In several of the scenes batman by Matt Reeves, the camera carefully and carefully observes the city of Gotham. The camera pans up to its tallest buildings and then views its dark spaces in detail. Little by little, the emblematic city of the Batman mythology becomes more than just a place. He is really a character from the periphery who gives meaning, value and context to the character.
In fact, Gotham has been part of the vision of many of the directors that the different adaptations of Batman have taken to the cinema. In each of them, the city changes and transforms to show the inner world of the character. Also his relationships with good, evil and morality.
A perception that makes Gotham more than just a stage for Batman’s battle for his redemption. It is, in fact, a way of understanding the antihero as part of a larger idea about his life and his past. At the same time, a journey through Batman’s perception of his duty to do justice and confront his inner darkness.
How has Gotham been portrayed through all the film adaptations of the character? We leave you a review of the main visions of Gotham, the reflection of Batman as a man and a hero. But also, the very conception of the universe in which the character lives.
Tim Burton’s version
For Tim Burton, Gotham was a redoubt of darkness. The only place that could accommodate a man who covered his face with a bat mask to face crime. In fact, screenwriter Sam Hamm even described the city in the ’89 script as a mix of “shadows and twisted architecture.” Accurate descriptions of how the city should have looked, the twisted shape of its buildings and its labyrinthine streets. “Hell burst through the pavement and built a city”, was the phrase used by the director to analyze the physical description.
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For Burton, Gotham was built from an older city that stretched “up and in.” From there, its strange buildings with needles and Gothic reminiscences, also its tiny alleys.
As if that weren’t enough, the notion of Gotham’s darkness was paramount to Burton. The city in the two films directed by the director is shown as a desolate landscape, covered in industrial smoke. “In perpetual twilight”as Burton himself wrote in a script description of the city.
Designer Anton Furst imagined the city based on the idea of what would have happened to New York “without planning or urban planning”. The result was a harassed and oppressive city. Reminiscent of baroque, gothic and also brutalism, the city emerges as a disturbing silhouette.
For Batman Returns, Bo Welch replaced Anton Furst but worked on his designs. Gotham ended up becoming a terrifying and frozen place. According to the expert, the city combined “fascist architecture with that of the World’s Fair” for the city. Touches of architecture with Russian airs and German expressionism were also added.
Joel Schumacher version
The director of the duology that followed Burton’s added to Gotham an aspect camp which mystified by its vibrant colors. It was of considerable importance to the filmmaker, that in addition to showing the darker parts of him, his “nightlife of him” could be appreciated.
So there were neon sconces and also entire areas illuminated by tubes of phosphorescent light. It was an appreciable change that distorted Burton’s Gotham, although in essence the visual geography of the city was the same.
In fact, the same plans and measurements from Burton’s Gotham were used. Cinematographer Stephen Goldblatt just added “layers of color,” plus all sorts of new whimsical shaped structures.
The intention was to create the sensation that although the city had already been shown, “there were more exciting areas to discover”. Schumacher also tried to link the vision of a more lively Gotham, with its twisted villains and in suits in bright colors. The city that Jim Carrey’s The Riddle tries to conquer bears a resemblance to the character’s radiant, warped vision of good and evil.
Christopher Nolan’s Gotham
For Batman’s return to the big screen with a new director and point of view on his mythology, Gotham also changed completely. This time with a realistic and urban tone, the perception of the city became more modern and decadent. In fact, Wally Pfister, director of photography for the Nolan trilogy, was instructed by the director to create “a bright, hard look at the iconic city.”
For the occasion, the architecture of the city abandons Burton’s Gothic and Baroque, to focus on the The architecture of Gotham City is a mix of Art Deco and modern. There are also clean brutalist concrete structures and an entirely new conception of prosperity.
But in addition, Nolan took as a reference the way in which director Michael Mann analyzed the city and its surroundings. Although the city is bright, huge and sophisticated, it holds a certain darkness and secrets.
The filmmaker and his director of design and set design Nathan Crowley worked on the idea of a growing Gotham. And in fact, Nolan went on to point out that his inspiration came from cities like Hong Kong, Chicago, New York and Tokyo. The mix sought to show a thriving, ultra-modern and elegant city, but also full of dark corners.
For batmanbegins and Dark Knight, shots of Chicago were used, which Nolan enhanced with a cool, bluish color palette. For The Dark Knight Rises, shots from Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, and New York were used. The combination created urban landscapes that range from tall glass and steel skyscrapers to tiny, shadowy alleyways.
Zack Snyder’s version of Gotham
The city for Zack Snyder is a look at the tensions of his characters. So his gaze on Gotham is that of a complicated combination between beauty and the monumental. The city imagined by the director is twisted, dirty and contaminated by a type of evil that advances in the shadows.
Also, for a conception of beauty, which is directly related to the way in which Batman understands the city where he was born. Closer to the claustrophobic idea of a disturbing city than to a growing space, it is a destroyed context, devastated by the power of superheroes and their struggles. Also a silent and dark scenario that in the end ends up being hurt by the final confrontation between his protector and those who accompany him.
Version Cathy Yan (For Birds of Prey)
Cathy Yan’s Gotham is a brighter version and urban Gotham than was Snyder’s. The director shows it from her version of open spaces, ports and also, spacious and luxurious structures.
And although most of the film takes place under the vision of the city as a space for escape, it is also a plot context. Especially when he provides his Black Mask headquarters, with sprawling buildings and lavish nightclubs.
Matt Reeves version
Lighting is also a concept of great interest to Reeves’ Gotham. In fact, a good part of the scenes show how light delineates spaces and also reconstructs the visual environment that surrounds the hero. A journey through violence and fear that becomes denser as the film progresses.
Gotham’s version of Todd Phillips
Director of photography Lawrence Sher created for the story of the most famous villain in the Batman mythology, a city on the verge of exploding. In fact, one of the most outstanding points of it is the sensation of imminent explosion of the disaster that accompanies the argument.
Phillips’s version bears an obvious resemblance to Martin Scorsese’s New York in TaxiDriver. The destroyed spaces, littered with trash and rubble, look overwhelming and unforgiving. A good part of the film sustains his speech on violence and dehumanization, thanks to the brilliant version on a scene on the verge of disaster.