In high school, I had the rare privilege of having a classmate who loved movies the way I did. Everybody watches movies, but most “movie guys” I went to school with were explicitly interested in genre fare, not so much the study of filmmaking. This anomaly of a peer wanted to be a technician, a writer-director with interests outside of geek culture. He wanted to study them, and as someone desperate to speak about cameras with anyone, he was a nice conversation partner. We both saw films not completely as works of writing, but a visual medium that uses the best of both pieces of work to tell a story. He was brash and incredibly opinionated, imitating his idea of the ethereal “Hollywood director” built in his own mind from a childhood admiration of Quentin Tarantino and John Carpenter. Art, to him, was the ultimate force for change in the world. Nothing could match it. He confided in me once that if he didn’t become a filmmaker, he would have wanted to be a vigilante. Young and dumb, he wanted to change the world for the better in the only ways he knew he could. I imagine Zack Snyder is something like that guy.
In the ten years since the release of Man of Steel, nerds have ranted about Zack Snyder’s interpretation of Superman for a bunch of pedantic and ultimately meaningless reasons. I hate to break it to them: nobody gives a shit if he wears red pants. What really matters is how Snyder, a student of commercial sleekness, views Superman through the lens of a camera. He’s a very sexy filmmaker: from the glistening cum-gutter abs of every member of Gerard Butler’s battalion in 300, to Emily Browning’s shiny, bombshell-breasted exploitation aesthetic in Sucker Punch, to the way the camera admires how Dave Bautista’s muscle-bound form leaps effortlessly from blackjack table to blackjack table in Army of the Dead — he knows sex sells. Whether intentional or not, Snyder can shoot the male form in a way no other filmmaker with his budget can or will. There’s a difference between getting ripped in order to fight and getting ripped in order to fuck, and Snyder views these bodies as powerful but vulnerable. They are two sides of a coin, both essential to portraying a complex person within their impeccable forms.
Alas, Lois Lane (Amy Adams), reimagined as a Sorkin-esque reporter quipping one liners at the men around her, is reduced to a stuttering schoolgirl at the sight of Kal-El’s (Henry Cavill) hairy pectorals. Cavill is sexualized in a way which is empowering for his character, but the women are only portrayed one of two ways, sexually speaking: cold, calculating and sexless, as seen in Faora (Antje Traue), or repressed professionals like Lois Lane and Major Farris (Christina Wren). Both culminate in the (hopefully unintentionally) regressive idea that they can only be liberated by Superman’s v-cut. Snyder’s work with David S. Goyer’s lackluster script leads his images to be an exercise in pretty little nothings; pictures in service of a misguided script about hope in humanity that simultaneously reduces half of humanity to the roles of either eternal caretaker or mortal enemy. Snyder can do better (while Sucker Punch does bend a little into trauma porn, he does give his female characters a sense of agency that is absent in his work with other screenwriters), so even if we give him the benefit of the doubt in his well-meaning depiction of feminism that lacks any real sense of nuance, the onus of representation is on him. The balance of bodies being sexual and violent tips when Lois Lane’s faux-progressive character is reduced to a tiny, ineffectual damsel in distress the second she meets beefcake Superman.
Snyder, in his amorous readings of bodies, also sexualizes violence. He can’t help himself. A fight scene portraying and examining the horrific destruction of a major metropolitan area and the subsequent hundreds of thousands of deaths should probably not take inspiration from the bombast action of Dragon Ball Z, but he does it anyways. He sacrifices time that could be spent on exploration on a nearly hour long final act focused mainly on Superman blowing up robots. Snyder tries to rectify this in Batman v Superman, but stumbles into the same pitfalls by framing the entire film around a pissing competition between two characters who end up having the same ideology about individualism. That’s why he works best in Army of the Dead or his remake of Dawn of the Dead — Snyder flourishes in sexy slow-motion pictures of Herculean figures battling over objectivist principles about morality. He is a guy who can construct those images into a compelling if simple story. He is not a man for political or emotional nuances, but he keeps trying, and I hope he gets there at some point. Frankly, I’d prefer more journeymen like Snyder over the Russo Brothers, who apparently would prefer leaving the duties of filmmaking to lifeless automatons. Snyder is a student not just of film, but of the arts. He studied painting before getting into film, he knows the power images alone can carry. Even if he fails more than he succeeds, he has a deep appreciation for the filmmaking process and the study of storytelling.
When referring to his slick images, some critics not fond of the product his process produces reduce Snyder purely to his style over any kind of substance, but I disagree to an extent. Despite his poor understanding of intersectionality, I think parts of Man of Steel are breathtaking. The first flight sequence allied with Zimmer’s fantastic score stands alongside some of the highlights of the superhero genre. Everything is beautifully shot — Snyder himself stated that this was his most grounded film yet. The use of handheld on the farm to portray a boy on the cusp of something more than manhood, a legend in the making, was a great idea. Even when the conversation turns anti-humanitarian in favor of preserving the safety of the boy, there’s a sense that these are real people struggling with something they don’t understand. It’s clear that was Snyder’s thesis for not only this film but his entire universe: how would the world actually react to superhumans in our society? It’s an interesting question — one that has been asked a million times in a million stories. This movie doesn’t exactly do the best job at answering it.
This Superman is decidedly more alien than previous installments. He’s referred to more as Kal-El than Clark or even Superman. He was born and raised on Earth, but the choice is made to make him feel less human and to emphasize the burden he carries with a body that’s indestructible. In better hands, this would have successfully added a new dimension to Superman: a myth about an immigrant challenging both the restrictive traditions of his homeworld and the oppressive alienation of his adopted planet to create something more. However, in this film’s opinion, Krypton was not worth saving. Their culture was one not dissimilar to our current society: they ruined the ecosystem of their home planet, dozens of fascist race scientists proliferated and organized a coup during a disconnect between the military and the state, and they attempted a recreation of the attacks on the World Trade Center in Metropolis. Yet, when Zod (Michael Shannon) begs for Superman to spare their final ship during the final battle, Kal says only “Krypton had its chance!” It reeks of a lack of empathy for a culture’s nuances. This makes sense in a post-9/11 world: the only way for an immigrant to truly assimilate to America is to wholly abandon their culture and, as seen in Superman’s simultaneous treatment as human and weapon, conform to the libertarianism of the American military system. Yet he will always be an alien, always be on the outside to some degree. Of course this is placed in the context of the sequels, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Zack Snyder’s Justice League, but even then it becomes a moral about hope. It whittles down Watchmen (which Snyder also failed to adapt in a satisfying way) to a children’s story about learning to hope again. It’s blindly hopeful in the face of complex issues it’s willing to bring up but never really reckon with.
Yet what really gets me about Man of Steel, despite a litany of story issues and poorly thought out revisions, is that it feels human. Disregarding the politics of the film and its overall success at recognizing its own themes, you can tell the filmmaker believes in what he’s putting on screen. There is a sense of confidence in the images being presented. This film, at least for major portions, radiates a belief in something greater than ourselves. This Superman is an American, the shining city on a hill, the myth of the American Dream. The film also attempts to humanize him. Rather than pull a punch and meet this world half-assed, he goes for it and leaves the audience with (if not great) incredibly memorable pieces: Shannon’s screaming dictator interpretation of General Zod, the femme fatale coldness of Antje Traue’s performance, and the winding gray biological structures that make up Krypton. If nothing else, it feels like a very specific vision for the film, which I cannot say for many recent blockbusters. Marvel is the easiest to take shots at (I’m looking at you Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantamania), but this extends beyond their reach. Consider the complete lack of care put into works like Jurassic World: Dominion and Ghostbusters: Afterlife, the latter so creatively defunct and morally repugnant as to string up Harold Ramis’ corpse like a puppet so he can deliver some platitude about how much the Ghostbusters meant to his fake kid. Snyder at least takes the time to build a mythos around his IP work — in lesser films, the prestige of the property is pushed onto the audience regardless of the truth of that acclaim. Snyder isn’t cynical. That’s what makes him such an integral artist in our contemporary blockbuster landscape. He’s earnest. In a sea of filmmakers working on $200 million projects that actually end up getting directed by the studio, I’ll take what I can get.
Man of Steel is not a good movie. But in a film landscape such as ours, one that feels increasingly aggressive towards individual artists in favor of demoting art to the moniker of “content”, we should, if not champion, at least encourage filmmakers who really go for it. Promoting the idea that films are helmed by one individual with the essential support from thousands of other professionals informs the audience on how films are made, and not only makes us smarter as consumers of art, but gives us better films. I want James Cameron, I want Jordan Peele, I want Greta Gerwig, I want filmmakers unafraid to leave their stamps on projects. Passionate artists, the heartsick romantics, the melancholic poets, the wannabe vigilantes – they will be the next filmmakers, their images will remain. The intricacies of plots will be largely forgotten, but the way the snow swells around the fist of a man about to leap into the air and the way the camera shakes in awe when he pounces into the eternal blue sky — I will remember that. Moments of brilliance only come by a powerful voice. Airing on the side of caution to appeal to everyone else never brought anybody any good in art.
