And yet, despite said boredom and ennui, I have failed to update my blog. Oops.
Largely this boredom has been a result of trying to read about the Flavian epicists. Now, I have a lot of time for Statius - there's something about Tydeus munching on brains in book 8 of the
Thebaid that is strangely compelling - but Valerius Flaccus and Silius Italicus can, in my opinion, stuff off. It's a pity they're such pivotal poets in my thesis, drrr.
Anyway. I guess the fact that A doesn't arrive back in St Andrews until tomorrow has also contributed to such feelings of thesis-weariness. And the heat hasn't helped, because it is hot here. Damned hot. And not good heat, oh, no, here we have to get the sticky, still nasty 'it's about to break and thunder heat' that makes me want to cry. Personally, I blame the government, bluster, blah, and I shall be writing a disgruntled missive to the Torygraph immediately... (although on a serious note, I guess we can give the government a hard time on this given that the
UK's C02 emissions are in fact continuing to climb rather that decline despite the Kyoto target of reducing them by 8% by 2012 and the Labour party's own target of 20% by 2010; a rise in line with the rest of the EU. In the UK our 1.3% increase is because 'we drove more'; shame on us all. I shall remain on my high horse (economically friendly, despite the horse-poo) and look down on all those driving around. Bastards).
Otherwise, I was doing normal Skyeness type things; started working at the pottery shop in St Andrews (maintaining, however, my AHRC imposed work restriction of 6 hours a week), which was fun; spending more money than I have (clothes shopping in Dundee, with my personal shopper Robin; hurrah for credit card debt, allowing me to deck myself out in TK-MAX's finest while also keeping the UK economy going - dontcha just love sensible economic policies); and I also went to see
Batman Begins with Jeremy, Jess, Robin and Anna -and with a guest appearance from my academic dad, Rich. On which my thoughts below (em.. SPOILERS!!).
Now, the Guardian yesterday said this is the film that Bat-Fans have been waiting for (well, actually, I'm a bat-fan who's been waiting for the
BatFink movie, but still). And it was pretty fabby, I have to say... but still not a patch on Tim Burton's
1989 and
1992 efforts, though massively better than the
Joel Schumacher efforts. Personally, I thought it maybe a little too gritty and realistic, in keeping with
Christopher Nolan's other films
Memento and
Insomnia - even though Batman is/has become since
The Dark Knight Returns a much grittier figure, I still think there's something of the fantastical about the character. There are eccentricities throughout Gothic Gotham and these were beautifully revealed in the demented world of Bruce Wayne/Batman and Jack Napier/The Joker, in the use of strange colours standing against the exaggerated darkness of the first two movies.
And this seems to me to have been an issue with the characters too. Okay, so there are realistic, deep and profound psychological reasons for Bruce Wayne dressing as a bat and the new movie dealt with those pretty well; I liked the idea that he had to become something elemental, powerful, and fearsome. But, I think that they kind of missed the point that Burton and Micheal Keaton made so well; Bruce Wayne is a man teetering on the edge of breakdown. I love the scene in the first film where Wayne is standing outside Vicky Vale's door, about to try and reveal his identity, saying 'I'm Batman' over and over; holding flowers, you could change the words to any number of movies where the hero practises telling someone he loves them. But rather than trying to find the best way to talk to a lover, he seems almost like he's still trying to convince himself that he is who he is; Wayne/Batman is such a fragile construction/identity that he really has no clue who he is (something they try to address at the end of the new movie) and that he's a man almost completely lost. Where does Bat/Man begin/end? And the Burton movies tantalised us with the dark recesses of Wayne's mind, Keaton's performance suggesting that he could be as dangerous as the joker; indeed, implying that there's not that much difference between vigilante and villain ( Joker: 'Winged freak terroises city? Wit till they get a load of me'). Keaton's Bat/Man is a man/bat on the edge, and Wayne's eccentricities are part of his character rather than a ploy to keep the nosy at bay; his ultimate eccentricity - dressing up as a bat, and beating up criminals.
This has gone on too long, and I think I've demonstrated my geekiness quite enough. but I just want to finish by musing about the drive of the Batman series. Both Batman (1989) and Batman Begins focus on the character's need for revenge; while it is almost incidental that Jack Napier/the Joker turns out to have offed Wayne's parents (Ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight?), and Batman has already been dealing with crims on the streets, the narrative of the film implies closure. Wayne has dealt with the need for revenge; and he now has Vale in his life. It isn't controversial, I think, to say that even the second Burton movie has less direction than the first, and the last two are completely directionless, so much so that there was more room for bat-nipples than for plot. And Batman Begins makes the need for revenge explicit, this is the drive of the movie, at least to begin with. But now that this has been dealt with, can the franchise sustain further entries without again lapsing into directionless drivel; is Batman doomed to have revenge for the deaths of his parents again and again, and are batfans simply going to have to live in this neverending narrative loop... well, I guess that's a kind of closure too. And I guess only the sequel will let us know.
