How Excalibur Connects To BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE
It might seem repetitive for Zack Snyder’s Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice to once again show the murder of Bruce Wayne’s parents (the fifth time since 1989) but it factors into the plot in more ways than just showing what drives Bruce Wayne to do what he does. This time the oft-told tale depicts the Wayne family at a cinema showing The Mark of Zorro and John Boorman’s 1981 fantasy Excalibur – two things that offer an important insight into Snyder’s Batman. The Zorro comparisons are (and always have been obvious) – a rich playboy with a cavernous lair, who fights for justice by using a black mask and cape to hide his identity.
The Excalibur motif is new to the world of the Dark Knight but significant in the construction of this version of the character. The thrust of Boorman’s Arthurian tale was a search for a Holy Grail and it saw Nigel Terry’s King Arthur lose his sense of purpose on his long quest. The use of the emerald green green and the heavy duty medieval armour were a large part of that film’s epic and dreamlike narrative. Green too infuses Batman V Superman through the use of Kryptonite which Batman weaponises to defeat Superman – and when Ben Affleck’s finally confronts Henry Cavill’s Man Of Steel he’s wearing armour that literally makes him a ‘dark knight’. Both movies also see a pivotal weapon impaled into rock and tossed into a body of water, before returning to the surface in climatic moments. Snyder’s film is also stacked with many dream sequences, which again like Boorman’s movie, plays with the connection of dream vs reality.
It’s as if Snyder is implying that Batman’s Holy Grail is his never ending search of justice (like Arthur he lost sight of his true purpose) though it takes the coming together of The Justice League (his Knights of the Roundtable) to finally get him back on track.
Read the Movies in Focus review of Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice
