Part 7 in our countdown to the release of The Dark Knight Rises, in which the question must be asked: why so serious?
THE BAT-FILM: More than any other, The Dark Knight really feels like Christopher Nolan’s coming-out party as a filmmaker. Prior to his involvement with the Batman franchise, Nolan was probably known best as the indie filmmaker who made that movie that one time that went backwards from end to beginning. After The Dark Knight, Nolan was assuredly going to be associated with Batman for the rest of his career - much like Tim Burton before him, “Christopher Nolan” was now a household name, and the director would find himself at the tip of the blockbuster filmmaker iceberg alongside such storied names as Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson and James Cameron. And though it’s not nearly the masterpiece so many were quick to hail it as upon its original release, The Dark Knight is ripping good entertainment, building tension to a fervor we rarely see in summer blockbusters, let alone movies in general.
Bigger, bolder and better in pretty much every way than Batman Begins, The Dark Knight coasts primarily on the unrelenting, completely exhausting pace at which it unfolds. Nolan stages every element of the film with the confidence and assuredness of a filmmaker far more seasoned in the blockbuster world, never once letting up on the drama and the mounting tension. Seeing the film for the first time is quite the experience, so much so that the film’s flaws aren’t immediately evident - but that’s kind of the beauty of what Nolan does here. He never slows the film down long enough for the audience to notice, and it doesn’t really matter all that much anyway. The film is so engrossing no further explanation is really required.
Christian Bale returns as the Bat, and while the first installment was squarely focused on Bruce Wayne/Batman, here the actor takes a step back and becomes more a part of an ensemble. Which is not to say that Batman becomes the action figure he used to be in the old films - here Bruce has a very definite arc, and the character has gone through some pretty significant changes by the time the credits roll. The Dark Knight gives us a Batman who is growing increasingly weary of spending his nights beating people up while dressed as a bat. You’ll remember the end of Begins saw Rachel Dawes giving the promise of a normal life, if ever Bruce were to hang up the cape. It appears that Rachel isn’t willing to wait forever, as she’s involved with the new District Attorney, Harvey Dent. Instead of getting jealous, Bruce instead sees a way out of his predicament. With Harvey cleaning up Gotham’s streets without having to wear a mask, Bruce sees his opportunity and seizes it, immediately forming an alliance with Dent as Batman to uproot the criminal element in Gotham for good. The only trouble with that plan is a madman in clown make-up shaking the town up but good, and the fact that Rachel may not want to go back to Bruce, even if he gives up Batman for good.
Although I never felt Katie Holmes was terrible in the first one, here Maggie Gyllenhaal is an overall better fit for the character of Rachel - far more believable as an assistant DA. Rachel winds up being an incredibly important character to the narrative, although at times it doesn’t feel as if she has all that much to do. Ultimately she’s played as the damsel in distress, although with far more moxy than most (consider the party scene where she stands up to the Joker). It’s also kind of a shame that her most important act in the movie is dying, but it is a ballsy and rather brilliant move on the part of Nolan and his filmmakers’. Rachel’s death galvanizes both Bruce and Harvey, setting in motion the elements that bring the film to such a fevered pitch by the end. Having one of the main characters die halfway through the film immediately inspires doubt in the audience - if they’re willing to kill off the love interest, then anyone’s fair game for the rest of the fifty or so harrowing minutes left to go. Plus, you know - the love interest dies. Incredibly ballsy choice for a film released smack in the middle of July on over 4500 screens.
The elder statesmen of before all return, as Michael Caine, Gary Oldman and Morgan Freeman slip into their roles as easy as putting on a well-fitting glove. As Alfred, Caine gets to imbue the rather bleak film with some well-timed moments of levity, balanced out with the wonderful emotive glances that only Michael Caine could give. We also get to learn some more about Alfred’s sordid history before becoming a butler, as he relates to Bruce a chilling anecdote from his days in Burma. Oldman’s protrayal of Gordon goes into far more emotional territory, as we get a few glimpses of Gordon’s home life. Oldman played Gordon well in the first film, but his performance was never really meant to be anything other than your standard action/thriller cop role. Here he gets to dig his teeth into some nice, meaty bits, and very nearly inspires tears at the end when he’s begging for his family’s life. As Lucius Fox, Morgan Freeman doesn’t get quite as much heavy lifting on the emotional side, but the actor is always welcome as Batman’s own, personal Q. He has an arc that sees him question his morality and the morality of his employer, but that aspect never really feels fully formed - the end of Fox’s arc feels a little bit like a cheat.
Nolan raises his game in the spectacle department, staging some truly impressive stunts and effects - many of them achieved on-camera (the moment where the 18 wheeler does a 180 was actually done in real life). His action chops also grow considerably - Nolan must have taken the criticisms of the shaky camera of Begins to heart, preferring longer takes and wider shots for most of the fight scenes. I have a feeling there was far more CGI wizardry going on here than the last one, but it’s so understated you can usually never tell what’s real and what isn’t. Nolan also wisely eschews the designed, studio back-lot look of Gotham City, doing far more location work here on the streets of Chicago. It makes Gotham feel like a real city, and once again lends the story more power through the prism of realism.
And I can’t keep going without mentioning the score by Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard. On Batman Begins, the two composers went in the complete opposite direction of the heroic marches of Elfman and Goldenthal, composing a moody score more befitting of a character-driven movie. Here they build on that approach and themes from the original, but add in several unsettling cues and experimental beats (such as dragging a razor blade across a cello string) - resulting in a score that feels almost like it were alive and angry, taking swipes at the audience at every chance it gets.
THE VILLAINS: For my money, Heath Ledger here as the Joker gives one of the all-time great performances in film history.
Now, don’t get me wrong: while the depth of character and the way he’s written will never match, say, Marlon Brando’s role in Last Tango in Paris, the sheer conviction and talent Ledger brings are every bit Brando’s equal in that seminal performance. The Joker here is at once a complete departure from the character as traditionally presented but yet completely and utterly true to the core of Batman’s eternal arch-nemesis. Not the victim of acid-burned white skin and a frozen smile, Ledger’s Joker wears face-paint over some nasty scars carved into the edges of his lips (possibly self-inflicted) - his hair long and greasy and dyed a vague shade of green. It’s a wise decision not to show his origins - the character has far more power as a force that enters the frame from seemingly nowhere.
Ledger was always a top-notch actor, but I don’t think anyone knew he had this level of a performance in him. He completely disappears into the role, and for possibly the first time portrays a Batman villain that is legitimately terrifying in a very real way. His schemes definitely stretch the limits of credibility (and, as has been pointed out by folk much smarter than I: for an “agent of chaos,” the Joker sure must do an awful lot of planning to pull off some of the stuff he does here), but unlike the first film’s rather silly ploy, the Joker’s plans leave all sorts of moral conundrums for Batman and the rest of our heroes to work out. It raises the stakes immeasurably, adding even more tension to the proceedings.
It would be easy to get overshadowed by Ledger’s performance, but Aaron Eckhardt does solid work as Harvey “Two-Face” Dent - wiping all memory of Tommy Lee Jones from our minds with a nuanced, heroic and ultimately tragic portrayal. As Gotham’s “White Knight” DA, Eckhardt feels like a classic American movie star, punching out a witness after he tries to assassinate Dent with a ceramic gun. But like the movie says, “You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become a villain,” and the loss of Rachel and the scarring of his face ultimately leads Dent to becoming Two-Face - and that’s probably my biggest problem with the movie. It all adds up thematically - the movie in many ways is about how everyone is ultimately compromised, even those not held down by society like Batman. Dent’s transformation at the end reinforces all of this on a thematic level, but the narrative suffers as a result - Nolan shoves too many pieces around far too haphazardly to get to where the story needs to be at a thematic level. Regardless, Eckhardt is equally fantastic as Two-Face, his CGI-enhanced scarring especially horrifying.
THOSE WONDERFUL TOYS: The bat-suit gets another design overhaul, this one even sleeker and more practical than the last. What’s especially nice is that Batman changes his outfit in-movie, asking Lucius to design a suit that’s easier to move around in, and - for the first time in any of the Batman movies - able to turn his head. The moody lighting hid a rather silly rubber suit last time; here Nolan hides nothing, showing off the first suit for all its ridiculousness. The new one however, looks good no matter how you light it. A combination of some kind of Kevlar weave and segmented armor, the suit looks impressively badass. It also raises the stakes for Batman himself, giving him less protection when fighting.
Bats gets a new way to get around in the form of the Batpod, a motorcycle-like vehicle that disengages from the Tumbler before it explodes (the purpose of having a motorcycle that disengages from what was originally a bridge-building vehicle eludes me, but whatever - it looks cool). It is quite a lot of fun watching Batman zip around on this thing, a strange vehicle unlike any other - it looks completely impractical at first glance, but it totally works, and Nolan uses it to great effect during the armored car chase.
Batman’s new additions to his arsenal include a break-apart gun that shoots timed sticky bombs, some form of gauntlet attachment that allows him to bend rifle barrels and cut through car doors, new razor-blade wrist spines that shoot off like projectiles, and a device that turns cell phone signals into sonar mapping equipment. When using the sonar, Batman has new lenses that make his eyes glow white, just like they do in the various comics and cartoons.
THE BAT’S IN THE DETAILS: No bones about it: this is a post-9/11 film, through and through. As in, had the September 11th attacks never happened, Nolan and his crew of filmmakers would have never approached the Batman material the way they do here. The whole superhero movie fad indeed is a direct response to post-9/11 anxiety, and by staging the Joker’s various ploys in the more reality-based manner presented here, the filmmakers’ immediately call to mind images burned into the American consciousness forever. A fire-truck in flames. Batman standing amongst the wreckage of a destroyed building. Home video footage of the Joker tormenting his victims. These images connect directly with that anxiety, giving the film a weight rarely seen in a summer blockbuster. Add in the Patriot Act-esque gadget Batman uses to catch the Joker and the parallels to current times are raised even further.
The scene where Alfred burns Rachel’s letter to Bruce to cover up the truth is heart-breaking, and in direct opposition to the themes of Nolan’s earlier film Insomnia, where a police officer learns the hard way the perils of covering up the truth. I like seeing that kind of variety in a filmmaker.
Cillian Murphy returns for a cameo to reprise his role as the Scarecrow, which is kind of great. I remember thinking that, for the first time, this felt like the Batman universe was beginning to take shape on film in a very real way. Other nice bits of the Bat-mythos locking into place are Gordon getting promoted to Commissioner of Police and the gasoline running down the floor and hitting one side of Harvey’s face.
The film isn’t about good vs. evil so much as it is order vs. chaos. The concepts of “good” and “evil” are malleable - an American Republican and an Islamic fundamentalist will have very different views on what they consider “evil” - but order and chaos are fairly well-defined and harder to “spin.”
In 1989, there was an Indiana Jones movie, a Batman movie featuring the Joker, and a James Bond movie released. In 2008, there was an Indiana Jones movie, a Batman movie featuring the Joker and a James Bond movie released. The more things change, the more they stay the same? It would certainly appear that way.
William Fichtner plays essentially the same role here as he played in Heat, as a mob-run banker. Heat is obviously the biggest influence on Nolan's film here.
The “force of nature” portrayal of the Joker owes more than a little to Michael Haneke’s Funny Games. Okay, it owes a lot… but Haneke never flipped an 18-wheeler in any of his movies. So there.
The growly voice Bale uses doesn’t irk me as much as some, but it does take away from some of the more emotional scenes - making Batman come off as more than a little silly.
Batman fights a lot of dogs in this movie. I‘ve tried contemplating the significance of this, but have yet to come up with anything.
BEST QUOTE: “I think you and I are destined to do this forever…” Cue: chills.
THE LAST LAUGH: Albeit flawed, Nolan’s The Dark Knight is unquestionably one of the finest entertainments crafted in the last decade - perhaps ever.
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