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Brooding Batman-types need space for quiet contemplation and reverie. You can't always stand on a ledge looking over Gotham. Sometimes you need to kick your shoes off. Even non-brooders need some me-time behind safe walls--Superman has his fortress of solitude. Brooders, however, have a special need to display their inner pain while also highlighting their masculine virtues.
Consider Connor McCloud's digs in Highlander (1986)
This room is womb-like, introspective, self-contained. The couch forms almost a perfect circle, turning in on itself. No television. Real men ruminate. Connor's man-cave is adorned like an old-style Friday's restaurant, but this reflects his long-life burdened with heavy memories of accumulated over several lifetimes. The past is present in this room.
We should not that the Hero's Lair is often utilitarian, even brutalist, in some aspects of its design and function. Loft apartments are popular. So are freight-type elevators with old-fashioned metal cages and solid iron doors.
At the other extreme of brood-spacing is Neil McCauley's (Robert DeNiro's) super-minimalist pad in HEAT (1995)
Our hero needs a proper view to ruminate cinematically, but this hero lives by the code of not being attached anything he is not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if he feels the heat around the corner. Forget marriage. This is a guy who can't even commit to having stuff. Neil is barren and so his apartment is barren. He's got nothing inside, so he winds up looking outside at city lights and waves lapping against the shore. No past is present in this room, so Neil looks out at possible futures. Outside him are his hopes and fears, flickering in the distant sulfur-lamps and dappling waves.
There are many TV lairs we could list. Stringfellow Hawke's cabin in Airwolf. Angel's apartment (and then the apartment building) on the eponymous show. Nick Knight's ridiculous loft with piano (proving he is intelligent and sensitive) and motorcycle (proving he has balls) in his loft living room in Forever Knight.
Consider Connor McCloud's digs in Highlander (1986)
This room is womb-like, introspective, self-contained. The couch forms almost a perfect circle, turning in on itself. No television. Real men ruminate. Connor's man-cave is adorned like an old-style Friday's restaurant, but this reflects his long-life burdened with heavy memories of accumulated over several lifetimes. The past is present in this room.
We should not that the Hero's Lair is often utilitarian, even brutalist, in some aspects of its design and function. Loft apartments are popular. So are freight-type elevators with old-fashioned metal cages and solid iron doors.
At the other extreme of brood-spacing is Neil McCauley's (Robert DeNiro's) super-minimalist pad in HEAT (1995)
Our hero needs a proper view to ruminate cinematically, but this hero lives by the code of not being attached anything he is not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if he feels the heat around the corner. Forget marriage. This is a guy who can't even commit to having stuff. Neil is barren and so his apartment is barren. He's got nothing inside, so he winds up looking outside at city lights and waves lapping against the shore. No past is present in this room, so Neil looks out at possible futures. Outside him are his hopes and fears, flickering in the distant sulfur-lamps and dappling waves.
There are many TV lairs we could list. Stringfellow Hawke's cabin in Airwolf. Angel's apartment (and then the apartment building) on the eponymous show. Nick Knight's ridiculous loft with piano (proving he is intelligent and sensitive) and motorcycle (proving he has balls) in his loft living room in Forever Knight.