HEROES NOT HEROINES.

I’ve discussed strong female characters once before, so I thought I’d try male characters. The whole logic behind discussing female characters is, despite being influenced directly by a season on film-four, I felt that female cinematic characters tend to fit a certain cinematic conventional mould. This isn’t always the case, but there has been more flexibility with male roles in film than female since cinema began.

 I’m not one for traditional anything really, so I like to go against type. That being said, I thought looking at some male characters might be interesting and highlight some decent films in the process. Thus, I’d like to highlight a few characters, and discuss some background on the films in which they feature too.

But before we start: How do I interpret cinema?

 Cinema deals with ideas and only ideas.  You can analyse those ideas and draw conclusions on them, but ultimately, they are only ideas amongst tricks of the light and enticing imagery. Life deals with ideas too. Cinema is after all human creation, and it stands to reason it would mimic some of our traits in its make-up, but only ideas.

Today’s reality is tomorrows past, and we tend to reshape the past from memory using ideas we’ve experienced in the present. Cinema borrows from the past and borrows ideas and reinvents itself constantly in a similar way.

  Drama, spectacle, excitement, wonder, fear, desire, destiny, fate, anger, happiness, power, prestige, unexpected turn of events, wisdom, growing old, gradually decomposing, and dying, and importance: these make up humanity and cinema too.

If you watch too much television do you get square vision?

Someone once asked me, what would you do if you only had a day to live. My reply was to have a C.S.I. Miami viewing marathon (it was popular at the time).

That isn’t supposed to be taken as literal statement. I’m suggesting the common response which may be something perceived profound, or conventionally associated with an assumed profound or romantic nature is far less disingenuous than my more ordinary, and yet very conceivable response.

That being said, my response may be partially true, but not for the reasons many would think.

It’s the very nature of my response to the question and, indeed, my perception that we attach poetic or romanticised significance to our societies and our environments, that suggests our common perceptions of the world around us may not have any real semblance in reality.  Thus, a seemingly insignificant medium like the television transforms into a form of profound meaning because I’ve chosen to perceive it that way, and I’ve given it meaning.

Negative views of staying inside and watching television or movies is derived from this same distorted perception of reality. In the sense that we have such an ingrained or forced value system, as a society, that we feel the need to promote more perceivable wholesome activities.

Let’s look at the movies…

MAD MAX: FURY ROAD (2015)

 Director George Miller’s original dystopian trilogy started life as an imaginative independent film in the form of ‘Mad Max’ which stood out on the back of the so-called ‘Ozploitation period’ (lucrative low budget Australian cinema with b-movie aspects) that flourished during the late 1970’s and early 1980's.

The films moderate financial success got director George Miller financial backing from Warner Bros and ‘The Road Warrior’ was born.

Rather than ditch his roots in independent cinema and follow the corporate bandwagon, George Miller retained his earlier films ‘grindhouse’ low budget aspects, whilst cramming in more vehicles and elaborately conceived car chases, particularly in the form of the films, still pretty spectacular, pre-CGI high octane, gasoline fuelled, chase along the ominous Australian back roads, which retained a character of their own courtesy of Dean Semler’s unforgettable cinematography.

 What makes this series so important and memorable?

Despite some bench-mark camera work and buckets of originality, it is the themes the series explores that make it stand out amongst the crowd of similar dystopian cinema (it’s a post-apocalyptic setting but with dystopian political undercurrents).

The nature of a future humanity falling by the wayside, and an almost messianic character (in the form of Max), whose riddled with flaws and psychological damage, drifting into the fold and setting things right are just really engaging and tangible human themes, and the menacingly customized vehicles act as a symbolic metaphor for a world fuelled by anarchism, whose human remnants are driven only by an instinctive need to salvage fuel as that was a necessity in the world before the apocalypse.

A third sequel concluded the Mel Gibson era, with Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, a film that doesn't come close to matching The Road Warrior, in terms of quality film making. The main issue with Thunderdome is the concept is so ambitious that the film makers and the film itself (it was jointly directed) just collapse under the weight of such concepts. A co-producer died during location shoots and George Miller dropped out, but I just can't see this film working with or without him. As it stands, we have a post-apocalyptic cinematic collage of one or two different ideas (Lord of the Flies meets a Spaghetti Western)  cut and pasted together into one awkward movie.

There are very strong and exciting ideas here, perfectly suited for the Mad Max universe, but they are so poorly executed that the film really does feel like a high quality student movie. Looking back, the original Mad Max is looking pretty ropy, but The Road Warrior and its spiritual sequel, Fury Road, look great.

Tom Hardy was picked to play the role of Max in the revisionist Fury Road, and despite him being very bankable since 2010, I don’t believe they could have got any better. I’m a fan of the original trilogy, but this film surpassed my expectations in every way.

The character of Max Rocktansky is strong because he’s lost everything (his wife, child, and meaning in life) yet still keeps going, whilst retaining his core values and principles. Tom Hardy’s portrayal, just like the film itself, is physical. The film tells its story through the visual language of film, and it’s a powerful one.

Max, as portrayed by Tom Hardy, is an outsider, who sees an opportunity to help others and liberate a group of vulnerable women in the process, not even so much as asking for credit in the process.

Fury Road was a great film, and the take on the character felt just right to me.

BATMAN RETURNS (1992)

After the benchmark set by Richard Donner’s Superman in 1978, comic book cinema was a viable commercial enterprise. But it wasn’t until 1989’s Batman that audiences got yet another comic book benchmark and one, along with Superman, that would influence many more comic book films to follow.

Despite being directed by Tim Burton, 1989’s Batman is very restrained by his directorial standards, and despite some divergences from the comic book, stays true to the spirit of the dark knight himself and the DC comic’s tone.

A sequel would follow in 1992 in the form of Batman Returns, and this would be anything but restrained. So much so, Warner Brothers executives distanced themselves from such wonderful gothic indulgences, and reduced Batman to some kind of mass commercial by-product for a younger audience (read Whatever Happened to Imagination).

Actor Michael Keaton would portray Batman in both films, and he would capture the all-important psychological underpinnings of Bruce Wayne, and the heartache over the death of his parents. His portrayal of Batman was multi-faceted.

Batman Returns featured some particularly good on-screen chemistry between Cat Woman/Selina Kyle (Michelle Pfeiffer) and Batman/Bruce Wayne (Michael Keaton). Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman costume was perfect and represented sexually repressed office worker Selina Kyle's sexuality and her violent sadomasochistic streak.

The later portrayals of Catwoman, by actresses Halle Berry and Anne Hathaway, had costumes that were fitted in the most forgettable and tawdry way anyone could imagine. Since 1992, Hollywood has not even attempted to channel the themes explored by Tim Burton, nor have they fashioned the Catwoman costume in the way it was depicted in Batman Returns.

In Batman Returns, straight off the bat, the conventional idealistic Christmas image is shattered into a thousand pieces when a deformed child's parents send him sailing down the sewer, after wishing a couple with a perfect baby Merry Christmas. No way would Christopher Nolan even consider such leaps.

Tim Burton just about takes a swipe at everything in Batman Returns from conventionality, BDSM, Christmas, corporate greed, and of course, and most importantly identity and belonging. The nature of such things within the screenplay is very human and relatable.

 I'm not a fan of the Christopher Nolan trilogy, save The Dark Knight Rises. Batman is angry and shouting all the time. Catwoman has no sexuality, which is missing the point of Catwoman altogether, and the whole series feels like Batman meets Michael Mann's Heat. These films filled the cinemas and made billions, but aside from some interesting moments in 'The Dark Knight Rises' they are unintelligent, dull, and unimaginative.Only Tom Hardy’s menacing portrayal of Bane in the final chapter showed some inspiration, along with his eccentric performance and delivery.

  Batman Returns smartly explored the psychological underpinnings of its characters and contained a romantic tension that just isn’t going to cool down between Batman and Catwoman.

The characters are almost mirror images of one another, but they are fighting for different causes, and for different reasons, so it’s almost a romantic, yet toxic interlude.

Bruce Wayne, known by his alter ego Batman, is a strong character because despite his riches and wealth, he has a grounded view of the world, and seeks to put things right, whilst not dominating the world in anyway. He is the opposite of the villains that inhabit Gotham City, but shares these villainous characters psychological frailties, and these themes were intelligently and explored and well-crafted in both Batman films from director Tim Burton.

Bottom line is we've got to start respecting these characters. Batman has gone from having one of the most promising, beautifully laboured and crafted - in the Tim Burton films- starts on celluloid to descending into amongst the most superficial and cardboard cinematic characters in history, in the later portrayals.

Comic books mean a lot to people. These characters mean a lot to people. So lets start over and stop reducing Batman to a corporate Hollywood by-product. The Christopher Nolan trilogy was amongst the most cold, superficial, dull as dishwater corporate offerings I've yet to see. With every line of dialogue I could see them mulling over the script in the producers office...I'd be hard pressed to even describe the Nolan films as cinema. There was something fundamentally at odds with the organic nature of  film when created with an open mind. The series was too safe and rigid, and there was nothing stylistically to differentiate between the three films.

Outside of comic book cinema, film makers of all kinds, who are involved in trilogies and sequels, tend to naturally want to change up the creative process and blend a trilogy in some way shape or form, so they are all unified yet distinctly different. This is actually easy to do as an idea, because it should come straight from the heart of the film-maker and onto paper (I don't doubt it is technically hard though). What has occurred with the Christopher Nolan Batman films is each subsequent sequel has been combed with a corporate comb to such an extent that every nuance has been subject to a connect the dots approach and as a result the three films just feel like one really long, laboured slog.

I've watched these movies back to back a few times now over the years, and I've really tried hard to find some value in them, and I can't find anything (other than I enjoyed Tom Hardy's eccentric portrayal of Bane), and as mentioned, there isn't even any eye candy with an attractive, dangerous, or provocative Cat Woman (Anne Hathaway's costume designer deserved a prison sentence).

The Bourne Identity 1-4

My deepest criticism of any film or filmmaker is those who fashion their film purely for profit alone and shape it to fit populist culture. The film has to have your signature, your passion, and your creativity infused within it, and not just be a corporate by-product.

Matt Damon would portray Jason Bourne in the 2002 film ‘The Bourne Identity, which was based on the novel of the same name by Robert Ludlum.

What we have here is cinema engineered to entertain in one way only, and that is via real stunt-work, ‘edge of your seat’ thrills, a certain type of style, and overwrought espionage.

I think the character of Jason Bourne is interesting, and he’s strong as he starts off in the Bourne Identity not knowing his true identity and, despite a high-profile background in the military and C.I.A, appears quite grounded and ‘down to earth’ if you will. This feeling is supported by the casting of Matt Damon who makes the character particularly accessible for a mainstream audience.

Jason Bourne, despite being not exactly undesirable as far as the opposite sex perceive him, has a particularly mature and respectable attitude towards women, as opposed to somebody like James Bond who presents the opposite of Jason Bourne, and is quite chauvinistic and domineering.

Jason Bourne is almost the anti-James Bond. As mentioned, these films are high octane, fast paced, fun, and don’t benefit from close critical evaluation. They’re clearly well assembled and do what they need to without any major flaws.

Nevertheless, there is an interesting character in the form of Jason Bourne whose slightly distant ‘man of few words’ approach tells you all you really need to know.

DREDD (2015)

 I was very fond of 2012 ‘Dredd’.  I caught it at the cinema in Vancouver, and thought it was great. Not enough people went to see it on the big-screen, and this stopped a sequel being green lit.

Like its source material, it’s full of imagination, wit, vivid and creative visuals, and zero political correctness.  ‘Judge Dredd’ had been produced for the big screen only once before in the form of 1995’s Sylvester Stallone vehicle of the same name.

The 1995 film was fairly stylish, but its Hollywood studio trappings and structure were gravely at odds with the source material, and as a result, the film never achieved its potential creatively or cinematically. You just can’t or shouldn’t restrain this material if you’re going to make a film of it. I suspect in hindsight, they were aiming for that fairly safe ’15 certificate’ too, as more teenagers means more profit.

2015’s R-Rated ‘Dredd’ takes the politically incorrect and vivid essence of the comic book, and gives the character some much needed punch courtesy of original visual techniques and effects; the film is also scripted by ‘The Beach’ novelist Alex Garland, and has his common and non-pc psychological themes running throughout.

The passage of time had been long since 1995’s adaptation and ‘Judge Dredd’s’ appeal had waned.

 However, ‘Dredd’ was critically well received, but failed at the box-office. I caught it on the big screen, as I’m a fan of the comic, and I wasn’t disappointed at all. In fact, it surpassed my expectations. I liked the tone, plot, and the unorthodox, and politically incorrect ending was just the icing on the cake for me. Not everyone will like it, but this uncompromising and vivid tone is present in the Judge Dredd comics, so it is important any cinematic interpretation stays true to these qualities of the source material.

Dredd represented an excellent start for a series, but poor ticket sales stopped this idea dead in its tracks. I still think the Judge Dredd mythology, and its characters have a fate in cinema yet to come.

The character of Judge Dredd, as portrayed by Karl Urban in the film, is a strong male character as he stays true to his principles, can’t be broken or influenced, and has his own value system, despite being strongly committed to the rule of law.

The film is essentially a story of a very tough ‘trial by fire’ for female rookie Cassandra Anderson (Olivia Thirlby) who, having failed aptitude tests, is placed under the watchful eye of Judge Dredd who is responsible for evaluating her performance as they enter the notorious slum block Peach Trees to investigate an illegal drug syndicate. Pretty much everything and anything is thrown at Dredd and Cassandra Anderson, including corrupt Judges, but he never waivers and there is a quick bond formed between these characters that gets them through.

Cassandra Anderson ultimately fails the test, but when Dredd is asked by the Chief Judge for his own evaluation, he states ‘She’s passed’.

BLADE (1997)

Blade was a real eye opener when it came out in 1997.  Just before Bryan Singer's X-Men made comic book movies popular again, Blade took a less popular comic book character and brought him smack bang up to date into the 90’s generation, with inspired and very stylish direction by Stephen Norrington.

I think time has been very kind to this film, and it will grow in appreciation as time moves forward.

An excellent sequel followed, directed by now well-established film-maker Guillermo Del Toro, which ramped up the style tenfold. He borrowed the dark & light orientated visual style from 1997’s ‘Blade’, but created a much more physical, and visceral film. The narrative is deliberately much looser, and the film is set almost entirely in an unconventional, subterranean setting.

Ultimately, when a director is handling a sequel it is logical, smart, and cohesive to borrow thematic similarities from the first given film. This is just a given expectation to common sense.

The sequel did exactly what it was supposed to. It took the film in its only direction, whilst carrying on thematic similarities and adding its own. However, the third part, which I can only manage 10 minutes of, is just complete and utter bollocks with no cinematic merit or intrinsic worth.

If you've never seen Blade, I suggest watching them in reverse from the last sequel to the first, to truly gather an understanding of just how good the first film was, and how the last truly harmed what could have been a pristine trilogy. As it stands, the Marvel character of Blade produced two excellent movies, and one corporate driven complete and utter waste of time and money.

‘Blade 2’ just has a lot of visual energy and I’ve found this to be a calling card for director Guillermo Del Toro. I think this visual energy is a real gift which he possesses creatively.

I particularly liked the scene involving natural born vampire Nyssa (Leonor Varela) and her final wish that Blade lets her see the sunrise before she succumbs to a virus she’s been infected by.  It is essentially a final wish to feel what it’s like to be truly human.

Blade, as portrayed by actor Wesley Snipes is a strong male character as he’s got an unorthodox background concerning his birth and the nature of his vampirism (his mother was human), and this makes him a sort of misfit who respects who and what he is, but cares about humanity at the same time.

Blade is kind and well meaning, but he’s an anti-hero, as he is a vampire of sorts, and I just wouldn’t trust him.  Would you?

THE CROW (1994)

In cruel twist of fate Brandon Lee would be killed on the set of ‘The Crow’ accidentally, when a gun fired at him, containing an improperly-deactivated bullet cartridge, which had become trapped inside the barrel, was forced out of the weapon at the force of a live round.

It’s equally tragic as he followed the same pattern as his father – reaching a critical and commercial cinematic peak and dying shortly afterwards.

Bruce Lee died during the post production of his final film ‘Enter the Dragon’ which would be his best work and a film that went on to be an iconic classic. ‘The Crow’ isn’t ‘Enter the Dragon’, but it’s close.

 In 1994, comic book films were still few and far between in terms of just existing let alone quality. ‘The Crow’ did the unexpected and presented a dark, intelligent, multi-layered film which stayed true to comic book style tropes whilst digging a little deeper as a work as a whole.

Actor Brandon Lee truly embodies protagonist Eric Draven. He has the physicality, good looks, sorrowful ambiguity, passion, and presence to really glow amongst the blanket of darkness, and corruption present in the film.

The Crow is a subversive character because he has his own twisted value system, and despite clearly being good-hearted, has a god-complex and enjoys revenge.

Eric Draven is a strong male character, because despite his subversive nature, he is fuelled not so much just by vengeance, but by a need to put things right and help others.

For instance, the film depicts Eric Draven as having an almost guardian-angel like presence. He appears when situations are at their most cruel or desperate, puts them right, and elegantly disappears into the night.

The Crow presents a complex and important comic-book character, and since 1994 no one has come close to replicating what was achieved in this film.

Overall, a rare comic book highlight of the 1990’s, which defied all odds, and became something of a minor cult classic.

CONCLUSION

I was inspired to write this, in part, because I’d written one about strong female character’s and wished to do the opposite. However, the dynamics here are polar opposites in every way.

I felt, and still feel that cinema is more comfortable selecting male actors for more male ‘typical’ roles, and in the past, female actresses have been neglected in terms of their choice of roles that would be perceived to not suit a female.

There have been exceptions over the years, and in recent years there has been an effort to put female actresses in more male orientated roles, such as Charlize Theron’s turn as ‘Imperator Furiosa’ in ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’, a role in which she is essentially taking the lead, and Max is a subordinate character.

Upon release ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ took some criticism as the central conceit of the film, which revolves around a strong battle hardened woman rescuing a group of young women, who have been subject to repression and confinement courtesy of an oppressive male overlord, attempts to explore themes relating to the oppression of women with an angle on liberation weaved into the story, but this is at odds with the fact that the women are all particularly attractive and are all models – which could be perceived as undermining what the film is attempting to convey.

This may be true, but ultimately, cinema and real-life are two completely opposite things and are such claims not more rooted in repression themselves? In the sense that a need to repress aesthetics or deny a cinematic exploration of such themes feels rooted in an anxiety concerning aesthetics or beauty in and of itself, which to my mind feels much unhealthier.

We don’t go to the cinema to explore real life. Cinema is a form of escapism or letting go of reality for 2 hours.

There was and always has been a certain formula to cinema that most, if not all, filmmakers adhere to, and that’s the nature of aesthetics (though there are some vulgar exceptions).

Film is a visual medium and through technology and theatricality we create worlds, scenarios, people, and places that have a degree of heightened aestheticism and attention to aesthetics, and this includes casting.

The visual craft of film is part of the fabric of cinema, and I think it’s reflective of part of us as a race, in terms of what we enjoy. If you take the visual aspects of cinema away, you’re defeating the object of cinemas inception in the first place, and what millions of people around the world go to the cinema for, and that is to see a story told in a visually eye catching and arresting way, with a cast that draws you in, that engages, entertains, and may even enlighten.