The Psychology Of Bruce Wayne | Batman Begins Analysis

it's not just your name sir it's your father's name and it's all that's left of him there's a lot of superhero films in modern cinema in particular which i think we can partly attribute to the fact dc and particularly marvel are pretty shrewd companies but i also think our cultural fascination with superhero films suggests they appeal to us in general which is unsurprising because technically on some level they fulfill a fantasy about being superhuman ourselves about being those kids who did grow up dreaming of saving or changing the world or those adults who dream to be able to stand for themselves and shape their own life and tell their bosses exactly what they think of them or call out all those sycophantic people you can find in the career world or just more simply the straightforward fantasy of feeling strong tougher quicker smarter less vulnerable than we can often feel deep down which is a point that does not give the majority of superhero films the credit they do deserve because i think a lot of them carry great meaning and a mythic quality beyond just fulfilling a fantasy however it's a poignant starting place for one of the things i want to say about batman begins batman as we all know is a unique superhero in the sense there's nothing technically super about him this is a less wishful version of that fantasy where we hope to be suddenly bitten by a powerful spider or to be an alien or a god or just naturally be some great figure who just has or suddenly gets these powers and then quickly gets thrown into a world of danger whether they're ready to or not batman is unique speaking mostly about nolan's version obviously because he's not really thrown into anything it's all a conscious decision from an ordinary man attempting to become something superhuman it's technically an entire hour of batman begins before bruce wayne really becomes batman not only are there long stretches of the film where he's wayward and lost we don't just see the kid bruce experiencing his parents death and then cut to batman as is normally the case but we see the wayward grown-up but pre-batman bruce who's just lost in life christian bale's acting of him here is really passive and numb like he's turned apathetic to most things and has such an explosive anger and guilt buried deep down that they're half strangling him into this apathetic state he's a man who finds no meaning in his parents legacy beyond the house being place is a mausoleum if i have my will pull the damn thing down brick by brick yet no eye for the future either despite alfred's gentle encouragement bruce is a man void of all meaning i wouldn't presume to tell you what to do with your past sir just know that there are those of us who care about what you do with your future but the fantasy is an interesting point because bruce creates batman specifically because the symbol has more power and strikes more fear than an ordinary man does he creates batman not just as a mask to protect his loved ones but because theatricality of deception of powerful weapons to make himself appear superhuman appeared like all those other great superheroes only he technically isn't one and he doesn't feel like one deep down here he's attempting to live up to a superhuman ideal that's always a bit beyond him and always feels a bit like a lie i'm going to speak more generally about the film the further we get into this because i love batman begins and there's so much i want to say but let's stick with this idea of trying to seem superhuman for the moment and go back to bruce's childhood as depicted by christopher nolan bruce very much idealizes his dad understandably because he's a man that built a business empire at the heart of gotham a man who staunchly fought poverty and a father who will literally plunge down into the darkness to rescue you from your terror then reset your broken bones himself rather than needing a doctor to do it i'll set the bone and take him for an x-ray later to bruce he's this shining figure of all that's good in the world of protection and healing where we get multiple flashbacks of him using a stethoscope on bruce you know those are the two key memories he has of his dads the rescuer and the healer thomas wayne is also in many ways the shining example of what capitalism is supposed to be and almost never actually is a good man earning his fortunes fairly then using his position of privilege to raise others up in return to bruce his dad kind of is this superhuman symbol the benevolent king of gotham who wasn't killed because of any fault or weakness of his own an idea razor ghoul suggests that bruce fiercely disagrees with but was killed because bruce was weak as far as he himself sees it thomas wayne showed total courage and strength in the face of his own death not screaming out or showing any pain or thought to himself but instead don't be afraid which is meant to be reassuring but bruce no doubt can't help thinking he was afraid the fact he was afraid is what caused his perfect ideal father to die because being afraid of bats is why they left the theater even more so he was afraid of bats because he fell down a hole that his father had to save him from he fell and was injured and vulnerable and weak where his father was strong you see the point i'm making bruce may have felt his vulnerability his fool his dependence on his father and his fear is what caused the most perfect of men to die and so what happens initially bruce loses all direction and purpose and floats about in the wind with unprocessed trauma strangled both by his anger at jojo and himself for not being as strong as his father was he cares so little for his life initially that he was quite prepared to throw it all away and end up in prison for killing joe chill right outside court he hopes vengeance might relieve him from his guilt he convinces himself it's justice to spare him the guilt of the fact he'd be making himself a murderer and reducing himself to the level of the man he probably grew up hating more than anyone it's sheer luck that falcone got there first that stops bruce and then it's the hard but true words of rachel that shake him from his total apathy justice is about harmony revenge is about you making yourself feel better your father would be ashamed of you that's not just a throwaway remark about your parents being ashamed we know that because nolan's given us time to see just how much bruce idealized his father and just how below him bruce feels even in this conversation itself rachel calls thomas wayne one of the good people implying bruce is one also to which he responds i'm not one of your good people rachel the comment hits bruce hart emotionally because he consciously realizes it's exactly how he feels like he's failed his dad not just causing his death initially but then letting his legacy die and memory die away as this mausoleum forgetting he is thomas wayne's only son he is the legacy he is meant to live up to his unattainably perfect father which is something bruce will never feel he could ever do as his ordinary self because he doesn't feel like one of the good people but he can at least create an image of something as good as his father through a symbol through batman as a man i'm flesh and blood i can be ignored i can be destroyed but it's a symbol there's a symbol that can be incorruptable i can be everlasting and the journey to creating batman is still a long one at this point in the film but i think the motivations are clear now bruce feels his vulnerability and fear is what killed his dad so he finds himself on a relentless quest to become stronger and stronger sacrificing everything else in his life for the sake of this as though to compensate for the weakness he feels burdens him with so much guilt and also to try and become something he thinks might be able to honor his father's legacy a legacy he himself is not worthy for but a symbol might be and then falcone also inadvertently provides the means in pointing out how you think because your mommy and your daddy got shot you know about the ugly side of life but you don't you've never tasted desperate it sends him on a journey into poverty and crime himself which we'll notice is now partly a way to understand joe chill and what he did to bruce's parents unconsciously this is half a way to try and process that rather than fight against it now all in one day here the experience of seeing joe chill murdered rachel pointing out his father would be ashamed and then falcone pointing out bruce doesn't understand the ugly side of life it's all a sharp shark that wakes him from his apathetic state and sends him out onto a quest to honor his father's legacy to come to terms with his murder and commit himself to preventing similar occurrences for other kids like bruce wayne but the original point i was making about our fantasy as the audience of the superhuman is to say batman begins provides a more realistic example of what that fantasy would actually be like because on one level it does fulfill our wish we see bruce getting to be a hero and affects good change in the world we see him looking cool and feeling strong we also see him getting to live out all the fun of a playboy billionaire dating models who then when asked to leave a hotel just turns around and buys it then and there that is wish fulfillment on some level because he gets to do all those ridiculous things but all with the excuse he's just doing it to avoid suspicion strange injuries and non-existent social life these things beg the question as to what exactly does bruce wayne do with his time and his money who knows master wayne you start pretending to have fun you might even have a little by accident so there is some level of wish fulfillment however just as it would be an idealized false fantasy for us it's also that for bruce because it means kind of sacrificing his identity and not just in that usual superhero sense of keeping who he is secret from the people he loves but he actually loses touch with who he really is the masked version of bruce feels like a symbol he's projecting rather than living up to so that doesn't feel real and then the unmasked bruce is a show of a playboy billionaire which isn't realised rachel oliver all this it's not me so who actually is bruce wayne anymore it's a question that subtly plagues the entire trilogy and the closest thing we get to an answer in this film is rachel's suggestion is just a simple rachel now this is your mask your real face is the one that criminals now fear prove me wrong you know about what [Music] father would be very proud of you which is her kind of saying batman is the real you it's not just a projected image you have actually lived up to your father now batman isn't entirely real and she points out and i loved the man who vanished he never came back at all so it's not entirely real but there's still something of the real hymn within it that's as close to an answer as bruce gets in his first film to understanding himself so the attempt to become superhuman comes hand in hand with a struggling question of identity but also the question of the vigilante ii many points are made in this film about the vigilante being just a man lost in the scramble for his own gratification the vigilante is the man who wants to feel like the big hero and feel good about it but as a result loses touch with the actual justice in place of the self-serving ego this is what our fantasy as an audience would be this is what part of us that enjoy superhero movies to fulfill that fantasy falls into however bruce can't afford to do that if he wants to truly follow justice and truly do good it's a very real struggle for him in this film because he does get tempted by self-gratification he does make cool one-liners of points he does ben's morality in flipping cop cars it's a miracle no one was killed i didn't have time to observe the rules of the road alfred he causes a lot of damage he probably frees two inmates here excuse me sure he's only slightly bending the rules in ways he probably has to in the context of what he's trying to do but it would be very easy to slowly bend more and more rules to suit your interests until you've completely lost touch with morality and in heading out to save rachel from crane in this film logically it is important to the fight against crime that she is saved because she's an important da but alfred is also justified in everything he says to bruce when you told me your grand plan for saving gotham the only thing that stopped me from calling the men in white coats was when you said that it wasn't about thrill-seeking you're getting lost inside this monster of yours but thomas wayne helping others wasn't about proving anything to anyone including himself well we both care for rachel sir but what you're doing has to be beyond that it can't be personal or you're just vigilant it's a very difficult struggle how to live out a life that is half this fantasy fulfillment but to do it without losing himself to the gratification that's very much there and even the whole point about saving rachel culminates in the next film where bruce is confronted with a very real dilemma between saving rachel and saving harvey dent one is the path of his personal desire and the other is the more logical path of who would help gotham most or so he hoped that's what i find really interesting about this more realistic depiction of the batman story not just the fact it's made more realistic in the sense the events are kind of believable but that there's this true emotional layer of what attempting to be superhuman would actually do to one of us as a person and the struggles it would really cause beyond just flipping about cracking one-liners and vaguely having to keep your powers a secret like in most superhero films i wanted to talk more generally about this film as well though because i do really love it i love just how much time nolan gives to the emotion of batman's origin story an hour before he's properly batman that should make this film a real drag in the first hour but it isn't because the emotions properly fleshed out i like also on that point just how much planning bruce does in this film like it's not the typical spontaneous oh there's villainous stuff going on i've been thrown down to this path of fighting crying before i was ready but it's this conscious decision where he does all this training he comes up with a symbol he thinks it through and develops it he acquires the gadgets he researches gordon trying to find a copper he can trust and then breaking into his office to basically ask gordon's advice on how to bring down falcone and then having to tweak his armor and it's just all very refreshing to see a superhero going right this is my aim what do i need to do in order to achieve that and then slowly figuring things out i also think razal ghoul is a tragically underrated villain here i mean i'm reliably informed he's nothing like he is in the comics but i don't care um because he gives the conflict of this film some real heart precisely because he symbolizes something like a shadow version of bruce something incredibly similar to bruce with a similar backstory only razor ghoul did lose his way to personal vengeance and gratification ras argues that he hasn't and that he's dispensing true justice which is exactly why the path of the vigilante is so dangerous because you wouldn't be aware you've fallen into it you would still think you were genuinely doing good but all raz really is is a terrorist seeking to vent his anger on the world through mass murder and then absolving himself of all of the guilt through righteousness and pretending what he's doing is justice brazil is a wonderful villain precisely because he's everything bruce has to struggle against turning into i also like however that he does teach bruce a lot of very important lessons he needed to learn not just physical training and points about willpower but he does give bruce direction where he was just a wayward man brawling petty criminals in prison whatever your original intentions you have become truly lost i like also that bruce learns a lot of his lessons from lots of different people in this film like um rachel talks of true justice and shakes him out of his apathy falcone sends him into the darkness of the world and also inadvertently teaches him to protect his loved ones through masking his identity i'm afraid of you because you think you got nothing to lose but you haven't thought it through you haven't thought about your lady friend down in the da's office you haven't thought about your old butler he learns from alfred and from roz and even took advice from gordon and i also think crane is a great villain here as well killian murphy acts him with a wonderfully unsettling presence and this isilly exact way of speaking i love the emphasis he puts on the t sound here for example as you can see for yourself there is nothing convenient about his symptoms you can almost see him restraining his own madness under this exact nature until moments where it does start to peel away he's here oh the batman i like also the dry subtle humor of lucius and alfred's that i think stops this film from becoming too dark and unnecessarily bleak i like rachel doors actually um i've heard a lot of people criticize her performance but i think it's great the way she has this underlying anger and disappointment about bruce as this billionaire idiot wasting away his life where she's fighting very hard to try and save gotham can change the world on your own what choice do i have when you're too busy swimming only to at the end realize he is also actually fighting and suddenly she feels apologetic about it um but she's got an anger and an impulsiveness to everything she does particularly in the way she makes herself a nuisance to crane i think i think she plays it well um i do think it would have been useful to write in a few more lines or maybe a scene to show some more flaw to her um and to her anger and impulsiveness because i mean i know she does literally almost get herself killed in stupidly walking straight into crane's asylum and throwing demands about at him but that courage and impulsiveness in the face of total danger is also what's made her such a good da and someone who's actually much much braver than bruce she picks all her fights without any protection at all for example um so i think it would be nice to see a bit more flaw to her here and i like that the ending isn't a total triumph both in the sense he doesn't get the girl because i mean of course he shouldn't how is rachel supposed to date a man who's kind of lost touch with his own identity um but there's no triumph in that a ton of criminals do get released into gotham and aren't caught at the end of this film and there's the idea of escalation we start carrying semi-automatics they buy automatics we start wearing kevlar they buy armor-piercing rounds and his first film all just feels like the start of an impending battle like batman's not practically changed a huge amount yet but he has inspired hope and he's certainly far from come to terms with himself and found any inner peace either but he has found some means to channel his anger and to live up to his father um which is another thing i love actually the symbol of the fool in this film moments of great fear or failure where he does fall in this film for bruce becomes spliced with flashbacks of the child him falling into the well and his parents getting shot it happens multiple times not just in the fear gas but also in the fall of him getting set alight by crane and jumping out of the window his biggest moment of failure in this film where he feels helpless and weak calling out for alfred to save him there's a sense of feeling that if he can't succeed as batman then he's no better than the scared kid he once was and he's failed his father all over again splicing those shots in is such a great touch which gives us the sense succeeding as batman for him also means finally overcoming what he feels is his greatest failure in life which does gets resolution at the end um with that shot of him boarding up the well symbolically reaffirming he's not that little kid anymore he has overcome that descent into the well is very much in his past now so basically i love this film i've met some people who criticize it quite a lot um i think the fact it got eclipsed by the sequel is probably part of that but it is a great film not just as necessary set up for the dark knight but also in itself i don't think it's nolan's best film i don't even think it's his best batman film but it is my favorite of christopher nolan's work um for a guy i said in my dunkirk video that often doesn't have enough characterization in his films we see a huge amount of it here and a level of emotional depth to a superhero's origin story that we rarely get anywhere that's basically everything i wanted to say though um let me know what you think i'm half tempted to do videos on the next two films as well but only i think if people are interested um so let me know would it be self-indulgent if i set like a like goal maybe of 1 500 likes um and i'll make the video on a dark knight i don't know maybe something like that subscribe if you want to stick around though support me on patreon if you want more but otherwise hopefully see you next time a special thank you to brian newbert devin david kling darren burdock latta kestrel gay hitler samara salsi sharakov 2814 and joshua c for the year you

Channel: My Little Thought Tree

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Rating: 4.9691834 out of 5

Keywords: bruce wayne, batman begins, batman, nolan, christopher nolan, dark knight, hans zimmer, analysis, explained, psychology, videoessay, video essay, superhuman, christian bale, bruce wayne psychology, bruce wayne analysis, batman psychology, batman analysis, batman explained, batman videoessay, batman begins analysis, batman begins psychology, batman begins video essay, understanding bruce wayne, review, reaction, batman begins review

Id: yZE7NgnR4iA

Length: 24min 8sec (1448 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 20 2021