Director of photography Wally Pfister, ASC is the first to admit he’s not a Batman aficionado, but he does have a fond connection to Gotham City’s brooding, crime-fighting vigilante. “I was a huge fan of the Sixties television show when I was a kid,” he enthuses. “My dad worked for ABC, and he used to come home with armfuls of Batman souvenirs — publicity photos, utility belts, a Batman projector that could beam a bat onto the wall, all kinds of stuff.”
Memories of this Bat-swag began swirling in Pfister’s mind when he learned that director Christopher Nolan, his collaborator on Memento (see AC April ’01) and Insomnia (AC May ’02), would take the helm on Batman Begins. “Chris said he wanted to tell the story in a way it hadn’t been done before; he wanted to dive not only into the origins of Batman, but also into the fact that he’s a superhero who doesn’t have superhuman powers. He’s a normal man — if you consider a billionaire to be normal — whose only special attributes are his intelligence, resourcefulness, fantastic physical condition and fighting abilities.”
06-07-2005, 05:13 PM
