Why The Bat­man should win the Oscar for Best Cinematography

In a new series, we’re cel­e­brat­ing the films we loved that aren’t like­ly to dom­i­nate the awards race. Over the new few weeks, our writ­ers make pas­sion­ate argu­ments for the per­for­mances and craft that stood out to them, from block­busters to art­house and every­thing in between.

When Reeves’ noir take on the Caped Cru­sad­er explod­ed onto the sil­ver screen with a title card so strik­ing­ly gar­gan­tu­an and vivid in red, its image replayed in my mind long after the cred­its had rolled. This dar­ing entrance acts not just as a pre­cur­sor to the movie itself, but also as a sym­bol to the bold visu­al cre­ativ­i­ty that dri­ves the entire film. It can often feel like artis­tic verve is absent from the homo­gene­ity of the com­ic-book genre – yet here Reeves’ and Direc­tor of Pho­tog­ra­phy, Greig Fras­er, utilise a dis­tinct visu­al design for the cam­era that ful­fills char­ac­ter, atmos­phere, and emo­tion. It isn’t just the work that war­rants recog­ni­tion, but also the team’s inno­v­a­tive and unortho­dox approach to real­is­ing it.

Inspired by the aes­thet­ic of 70’s thrillers such as Klute and All The President’s Men, Reeves and his team chose to use old­er anamor­phic lens­es syn­ony­mous with this bygone era of film­mak­ing. Despite being tech­ni­cal­ly defec­tive by today’s stan­dards, Reeves and Fras­er loved the imper­fect beau­ty of these ​“bro­ken” lens­es; name­ly the murky deep bokeh and focus fall-off that occurred towards the edges of the frame. Whether or not these details are per­cep­ti­ble to the aver­age eye, their vis­cer­al qual­i­ty tran­scends our own tech­ni­cal knowl­edge of pho­tog­ra­phy, and evokes a cin­e­mat­ic vocab­u­lary that we sub­con­scious­ly understand.

In the film’s open­ing mono­logue, as a masked Bruce Wayne drifts through the Hal­loween rev­ellers of a rain-soaked Gotham, the crowd and the city’s periph­er­als blur around the pro­tag­o­nist. The film­mak­ers manip­u­late the dis­tort­ed ele­ment of their lens to their advan­tage, pulling the audi­ence away from the cos­tumed chaos and into Bruce’s own sin­gu­lar point of view. It enables us to see the world through his noc­tur­nal eyes, and reminds us that the best cin­e­matog­ra­phy almost always serves the story.

Fras­er and co. didn’t stop there, and in order to com­plete their 70’s aes­thet­ic they took extreme mea­sures to recre­ate that icon­ic cel­lu­loid look found only on film stock. Not only does it uni­fy their visu­al palette with vin­tage con­ti­nu­ity, but dig­i­tal was viewed as ​“too clean” for their grit­ty nar­ra­tive of crime and cor­rup­tion, so film’s intrin­sic grain added this tan­gi­ble sense of hard-boiled spir­it to The Batman.

But loads of con­tem­po­rary film­mak­ers still shoot on film – what makes this any dif­fer­ent, you might ask? Well for starters, they didn’t shoot on film – The Bat­man was shot dig­i­tal­ly. In a sto­ry pri­mar­i­ly oper­at­ing with­in the dark shad­ows of Gotham’s under­bel­ly, shoot­ing dig­i­tal­ly on the ARRI Alexa-LF became a nec­es­sary require­ment to cap­ture such low-light envi­ron­ments. Nev­er­the­less, Reeves still didn’t want to com­pen­sate on his vision, and in order to obtain a film emul­sion beyond dig­i­tal emu­la­tion, colourist David Cole had the fin­ished footage exposed onto the film neg­a­tive itself. Not once, not twice, but sev­er­al times; cre­at­ing a tru­ly authen­tic tex­ture that ele­vates the final film. Now if that’s not ded­i­ca­tion to the cin­e­mat­ic expe­ri­ence, what is?

The cin­e­matog­ra­phy of Reeves’ adap­ta­tion also exists in a height­ened real­i­ty; one where the cre­ative design will hap­pi­ly delve into the the­atri­cal, whilst always being ground­ed by some form of real­ism that makes it acces­si­ble. One of the film’s most exhil­a­rat­ing sequences is the bat­mo­bile high­way chase – a set piece fuelled by burnt rub­ber and bul­lets, but one equal­ly mem­o­rable for its evoca­tive light­ing. A wash of warm sodi­um street light illu­mi­nates the scene, which paints the vehic­u­lar pur­suit with a fiery hue that ignites the action. Yet, despite the dra­mat­ic light­ing, prag­mat­ic fram­ing steers it away from total sur­re­al­ism. The cam­era is locked onto the cars with hard mounts, embody­ing their unique point of view and in turn posi­tion­ing the view­er direct­ly into the expe­ri­ence. We’re right there, hurtling through traf­fic and hold­ing on for dear life, cour­tesy of Fraser’s cal­cu­lat­ed com­po­si­tion and the crew that imple­ment it.

The graph­ic pow­er of The Batman’s cin­e­matog­ra­phy is per­haps best expressed towards the lat­ter half of its grand finale. After an explo­sive take­down of the Riddler’s army up in the rafters of Gotham Square Gar­den, Bat­man descends the flood­ed sta­di­um to find him­self sub­merged by water and total dark­ness. Pro­duc­ing a flare that engulfs our hero in a loud red and guides the cit­i­zens of Gotham to safe­ty, the shot has already become a part of the character’s rich iconog­ra­phy. The expres­sion­is­tic colour – a recur­rent motif of the film – imbues Robert Pattinson’s per­for­mance with myth­ic weight that res­onates emotionally.

Upon enter­ing the Ice­berg Lounge in the first act, the club’s crim­son lights dra­mat­i­cal­ly her­ald Bruce’s pen­chant for vengeance, yet by the film’s cli­max, the colour red is now emblem­at­ic of Batman’s capac­i­ty for hope. Across the entire run­time, whether it be low-angle shots of Batman’s boots stomp­ing into the omnipresent rain or close-ups of Pattinson’s eyes bar­ing Bruce’s soul to the lens, Fras­er makes sure to con­sis­tent­ly deliv­er on a deeply intu­itive lev­el. You don’t just see The Bat­man – you feel it.