No Joke

Jul. 19, 2008

7:56 pm

The reviews for Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight have been pretty darn good. Yeah, I know – all the big name reviews start off somewhat damning, claiming in one way or another that Heath Ledger stole the show, that it'd be a hollow shell of a movie without him. But read on and you'll see there's a good deal of praise crammed in each one, especially considering this is a Summer Blockbuster we're talking about.

Every year I'm more skeptical of movie reviews. I've been sent to more abject junk – and worse, shooed away from some true gems – so it's getting easier to brush these things off. But when someone like Salon's comics expert Douglas Wolk goes and points out, in total comic geek terms, what this movie could have been, I find it much harder to be completely in love.

Wolk's point is well taken. The best Batmans are more introspective than Bale's, and they're usually also more crafty, more intelligent. Batman isn't only upstaged by the Joker in this newest flick – he's upstaged by just about anything with a pulse. It's a one-dimensional performance. The nearly unintelligible monotone, the straight-line pursed lips, even the fight sequences feel stilted. Bale's Batman could have been so much more. I went to bed last night totally swayed.

But I think Wolk – and all the other naysayers – are missing something. This is the film where we see Batman on the verge of bowing out, acknowledging that heroes sometimes need to have a face. Hell, the movie doesn't even have the word "Batman" in the title. And all these reviews are in agreement about the Joker. He's the unquestionable center of the film. I for one have never been more skeezed out – or exhilarated, for that matter – by a hero-flick villain.

I'm not saying Christopher Nolan made an entirely conscious decision to background the film's lead character to make any kind of artistic statement. But it seems plausible that, seeing what an unbelievable performance he'd captured in Ledger's Joker, a different film began to emerge.

There's more than enough emotional weight in Nolan's film. What sets it apart from any superhero flick I've ever seen is that this is the first that's comfortable handing almost all of that weight over to its anarchistic psychopath. I'm finding it hard to believe that's really a bad thing.

Comments

July 21, 2008

12:47 pm

First of all I think introspection is hard to pull off in movies. Comic books have the thought bubble, but movies have… the pensive look? The stare into the middle distance? Or, for Batman, the solitary perch atop a tall building, which Nolan uses a few times, but never too many.

I would say that Nolan and Bale’s Batman is extrospective (if such a word exists). Playboy Bruce Wayne is a farce, Batman is a myth, and the real person Wayne / Batman is completely buried beneath the two. This movie is about the cracks that form in the extrospective Batman personality, and how he goes about filling them.

One visual clue to said extrospective view is the architecture and decoration of Batman’s apartment. He lives in a box and has almost nothing in his penthouse besides furniture. Even from his home the city occupies the entirety of his thoughts. If Wayne’s coping mechanism is Batman, and Batman’s job is protector of the city, then Wayne-as-Batman shields himself from introspection by keeping occupied with the city’s problems. Bale’s Batman struggles with this role the whole movie. The climax / breakdown of the role comes when he is interrogating the Joker. He bars the door and loses control-- is ready to destroy the Joker to save Rachel. Yet between the end of that conversation and her death he has made the decision to let her die. He chooses to put the city’s needs above his own at great peril to his already withered sense of self.

This theme is repeated in his final speech, where he openly states that he will be whoever the city needs him to be-- a role he chooses not as martyr, but as a willing giver of self to the needs of the city. His choice seems heroic, but in fact it is just a continuation of his desire to sublimate his troubled self to the self Gotham (and her problems) creates for him. His martyrdom is a chance to continue escaping the pain of his past, both distant (his parents) and recent (Rachel).

As for the braininess; I’d say Batman is plenty brainy in Nolan’s version, but in less obvious ways than Burton’s Batman. There is no chemistry problem to be solved, but Bale’s Batman is clever. For instance, he figures out how to network together the city’s cell phones to create a sonar map of Gotham. I found this to be a somewhat cheesy device, but you’ve still got to admire the idea. He also outsmarts the Joker in a game of chicken, using his batmobile to run bazooka interference and then psyching the joker into a police trap. (Though the Joker double psyches him because he wants to get into prison.) If you consider that whole chase scene as a mechanism to trap the joker, Batman shows that he can think four or five steps ahead.

So I dunno. I like Wolk’s article and also feel that there is something missing from Bale’s Batman. He’s too much of an adolescent, perhaps. Not world-weary enough yet, nor broken enough to rely on brains over brawn. Maybe that will come with future movies?

Jason (#)

July 21, 2008

2:58 pm

Excellent points – I think we’re pretty much in total agreement. And I especially like this concept of the extrospective Batman. Sums up quite nicely what I think Nolan was trying to do.

One thing: I’m fairly certain Batman didn’t choose to let Rachel die. Didn’t the Joker swap up the addresses on him, making Batman think he was choosing Rachel but handing him Harvey instead?

Matt Dawson (#)

July 22, 2008

8:33 am

Did he? Was Gordon at Rachel’s address? If so that sort of throws a monkey wrench in my thesis. I need to see it again, definitely.

Jason (#)

July 22, 2008

1:24 pm

I think so. Meg is in your camp and cites the fact that Batman shows no surprise when he arrives and finds Harvey.

But I’m pretty sure that was just a mistake by Nolan. I think that Gordon asks him which one he’s going after, and he responds “Rachel” just before he jumps in his car. Then you hear Gordon in the background telling his officers the address the Joker had given for Harvey.

And yes, Gordon was at Rachel’s location. He witnesses the explosion, and I believe is close enough to get knocked over by the blast

Matt Dawson (#)