Other Titles • Batman Begins (2005) • Batman 5 • Batman: Intimidation • Batman: Intimidation Game (2003) • Batman Begins: The IMAX Experience • The Intimidation Game
“It’s fascinating to me,” Nolan remarks, “the idea of a person who would confront his innermost fear, and then attempt to become it.”
“The bat is a very personal symbol to him,” Bale explains. “It’s one that induced fear in him as a child, and as an adult is a constant reminder of the night his parents were murdered and of his own feelings of guilt. When he returns to Gotham after honing his mental and physical skills, the bat persona becomes the clear answer to his need for a disguise. He uses it as a means to intimidate others and manipulate their fears, as well as master his own.”
While superheroes typically face the challenge of living as both a public personality and a private force for change, Bruce Wayne grapples with the necessity of presenting two very different personas in public while carefully guarding his true identity.
“It’s not just a duality between Batman and Bruce Wayne that I was interested in exploring,” Nolan reveals. “To truly represent his journey, we needed to portray the three distinct facets of his character: Batman, the iconic masked warrior who is the channel of Bruce’s inner rage; the private Bruce Wayne, a damaged man who dedicates his life to ridding Gotham City of the evil that took his parents’ lives; and the third individual, the public face of Bruce Wayne – a spoiled playboy, the last person anyone in Gotham society would suspect of caring about the city’s decline, let alone of being Batman. The public Bruce Wayne persona is as much a mask as the mask that Batman wears.”
“Bruce Wayne doesn’t want people to ever think that he’s capable of idealism or compelled to help those in need,” Roven elaborates, “so he presents himself as a very clichéd, womanizing, sports car-driving socialite. But it’s all just a front. It’s a game that he’s playing. He reveals the genuine Bruce Wayne only to a very few people he knows he can trust.”
While the circumstances that motivate Bruce Wayne to become Batman are extreme, everyone can relate to the pain of loss, outrage at injustice, and the need for an outlet through which to vent anger and turn negative emotions into positive actions. It’s the fact that it’s possible to be him – if you have the strength, stamina and selflessness to actually become him – that makes Batman so compelling and so enduring.
“He’s unpredictable, his actions may be questionable, his motivations less than pure. Yet we know he is ultimately a force for good,” Bale says. “This complexity makes Batman the coolest of superheroes.”
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