lundi 1 mai 2017

Batman & Bill Review


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Finger v Kane: Dawn of Justice.

It's a sad fact that the story of most Golden Age comic book creators is one of hardship and a struggle to receive proper credit for their life's work. For no one is that more true than Bill Finger. Most of what we associate with Batman - the look, the origin story, many of the core supporting cast - were created by Finger in 1939. Yet it's only very recently that DC Comics has begun to officially recognize Finger's contributions to the character and include his name alongside Bob Kane's whenever the phrase "Batman created by..." pops up. The new documentary Batman & Bill offers an engaging and very bittersweet account of Finger's life and the reasons why he never received the credit (or money) he was due while he was alive.

Batman & Bill is directed by Don Argott and Sheena M. Joyce (The Atomic States of America) and inspired by Mark Tyler Nobleman's 2012 biography Bill the Boy Wonder. Nobleman himself is sort of the unofficial host of the documentary, which focuses a great deal on his lifelong obsession with telling the story of Bill Finger and his efforts to help Finger's heirs restore justice to the family. The film also features interviews with various comic book professionals and Batman luminaries, including producer Michael Uslan, filmmaker Kevin Smith, writer Roy Thomas and Image Comics co-founder Todd McFarlane, as well as archival footage and audio recordings of Finger, Kane, Jerry Robinson and other late creators heavily involved with the early Batman comics.

Argott and Joyce basically split the film into three acts, focusing first on the creation of Batman, then the factors that fueled Kane’s rise and Finger’s descent into obscurity and poverty, and finally the legal battle between DC and Finger’s granddaughters. Through it all, Nobleman’s presence lends a nice, personal touch, as viewers learn more about his single-minded passion for spreading the story of Bill Finger and maybe even take on a bit of that passion themselves.

Obviously, this is a story with a relatively happy ending. But that doesn’t prevent Batman & Bill from being a frequently depressing, even infuriating watch. This isn’t a fluffy, PR-friendly look back at Batman’s development. While the various interviewees are about as kind to the memory of Kane as is possible, most make no bones about the fact that Kane lined his pockets and propped up his reputation at the expense of Finger and other early ghostwriters and artists. Particularly once Finger’s granddaughters enter the picture in the latter half of the film, there’s a real sense of the tragedy surrounding Finger’s life and legacy. The images of the potter’s field cemetery where Finger was buried in 1974 offer a particularly chilling reminder of how poorly the comic book industry has treated some of its most important figures.

There are certain difficulties involved in making a documentary about Finger and Kane. Both creators are long dead, as are most of their contemporaries. And while Kane was always happy to do interviews and partake in a little self-promotion, Finger was always intensely private. The duo are very much the Stan Lee and Steve Ditko of DC Comics in that sense. At one point in the film, Nobleman discusses how difficult it was to even find photographs of Finger, much less audio recordings or personal journals or actual interview footage. With so few primary sources available, how do you offer a complete, honest look at a man denied his legacy?

The film has to rely mostly on anecdotes from Finger’s family, friends and colleagues. As such, it never feels like we get a full sense of Finger’s motivations as a young creator or how he felt about seeing Kane become a minor celebrity during Batman’s first pop culture explosion in the ‘60s. But there are various moments that provide brief, compelling insight into the reclusive writer, particularly an anecdote about Finger’s contribution to the 1966 TV series.

It helps that the film attempts to bring viewers a little closer to Finger through the use of animated sequences. These sequences are crude but charming, mimicking the look of Golden and Silver Age comic books and doing a little to make Finger and his colleagues more active participants in the story. With so little actual footage to draw from, Argott and Joyce basically create their own. The animation is especially effective during a sequence that traces how Batman's appearance evolved from Kane's initial concept art to how he appeared on the page in Detective Comics #27.

There are a few areas Batman & Bill could have explored in greater depth. It would have been great to see Stan Lee included among the interviewees, both because Lee is such a lively personality and because he’s one of the very few early comic creators who had the business savvy to get rich off his own creations. Lee does briefly appear via archival footage interviewing Kane. I would have loved to see him reflect on that interview and the decisions Kane made during the course of his life.

It also would have been nice to get more perspective from DC’s corporate side. Uslan (who’s exec produced every Batman film since 1989’s Batman) is about the closest we get in that regard. The film touches on the idea that DC’s decades-long reluctance to credit Finger was less about greed and more about a need to adhere to the terms of Kane’s contract. However, Batman & Bill never sheds enough light on the original deal Kane struck or the hurdles involved in finally transforming “Batman created by Bob Kane” into “Batman created by Bob Kane with Bill Finger.” To be fair, it’s probably a tricky legal situation that DC would just as soon keep behind closed doors, and it’s likely Argott and Joyce simply ran into a brick wall there.

Regardless, Batman & Bill does a fine job of breaking down an important piece of comic book history and ensuring that more Batman fans will remember the name “Bill Finger.”

The Verdict

It doesn't cover every topic or feature every interviewee fans might want, but Batman & Bill offers a satisfying, in-depth look at the life and legacy of Bill Finger. The film efficiently breaks down Finger's life story and the recent legal battle over his creator credit, offering compelling insight into one of the more enigmatic figures in comics.

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