(6/15/09)
Plausibility factors greatly into my enjoyment of this series. Nothing to Fear is my least favorite of Scarecrow’s three spotlights, and unsurprisingly, plausibility is nowhere to be found. His experiments in terror consisted of bringing deepest fears to life, and yet because of its adamant adherence to formula and consequential disregard for logic and novelty, i.e. everyone has typical fears like spiders and rats, there is a lack of explanation for how the magical toxin works, and several other finer points of contention, there is no real fear on display and no reason to believe that we are watching real fear even in a cartoon context. Fear of Victory remedies this with a toxin rooted in some pseudo-science, the results of which have a dramatic weight not found in any other Scarecrow episode.
The idea is that Scarecrow exposes professional athletes with a fear toxin that severely damages their performance, and then bets against them for big money. This is not a big revenge scheme, rather simple villainous greed. No overblown monologues and angry rants, just villainy at its finest. And the toxin isn’t mere gas that plunges multitudes of people into chaos. It operates on skin contact, meaning that Scarecrow can carefully select his victims. Whenever a story gives the villain a plan, it instantly becomes more compelling. The plot unfolds itself gradually, as Batman and Robin move from one peril to the next, each one dramatized to evocative extremes.
For instance, I find that the scenes depicting fear carry an enormous impact. Not only does the toxin operate on skin contact, but it is also triggered by adrenaline, meaning that whatever excites will also terrify. There is nothing hallucinatory here save a single scene in which Robin’s football star roommate envisions the players on the rival football team as monsters, and even then it simply feels like a visual manifestation of an already activated terror. The same adrenaline rush that makes him a football superstar is the same that renders him crying like a child. Watching Nothing to Fear, I don’t see anything psychologically horrific or fascinatingly ironic about what the people go through. Watching a man revert to an almost infantile state is remarkably powerful by contrast.
But Robin’s fear is the most intense. Early in the episode, Batman and Robin stop a jewel heist taking place on the top of a skyscraper. Usually we take for granted that the two can scale buildings with ease. But when Robin’s fear kicks in and he is reduced to utter panic, suddenly he becomes unfit for the tasks that the crime-fighting occupation demands of him; not a reversion to the infantile but to the ordinary. So many directorial techniques are used to intensify the scene: a rotating background of the street depicted with extreme perspective, close-ups on Robin’s sweaty face and trembling body, even a good use of focus differentiation to demonstrate the spatial arena Robin currently finds himself trapped in. The entire sequence is an example of masterful visual storytelling. What a challenge to show the two in an attempt to scale a the walls of a towering structure, every action affected not only by the laws of gravity, but by the intervention of the thugs on the top of the building. Sebast directs it seamlessly.
The story flows so naturally that I don’t even notice the scene transitions. Once we arrive at the confrontation between Batman and Scarecrow in the stadium rafters, everything starts coming together. Robin overcomes his fears, Scarecrow’s plot is foiled, and we are invited to conjure up the image of the stadium attendees, seen from above as a vast multitude of painted dots, clawing each other to death in a state of chaos. Scarecrow truly is a grand manipulator, and it is this quality that gives him a transcendent status amidst foes that pull easy heists and capers.
But what I like so much about this episode is that, even after everything has been resolved, there is no victorious conclusion or final note to hit. The ending evokes unease, as Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson sit stilly in the lounge of the manor. There is no music, simply a ticking clock. Bruce makes an ironic suggestion harkening back to Scarecrow's plot. Dick expresses shock, followed by slight annoyance. The clock keeps ticking. The end.
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