chris kilby
Posts: 1189
Joined: 31/3/2010
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A much more open, expansive and epic film than Batman Begins even, Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight boldly announces from its opening shot that this is a very different beast. There’s more daylight for a start. Shot almost entirely on location (in the glass and steel canyons of Chicago) Wally Pfister’s stunning photography is genuinely awe-inspiring – the key action sequences shot on IMAX so sharp you could cut yourself just looking at them!
The Dark Knight is even more “realistic” than the often set-bound Batman Begins was. For where Batman Begins wasn’t entirely divorced from the comic book fantasy of Tim Burton’s films (albeit without the Mock-Goth excess), The Dark Knight is more akin to a Michael Mann crime epic. Specifically, Heat, with Pacino dressed as a bat and DeNiro in clown make-up. (Let’s face it – he’s done worse!)
The Dark Knight actively invites such comparisons by the – surely deliberate – presence of William Fichtner. (That Nolan is prepared to “throw away” such a fine actor in what is little more a cameo role shows just how well-cast his films are.) Some of Hans Zimmer’s music even sounds like (Bat-alumnus) Elliot Goldenthal’s Heat score. Especially during that scene (and tone) setting bank heist.
Nolan shoots “Gotham” with the same care and attention Michael Mann lavishes on his beloved LA. And like Mann, this film has a real sense of place. But Heat isn’t the only modern crime classic The Dark Knight is beholden to. The masterfully orchestrated Godfather-like montages throughout are operatic in their sweep and intensity, again helped no end by Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard’s majestic score.
Batman Begins was essentially Frank Miller’s Batman: Year One. So is The Dark Knight to a lesser extent - especially the final, er, face-off. But it is also Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale’s The Long Halloween. (“Batman: Year Two,” basically. No hang on a minute. There already was a Batman: Year Two, wasn’t there? It was rubbish!) And it owes a huge debt to one of the great unsung heroes of comics, Denny O’Neil. Not only did he create Batman Begins’ big bad, Ra’s al Ghul, it was his and Neal Adams’ classic run in the early 1970s which rescued Batman from the camp ignominy of the 60s TV show and probably oblivion too, turning The Caped Crusader into The Dark Knight in the process – a name he coined, I believe. The Dark Knight ditches a lot of Batman Begins’ more outré comic book elements. Like Denny O’Neil’s Batman, this Dark Knight has temporarily forsaken The Batcave and operates out of his downtown Gotham penthouse - shades of Doc Savage there, too, I think.
But The Dark Knight is ultimately Alan Moore’s (overrated) The Killing Joke, albeit on an epic if not mythic scale. For The Dark Knight presents The Joker as almost an urban legend, elevating his titanic struggle with The Batman to the level of modern myth – The Clash of The Jungian Archetypes, if you will. Yes, The Dark Knight is even more self-consciously symbol-laden than Batman Begins was. No, wait – come back! This is powerful, literally Classic storytelling.
Shabby, shuffling and lank-haired with more than a whiff of “homeless chic” about him, Heath Ledger’s Mephistophelean Joker is more a Manichean force of nature than a real flesh and blood character. And a seemingly omniscient if not omnipresent Manichean force of nature at that. Was it my imagination, or did The Joker imply that he suspected Batman was Bruce Wayne, but didn’t care?
(Prescient, too. When The Joker torches that money it looks remarkably like a metaphor for what the banks were busy doing to the global economy when The Dark Knight was released. What was it Ra’s al Ghul said about using economics as a weapon, again? Introduce a little anarchy? You can flippin’ well say that again!)
A nihilistic “agent of chaos” (with an explicit death wish) and a mad “dog chasing cars,” (he even looks like a dog when he’s hanging out the window of that police car) The Joker is The Lord of Misrule. A truly protean figure and the real stuff of primal nightmares. And no, I don’t know what any of that means either. But it sounds good, doesn’t it?
No name, no history, and nothing in his pockets but knives and lint, Ledger’s Joker lacks even the cursory background and character “development” of the Jack Nicholson version. But leaving no record of any sort in this day and age surely stretches credulity even more than a man dressed like a bat does, doesn’t it? (In a clever allusion to The Joker’s chequered comics past and uncertain origins, his conflicting explanations for his distinctive facial scars are different every time. More self-mythologising. Just like The Batman.)
But it’s not just the citizens of Gotham The Joker pushes to breaking point. It’s the boundaries of the 12A certificate as well. His pencil trick and disturbing habit of sticking knives in people’s mouths, while bloodless, are genuinely squirm-inducing. The Joker has a real sense of threat and menace about him like few screen villains, regardless of the certificate. He is dangerous and unpredictable. That’s what makes him so terrifying.
But just when it looks like The Dark Knight is going to re-enact the ending of Burton’s Batman, it crucially undermines it instead. And when The Unstoppable Force tells The Immovable Object that “I think you and I are destined to do this for ever,” what was a sly reference to the neverending nature of comic book conflicts, becomes unintentionally poignant and almost unbearably sad. In an irony-filled movie this was the bitterest irony of all.
Ledger was a revelation here. Not on anyone’s radar but Nolan’s as an obvious candidate for The Clown Prince of Crime, his casting came as a real surprise, if not a downright shock for the online fanboys who (over)reacted with predictable outrage at the news. It was Daniel Craig all over again, and just like that toe-curling CRAIGNOTBOND carry-on the shrill nay-sayers once again were proved spectacularly and embarrassingly wrong. Won’t stop them doing it again the next time, though. [It didn’t. Anne Hathaway, anyone…?]
That posthumous Oscar was more than deserved. It is a stunning performance. Instantly iconic and iconoclastic, it blows Nicholson’s hammy panto turn off the screen and out of the pages of cinema history even while slyly incorporating wee nods to both his and Caesar Romero’s Jokers as well as knowing hints of Jack Lemmon in Some Like It Hot! and even (possibly) The Fall’s Mark E. Smith – “Why so SERIOUS-UH?” Ledger’s Joker is the stuff of primal nightmares. Nicholson’s was the stuff of camp TV shows – oh yes it was!
It took some balls for any actor to tackle such an iconic role so associated with an iconic star, no matter how overrated he is. (Truth be told, Nicholson was always hopelessly miscast as The Joker. Too fat and old for the part, his performance was no better than Caesar Romero’s. Controversial?) And Ledger’s balls were so big it was a wonder he could walk. Still can’t help wondering how old Jack musta felt about that at the time. He was very protective of the (lucrative) role and always seemed keen to reprise it. Even for Nolan? Could you imagine it? That film would need an enema!
Ledger’s unnerving performance is helped no end by Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard’s score. The Joker’s jarring, endlessly sustained, one-note motif taking The Batman’s already minimalist two-note “theme” to the point of abstraction. A lot of this film seems to be deliberately designed to unnerve and disorient the audience, Nolan’s restless camera frequently circling the characters and the action like a predator ready to pounce. There is a real and gnawing sense of a city under siege and of escalating chaos which is disturbing to watch. Like one of The Joker’s knives, The Dark Knight really gets under your skin. (Loved the potato peeler gag, BTW.)
But “It’s not about money, it’s about sending a message,” although it’s unclear even The Joker knows precisely what that message is beyond (in a paraphrase of The Killing Joke) “Madness is like gravity - all it takes is a little push…”
The Joker is terror personified - the ultimate bogey man. THE 21st Century bogey man actually. For like Ra’s al Ghul, this Joker is also inspired by Osama bin Laden – he too terrorises the outside world via lo-res video recordings. “Some people can’t be bought, bullied or reasoned with. Some people just want to watch the world burn.” Like al Qaeda. For if Batman Begins evoked the spectre of 9/11, then The Dark Knight is clearly “about” The War on Terror, asking the disturbingly topical (and Nietzschean) question: how do you fight monsters without becoming a monster yourself? Bold, even daring stuff for a summer blockbuster about a man who dresses up like a bat.
Even more daringly, The Dark Knight doesn’t provide any easy (or reassuring) answers either. The closest it comes is “Either you die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain,” which proves tragically prophetic for more than one character. Foreshadowing doesn’t come any more thudding or portentous than that, though, and Nolan’s foreshadowing ain’t exactly subtle at the best of times. In fact it should come with the words “HEAVY FORESHADOWING ALERT!” flashing onscreen. Either that or a government health warning.
Nolan does this a lot – oft-repeated memes. In Batman Begins it was the similarly portentous (and on-the-nose) “It’s not who you are underneath, but what you do that defines you” which you just knew you’d be hearing again later at some point. Nolan just about gets away with it too, even if it does induce the odd groan.
The biggest surprise of Batman Begins was it was the first Batman film actually about Batman. But the biggest surprise of The Dark Knight is it isn’t about Batman or even The Joker at all. It is The Tragedy of Harvey Dent and Aaron Eckhart is the real star of the film. It’s his story we follow. His character who goes through the most dramatic changes, the biggest “arc” as it were. Yet Eckhart’s subtly layered and nuanced performance is inevitably overshadowed by the flashier, scene-stealing Joker and the real-life tragedy of Heath Ledger.
There are disturbing hints throughout that Harvey Dent’s psychosis predates his fateful accident (the precise nature of which differs markedly, if satisfyingly, from the comics) and that other name the cops have for him… (Nolan also has sly fun with the notion that, like Cillian Murphy, Eckhart himself was once considered for Batman.)
Interestingly, when The Joker roars “LOOK AT ME!” and Harvey Dent later shouts “SAY IT!” they sound identical. Just as when Batman (from off-screen) growls “I brought MINE!” in Batman Begins it sounds like Liam Neeson’s voice. It IS Liam Neeson’s voice. I suspect Nolan just might be saying something about the nature of duality when he does this. What? One of the overriding themes of all his movies? In a film about a guy who wears a mask? Who’d have thunk…?
The Dark Knight is a bold if not brave and audacious film. The good guys aren’t infallible. Batman doesn’t always win. He makes mistakes. And there are casualties. This is a surprisingly bleak, even harrowing film for a summer blockbuster which simply refuses to play by Hollywood rules (or cliches), sometimes to a genuinely shocking degree. Which is why it’s all the more incredible in retrospect that a film so relentlessly bleak made such a phenomenal amount of money at the box office. A zeitgeist-defining amount of money which suggests The Dark Knight caught some kind of post-9/11, pre-Credit Crunch wave. One for future film historians to ponder, I expect.
As is the film’s politics. Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy has been accused of right wing propagandising if not outright fascism. That it condones and even endorses “Extraordinary Rendition” and torture. Yet, in The Dark Knight, torture is shown not to work. Indeed it is repeatedly shown to be counter-productive. And when a character (who really should know better) advocates the “temporary” suspension of civil liberties in the pursuit of “justice,” another character is quick to challenge him. This is politically ambiguous, morally complex and very deliberately open to interpretation. The Dark Knight doesn’t presume to provide simple answers to complex questions; to lecture the audience. It challenges the audience to provide its own answers. Only the very best films do that. It’s what Art does! We’ve come a long way from Adam West and Zap! Pow! campery. We’ve come a long way from Batman Begins. Amazing.
The Dark Knight Rises certainly seems to take a very dim, conservative view of human nature (or the mob, certainly) but The Dark Knight, for all its bleakness, shows more faith in human nature when the noblest act of courage and self-sacrifice is made quietly and without fuss by a minor character presented as one of the lowest-of-the-low; a brute. A development which is as surprising as it is moving. The world is cruel, yes. But not, it turns out, without hope.
Surveillance too is a major theme – there is an almost-actionable visual echo of V for Vendetta’s FATE computer. The very existence of which is challenged: “I’ve got to find this man, Lucius.” “At what cost?” And police corruption remains a major theme too. Even more so than in Batman Begins. Not very right-wing, that. But do us liberals look for “ambiguities” in films like this and Dirty Harry which simply are not there cos we feel guilty about enjoying them? Ambiguities or a rationalisation to ease guilty liberal consciences? Possibly. Christopher Nolan is always bemused by what gets read into his films. In that case, he’s gonna love me!
But no film is perfect – my endlessly repeated meme! Even the best ones. There are flaws in The Dark Knight. There are plot holes. Some quite egregious ones. What becomes of The Joker and his hostages after The Batman dives out of that window? How is Gordon able to pull a frankly jawdropping narrative fast one without prior knowledge of what The Joker was planning? Who actually built that huge frickin’ computer for Wayne and what did they think he was going to do with it? How did The Joker get hundreds of barrels of gasoline onboard those ferries without anyone noticing? And into that hospital, presumably…?
And if The Dark Knight is so “realistic,” how come more people don’t realise that Bruce Wayne is Batman? He clearly isn’t short of cash and has a lot of spare time on his hands. Batman either has a huge industrial outfit (with military contracts up the kazoo!) backing him or he’s the richest guy in the city. Or both, which kinda narrows it down a bit. I’m being flippant of course. It’s all about the willing suspension of disbelief. But the more “realistic” you make an obvious fantasy like Batman, the more you encourage audiences to willingly suspend their disbelief only so far. Although, to be fair, Nolan does fearlessly confront such conceits head-on. (Nolan is also very good at translating hackneyed aspects of the comics, like Harvey Dent’s iconic coin-flipping, which should appear cheesy on screen but don’t.)
So The Dark Knight’s “realism” has maybe been over-stated and can be a double-edged sword. Alan Moore has said that “realistic super-heroes” are an oxymoron anyway – and he should know! The Dark Knight bears this out. For mightily impressive and almost-plausible as it is, the more “realistic” it gets the more the audience is reminded that one guy’s still dressed like a bat. Which is just silly no matter how much you try to rationalise it. Indeed the more you rationalise it, the sillier it gets; the more Batman unintentionally invokes the uncomfortable spectre of Adam West’s classic line: “I don’t like to attract too much attention!” There were definitely moments, watching The Dark Knight, when my willing suspension of disbelief popped out for a Coke or something.*
The ending wasn’t one of them though. The Dark Knight really turns the screw on the audience, especially in its almost unbearably tense, multi-jeopardy filled third act. Nolan likes playing games with the audience as much as The Joker does, and he and his co-writers clearly know their games theory. Psychology students everywhere will immediately recognise the climax as “The Prisoner’s Dilemma” played for the highest stakes imaginable in a suspense sequence of nervous, sweating intensity.
But it’s not all doom and gloom. Far from it. Who says The Dark Knight Trilogy hasn’t got a sense of humour? “Rachel’s told me everything about you.” “I certainly hope not.” I’m baffled when critics accuse these films of being po-faced for there is some very sly, even black humour in this one. Fox’s possibly sequel-baiting reference to cats. Bruce Wayne’s “I was brought up here and I turned out OK.” And Gordon telling Dent that “Things will get ugly.” Hmmm…
And speaking of sly humour, Nolan’s ongoing love affair with the Bond franchise continues apace here. Like 007, Batman goes international for one jawdroppingly audacious sequence which spectacularly deploys a real-life Bat-gadget straight out of Thunderball. A SWAT van rammed off a bridge and into a river is lifted from Licence To Kill. And Morgan Freeman’s Lucius Fox is still Batman’s “Q” in all but name.
The Batmobile chase sequence, while bigger, is almost identical to the one in Batman Begins – that took place largely underground too. But it’s just not as good somehow. (I wonder if Gotham’s insurance companies cover you if your car gets flattened by the Batmobile.) And the Batpod was surely inspired by Judge Dredd’s Lawmaster – how on earth did they ever get those frickin’ enormous tyres to corner? The editing of this sequence is all over the shop (literally, when Bats fulfils the fantasy of many by teararsing through a crowded shopping mall at 100mph) but is so viscerally impressionistic you hardly notice on a first viewing.
(And it’s a real shame that truck-flipping money shot from the trailers looks like a model when they went to the bother of doing it for real!)
But The Dark Knight isn’t just a Bond film with capes. It’s an urban western as well. The powerfully plaintive and emotional coda is straight out of Shane – another mythic genre hero. And like Shane, The Dark Knight is ultimately about our need for heroes, legends, yes, and myths. Sometimes at the expense of the truth. Which brings to mind the ending of another famous western. The Dark Knight resonates strongly with the famous last words of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance – when the legend becomes fact, print the legend! Although this can be a double-edged sword too of course, if not a tightrope – there are dangerous myths also. Alan Moore (in his introduction to Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns - that would make a good film!) suggests that our psychological need for heroes is itself inherently fascistic. I think he may have a written a book about that himself once…
Not that The Batman’s heroism doesn’t come at a terrible cost to himself and others. “You brought this craziness on us!” someone accuses The Batman at one point and it is a hard charge to refute. Even The Batman has to ask himself if he is ultimately responsible for The Joker’s madness. It is significant here that in keeping with Nolan’s “realistic” filmmaking aesthetic that his Joker wears make-up – perhaps suggesting that his literal theatricality was inspired by Batman in the first place.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, The Batman’s desire to inspire others to stand up to injustice only encourages Bernie Goetz-style copycat vigilantes with guns who also openly challenge The Batman - rightly asking what makes him any better. A question which pointedly isn’t answered by The Dark Knight’s amusing if glib response. This is morally complex stuff which repeatedly refuses to accept The Batman’s “heroism” (or motivations) at face value. Or his sanity for that matter: “I don’t need help!” “Not my diagnosis.”
And no-one challenges The Batman or his motives more than his faithful, er, batman. As before, Michael Caine’s Alfred is the heart and soul of the movie. A well as his master’s conscience and, frequently, his sense of humour as well. “Any psychotic ex-boyfriends I should know about?” “Oh, you have no idea,” is the laugh of this supposedly laugh-free trilogy. And it’s Alfred who comes up with Bruce’s little playboy wheezes/alibis. Like absconding with an entire ballet company. Presumably just the female ones…
(Alfred’s matter-of-fact revelation that he and “his friends in Burma” were clearly mercenaries perhaps explains how he knew so much about Bane, BTW. Maybe Alfred still has contacts in that shadowy world. Handy.)
Everyone excels here. Everyone shines. Even the most minor bit players. Not even the Coen Brothers cast their films better. Eric Roberts fills the Rutger Hauer role of reminding audiences what an underrated and unfairly neglected screen presence he is as well as further hinting at Nolan’s tastes as a film fan. Blade Runner might be Nolan’s favourite film, but I bet he’s a big fan of Runaway Train as well.
The delightful Maggie Gyllenhaal fills in for the AWOL Katie Holmes without jarring too much in what is still an underwritten role. And it’s easier to buy her as a high-flying Assistant DA somehow. Maybe she just looks smarter.
Gary Oldman excels, of course, as Ned Flanders. I mean Jim Gordon – Frank Miller’s inspired elevation of this stalwart character to badass co-star status being arguably his greatest contribution to the comics as well as to Nolan’s films. And Oldman gets some great material here. There is a palpable air of desperation when he cries: “We have to save Dent. I have to save Dent!” There’s a lovely little moment between Gordon and his son which remains one of my favourite bits. And his powerfully evocative voiceover at the end gets me every time.
Bale’s great too, despite Ledger’s cinematic equivalent of grand larceny. He certainly holds his own better against Ledger’s outrageous scene-stealing than poor, old, underwritten Michael Keaton did opposite Jack Nicholson. His Batman voice comes in for a lot of stick from people who are just looking for things to complain about, though. But what else is he supposed to do? His options are strictly limited to a Clint Eastwood whisper or a Clint Eastwood growl and clearly Bale has opted for the latter. What else was he going to do – Jason Statham cockney geezer hard man? Caribbean Darth Vader with laryngitis…?
In a curious footnote, an actor from Burton’s Batman crops up in The Dark Knight too, useless-fact fans. Paul Birchard, who was the Gotham Globe hack who says “That’s what they do with garbage,” plays one of the uniformed cops guarding The Joker’s cage at the MCU. I only know this cos Birchard (an American) used to live in Glasgow and between acting gigs used to be a late night DJ on Radio Clyde and I recognised his voice - He’s the cop who says the fateful line: “Is that… a phone?”
It’s always darkest before the dawn and The Dark Knight ends up in a very dark place indeed. One which at the time suggested that another sequel would have to lighten the tone. Or at least provide The Batman with some crimefighting company. Goodbye The Dark Knight, hello The Caped Crusader? Or even – dare I say it – The Dynamic Duo? But it was not to be. Or was it…?
2 ½ hours long but it doesn’t feel like it, The Dark Knight doesn’t mess about. And there isn’t an ounce of narrative fat on it. It is a masterpiece of screenwriting pace and economy, each scene doing just what it has to before moving on to the next one with the precision of an exploding Swiss watch which turns into a laser.
Jim Gordon spoke portentously about escalation at the end of Batman Begins and he wasn’t kidding. Nolan takes upping the super-sequel ante to new heights. Not just in terms of action and scale, but creatively and thematically as well. And never just for the budget-busting sake of it. Most sequels are just one damn thing after another. But Nolan makes everything bigger cos the story demands it – Michael Bay, please take note. Please? I’m begging you!
For I think it’s safe to say that Nolan is one of The Greats – sometimes you don’t have to wait until someone is brown bread or dribbling incoherently before you can acknowledge that. It is self-evident. Nolan hasn’t come close to making anywhere near a bad film yet and there aren’t many directors who can say that.
Sometimes people deserve to have their trust in sequels rewarded. The Dark Knight isn’t just one of the greatest super-hero movies of all time and one of the few sequels to rank alongside Aliens, The Empire Strikes Back and The Godfather Part II as good as if not better than the original, it ranks alongside the likes of Heat and, yes, The Godfather as a modern crime classic in its own right. The Dark Knight almost isn’t a super-hero film at all, the antagonists’ admittedly bizarre appearance almost proving incidental. This film would be great with or without the costumes. Another remarkable achievement.
Sometimes you just know when you’re watching an instant classic. Jaws, Empire, Raiders, Aliens, Gladiator – I wonder what tedious online nitpickers would have made of that lot at the time… The Dark Knight is another one. You just know in the first five minutes that you’re in safe hands. You know like you know a good melon.
And like that esteemed company, The Dark Knight is a film which only gets better, each successive viewing revealing more layers of nuance, irony, resonance and meaning. (And, it must be said, the occasional new plot hole too!) Only the very best films do that. And in recent years the only other one I can think of is The Big Lebowski. Praise indeed – The Bat abides…
* Other brown fizzy drinks that are bad for your teeth are available.
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Holy **** - 
at leats it's a review in the review thread though. 
) 
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