Batman himself represents the sometimes dull force of good and moral behavior and needs charismatic adversaries to fight against. The Batman movies have benefited from memorable performances from Jack Nicholson (the Joker), Danny DeVito (the Penguin), or even Jim Carrey (the Riddler), whose casting plays to their acting strengths as well as their physical appearance. However, in Batman and Robin, from the first name appearing on the opening credits, the towering presence of Schwarzenegger dwarfs other areas of production, in terms of his personal salary ($25 million), his dialogue, peppered with often unfunny one-liners, and the logistics of the hours of makeup that his character needed every day. His dialogue consists of little more than predictable gags and puns (“The ice-man cometh”), and after zapping an underling with his ice-gun, as he was trying to watch a copy of his wedding video, he declares, “I hate it when people talk during the movie.”
In theory, the plot twist of a good character, a scientist, turned bad through grief at the loss of his wife ought to make Freeze more nuanced, especially since this obviously sets up a link with Bruce Wayne’s butler, Alfred (Michael Gough), who is also suffering from the same disease. However, Freeze’s method of threat, covering Gotham in ice, reflects a character dominated by stasis rather than the literal ability to be chilling. From the opening with the Warner Brothers logo freezing, the film atrophies too. The visual conception of Freeze seems confused, shifting between two distinct looks: a neutered Terminator-style outfit with Last Action Hero cigar and cumbersome freezing gun or a bizarre dressing gown. Even extreme close-ups of his eyes tearing up, and later him actually crying, fail to humanize him. His henchmen are all interchangeable stock characters and are forced to do his eccentric bidding (singing “Frosty the Snowman”).
Schumacher, who is openly gay, might be criticized for adding unnecessary homosexual innuendo in the dialogue (Poison Ivy’s offer to Batman to retrieve his stolen diamond is expressed more colloquially: “I’ll help you grab your rocks”). The lack of engaging characters and action means that the audience’s attention is more likely to be drawn to the superficial campiness of the whole production, and with the greater prominence of Robin as Batman’s sidekick, it is perhaps inevitable that a gay subtext (never far beneath the surface of the superhero franchise) seems more obvious.
The very first sight we have of the superhero duo is in a montage of suiting-up with a series of paired close-ups of gauntlets, leg protectors, chest, and codpieces. They seem a compilation of rubberized body parts (including prominent butt shots) rather than living beings, and the fact that each shot has a little motorized zoom, immediately followed by a parallel shot of the other man, creates a sense of almost dressing up in fetish wear for their partner. The final toe-to-head shot explicitly conveys a voyeuristic point of view of two fit men in rubber suits. In this context, such sequences feel more like part of a love story, reflected in the title, especially since the pair expend as much emotional energy on bickering with each other as they do on fighting crime. It is true that Batgirl is similarly attired in a further montage sequence much later but she has much less time on-screen. The increasingly phallic Batmobile, the close-ups of Clooney’s crotch and butt, the additions of nipples to the batsuit, enlarged codpieces for both Batman and Robin, and even the gadgets (not huge in variety but at least 10 times a Batclip was fired from a belt to save one or both men), all suggest a certain amount of displacement activity.
Even Freeze rejects the attentions of a scantily clad black girl, and Poison Ivy jokingly describes Freeze’s wife, held in suspended animation, as “frigid.” Barbara (Alicia Silverstone) is first seen dressed in schoolgirl uniform, which seems more evocative of clichéd erotica than strictly likely in context. The camera tilts down, inhabiting Robin’s point of view as we are invited to look at Barbara’s legs, but this is closer to a sibling situation and the relationship remains chaste through the film. Robin kisses Poison Ivy but only with special film over his lips to expose her duplicity and attempt to kill him: clearly women cannot be trusted. Uma Thurman’s Mae West-style delivery promises steamy content, but beyond the skintight outfits the film delivers very little erotic charge. Her answer to Robin’s request for a sign with “slippery when wet” seems as predictable in tone as Freeze’s one-liners, and the fight between Batgirl and Poison Ivy seems more like a camp burlesque show.
Some of the background of the Batman franchise certainly supports a gay reading: A lone male hero, sharing a house with his companion, Robin, lives a secret double life. He does not seem interested in the approaches of women like Vicki Vale (Kim Basinger) in Batman, Catwoman (Michelle Pfeiffer) in Batman Returns, Dr. Chase Meridian (Nicole Kidman) in Batman Forever, and Julie Madison (Elle McPherson) here, who even proposes to Batman but he ignores her (supposedly for her safety). At the unveiling of the new Gotham telescope, he jokes with the paparazzi, “Just don’t point it at my bedroom.” Like the pose of togetherness for the cameras (Julie claims they are “recklessly in love” although we do not see this), there is something false about this performance of heterosexual normality as Bruce ducks the marriage question. Later at dinner, Julie is the one who obliquely proposes but Bruce bats (!) this away with “I’m not the marrying kind,” adding “There are things about me that you wouldn’t understand.” He kisses Julie but calls her Ivy and momentarily projects the other woman’s face onto the girl in front of him. As in the later function where Poison Ivy gains the keys from Commissioner Gordon (Pat Hingle) to activate the Batsignal, Bruce’s attention seems distracted, looking away from Julie at his side at something he cannot place, giving him the look of a heterosexual hero not fully at ease with himself.
The scene with Alfred, in which Bruce declares “I love you, old man” before kissing him and receiving the same expression of love in return, which could emphasize Alfred as a surrogate father, would not usually attract much attention; but without the emotional depth in the film as a whole to support such statements, this sequence only adds to the suggestion of a suppressed sexuality. Add in the fetish leatherwear, the cave that might double for a metaphorical “closet,” dialogue like Robin’s line to Batman “You have some real problems with women, you know that?” and that the only attraction that the male characters have for any female on screen is due to the pheromones that Poison Ivy blows onto the faces of her helpless male victims, and it is not hard to see why a gay subtext might suggest itself.
Clooney’s decision to be in an episode of South Park this same year (1997) and more precisely to take the part of Sparky, Big Gay Al’s dog, suggests not just a liking for the show but also a delight in playing with his media image. Rather than taking the kind of celebrity role associated with shows like The Simpsons, to associate himself with a show still in its infancy and particularly in a subservient role as a barking dog reflects decisions he has made on more substantial cinematic projects. A couple of years later, he voiced Doctor Gouache in South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (Trey Parker), parodying his ER persona through a series of ridiculously wrong diagnoses. He is not afraid to try edgier projects, especially those that allow him to subvert audience expectations. The skit he filmed with the cast of Modern Family shown at the 2010 Emmy Award ceremony still shows a willingness not to take gossip about himself too seriously, with the final shot of him in bed with Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Eric Stonestreet, leading to the line “I’ve gotta get a film,” delivered in an exaggeratedly low pitch to accentuate his heterosexual credentials.
A bigger problem for Batman and Robin is not so much a denial of a gay subtext as the fact that the character of Robin is at best superfluous and at worst annoying and egotistical in a narrative that suffers from too many peripheral characters distracting us from the hero. Here we have lightweight villains and an insubstantial helper, who adds little to the plot. The comic-strip Robin was added to attract a wider demographic (children), and there is the sense here too that a family audience (rather than a gay one) is being targeted but ironically by means of an unattractive figure, rep
resenting moaning teenagers.
Clooney’s acting style when on camera as Bruce Wayne is dominated by the same facial and body positioning: looking down, starting to speak, stopping and looking up with his head still tilted down, as when he is explaining to Robin (and us) about Freeze’s backstory. In scenes opposite Alfred, he is often framed in slightly low angle, like a doctor looking down at a patient, and there is still quite a bit of ER posture and emotional range here (Clooney was working on the two projects at the same time). Even when he is later explaining to Robin about Alfred’s condition, there are the same half-smiles, which seem inappropriate here, and when asked how he knows about this, he simply states “I can tell.” Walking outside with Alfred, Clooney walks with his hands clasped in front of him with the solemn, reserved demeanor of someone attending a funeral. This may reflect the serious nature of Alfred’s condition but it is sequences like this that make Wayne hard to engage with. Even though his name is in the title, the character of Batman (or his alter ego as Bruce Wayne) does not dominate the screen, either in time or in manner when he is present. This is not Clooney’s fault: the part is just not fleshed out enough to engage and sustain audience sympathy.
He wears black at all times—a turtleneck sweater, a tuxedo to the opening of the observatory, and even at the climax when Alfred faces death, he is in a hooded sweatshirt. However, the script does not allow us to see anything of a Hamlet-style darker psychology behind such clothing choices. The only broadening of his emotional life we are given is in relation to Robin’s expressions of frustration and some heavy-handed sentiments about notions of family (letting Robin make his own mistakes and allowing Barbara to stay—“after all, she’s family”). In this, Clooney is basically acting as a surrogate father to his nearest characters. He is showing a protective, slightly world-weary approach to them, and like a parent with a rebellious teen must bring his young charge (Robin) back into the family fold with some controlled risk taking and sharing of responsibility.
Batman’s disabling of Robin’s bike, preventing him from making a dangerous jump in pursuit of Freeze, feels like a parent concerned by (and possibly overreacting to) his offspring undertaking unnecessarily dangerous risks. The subsequent dialogue between the two reads like a parent laying down house rules, which the youngster must follow “if you want to stay in this house and on the team.” However, the positive elements of Clooney’s character are dissipated by the petulance in Robin, storming off not once but twice, declaring “I’m going solo,” and later marching off again after calling Batman jealous over Poison Ivy.
Batman momentarily doubts whether he is being “pig-headed” about this and asks Alfred’s advice, but the older man can provide only some strangely high-flown rhetoric (“What is Batman if not an effort to master the chaos that sweeps our world?” and later “Not all heroes wear masks”). The cartoonish context of the film as a whole renders such philosophizing fairly ridiculous. Like Robin, his female parallel, Barbara, also looks like she needs some paternal protection as we see her taking bets with groups of bikers and groups of gangs, dressed like Droog-wannabes from Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange (1971).
Clooney’s character has three visionary flashbacks of himself as a boy being looked after by Alfred (he looks off-camera and we cut to a dissolve of Alfred picking him up when he falls, a later bedtime story, and a final projected vision on a window, where he is putting flowers on his parents’ grave). These intrusive snapshots of the only family life he has known do not sit well with Barbara’s description of freeing her uncle from “this dismal life of servitude.” Although Wayne asks Alfred later whether he regrets working all his life for the Wayne family, the loyal butler denies this. There is, nonetheless, the residue of a baronial manner here. Wayne is a multimillionaire and perhaps his acts of philanthropy reflect guilt about how he derives his wealth. However, the occasional arresting shot (like the snapshot of the Riddler’s costume in the Criminal Property Locker at Arkham Asylum) does not make up for the emotional neutrality of the film as a whole. When Batman, Robin, and Batgirl put their hands together at the end, it feels less like the beginning of a Three Musketeer-style adventure and more like the conclusion of a business meeting.
The fact that in this the fourth incarnation of the series, we have the third different actor playing the part reflects the anonymity of the role of Batman. Unlike the Bond franchise, where individual actors can bring some new elements to the role, it is much more difficult with the dramatic realization of Batman. With 90 percent of the body covered by a rubber suit, it is the costume and the gadgets that dominate (the latter a similar distraction with Bond sometimes). There is a limit to how much emotion you can exude from lips and cheekbones alone. Clooney does have an edge here however with a distinctive voice, reflected in his TV commercials (see chapter 9).
Batman and Robin signals a shift away from a more adversarial focus on Batman and a single villain to a diversification of subsidiary roles, with two goodies (Robin and Batgirl) and two baddies (Freeze, Poison Ivy, and even a further sidekick, the feral Bane), the effect of which is a loss of narrative focus and of a greater sense of the serial over the climactic event. If Batman vanquishes one opponent, another will appear a few minutes later.
Critically, the film fared poorly, and certainly given the hopes of the studio it was not the blockbuster it might have been. Perhaps denigrating one’s own work and playing up its camp qualities is the best that Clooney can do. Certainly, compared to other films considered in this book, although it made more money than almost any of them, in terms of quality, even on its own generic terms, it represents a low point in Clooney’s career that he did well to escape from. Reports of the death of the Batman franchise were premature, but it did not really recover until eight years later with Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins (2005) and especially The Dark Knight (2008). However, it did show Clooney what being part of a franchise could mean for his career. A more successful reception of the film might have meant making the difficult choice of whether to stay in a role that was lucrative but limiting as an actor. As it was, the decision to move on to other projects was not hard to take.
The Peacemaker (Mimi Leder, 1997)
Devoe:
In the field, this is how it works: the good guys, that’s us, we chase the bad guys. And they don’t wear black hats. They are, however, all alike.
The film has a strong Bond-like feel in its action sequences, criminality filling the void of post–Cold War politics and minimal concern with character motivation. Villains are either rogue Russian generals, like Kodoroff (Alexander Baluyev), or dissident Europeans, like Dusan Gavrich (Marcel Iures), whose political motivation is more hazy than their emotional reaction to personal losses in war. Despite mentions of Sarajevo or Bosnia, there is no attempt to educate viewers about European politics: it is strictly an otherland of political infighting and double-dealing.
The opening Bond-style prologue, showing the theft of the nuclear device, blends Harry Potter-like anachronisms in the steam train with the gratuitous spectacle of shadowy figures jumping from one train to another. Several other Bond films also dramatize the attempt to steal nuclear weapons, like Thunderball (Terence Young, 1965), particularly in a destabilized former Soviet Union through the course of the 1990s. The pairing of Dr. Julia Kelly (Nicole Kidman) and Lt. Col. Thomas Devoe (George Clooney) adds to this impression of a Bond-like universe. Initially, Kelly appears to have some elements of strength in her character, like her civilian rank, her title, the ability to speak Russian, and her political knowledge. However, as soon as she shares the same screen space as Devoe, her character visibly wilts, becoming instantly deferential to his assertive manner and forceful personality. Kelly’s breaking into Russian in Vienna feels like Major Anya Amasova (Barbara Bach) in The Spy Who Loved Me (Lewis Gilbert, 1977), asserting at every opportunity the equality of women, but here she is still excluded from the nods and winks exchanged between Devoe and Dimitri (Armin Mueller-Stahl).
Kelly’s pre
sentation is instantly derailed by Devoe’s fairly rude interruption, which reduces her to a breathless nervousness. There is a sense of playful one-upmanship about his reading of the photos on display, which at least suggests insensitivity in undermining Kelly’s position. If a more romantic relationship were to develop in the film, it would have to accommodate such awkward scenes and may be one reason why it does not happen. He apologizes with “my enthusiasm sometimes gets the better of me,” but it is delivered with a smirk and by then the damage to her on-screen credibility is already done. Rotating camera movement around the characters in the offices does not conceal that their lives are essentially static; i.e., Kelly’s area of expertise is at some distance from the action.
Theoretically, he is her “military liaison,” i.e., subordinate to her in political and management terms but given relatively free rein in the theater of combat. The problem is that after this first presentation, the relationship is not playful or combative: Devoe takes charge and Kelly defers. On the phone and in person in her office, Kelly tries to assert authority, issuing commands, but she seems weak and hesitant in dialogue with Devoe. At the mention of a suspect’s name, he takes charge, literally grabbing the phone, and from this point, he is the one driving the investigation forward. Even though she is the one who has the ear of the president, we almost forget her superior position, until Devoe has to wait for clearance from her before launching the helicopter raid into Russian airspace. There seems little real steel in her character.
George Clooney Page 9