I typically don’t begin my analyses with blunt, prospective theses, but I also feel that an introduction to this project would be even less lucrative, given its legacy. Maybe this seems like an uninspired effort, then, on my part, because… plenty has been said about this film and its sequel, so it seems like I shouldn’t even be writing about it. But I’m still going to, because even in its meager forty-year lifespan (sarcasm), Richard Donner’s conclusive 1978 magnum opus (apart from The Goonies) continues to be the model that the comic book film industry has dared to adhere to, and for a character like Superman, it only makes sense that this film should exist as the golden standard by which filmmakers strive to portray superheroes. After all, Superman is the forefather of the superhero archetype and similarly, his presence in the film industry is eerily reminiscent to his presence in the history of comics. Some of you may find this statement hyperbolic, however it’s worth noting that prior to the evolution of the superhero as a psychological entity, superheroes were simply characters that people liked to read about and that kids liked to watch beat the crap out of bad guys in their black-and-white weekly serials. Adam West and Burt Ward brought silver age continuative narration into the limelight with the Batman television series in the 1960’s, however the notion of going to the theater and witnessing a comic coming to life was still a relatively novel concept. Very rarely does a film capture the true nature of a comic book in its likeness; not necessarily in the mundane entertainment formula that Marvel Studios has been able to reproduce time and time again, nor in the stark philosophical paradigms of Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy do I find the essence that adheres to the sensibilities of sequential art and visual telling. Most present day adaptions have a hard time doing this, however early incarnations of immortal characters such as Batman and Superman have proven to not only admire the comic book aesthetic, but have since immortalized it, and it is in this same fashion that Donner’s Superman: The Movie (1978) exists as a reminder of a time when watching our heroes come to life became a beautiful reality, born from the fantasy of our admirations.

The most admirable aspect of Donner’s film is that it doesn’t shy away from its expression of the comic book as a visual artform. So much depends on the visual nature of Superman: The Movie, in terms of its storytelling: the camera doesn’t try to be experimental in its focus, nor in its movement. Static shots amplify the action through its minimalism and the use of color draws out the tone and gives it a kind of texture: the entire first act brilliantly delineates the alien nature of Krypton through an extremely limiting color palette, of nothing but dark grey and blinding neon white, and the haunting crystalline set design recalls the totalitarian imagery of expressionist cinema, in particular, Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927): buildings consist of sharp, geometric pillars that slice from the corners and ceilings creating a somehow concentric, but also eccentric sense of design. Meanwhile the entire trial of Zod and his compatriots before the projected faces of the grand jury of Krypton is brilliantly Orwellian in its scale. It seems then, that Krypton is an unexciting place, which makes sense seeing as how it is literally on the verge of annihilation. Consequently, once the narrative leaps into Kansas, the sprawling rural images of the countryside are gorgeously represented in bright long shots that hold a perfect balance of land and sky: the farm and the surrounding grasslands are lovingly dry, while the sky is either littered with an accumulation of clouds, or arid with white hues bleeding into blue. Meanwhile, other static depictions of flight are imagined by having Reeve pose triumphantly before a green screen with a fan to blow his cape into circles. In fact, a majority of the time, the projection behind Reeve is doing all of the movement, while the parallax of his standing there invents the illusion that he is the one moving. Here then, is an attention to detail, as well as a kind of archaic minimalism that draws upon the simplicity and beauty of Shuster’s original depictions and, again, we are made aware that this is in fact the reason for these choices in color and camera movement.

Unlike his dark and brooding counterpart, Superman provided a unique challenge that Batman didn’t seem to inquire out of necessity: how does one make a man fly? The answer was, obviously, cleverly implemented special effects and cinematography that shifted amidst the framework of incredibly elaborate sets. Having a 55 million dollar budget certainly helped this come to fruition, however as simple as many of the traditional effects appear today, many of them are still quite effective: watching a young Clark Kent seamlessly outrace a train on his way home from school should be considerably humorous, but instead of grinning out of embarrassment, the viewer is more inclined to laugh more at the playfulness of the imagery. A lot of this is what helps Superman: The Movie retain its charm; scenes where string and projection effects portray the sense of flight still feel romantic and exuberant, while other sequences in the film are classy and self-referential: in particular, the shot of Clark walking up to a pay-phone to change into Superman, only to find that it’s not an actual booth—and using a revolving door at super-speed instead—is so classic and showed that while the film was still very much an adaptation, it was still willing to move past its own tropes. The following scenes include Superman doing what Superman does best: stopping criminals from committing robberies, saving a girl’s cat from a tree and even saving Air Force One from going down in a lightning storm.

Now, it’s difficult to talk about charm in this film without bringing up the stellar acting. Again, there is almost nothing new to discuss here. Christopher Reeve is without a doubt the definitive Superman, but what makes his performance truly enigmatic is his ability to capture that slim, yet pertinent, dichotomy between Clark Kent and the last son of Krypton: visually, the two might be considered inseparable, however the demeanor is what sells the separation between the two personalities. Clark isn’t an overly bumbling geek, nor does he need to hunch himself over to emphasize the difference between the two of them. He’s simply the awkward new kid on the scene; he isn’t idiotic, he’s just lost, and the paradigm shift that Clark employs as a rural country boy in the big city is the most human aspect of any other character in the film. As Superman, Reeve perfectly embodies the boy scout persona to an unimaginable quality: he’s not incredibly built, nor is he exceptionally intimidating, however you can tell when he’s not playing around and his hospitable demeanor cements his character as simply a part of humanity, trying to look out for his fellow man. A great example of this portrayal comes when he helps the struggling Air Force One plane into a straight course, whilst saluting to the pilots in the cockpit. Simple gestures such as these give the character a nuance that not only expose Superman as an unassuming everyman archetype, but also grant him a humanized humbleness that recalls his comic book counterpart. Margot Kidder is also great as Lois Lane, as she carries a stern sense of professionalism despite her immediate descent into danger, and Gene Hackman is hilariously eccentric as Lex Luthor, but still offers a kind of egocentricity that keeps his performance reverent to the character. One might consider Luthor’s portrayal in this film as a step backward from his signature ingenuity, however in my experience it’s hard to do Luthor wrong so long as you keep two aspects of his character consistent: his sense for self-preservation and his intelligence. In many ways, Luthor acts more as a Bond-villain; he has a secret lair, a henchman and henchwoman, and a plan involving a series of megaton missiles to blow up the entire western seaboard, all to make space for real estate. The plan is almost satirical, and in many ways, that’s kind of the point.

There’s a good reason as to why Puzo and Donner began the film by overlooking a copy of Action Comics before a parted curtain: the film is meant to be viewed as an expression of play and—to some degree—as an expression of something much less genuine. Like Puck at the end of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the film informs you that the story that is set before you is nothing to take so seriously and, should you find yourself confused, you should remember that the piece that you are witnessing is merely a dream, or in this case, a comic book. This makes moments of absolute lunacy—such as Luthor bombing the entire west coast just to make space for new buildings, or Superman reversing time by spinning the planet backward—acceptable in the long run, because we are warned at the very beginning of the film that the story is based off of a comic book character, and where else would these plotpoints be considered the norm, if not in a comic book? This is how Superman: The Movie retains its ethereal status. No other film in the canon of superhero cinema comes close to being this self-referential; no other movie is this self-conscious of its role as a portrayal of another medium. It is absolutely one of the most unique films ever conceived and—quite frankly—we might not get a film like this ever again. To experience a cast who are as inseparable from their characters as words on paper, and to be so progressive while also retaining some sense of its traditionalism, is something completely foreign to the film landscape today. It didn’t need to promote its Nietzschian undertones and it didn’t need to focus on the development of future films to expand its universe. It kept itself grounded and it held firm to its one true goal: to bring the Golden Age of comics to life; and consequently, it is for this reason that we still choose to discuss this film, forty years later.