The Dark Knight (SPOILERS!)

TheCentralScrutinizer · 20 Jul 08 :: 03:18

Who's seen it? What did you think? I'm still processing. Maybe I'll write something later...

TheCentralScrutinizer · 20 Jul 08 :: 06:04

Excellent, eloquent review...

The Dark Knight
by Wade Major
posted July 18, 2008 7:16 AM
Nolan knocks Knight out of the park

In 1939, the same year that Hitler's invasion of Poland officially launched World War II, Bob Kane created Batman. It was also the year that famed psychiatrist Sigmund Freud died, facilitating the ascendance of his onetime friend, Carl Jung, along with Jung's more mystical and uncertain understanding of man as a creature beset by an internal tug-of-war. While there's no clear evidence that Kane was influenced by Jung in creating his famously Jungian hero, it seems less than coincidental that Kane would choose that particular moment in time—when the global line between good and evil was drawn more starkly than at any other time in history—to deliver not only the world's first conflicted superhero, but a villain in the Joker driven not so much by greed or perverted morals as by an almost righteous amorality. It was a tandem which—in contrast to those of other comics heroes of the day like Superman and Captain America—suggested something that the World War II generation would probably have rejected had they fully understood it; that every human being has the capacity to be a Batman or a Joker, that morals can be fragile and frequently conditional, if not contradictory, that choices are based as much on expediency and whim as conscience, and that good and evil—for better or worse—need each other.
Subsequent generations have come to not only acknowledge Batman's bewitching psychological undercurrent, but even embrace it, reaffirming Kane's creation as the most compelling and complex comics character in history, and quite likely the most fiercely debated. That media depictions of Batman—the camp '60s television series and the kinetically executed, thematically bankrupt Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher films of the late '80s and '90s—have shied from fully engaging such vagaries speaks to how intimidating it can be to grasp such a character in the flesh.
Pretentious though it may seem, such preamble is necessary to fully convey the magnitude of what director Christopher Nolan—arguably the most Jungian of filmmakers—has brought to Kane's 69-year-old creation. Practically without exception, Nolan's pre-Batman films—Following, Memento, the remake of the Swedish Insomnia—as well as his interlude effort, The Prestige, all suggest a fascination, even an obsession with Jungian dualism, the nature of good and evil and the limits of human morality. If those concerns appeared to receive their most refined examination in Batman Begins, The Dark Knight voices them with a bone-chilling primal scream.
In this gripping continuation of the story—which should all but erase any lingering memory of the Burton/Schumacher films—Nolan methodically lays the groundwork for what is clearly meant to be a grand, ongoing, epic saga. While Wayne Manor undergoes reconstruction (along with, one presumes, the eventual Batcave), Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) struggles to reconcile the seeming irreconcilable—so long as he carries out his moral obligation to extrajudicial vigilante justice in a crime-besotted, seemingly ungovernable Gotham City, he and his childhood sweetheart, the love of his life, public prosecutor Rachel Dawes (a wonderful Maggie Gyllenhaal, mercifully replacing Katie Holmes), cannot be together. Adding to the irony of a hero who yearns for his own obsolescence is the thorny matter of Wayne's one great hope for a Batman-less Gotham, a tough new crusading D.A. named Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart). who also happens to be Rachel's boss and primary rival for Wayne's affections. It's a love triangle that would seem to have a great deal riding on its outcome—for Wayne, Dawes and Dent as well as the entire city of Gotham. Unfortunately, it's an outcome that will be determined by a wild card—the wild card, as it were: the Joker.
Introduced by the simple but unmistakable emblem of a playing card at the close of Batman Begins, the Joker's role in the film has been unduly magnified in recent weeks by the untimely death of Heath Ledger, whose characterization is already being touted for posthumous Oscar consideration. Had Ledger lived, however, it's unlikely the reaction would have been any less enthusiastic. In a brave return to the Joker's origins, Ledger's incarnation is a brilliant, terrifying and unpredictable psychopath—the furthest possible cry from the charming chicanery of Cesar Romero and Jack Nicholson—for whom murder is but a casual hobby and mayhem a religious obligation. Oscar has typically loved villains of this sort—Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal Lecter in 1991 and Javier Bardem's Anton Chigurh in 2007 being the most notable—and it's entirely possible that Ledger will also be so bestowed. But Ledger's Joker is, in many ways, an even more troubling figure, for he sees the creation of mayhem as purposeful, and his role in the world as catalytic, a life's work for a prophet of doom who, from beneath his own gruesome makeup and mysterious scars, means to strip society of its illusion of benevolence and prove just how base and loathsome a creature humankind really is.
As the Joker, with the reluctant cooperation of organized crime, proceeds to make quick work of the progress laid by Wayne/Batman and Dent via a series of brilliantly orchestrated crimes, Gotham is plunged back into uncertainty and fear. But as Alfred (Michael Caine) prophetically observes early on, the Joker is quite likely not a criminal fixated on material gain. Says the wizened butler to the young Wayne, "Some men just want to watch the world burn."
If Wayne and the Joker represent the most emblematic outward manifestation of a classic Jungian struggle—the archetypal extrovert literally willing to stop at nothing to remove the introvert's mask—it's Eckhart's virtuoso and equally Oscar-worthy portrayal of Dent that hammers home the tragic culmination of that struggle. Fans of the comics—and even the previous series of films—will recognize Dent (Billy Dee Williams in the 1989 Batman and Tommy Lee Jones in 1995's Batman Forever) as an essential component in Gotham's murky moral landscape. His eventual transformation into the villain Two-Face is one of the great tragedies in comics history, a transformation that figures just as tragically in The Dark Knight in that it brings into devastating focus a thicket of heady issues with which comics—much less comics-based movies—rarely concern themselves. Each man, in his own way—Wayne, Joker and Dent—represents a different philosophical facet to the impenetrable diamond that is human nature, each a seeming pillar of conviction potentially crippled by hairline cracks of indecision and simple human weakness. That those around them—Alfred, Rachel, the future Police Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) and Wayne's stalwart aide-de-camp Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman)—are both less pessimistic in their view of human nature and less effective in putting their idealism into practice is, perhaps, the most crucial dilemma of the film, and one which it intentionally never resolves, instead dropping it squarely into the lap of the audience.
None of this is to suggest that intellectual engagement as such is anything new for the movies, though it has certainly become increasingly infrequent in studio films. The great film noirs of Kane's own era—particularly those from Warner Bros.—often wrestled with similar issues, which Kane himself acknowledged as at least a partial inspiration for certain aspects (and characters) of the Gotham world. What is surprising in this instance is that it comes from a notoriously risk-averse studio, which has in recent years gone to great lengths to become the kind of company its founders absolutely loathed. This certainly says more about Nolan and producer Charles Roven than any prospective change in Warners philosophy, though even as a momentary blip on the radar, it's a welcome one.
Marred only by a handful of distracting cameos (Anthony Michael Hall, Tiny Lister and U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy) and a peculiar and unnecessary technological contrivance best characterized as "phonar," The Dark Knight is an impressively dense and exceptionally well-written film (by Nolan and his brother, Jonathan, with co-story credit to Nolan's Batman Begins collaborator David S. Goyer) as well as a technically dazzling one, with at least two key sequences and a variety of aerial shots captured in IMAX (though only audiences seeing the film in IMAX theaters will get the benefit of the impact). Nolan's much-publicized aversion to CGI pays off once again in a number of gritty, hard-hitting set pieces that further reinforce the film's real-world relevance. Far from offering traditional summer escapism, Nolan has instead delivered the kind of picture that would normally make studio executives cringe—a brainy, action-packed morality play meant to throttle the audience, body and mind, for a solid 152 minutes and haunt them for days and weeks later.
Coming weeks will provide intriguing insight into the film's visceral and intellectual reach, as a wide range of reactions draws an even wider range of analogies and extra-cultural connections. In hindsight, one wonders whether Stanley Kubrick and novelist Gustav Hasford, whose novel The Short-Timers provided the foundation for Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket, meant to consciously connect Matthew Modine's Private Joker with his villainous namesake when he explains his reasoning for wearing both a peace symbol and the slogan "Born To Kill" on his helmet: "The Duality of man—the Jungian thing."
Such considerations, of course, are largely beside the point for average filmgoers simply seeking a momentary afternoon thrill—few will likely make any connections of the sort, or even want to. At least not consciously, which may well be the most Jungian touch of all.

BiggestChrisMarquetteFan · 20 Jul 08 :: 07:23

I'm probably going to see it sometime this coming week. I love Heath Ledger and I can't wait to see him in it as the Joker.

domesticelefant · 20 Jul 08 :: 17:43

I have to wait until August to see the movie, so please mark spoilers because I don't want to be spoiled for the movie, especially not for Heath Ledger's performance. Thanks.

TheCentralScrutinizer · 20 Jul 08 :: 18:37

Just consider this whole thread spoilery. I created it so we can discuss the movie. We're not going to dance around anything that could be considered spoilery. If you don't wanna know about the movie, stay out of the thread until you've seen it.

Editsound · 21 Jul 08 :: 00:27

Well, I did see it. I'll write more later, but I will mention this. Everything around the Joker is fantastic. The character dominates the movie, it is electric when he is in the scene. I loved the way that we never learn anything about him. We don't know any details about him except what we see him do. No backstory, not even a name.
And Heath Ledger gave an awesome performance. I love the detail in his performnce with his mouth. He is constantly licking his lips, and other things like that. It is a very creepy mannerism, yet it is also motivated. However he got those hideous scars. I am sure that someone with those would be constantly moving his tongue over them without thinking about it, and it would develope into something like he was doing. He was doing alot of things like that in his performance, motivated creepiness.

TheCentralScrutinizer · 21 Jul 08 :: 00:39

You're absolutely right, Rick. There's a lot of nuance in his performance too. It's one that you can easily see ten times and still find something new every time.

BiggestChrisMarquetteFan · 21 Jul 08 :: 07:37

I can't believe you have to wait until August to see it, Anne. I hope you can wait.
When you went to see it, Deb how crowded was the theatre?

TheCentralScrutinizer · 22 Jul 08 :: 03:21

My theater was pretty crowded, but not sold out. The theater I went to had a screening every half hour, so there was plenty of chances.

As I sit here watching a repeat of an S1 ep of The Dead Zone, I remembered that I also wanted to mention how cool the casting was in the smaller roles in the movie...

It was great to see Anthony Michael Hall in the movie as a TV reporter. I didn't know he was in it, so that was a really nice surprise. Did anyone else get an Anderson Cooper vibe off what he was trying to do?

It was also cool to see Marc Delgado's stepdad, Nestor Carbonell as the mayor. And good ol' Keith Szarabajka as a cop.

Then there was Scully's sister, Melinda McGraw as Commissioner Gordon's wife.

And creeeeepy William Fitchner as the shotgun-wielding bank manager.

BiggestChrisMarquetteFan · 22 Jul 08 :: 04:44

There's a lot of great actors in it. I noticed a few days ago on IMDB that Anthony Michael Hall has a role. I wish that Chris was in it.

Last edited by BiggestChrisMarquetteFan (22 Jul 08 :: 04:46)

Editsound · 23 Jul 08 :: 19:04

THIS IS A COMPLETE SPOILER THING SO DON'T READ THIS IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE MOVIE

I found this article on IMDB

Eckhart Agrees To Third Batman Film

23 July 2008 9:10 AM, PDT

Aaron Eckhart would reprise his role from The Dark Knight - because working with Christian Bale is "phenomenal".

Eckhart, who plays District Attorney Harvey Dent in the sequel, confesses he "absolutely" would star in a third Batman film.

He tells WENN, "To work with Christian (Bale) all over again, and the cast, would be phenomenal. I think this movie is a movie of a lifetime."

Did I miss something? wasn't he dead at the end of the film?

TheCentralScrutinizer · 23 Jul 08 :: 19:32

Yeah, but I also read this elsewhere yesterday. No one actually "declares" him dead in the movie. They just look at him lying there and carry on with their conversation. Hey, it's fantasy. Anything can happen, I guess.

Editsound · 23 Jul 08 :: 19:39

but their discussion was about the story they were going to agree on, That Harvey Dent had died a noble death. And then they had the memorial service. I know they can bring him back, because it is a fantasy, but I hate when they do things like that.

TheCentralScrutinizer · 23 Jul 08 :: 21:10

Batman III: The Search For Dent. They just have to stick his Katra back in his body. Maybe Gordon's got in rattling around in his head.

Editsound · 23 Jul 08 :: 21:45

perfect!!!

BiggestChrisMarquetteFan · 31 Jul 08 :: 05:09

I saw it today and it's such an awesome movie!!! Heath Ledger is my favorite in it and his acting was amazing!!

Simon · 18 Aug 08 :: 21:28

Just seen the movie, and had to say it's the most amazing movie i have seen on the big screen in a long time. Heath Ledger is just so unrecognisable as the Joker. Every did theirself proud with this film.

On the note about Harvey Dent and appearing in the third film. I saw a post on imdb mention how it could all be a cover up.

Illinoisguy1 · 18 Aug 08 :: 21:47

I've heard rumors that the dvd maybe released sometime in early December. A gift set may also be available with a replica of Batman's bike. Nothing confirmed yet.

As you know I wait to see all movies until it's on dvd, so I haven't read any posts in here so nothing gets spoiled for me.

BiggestChrisMarquetteFan · 19 Aug 08 :: 04:41

That would be really cool if it was released in December on DVD. I can't wait to buy it!

irina · 19 Aug 08 :: 20:59

finally the movie made it to a theater in my town. i am going tomorrow!!!

BiggestChrisMarquetteFan · 20 Aug 08 :: 04:53

Cool! Be sure to tell us what you think of the movie. Be prepared to be blown away by Heath Ledger's best performance!!

irina · 21 Aug 08 :: 23:29

ok, so i finally saw the movie. i liked the movie a lot. i may not sound as enthusiastic as other people but i did liked the movie. i was in the theater for 2 and a half hours and i did not get bored. i went in expecting a batman movie and i got a damn good one. i was with friends and one friend was not at all familiar with the idea of batman and she did not like it so much.
as far as action movies based on comics go, this is the best one. it has the less silly things in it. it is mostly a serious tale about human behavior and it manages to blend the moral issues with the action stuff without looking lame and i think this is very hard to do.
i don't even have to say how great heath was. but i was very sad every time he was on the screen.
the whole cast is great ( i could have done with a lot more shoots of cristian bale jumping shirtless in the ocean - just joking ).
so i guess this is a different kind of an action movie and i really liked it.

TheCentralScrutinizer · 22 Aug 08 :: 01:40

Yep, Christian shirtless is always a wonderful thing. Glad you like the movie, Irina.

BiggestChrisMarquetteFan · 22 Aug 08 :: 05:57

I totally agree with you, Irina. Heath was beyond great as the Joker.

domesticelefant · 27 Aug 08 :: 18:37

Okay guys, Anne has seen the movie and she LOVED it! LOL
Oh yeah, Heath Ledger's performance was truly stunning. I have to admit, I am not a big Batman fan, but this movie was great. My fav scene is when the Joker blows the hospitel, that was great. And funny. The whole audience had a good laugh about that, Heath just pulled it off in that scene. I loved it. I think he definitely deserves the Oscar, even just for that scene.

Chris Marquette Message Board

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