It was June 17, 2005 when Batman Begins came out in Italian cinemas and in the field of blockbuster and, specifically, of films more or less directly based on a comic book property, there was a before and after Batman Begins. Both for Hollywood and for the public.

Yes, because the cinema industry, in its constant search for fat cows to be milking, has always tried to flirt in some way with intellectual properties that could provide a guaranteed audience base from which to start and thanks to which to obtain what to those who do cinema, of all kinds and budgets, likes: a lot of money.

The American superheristic comics of the DC Comics and Marvel from this point of view were perfect: decades and decades of publications behind and a notoriety that, at least for the main characters, was guaranteed. Of course, over the years the crises of the sector have been multiple and cyclical, but also net of this icons such as Batman, Superman or the spider man were also known by the stones.

The above flirtation has never had a predictable trend, but more than anything else a path characterized by ups and downs, without any semblance of constancy.

Isolated cases, for better or for worse

In summary and without softening you with the annalistic. Just think that after the first, legendary Superman of Richard Donner, released in the now remote 1978 and of the second in 1980 (the other two released actually decreed the death of the franchise), it took the two Batrman of Tim Burton to revitalize the genre with works capable of combining pop taste and artistic vision of the director who had conceived them. Then he went on a little to loose bridle despite the fact that, often and willingly, he recognizes himself at the first X-Men of Bryan Singer and at the first spider-man of Sam Raimi that of having in some way canonized the genre by starting a nouvelle vague that would then be explored with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, who really revolutionized the cards on the table was an English gentleman who, we always saw me, With the same, habitual “jacket and pants” look enriched by the inevitable thermal bottle full of Thé: Christopher Nolan.

Batman’s fifth film

After the two Batman films by Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher’s two Warner found himself in the very uncomfortable position of having to deal with the “cinematographic death” of the most popular character of the DC Comics (publishing house belonging to Major herself).

A non -literal death is clear, but commercial. That for a Hollywood study is even a more frightening thing. Just the failure in the Batman & Robin room, the second feature film dedicated to the character directed by Schumacher, made every ambition of the company aborted that paused every plan relating to a fifth film inspired by the Gotham City cruciate companies. A similar fear accompanied any attempt by Warner to restart the saga from scratch. It was really difficult to be able to overcome the trauma of the nipples exhibited by George Clooney on the costume of “his” Batman.

It must not have been nice to live the paradox of possessing the rights of exploitation of the most famous comic character in the world without having the slightest idea of ​​how to be able to bring it back to the limelight on the big screen.

Fortuna wanted that in those years to lead the Warner’s film division there was a gentleman named Alan Horn who with sagas such as that of Harry Potter, Batman and a lion night (just to mention the most popular) gave the company an unrepeatable decade. It was he who took on, in January 2003, a director who until that point had three films behind him: the debut one, a black and white neo-nooir entitled Following that had not been seen by a living soul, memento, thriller with a non-linear structure that had pointed out the director to the Sunday and Venice and Insomnia, remake with Al Pacino and Robin Williams of the thriller of the same name. Norwegian of 1997.

Horn decided to leave the keys of the home of the most important pop icon of the DC in the hands of a director who had no experience with high budget cinema.

Ten years after Nolan himself, in a letter contained in the box of the home video edition that enclosed all three chapters of his trilogy he would have commented on the thing: “I never stopped asking me why they decided to entrust such an important thing to such an inexperienced young man – because if I already had the experience, I was still paralyzed by doubt. Reasoning it a posteriori, it could have been my most absolute trust that a return to the style of the great trusted. Of the 70s with which I grew up, it would have been the keystone for a rebirth in a big Batman style “.

Adding that “Batman lives and blooms thanks to the continuous interpretations that are given about it, but I hope that the work of these three films will be so ambitious and cohesive as to resist the examination of the time. That it can remain an illustrious and distinct reading of a very important icon”.

The birth of the Origin Story

Inspired more or less consciously to what George Lucas had done with the Star Wars prequel trilogy, that is, telling and making the story exciting on the origins of a character that we already knew the fate, Darth Vader, Christopher Nolan has inaugurated the great season of the “Origin Story”, those events that tell the birth of a given character. In some ways, the thing can be considered a merit, for others a fault because the trend then became slightly inflated: think of how many new “origin storys” on Spider-Man, Superman, Batman etc etc. we have seen in the last 15-20 years and you will understand the reason for our statement. And we limited ourselves to mentioning only the most striking cases because then in the field of orign story we also saw those of some characters of the cartoons of the Pixar, to give you an idea of ​​the extension of the damage unconsciously done by ours.

Meriti/Devolite aside, the approach of Christopher Nolan, of his brother Jonathan and Daid Goyer to the character gave rise, with Batman Begins, to something that was no longer obtained even by Nolan himself with the other two chapters of the trilogy. Despite the much higher collections obtained by the Dark Knight and the Dark Knight – the return, only the first episode has managed to mix those needs of “realism” that a character without superpowers such as Batman must have to those more declaredly over the lines that an adaptation from a comic should propose. Without exaggerating, it is clear, that for that there are already the Gothic versions of Burton and those Ultra Camp of Schumacher.

In his telling a story about the origins of the dark knight who was in some way unpublished for the big screen for how he went to fish on the basis of some famous comic books, Year One of Frank Miller in the first place, Nolan paid attention to what were the authentic motivations that led Bruce Wayne to embrace his identity as a masked vigilante dressed in a battering. Not surprisingly, in a film dedicated to a legendary figure like the one conceived by Bob Kane and Bill Finger in 1939, you have to wait for a prosecutor before seeing Christian Bale welcome the costume and feeling him uttered the words “I am Batman”. Try to imagine the faces of Warner’s managers when a London young man of just 33 years without any historical triumph at the box office showed up in the Burbank offices explaining with enthusiasm that “And then, having arrived in the middle of the film, we finally see Batman!”.

In hindsight, that it is easy you will say and it is true, the heart attacks risked and touched in the Major offices have been widely rewarded by a trilogy that made history. Here too: for better or for worse. After Nolan’s exploits there were years and years of films based on comics that, at least in the intentions of their builders, wanted to share the same “Dark and Gritty” approach, dark and realistic, without grabbing the true essence of that path started with Batman Begins. Which does not have so much to do with the dark aesthetic typical of a character like the bat man and on falling his stories in realistic contexts so to speak, since there is no one who throws laser rays from the eyes.

To define and delimit the fact that there was a before and after Batman Begins is the seriousness with which the causes of the birth of that vigilante that makes Gotham nights were explored. As well as those that then led him to fall and get up.