Who Did Gotham Better: Burton, Nolan, Or Reeves?
Matt Reeves‘ Batman has been the talk of the town since the last week. His Batman ventured into Gotham City’s underworld and with the help of Catwoman and Jim Gordon, he begins to hunt the “bad guys”. The Batman 2022 stars Robert Pattinson in the title role with Zoe Kravitz and Jeffrey Wright in equally important roles. It’s currently playing in your nearest theatres worldwide and you don’t want to miss it.
Fans will always regard Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy as the best film of all time but then what really differentiates Batman directed by Tim Burton and Matt.
Well, it all comes down to Gotham City majorly.
While every adaptation of Batman brings along a different vision of the DC Character, it also brings along a new take on his home city of Gotham. There is of course different art style with every Batman film when it comes to Batman’s city.
Originally in the DC’s Batman comic books, Gotham did NOT exist !!! Batman along with Robin would fight crimes in the city of New York. Their adventures expanded and the crimes got dangerous and so did the city then expanded in the comics. Gotham City in comics is geographically located in New Jersey. It is considered to be one of the most treacherous cities in the USA and has crimes going on which one can’t even imagine. But thankfully, Batman is here to protect it with the help of his allies.
Tim Burton’s Take on the City:
We are all aware of Tim Burton’s gothic take in almost every movie he does, so it was no surprise when his Batman movies reflected the same. Art director Nigel Phelps had even stated that “On Batman, our vision of Gotham City was influenced by the tone of the Dark Knight comics, and also Andreas Feininger’s photographs of New York buildings and the work of Japanese architect Shin Takamatsu. (Blade Runner was consciously avoided as a reference; no one was allowed to watch it while we were designing the film and neon was shunned altogether!)”. This Gotham was loved by many fans but it wasn’t a realistic take on the city.
Nolan’s Approach to the City:
Chris Nolan’s approach was drastically opposite to that of Tim Burton’s! His movies made the city resemble NYC and used its geography for the various effects. Nolan and Nathan Crowley wanted to get different elements from Chicago, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and NYC in their Gotham city and that is exactly how they described it to the art department. Chris Nolan had a much more realistic approach to the city. And of course, it had the poverty-ridden area aka “The Narrows”
Matt Reeves’s Gotham:
Matt’s approach was very realistic to everything; be it the Batman, Gotham, or the supporting characters. Even the Riddler was based on real-life serial killers and the city had a realistic side too. The city was portrayed as gross as possible and the fans were loving it. The Production designer James Chinlund said, ” We tried to represent that in the skyline of the city. For us, the process of design was imagining Gotham that had this incredible boom time, pre-war, where architecture was just flying up, and architectural styles were running fast and loose.” And all of this certainly did show!
While Tim Burton’s Gotham has more of the comic book style approach, Nolan has more of a realistic one which was seen in Matt Reeves’ Batman too. Which Gotham did you like the best?
