This movie, for me, feels more like the first third of Glamorama, when Victor Ward is still in New York being glitzily fabulous amongst the ruin of America’s soul, than any other film explicitly made under the guise of being a Bret Easton Ellis film has felt like Bret Easton Ellis. On the other hand, I wouldn’t call Jeremy Enigk bellowing non-words to serrated post-hardcore riffs “pop.”Īlso, the movie itself was already plenty pop! All the movie references in the costumes, the pop psychology in the dialogue, Chris O’Donnell playing Dick Grayson like the hip, eventually decimated Jason Todd, explosions and a light-up Batmobile facing off with stylized ’40s gangster rides. Producer Peter MacGregor-Scott filled the record with songs that were not of but “inspired by” the movie in an attempt to make the movie “more pop.” Which is also kind of silly, in that the songs that were added were kind of less pop - U2 and Seal were in it, the great Lenny Kravitz penned/produced/played track with Brandy emitting a smokey slow burn over tight but unobtrusive funk was too. This song-it’s called There Is A Light, after all-contains the point in it! If you forget for a second that Batman is supposed to be salvation in a blue cowl and light gray tights, if you keep him down in the muck, then you’ve lost the soul of Batman. But it’s also about a man who decides to rise above that-who literally becomes that light shining in the sky. Sure Batman is about the dirt and the grit and the evils of the suspicious and cowardly lot. They’re looking to the sky because there’s a motherfucking Bat-signal shining against the dirty gray clouds. Well, they’re looking to the sky, Daddio.
What are these fucking kids gonna do, man?
Priests with blood on their chins, God too pissed up in heaven to bring down the Armageddon.
Here we have Nick in the character of a burnt-out former hep cat, like a Steely Dan song run through a meat-grinder, looking at his mates in The Big City and being disgusted by them the greed, the depravity, the lack of bottom. This is far better than director Christopher Nolan would later do with six whole hours. I think that’s pretty stupid, given that the song he contributed to the record encapsulates, in just a few minutes, all the things I think are important about Batman. Ol’ Nick the Stripper has famously donned the hair shirt for his involvement in the album, calling it a cynical cash-grab. The first time I heard Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds was on the soundtrack for Joel Schumacher’s 1995 Warner Brothers superhero blockbuster and subsequent cultural whipping-boy Batman Forever.
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