Summary

• Keaton's Batman legacy transcends initial doubt, showcased in a dramatic leap through his Clean and Sober performance.
• Keaton redefined the superhero portrayal by emphasizing Batman's human qualities over extraordinary abilities.
• Tim Burton's bold Batman vision perfectly matched Keaton's offbeat comedic sensibilities, creating a psychologically complex hero.

The most anticipated aspect of the 2023 superhero film The Flash wasn’t the film’s titular hero, played by Ezra Miller, but rather the appearance of Michael Keaton, who reprises his iconic Batman role in the movie, as a much older version of the vigilante whom the now 72-year-old actor previously portrayed in the films Batman and Batman Returns. The positive reaction to Keaton’s appearance in The Flash, for which the film’s marketing campaign was focused primarily around, is a testament to how much of an enduring, indelible impact his Batman has had on film history and pop culture, even as Keaton’s Batman films have been increasingly overshadowed over the past 20 years by Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight trilogy.

The warm reception that Keaton received for The Flash is in stark contrast to what happened in the fall of 1988 when the initial announcement of his casting as Batman elicited waves of outrage and protest. While the later casting of Ben Affleck and Robert Pattinson as Batman was accompanied by negative online messages, fans made their disapproval of Keaton’s casting known to Warner Bros. in 1988 by sending the studio approximately 50,000 handwritten complaint letters.

Indeed, the modestly built Keaton initially seemed all wrong for the role, at least in terms of the preexisting image of Batman and superhero characters in general. Moreover, before his casting, the actor was known primarily as a comedic actor. While fans remained largely opposed to his casting until the 1989 release of Batman, the actor won over his Hollywood doubters with his searing dramatic performance in the 1988 drama film Clean and Sober, in which he displays the dark, tormented psyche that defines his Batman persona.

Michael Keaton Made a Big Dramatic Leap With Clean and Sober

The public backlash that accompanied the casting of Michael Keaton in Batman was so significant that director Tim Burton, who previously worked with the actor in the 1988 fantasy horror comedy film Beetlejuice, had to fight to keep him in the role. One of his biggest initial Hollywood doubters was producer Michael Uslan, who acquired the screen rights to the franchise in 1979 with partner Benjamin Melniker and has been credited as an executive producer on every subsequent Batman film. Like many fans, Uslan had an apoplectic reaction to the casting of Keaton, whom Uslan felt lacked the dramatic and physical suitability to convincingly portray a tortured figure like Bruce Wayne.

However, Uslan changed his mind after seeing Keaton’s edgy, uncompromising performance in the 1988 drama film Clean and Sober, in which he plays Daryl Poynter, a cocaine-addicted Philadelphia real estate sales agent who, after embezzling money from his company, seeks refuge at a drug rehabilitation facility. The film opens with a scene in which Daryl awakens in bed next to a woman who has died of a drug-induced heart attack.

Keaton’s performance is merciless in terms of portraying the sickening depths to which Daryl’s life has sunken. There’s nothing at all flattering and certainly heroic about this characterization, which is linked to his performance in Batman because of Daryl’s seemingly bottomless capacity for deception. While Keaton’s Bruce Wayne practices deception in order to hide his secret identity, Daryl’s deception is a manifestation of his addiction, for which being a drug addict means also being a compulsive liar.

Keaton's Batman Redefined the Superhero Genre

While Michael Keaton had a relatively short tenure as Batman, his portrayal of the caped crusader has proved to be groundbreaking and influential, specifically in terms of the decidedly human approach that he brought to the role. By portraying Batman as a real person who occasionally wears an armored bat-suit, the actor infused the role with a human dimension that wouldn’t exist if Arnold Schwarzenegger had been cast in the role.

Moreover, Keaton established a precedent for superhero actors to be able to emphasize their human qualities as much as their extraordinary abilities and manage their psychological problems through self-examination. His Batman only appears as a superhero when he dons the trademark bulky, imposing bat-suit, without which Keaton’s unimposing Bruce Wayne is powerless and vulnerable. This highlights a key element of his portrayal, in which his true power resides within Bruce Wayne.

Keaton Perfectly Fit Tim Burton's Bold Batman Vision

The offbeat comedic sensibilities that Michael Keaton brought to the role of Batman are perfectly aligned with the unconventional approach that Tim Burton took with the film, in which his Bruce Wayne appears not as a confident, handsome playboy but rather as another one of Burton’s trademark relatable, sympathetic misfits.

Beyond his immense wealth and tragic childhood, Keaton’s Bruce Wayne embodies the same eccentricities as Burton’s titular misfit characters in the films Ed Wood, Edward Scissorhands, and Pee-wee’s Big Adventure. In Batman and Batman Returns, Bruce’s misfit identity manifests in how he struggles to navigate his social awkwardness, which is especially heightened when he’s in the company of Kim Basinger’s Vicki Vale and Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman.

The residual presence of Keaton’s comedic persona in the franchise makes these films much more psychologically complex than if a conventional action star had been cast as Batman. Keaton’s deadpan delivery and droll humor generate a palpable sense of tension regarding the question of how far the hero will go to achieve his warped sense of justice. In addition to sharing Burton’s brooding, expressionistic vision for Batman, the actor was the perfect model for Burton’s vision, in which he makes appearing as a winged avenger seem like a logical choice instead of the act of a madman. Batman is streaming now on Max. Clean and Sober is streaming on Tubi.