Returns’

(originally printed in MacMedia, November 2002, "The Fall of the Roman Empire Issue")

In 1987 Frank Miller unleashed a seminal piece of art called The Dark Knight Returns. Arguably, it is the greatest piece of comic art ever produced in a mainstream format. Full of rounded characters and salty themes that run painfully deep like a bullet wound, The Dark Knight Returns was and still is more satisfying than most modern novels.

Placed against the backdrop of the Cold War, the story deals with a fifty-something Bruce Wayne who returns to duty as the Batman after a ten-year retirement to battle a new gang of hellions terrorizing Gotham City. Along the way, he makes new allegiances, battles old enemies and old allies alike, all the while struggling with his own binary sense of good and evil, vengeance and duty, aging body and youthful rage.

The entire tale grapples with opposites. Old police commissioner Gordon versus newer, younger, female Yindel; the new female Robin in contrast to the older Boy Wonder; idealistic and government sponsored Superman vs. tortured and police hunted Batman. In The Dark Knight Returns, the lines between opposites are blurred, good and evil lose the absolute value they usually have in comic books, and it sometimes becomes hard to tell the heroes from the victims and villains.

In this alternate universe, the Batman has further distanced himself from the police and bureaucracy of Gotham City, while Superman, always the flip side of the super-hero coin to Batman, has become a US government sanctioned superhero, a part of the military. When the Batman returns to active duty, more vengeful than ever, it becomes apparent that the two heroes will have to battle, whether they want to or not—simply for the fact that they represent two different ideologies.

Posit for a moment that Batman—hero for the streets, protector of the downtrodden, clad in muted grays like a stereotypical proletariat—represents the political left, and that Superman—protector of American values, soldier for the government, swathed in bright primary colors like a flag—represents the political right, and one can see why a clash of the titans becomes inevitable, despite their respective good intentions. While they as people may like and respect each other, they will always disagree with each other and think the other’s means to the end as plain stupid, unnecessary, or unproductive.

Post September 11, The Dark Knight Returns proves a fruitful political allegory. The story is placed during the Cold War, but its historical specificity serves not to date it, since the themes themselves remain universal. When Russia drops the bomb in the comic, Batman and Superman realize they have to bring each other down. Superman for having become the government’s lackey, to the point where he turns a blind eye to the arms race, believing that the US knows what is best for its people. Batman for having become more and more extremist in his views, to the point where he shrugs off the political structure of Gotham City and takes the law into his own hands.

It is the bomb that awakens the world of politics for the Batman, and he realizes that there is more to the world than just crime. That the safety of humanity involves more than just beating up petty muggers in dark alleyways. When he and Superman finally clash, it is hard to choose sides, because the kid in us idolizes them both, and because deep down inside, no matter where our political line is drawn as adults, the kid in us knows they are both partially right.

And that’s what The Dark Knight Returns accomplishes. It forces you to realize that, like the Batman, you must draw your line. That this is a necessity for the world to be saved. But at the same time, it forces you be aware of the entire spectrum—while Superman for all purposes can be interpreted as a fascist avatar, he is nonetheless Superman. And nobody in his or her right mind would definitively describe Superman as evil.

The Dark Knight Returns reminds us that there is more to any political issue than just good or evil, despite what George Bush would have us think. There are no binary opposites. There are no heroes. There are just causes, and lines drawn for how far a person will let themselves go. Miller shows us that the War—whether it be a cold war, a war on terrorism, or a war on crime—is most definitely here, either in our face or bubbling beneath the surface. And it’s much more complicated and murky than we have been led to believe.

-J.

posted by Scene -- @ 11:35 AM

Bruce Campbell and Don Coscarelli – On Their New Film, B Movie Making, and Penis Cancer.

originally printed in MacMedia, October 2002, "The Awesome Issue"

It’s a warm Sunday morning in the middle of the Toronto International Film Festival. I am being led down a posh and plush hallway cutting through the Park Hyatt Hotel. I am about to interview Bruce Campbell (Evil Dead, Army of Darkness) and I am nervous as shit. Bruce Campbell is very much a God to geeky types like I. He, to work in the theme of this issue, is Awesome. However, as I’m led into the dining hall I find out that not only am I interviewing Campbell, but sitting unexpectedly next to him is Don Coscarelli (Phantasm series, The Beastmaster), director of Campbell’s latest movie, Bubba Ho-Tep. My temperature rises, and I am in serious need of a heat activated deodorant stick. Luckily, I find, Campbell and Coscarelli are down-to-earth, polite, well-spoken, all around good guys — not the type of guys to wet your armpits over.

Amidst chatting about Campbell’s horrible experiences working on the television show Weird Science and Coscarelli’s views on the technical progress of the film medium, the two shoot the breeze like old buddies about their new film, and the state of B Movies today.

Bubba Ho-Tep is the extrapolated tale of Elvis Presley, now 63 and with a case of what Campbell endearingly refers to as “cancer on his dick”. Elvis allies himself with a man who believes that he is John F. Kennedy, in a battle against an evil Egyptian entity who is terrorizing the nursing house they both call home.

“If you’re going to do a genre film, it might as well be Bubba Ho-Tep”, says Campbell, when asked why he chose to do this film after statements that he was weary of the B Movie genre. “It’s this ridiculous movie that has this odd, straightforward sincerity…that people seem to connect to”.

Adds Coscarelli, “[it is] a film which defies description”. Speaking of the film’s balance, Coscarelli says the film is strange and action packed, yes, but “a big chunk of it is two older gentlemen in an old folks home talking”.

The desire for balance seems to come up a lot over the course of our breakfast. Whether it be balancing creative jobs (Campbell has worked not just as an actor, but also as writer and director), balancing the need for creative input from actors and the need for them to “stand on [their] mark and shut up”, or balancing the creative freedom and irreverance of genre films with the sincerity and quality level of more “respectable” A movies.

“I’m a fan of good films, period” says Campbell. When asked if genre films unfairly get shafted when it comes to reviews, Campbell replies, “it doesn’t matter if it’s a genre film or not…but particular scrutiny has to fall on genre films because [they’re] so cliché oriented”. But what Campbell loves about B Movies is that they don’t give a shit. They’ll take risks without shortchanging their imaginations in exchange for wide market appeal. Campbell muses, “An A writer wouldn’t even write that [Bubba Ho-Tep] script, because in his little A writer brain he’s saying ‘nobody’ll make it, nobody’ll make it. A B writer like [Bubba Ho-Tep screenwriter] Joe Landsdale just goes ‘Hell, I likes dat story!’ and he just writes it”.

Campbell having experience as a writer and director, I ask Coscarelli what it was like to work with him. Character-wise, Coscarelli says, “Bruce was the answer to our particular script”. Work ethic-wise, Coscarelli points out that there are “actors who can be difficult” when the director is working through directorial problems, and there are actors “who can sympathize, and say ‘I’ve got an idea!’” Campbell, says Coscarelli, was great because he was able to offer ideas, but knew his place as an actor and didn’t get frustrated when Coscarelli would say “No, that wouldn’t work”.

“I believe in almost military protocol”, says Campbell in response. “Filmmaking is not a democracy.”

Coscarelli laughs heartily at this, joking and motioning towards my tape recorder, “I should get a copy of this and play it for every actor I work with!”

Talking more about their work in genre film, I bring up the topic of frequent Campbell collaborator and B Movie turned A Movie director, Sam Raimi (Evil Dead, A Simple Plan, Spider Man). I posit the idea that Campbell is Robert DeNiro to Raimi’s Martin Scorcese, to which Campbell laughs and responds “that’s a stretch, but sure”. Always modest, Campbell also laughs when I bring up one reviewer’s statement that Campbell’s work in Bubba Ho-Tep is ‘a performance for the Ages’. Says Campbell, “it was probably written by some thirteen year old for his dad”.

But anyone who has seen Campbell wrestle with his own hand in Evil Dead 2 knows the man deserves all the acting praise he gets. (What he does for a living is much different from what a Tom Hanks-ian actor may do, but equally as difficult.) But Campbell, as well as Coscarelli, remain grounded. They love film, love it, as becomes obvious over the course of our talk, but never do they speak with any hint of pretension. And that, in the end, is the most Awesome thing about them.

-J.