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Batman

Batman is the first modern movie adaptation of the comic book character Batman created by Bob Kane for DC Comics. The movie was directed by Tim Burton and released in 1989, featuring Michael Keaton as Batman, Jack Nicholson as Joker and Kim Basinger as photo-journalist Vicky Vale. The movie is based on a script by Sam Hamm.

The movie Batman (film) tells the story of origins of the rivalry between Batman and the Joker. The story is set in a fictional city called Gotham City and the time is described as timeless and ranging from the 1940's to the future. The stories of their lives seem to be revolving around each other from the beginning on. Without intervention from outside the fight between them determines the tension and the plot of the movie. Batman is portrayed as the good hero who becomes involved in the fight as a result of him eyewitnessing his parents' murder in his younger years. His thirst for revenge leads to the creation of Batman. Batman is a cloaked figure observing the streets of Gotham City and who is always in search of hints of his parents' murderer. On the other hand the figure of the Joker is developed backwards and forwards to be the antihero and therefore the counterpart of Batman. Subsequently is revealed that he is the murderer of Batman's parents and therefore the initiation for the person Bruce Wayne to disguise himself as Batman. Thus the conflict between this two unequal characters brings about the progress of the plot.

The characters are situated in completely contradictional circumstances. After his father's murder Bruce Wayne becomes the heir of an important enterprise, even in his younger years he is a wealthy and influential person. Nevertheless the tragedy that happened to his parents makes him enter the narrow path and face the danger of the criminal Gotham City always bearing in mind the intention to take revenge on the murderer. In the beginning of the film the Joker is a small criminal, called Jack Napier who crosses the paths of young Bruce Wayne and his parents by mere chance. Nevertheless he is a dangerous murderer and in the course of time he successfully rises to a powerful and rich person of the criminal world of Gotham City.His rise to power achieves an climax when he kills his boss Carl Grissom, who is the boss of the criminal Gotham City.

Thus the story of the origins of the conflict between these two antagonists reveals their contradictional characteristic traits. The harm that happens to his parents demonstrates the vulnerability of Bruce Wayne. His thirst for revenge has the consequence that he spends more and more time of his live in a disguise hiding his identity from other people thus contributing to his own loneliness. On the other hand the Joker is a character who makes his rise to power using the weaknesses of other people to his own advantage. He is a cold-blooded murderer and he finishes his rise to power by committing murder on one of the crime bosses of Gotham City.

Plot

The film begins with a robbery commited by two young men on a tourist family who got lost in the streets of Gotham City in the night. The Joker is introduced as the enforcer for the biggest crime boss of Gotham City called Carl Grissom, he says that Carl Grissom is too old to rule the crimanal world of Gotham City without him and it becomes clear that he is cheating on him personally and that he is coolly calculating the time to kill his boss in order to seize the power over the criminal Gotham City. He is evidently waiting to take him at his disadvantage on his way to rise to power.

In the next scene we see Jack Napier giving bribes to one of policeman, who deal with the men who robbed the tourist family. In this situation Jack Napier mentions that he is going to run the criminal world of Gotham City one day. The policeman doubts this because he believes that Jack Napier is kind of insane and that crime boss Carl Grissom knows this.

In the next scene the spectator learns that crime boss Grissom fears that Commissioner Gordon interferes with his plans to destroy Axis Chemicals. He gives Jack Napier the assignment to personally observe the demolition of Axis Chemicals.

But Commissioner Gordon learns that Jack Napier has been seen going into the chemical factory and decides to follow him there. When he arrives at the factory he dicovers the police being involved into a shooting with Jack Napier and his men. Soon Batman arrives at the chemical plant in order to support the police.

Jack Napier throws switches around in order to cause an overload. When Batman arrives he tries to escape from him. Later Napier starts to shoot and kills one of the policemen, as next he fires a shot at Batman, but he doesn't hit him, on the contrary the ricochet hits him and he falls on the sidewalk. Batman seems to want to help him up, Jack Napier lands face down in the chemical waste of the factory, though. As a result his hair and lips get a green color and his skin gets a shining lime-white shade. This can be interpreted as an allusion to what is shown in the film Trainspotting, where Ewan McGregor can be seen kissing the toilet bowl. The lime-white color reminds of the color of the toilet bowl and the green color represents the color of puke. That demonstrates that Jack Napier is a person who is to avoid in all circumstances, he is a so called "grab for the toilet".

Photo-journalist Vicky Vale becomes involved in the conflict between Batman and the Joker, when she is making the coverage on Batman's salvage operations in Gotham City for the newspaper "Gotham Globe". She is one of the few who takes his appearances for serious and tries to unravel his mystery.

In the next scene we learn that Vicky Vale and Bruce Wayne have a date, during this date is revealed that he has only the butler Alfred whom he counts as family.

After a plastic surgery Jack Napier reappears as the ever-smiling Joker and on his first meeting with his boss Carl Grissom he shoots him dead thus constituting his attempt to seize the power over the criminal Gotham City. As next the Joker kills two of the other crime bosses of Gotham City, those two who dare to express their doubts about Joker's new power or claim the power over Gotham City's crime world for themselves. He is already collecting photos of dead people, when his spy arrives with photos from employees of the Gotham Globe, among them a photo of Vicky Vale and we learn that Joker wants to make her his girl.

Vicky Vale wants to meet Bruce Wayne at the museum, but she waits for him so long until the Joker appears. Instead the Joker appears and spreads a deathly gas in the museum so that all people except for Vicky Vale are killed. Vicky Vale is wearing a gas mask for her protection following the note that she found near a kiosk, when waiting for Bruce Wayne. Obviously he wants to torture her, she can hardly escape an acid attack, when Batman appears to rescue her and brings her out of the museum to his Batmobile, a car chase with Joker's men follows.

On the next day we see Vicky Vale and Bruce Wayne in her apartment discussing why he didn't answer her call and came to the museum. Bruce Wayne evidently is about to confess to her that he is Batman, but interrupted by the unexpected appearance of the Joker in Vicky Vale's apartment. The Joker came to capture Vicky Vale and is surprised when he realizes that somebody else, that is Bruce Wayne, is with her. He says that he doesn't want to share her with another men, fires a shot at Bruce Wayne and loosing interest in Vicky Vale, leaves. She turns to Bruce Wayne, but realizes that she is alone and discovers a silver plate, that he evidently has used to protect himself from the shot.

It becomes evident that only in his disguise as Batman Bruce Wayne has the authority to face his opponent and to fight him. He also succeeds in saving Vicky Vale from Joker's men.

The final scene begins when the Joker leads a huge parade that attracts many spectators and then starts to throw balls with lethal Smilex gas on them. This has a devastative effect on the crowd so that Batman appears in an aeroplane and starts to cut off the balloons with the poison so that they soar up in the stratosphere. Joker takes revenge and shoots the Batplane down to earth, Vicky Vale tries to rescue Batman out of the wreckage, but he is not there. Instead the Jokercaptures Vicky Vale and flees with her at the top of the Gotham City Cathedral.

In the final scene he fights the Joker and makes him fall down from the roof of an industrialized building. He can help Vicky Valeto escape and relieved she gets in the car of Bruce Wayne and doesn't wonder anymore that she has to wait for Bruce Wayne. Even earlier she was guessing that Batman and Bruce Wayne are the same person.

Setting

The movie is set in a corrupt and dangerous Gotham City, the crime rules at night in Gotham City and in the night is the beginning of the movie. According to producer Jon Peters it was the intention to create an “aggressive picture” with a “rough and dark edge”. Gotham City appears as a more corrupt and dark version of New York, including a lot of “peril (…) and humor”, but the movie is not supposed to be the same as “Raiders of the Lost Ark” or “Ghostbusters”. Production designer Anton Furst used “the worst aspects of New York City” and made them appear old and timeless, “running from the 40‘s to the future” with indications to fascism and German Expressionism as well as to industrial buildings in general.

1-3 http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DEFDE1131F936A35751C0A96F948260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print http://chandlerparkburbank.org/chandler_bikeway.html |accessdate 2008-12-13

Filming

Filming took place in London at the Pinewood Studios. According to The New York Times the Batman (film) is the biggest production of the year 1989 for Warner Bros., with a budget exceeding 30 million $. The project was met with opposition from the fans of the comic book character Batman, who expressed their objections against the choice of director Tim Burton and his choice of Michael Keaton to play Batman in a huge number of letters. The fans expected from Tim Burton's version of Batman (film) to be a parody of the The Batman (TV series) from the 1960's. Tim Burton was known from his recent successful movie Beetlejuice, a comedy, and not a blockbuster about the most popular DC Comics character like Batman at this time was.

Hilary de Vries, (February 5, 1989). "Batman Battles For Big Money", The New York Times. Accessdate 13 December, 2008.

Sequel Batman: Batman returns

"Batman Returns" is a sequel of Batman released in 1992 produced and directed by Tim Burton, featuring Michael Keaton once again as Batman, on his side Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman. The sreenplay was developed by Daniel Waters and is based again on the story of Sam Hamm. The plot revolves around the villain Penguin, portrayed by Danny De Vito and his attempt to seize the power over Gotham City.

The Bourne Ultimatum

Roots: -Ursula Bourne, secret wife of heir of the mansion in Fernly Park, a novel by Agatha Christie. After the murder of the owner of the mansion his heir and son is suspected to have commited the murder. Shorty before the murder he is seen walking around the mansion in Fernly Park, after the murder he disappears and as a consequence and out of lack of other traces the police starts to search for him. Nevertheless he is nowhere to be found and thus becomes more and more the top suspective for the police. Only Hercule Poirot doesn't approve this position, he is very interested to uncover the identity of a certain Ursula Bourne. Finally Hercule Poirot manages to start the rumour that her secret husband is captured by the police and that he is not doing very well and thus he succeeds to make Ursula Bourne confess their secret marriage and furthermore she provides an alibi for him and thus rescues his life. In order to learn who is the murderer please read Agatha Christie's novel, because it's worth the wile to find it out, it was the breakthrough for her as a legendary and extraordinary gifted crime writer.