Batman: The Dark ... Makeup

[tealin]

I finally saw The Dark Knight. I'd waited because I wasn't excited enough about it to brave the hordes, and had plenty of Dr Horrible to tide me over. It was good; it wasn't the life-changing experience some people make it out to be but it was worth my $9.50 and didn't feel like the three hours it ended up being. I don't know whether it was the filmmaking or if I was in a particularly odd state of mind but I kept being distracted by little things: They made Gotham license plates! Batman has black makeup around his eyes under his mask, I wonder how long that's supposed to take him? Did they custom-print the fabric for the Joker's shirt or did they happen to find it somewhere? Harvey Dent was the guy in Thank You For Smoking, and we're supposed to believe he's a good, honest guy? (Or did they cast him with that irony in mind? In that case, thanks for taking me out of the movie, buster!) But #1 on the list of distractions is this:














This was so distracting that I literally did not even realize he was the mayor until talking about it afterwards with my sister (something which she will never let me live down). I kept trying to remember, while watching him, if he was going to turn into a villain at some point, if there was in the Batman mythos a mayor who became, say, The Mad Bedouin or something ... no?

Fail at drawing arms in forced perspective, there. Shaaame.

Comments

[adalanne.livejournal.com]

To play even more devil's advocate, dressing up as a bat to fight crime actually is kind of logical; from the army to police to street gangs to sports teams, we tend to dress up to do battle. Though really, those are more group oriented; Batman's individual bent is a lot more similar to samurai and medieval knights (which is appropriate considering the Batman mythos) who had individual and unique battle garb and often represented animals as well. I recently saw a knight's helmet that had a lion, a dragon, and a unicorn horn on it and decided that anyone coming up against a man wearing that would feel totally screwed; Batman's really going for the same effect. ^_^

So yeah, the eye make-up isn't exactly rational. But neither is Batman's lack of injuries (though it was good to see he was somewhat beat-up) or the contained nature of Dent's burns or the fact that the Joker could walk away from the explosions and truck accidents that killed all the people next to him. Logic is sacrificed for the sake of artistry and effect. The same way the human anatomy doesn't have to be correct in a drawing, and how you can tell the difference between altered anatomy for effect and someone who just couldn't get the anatomy right.

...Yeah, what can I say. I really like the effect of Batman's eye make-up.

And yeah Batman Begins wasn't pre-Prisoner. *lol* My memory timeline got confused, because I did think that in that scene, but it was in regards to what I said above.

To be fair, I only really became aware of Gary Oldman when he was cast as Sirius, so I was used to the aged and facial-haired Oldman. I probably wouldn't have made the connection if my first thought on Oldman was Rosencrantz.