Batman With A British Accent

December 19, 2004
Batman Now Speaks With a British AccentBy DAVID GRITTEN

LONDON
SHORT of Davy Crockett and some of the other characters in John Wayne's oeuvre, it's hard to think of a more obviously all-American hero than Batman, Bruce Wayne's caped alter ego. As for Batman's fictional hometown, Gotham City: has anyone ever doubted that it claimed far closer kinship with the darker corners of New York City, which sometimes shares that nickname, than with the Nottinghamshire village of Gotham?
Even so, "Batman Begins," which opens in American theaters on June 17, will arrive as the product of a startlingly British alignment of talent and location, though the intended setting of the myth hasn't changed. The film, from Warner Brothers, was shot largely in Britain by a young London-born director, Christopher Nolan. And the cast includes Christian Bale, a Welshman, as Bruce Wayne/Batman, along with British mainstays like Michael Caine, Liam Neeson (born in Northern Ireland), Gary Oldman, Tom Wilkinson and Linus Roache in supporting roles.
Some exterior scenes for "Batman Begins," now in post-production, were shot in downtown Chicago (at least on the right continent); but Gotham City was recreated in an unlikely spot in the heart of the English countryside, at R.A.F. Cardington, a former British air base some 35 miles north of London. Cardington is best known for two gigantic hangars that once housed the pre-World War II-era airships R100 and R101. The larger hangar was transformed into Gotham for "Batman Begins."
Whether audiences will actually sense Britishness in the finished movie remains far from clear. Mr. Nolan, after all, successfully cast Guy Pearce, who was born in Britain and grew up in Australia, as a memory-challenged American insurance investigator in his trademark film, "Memento," which was shot in Southern California.
Among the new movie's many British actors (and Cillian Murphy, an Irish-born London resident, playing the villainous drug peddler, Dr. Jonathan Crane, a k a "The Scarecrow"), at least one should seem a natural presence: Mr. Caine, who plays Bruce Wayne's British butler, Alfred Pennyworth, succeeding the British actor Michael Gough, who took the part in the previous four Batman films. But Mr. Neeson plays Henri Ducard, Bruce's distinctly non-British-sounding mentor and trainer; Mr. Oldman is Lt. James Gordon, a friendly Gotham City cop who helps Batman fight crime; Mr. Wilkinson plays a Mafia don, Carmine Falcone; and Mr. Roache is Bruce's father, Dr. Thomas Wayne. Indeed, Morgan Freeman, as Lucius Fox, a Wayne family friend, and Katie Holmes, as Rachel Dawes, Bruce's childhood friend and adult love interest, are the only Americans in the 10 leading roles.
Mr. Bale, for his part, handily mastered an American accent for his portrayal of Patrick Bateman, the sociopathic Manhattanite in "American Psycho," and the rest of the cast appear to have learned the same trick at one time or another. (Mr. Neeson most recently did so in his well-received performance as the sex researcher Alfred C. Kinsey in "Kinsey.")
But these fine actors are clearly in for some extra work, which perhaps speaks to the importance of Mr. Nolan. Although he has never directed an action film, he was given wide latitude by Warner Brothers in its push to revive a faltering franchise that hit the wall in 1997 when its fourth iteration, "Batman & Robin," directed by Joel Schumacher, took in just $107 million at the American box office.
"I think it's about Chris Nolan's power as a director, and his vision of what he wants to do," said Ian Thomson of the U.K. Film Council. In re-envisioning the franchise, Mr. Nolan decided to return to the story's genesis, as outlined in "Batman: Year One" comics: as a child, Bruce Wayne saw his parents murdered and vowed to avenge all evil.
Warner Brothers, which declined to discuss the new film's casting or make Mr. Nolan available to do so, need not feel uneasy about associating "Batman Begins" with more typically British products - the romantic comedies of Hugh Grant or the endless string of period costume dramas with bewhiskered men in frock coats and maidservants, eyes cast downward, bobbing and curtsying obediently.
In fact, the studio need only look at its own output lately. Of the major American film companies, Warner Brothers has been the most aggressive in working on British turf, Mr. Thomson noted. Much of the "Harry Potter" franchise is being shot at Leavesden, another abandoned British air base. Recently, acres of soundstage space at another studio were given over to shooting "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," starring Johnny Depp and set for release by Warners next year. Within the last year, moreover, interiors for two other ambitious productions, "Phantom of the Opera" and "Alexander," both distributed in the United States by Warners, were shot on stages here. (Not to mention the first "Batman" in the current series, which was shot in Britain.)
All of this comes in a year when, even allowing for tax breaks, the weak dollar has made Britain forbiddingly expensive. So why not go to, say, Eastern Europe, which is cheaper? Much of the Civil War film "Cold Mountain," for example, was shot in Romania. Technical expertise is one reason; Britain justifiably boasts of outstanding behind-the-scenes filmmaking talent, including a cluster of world-class special effects houses in the Soho district of London. "Studios know they get value for money here," Mr. Thomson said.
And there are other attractions. If American film executives are faced with a long shoot abroad, and the choice is London or maybe Bucharest, they're apt to choose London, where the language is familiar and a dizzying range of entertainment and culture compensates for absence from home. Few countries, moreover, have soundstages as big as those in Britain. Visitors to Cardington have said that the Gotham City set is vast enough to encompass a freeway and an elevated rail track like the El in Chicago. (This Gotham is in a state of decay, ravaged by corruption and organized crime, its look influenced by the now-demolished slums in Kowloon, Hong Kong.)
Finally, one wonders whether it even matters that British actors will dominate a classic piece of Americana. It's certainly been done before: In "Gone With the Wind," the main Southern belles were played by Vivien Leigh, born in British India, and Olivia de Havilland, daughter of a British patent attorney in Tokyo, while Leslie Howard's Ashley Wilkes never quite shook off Howard's native London.
More recently, there was much harrumphing in the British news media when an American actress (a Texan, even) was chosen to play that essentially English heroine, Bridget Jones. But the iciness of the British thawed when they finally saw Renée Zellweger's portrayal.
Certainly, the two enthusiastically received "Batman Begins" trailers being shown in theaters betray no sign of the film's British provenance. So Americans now face some choices. They can be gravely insulted that the British have appropriated an all-American icon. They can be amused by the whole farrago. Or they can view it as subtle revenge by the British on Hollywood for foisting Austin Powers upon them.
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