For Singer, a Hero With Many Faces

As "Superman Returns" (see review on Page 32) opens, Clark Kent/Superman (Brandon Routh) has just come back to Metropolis from a mysterious five-year sabbatical, only to discover that, in his absence, Daily Planet reporter Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth) has won a Pulitzer for an editorial titled "Why the World Doesn't Need Superman."

It seems somehow appropriate, therefore, to begin an interview with director Bryan Singer (who also has a producer and "story by" credit on the film) with the question: "Why does the world need 'Superman Returns?' "

"It's about time," he says unequivocally, citing not just the 19 years that have passed since the Man of Steel was last sent flying across the big screen in "Superman IV," but the fact that Hollywood's special effects capabilities have improved sufficiently to make yet another version . . . necessary. "We have the technology, as they say in 'The Six Million Dollar Man.' "

For Singer, however, it's about so much more than mere technology.

"I think, in a way, the movie can speak on a number of different levels," he says. "Not just on an action-adventure level, but also on a spiritual level."

It's for that reason that the filmmaker doesn't shy away from exploiting some of the more messianic overtones of the character of Superman, who at one point is shown to be overwhelmed, a la Jim Carrey in "Bruce Almighty," by the cries for help he can't avoid hearing from a needy world. Singer even compares the film's subtext of salvation (and its sub-theme of sacrifice) to the not-so-thinly veiled Christian allegory centering around the Aslan character in "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe."

"It's still a story about a lion, a witch and a wardrobe," says Singer, "and this is still Superman. No one's saying he's anything more or less than Superman. But it is not a coincidence when Jor-El, in the first picture, said: 'They can be a great people, Kal-El. They only lack the light to show the way. For this reason, I send them you, my only son.' That's very, um, biblical ."

Calling Superman's "origin story" -- the one about an infant with super powers having been sent to Earth from Krypton -- a "sort of Judeo-Christian allegory," Singer says it's not surprising how many people still relate to the character, a character whose roots, he believes, go even deeper than the red-caped, crime-fighting hero created in a late 1930s comic book. "You have the parents who take the child and send him downriver, to fulfill a destiny, like Moses," he explains. "And then, in the case of the adult Super man, there are things to do with savior, and sacrifice and resurrection."

"They're not lost on me at all," he continues. "I think when you grow up in a Judeo-Christian culture, which we have in America -- and that's how I grew up, I was a Jewish kid, I lived in a Catholic neighborhood, I used to go to a Christian youth club -- these things find their way into your work."

There are other, even more personal reasons why the 40-year-old filmmaker -- who discovered the George Reeves television Superman in re-runs before the comic books -- was drawn to the tales, which he calls "our 20th-century mythology" and likens to the Arthurian legends. Like Superman, Singer was adopted, is an only child and has blue eyes.

What's more, the scrawny Jewish kid, feeling out of place in his Catholic New York neighborhood, always imagined himself as a bit of an outsider, a less-than-stellar student whose feelings of being "picked on quite a bit" led him to identify with Clark Kent's secret identity in a profound way. "Here was this guy," Singer says, "who was this awkward reporter in this newsroom, who couldn't get any attention from Lois Lane -- or anybody for that matter. And then he goes into a phone booth and goes out and he becomes this super being, with all the looks and the charisma that I would fantasize having as a kid."

It's the same feelings of alienation that Singer says drew him to the "X-Men" franchise, and why he regrets not having been able to direct the most recent film, especially after having invested six years of his life on the first two. "If it was not for how much I was a fan of Superman," he says, "I would not have known how to make the first two 'X-Men' movies. So when Warner Bros. was willing to let me tell my story of Superman, or my take, it was a decision I had to make. If I could have split myself in half and made both films -- both 'X-Men 3' and 'Superman Returns' -- I would have done that, but that's not possible."

Another reason Singer believes the time may be ripe for a "Superman" reprise is that the world is a scary place -- not just now, but always has been. "I think people like to be taken care of," he says. "I think the world's always going through tough times. Ever since Superman skyrocketed in popularity in the '40s during the second World War, he provided a kind of inspiring example of what we aspired to achieve, particularly in America. So, in that way, in dark times, Superman provides a light at the end of the tunnel, or a breath of fresh air. He has a kind o f nostalgic nobility that we don't always have, but we aspire to. I think that's why he's very welcome, particularly in difficult times."

Hmmm. Kind of like a Ronald Reagan in tights?

Not exactly, says Singer, although, in his film, he isn't entirely loath to make allusions to the world of politics and current affairs, even weaving in subtle visual and acoustical references to the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center.

Far more subtle, in fact, than an all-too-real scene set in downtown "Metropolis" that appeared in one early version of the screenplay but never saw the light of day.

"At one point," the director recalls, "I had a scene in the script which I never shot, and I probably was never going to shoot, where Superman would be standing -- after flying around rescuing people at night -- would be standing at dawn at Ground Zero. Sort of standing there, almost as if to say, 'If I had been here, this might not be.' "