Prophet_of_Doom
Posts: 727
Joined: 15/2/2006
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ORIGINAL: chris kilby
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ORIGINAL: Prophet_of_Doom
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ORIGINAL: chris kilby
Anywho... The Dark Knight. Did I raise any issues about it earlier in my rather lengthy (and, I hoped, serious and thought-provoking yet light-hearted) review/essay that anyone would like to discuss on this Dark Knight Review thread? Anyone...?
Well, the first point I'd take issue with is the lack of flab. There's definitely flab. Always is with Nolan.
From a purely scriptwriting perspective, I'd say Nolan and his co-writers are definitely low-fat. If anything, you could argue they are too schematic. A-B writers, overly-concerned with plot at the expense of everything else. Look how the scenes at the start of The Dark Knight introduce The Joker, Gordon, Batman/Wayne and Dent, in turn, then starts mixing and matching them (Batman and Gordon, Gordon and Dent, Dent and Wayne) until the triumverate of "decent men in an indecent time" meet for the first time on the roof of the MCU. Each scene, building up to that moment which sets Act II in motion, is textbook "Screenwriting 101." Each scene imparts vital information about character, plot or both then, job done, doesn't hang about. On to the next scene. Yet what could be a soulless exercise in plot mechanics is anything but cos these vital scenes which introduce the dramatis personae and set up the plot are great dramatic scenes in their own right. The drama hides the machinery. Now that's good writing and as lean as Jessica Ennis.
Take the dinner scene between Bruce, Harvey and Rachel. It's virtually the heart and soul of the film and, apart from The Joker, the main engine of the plot. This scene establishes so much amid the witty banter and amusing character interplay. It establishes that Bruce believes Harvey could well be The White Knight he's been looking for. It sets up the whole "Either you die a hero" thing which basically binds Bruce and Harvey together and seals their fate. But most importantly and most subtly it starts ringing alarm bells that Harvey maybe isn't quite The White Knight everyone hopes he is and suggests that maybe Two-Face was lurking far below the surface all along. And it does all this and more with incredible skill, craft and economy.
It's a bit of a screenwriting masterclass in its own right. A filmmaking and acting masterclass too. Listen to what's being said. And what is unsaid. Look at the masks everyone's wearing, the lies and deceptions. Look at the telling glances between Rachel and Bruce which speak volumes. Watch how the camera circles the characters round the table (a signature move which recurs throughout the film) which suggests unease and reflects how, behind Bruce's smirking playboy act, The Batman is circling Harvey like a predator, trying to suss him out. Phew! And that's not the half of it. And that's just one scene. I've seen whole movies which don't have that much going on!
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But the one single feature that I always remember, the first thing that always pops into my head is this: Nolan (and most of the film's fans) focus on how the film is bedded in reality. Not the cartoon world of Burton, but a hyper-stylised world in which we might all exist. And then, he gives us the worst cgi make-up for Two-Face at the end, that I thought I was watching shots from The Mummy. And The Mummy hasn't aged well. The moment that happened, BAM, the film lost me. Because everything in a film has to work within the framework that it has built for itself.
Fair enough. Few things date quicker than special effects. Personally I found "Two-Face" disturbingly horrific, a good "Nolanverse" approximation of the comics, and a vast improvement on the Tommy Lee Jones in Batman Forever. I thought it looked convincingly "real" enough although obviously such an injury would surely prove fatal. Burns victims are particularly prone to infections and at the very least Harvey would be blind in that dry, lidless eye, and sound like The Elephant Man. Wearing Bane's gimp mask.
But that's the tightrope Nolan's been walking - between comic book fantasy and at least the appearance of a plausible pseudo-reality. As I said before, I think The Dark Knight Trilogy's supposed "realism" has been overstated and can be counter-productive - the more "real" it tries to be, the sillier it risks looking. Two-Face kinda encapsulates that.
I like Nolan and Burton's Bat-flicks for different reasons. While I prefer the gritty "reality" of Nolan (probably cos I'm so pedantic) I've always loved the twisted, German Expressionism of Batman Returns which, being so timeless, may actually age better than The Dark Knight Trilogy. Nolan's films are so contemporary, so rooted in the here-and-now (9/11, The War on Terror, Occupy, yadda, yadda, yadda) that they may date really badly. Even more than poor old Harvey's CGI-ed face!
I don't know where to start. I can understand that you rate the film highly, but this is bordering on idolatry. Objective reasoning has gone out the window. Acting/writing/filmmaking mastercalsses? Those comments drain my soul so comprehensively that the resultant ennui renders any response impossible!
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