'Dark Knight' Mostly Succeeds as Social Commentary
I saw it. Last night. Dark Knight. I was only part of the record breaking opening weekend in spirit, I'm afraid. So, some thoughts...
You know what I like (perhaps) most about this film, and really, the entire Batmythology? No mutants. Good, bad, politic, punk, these are all people. They may be extreme, whether in wealth or skill or ethos or pathos, however you want to angle it. But, they are human. I think, for the purpose of a film like this, it gives the actors a nice anchor. Unlike the X-Movies, where the super heroes get to be human, it's the other way around. The film treats this as a central theme, and allows us to embrace it.
Acting. Whew. First off, Heath Ledgers performance is not just hype. I doubt there will be any (unwarranted) artificial amplification of the caliber of his Joker. Don't compare him to Jack Nicholson. That's like saying Jude Law is no Peter O'Toole. Give him 30 years of constant work like Jack had before his Joker. Who's to say? I must say, he played a phenomenal Joker. I began reading Batman comics in the late 80's, I'd say. A Death in the Family, Year 1, the Dark Knight, the Killing Joke, Arkham Asylum, these were the titles of the Gotham stories of the day. If we had all read them with post 9/11 eyes instead of widened pre-millennium eyes, I really think Chris Nolan's current interpretation would have replaced Tim Burton's. But, then again, sign of the times. Ledger's matter of fact rendition, change though it does, of his disfigurement throughout the film is perhaps the central parable. Terrible things have happened and are happening, and everyone is searching for meaning behind it, perhaps attempting to take the first few steps, as is our Western fashion, towards a solution. But the simple linear path from cause to effect, axis to ally, is no longer surely drawn. The world is devolving, blurring, and Chaos is the only fair game left.
Aaron Eckhart's D.A. Harvey Dent/Two Face is another example of this. The conviction which he clings to early in the film is so horribly shaken that by the end, he has surrendered himself to living in a world of random absolutes, black or white, heads or dead. Oddly, I was in the middle of preparing a blog yesterday that I never finished where I described something of a reverse arc in my own life. Absolutes are appealing, as they erase the gray areas of emotional upset, moral ambiguity, basically all that is human and fallible. I've always liked Eckhart, and I continue to here.
Let me just be the devil's advocate (literally, if you read the papers) and say that I quite enjoy Christian Bale. I just do. I don't even have a solid reason why. There's something just a little unnerving about him in every role he plays, but it could just be his 'method' of taking on someone else. There are some actors who just have this Jekyll and Hyde thing going on when they perform, and no matter how well they play a character, or how likable that character is, you get this creepy Hyde feeling. Maybe I just can't ever get American Psycho out of my head when I see him. With the Batman, I have to say, despite his slightly too forced affectedness (to distinguish between Bruce Wayne and the Bat, no doubt), I think he lands squarely in the ballpark of who the tormented vigilante really is. This is a dark character. The title should give you that. He isn't rescuing kittens from trees, and he isn't awkwardly bumbling around the bat cave in bear slippers when not karate chopping petty larcenists. He's a tormented man, full of loneliness and loss, vast wealth and influence, and in most cases, unsung sacrifice. That's a hard thing to be. It makes you hang people outside of buildings sometimes (several times), but you don't drop them. Those are the rules. Still, with the bulk of his dialogue being somewhat cliched moral ponderances, he gives them a fair read.
I won't go on about the many other talented actors in the film, but there are many, and they, as always, deliver. It's not for kids. No more than anything else is these days, including the news. It's not for people who want to see caped heroes clearing a room of thugs and then dance the Batusi. It's difficult to see, because it isn't so far off. I even found myself wondering if the boat scene at the end wouldn't go differently if this were re-envisioned another 15 years from now. Go see it, and don't be surprised when you see the sequel--"Darker Knight".
You know what I like (perhaps) most about this film, and really, the entire Batmythology? No mutants. Good, bad, politic, punk, these are all people. They may be extreme, whether in wealth or skill or ethos or pathos, however you want to angle it. But, they are human. I think, for the purpose of a film like this, it gives the actors a nice anchor. Unlike the X-Movies, where the super heroes get to be human, it's the other way around. The film treats this as a central theme, and allows us to embrace it.
Acting. Whew. First off, Heath Ledgers performance is not just hype. I doubt there will be any (unwarranted) artificial amplification of the caliber of his Joker. Don't compare him to Jack Nicholson. That's like saying Jude Law is no Peter O'Toole. Give him 30 years of constant work like Jack had before his Joker. Who's to say? I must say, he played a phenomenal Joker. I began reading Batman comics in the late 80's, I'd say. A Death in the Family, Year 1, the Dark Knight, the Killing Joke, Arkham Asylum, these were the titles of the Gotham stories of the day. If we had all read them with post 9/11 eyes instead of widened pre-millennium eyes, I really think Chris Nolan's current interpretation would have replaced Tim Burton's. But, then again, sign of the times. Ledger's matter of fact rendition, change though it does, of his disfigurement throughout the film is perhaps the central parable. Terrible things have happened and are happening, and everyone is searching for meaning behind it, perhaps attempting to take the first few steps, as is our Western fashion, towards a solution. But the simple linear path from cause to effect, axis to ally, is no longer surely drawn. The world is devolving, blurring, and Chaos is the only fair game left.
Aaron Eckhart's D.A. Harvey Dent/Two Face is another example of this. The conviction which he clings to early in the film is so horribly shaken that by the end, he has surrendered himself to living in a world of random absolutes, black or white, heads or dead. Oddly, I was in the middle of preparing a blog yesterday that I never finished where I described something of a reverse arc in my own life. Absolutes are appealing, as they erase the gray areas of emotional upset, moral ambiguity, basically all that is human and fallible. I've always liked Eckhart, and I continue to here.
Let me just be the devil's advocate (literally, if you read the papers) and say that I quite enjoy Christian Bale. I just do. I don't even have a solid reason why. There's something just a little unnerving about him in every role he plays, but it could just be his 'method' of taking on someone else. There are some actors who just have this Jekyll and Hyde thing going on when they perform, and no matter how well they play a character, or how likable that character is, you get this creepy Hyde feeling. Maybe I just can't ever get American Psycho out of my head when I see him. With the Batman, I have to say, despite his slightly too forced affectedness (to distinguish between Bruce Wayne and the Bat, no doubt), I think he lands squarely in the ballpark of who the tormented vigilante really is. This is a dark character. The title should give you that. He isn't rescuing kittens from trees, and he isn't awkwardly bumbling around the bat cave in bear slippers when not karate chopping petty larcenists. He's a tormented man, full of loneliness and loss, vast wealth and influence, and in most cases, unsung sacrifice. That's a hard thing to be. It makes you hang people outside of buildings sometimes (several times), but you don't drop them. Those are the rules. Still, with the bulk of his dialogue being somewhat cliched moral ponderances, he gives them a fair read.
I won't go on about the many other talented actors in the film, but there are many, and they, as always, deliver. It's not for kids. No more than anything else is these days, including the news. It's not for people who want to see caped heroes clearing a room of thugs and then dance the Batusi. It's difficult to see, because it isn't so far off. I even found myself wondering if the boat scene at the end wouldn't go differently if this were re-envisioned another 15 years from now. Go see it, and don't be surprised when you see the sequel--"Darker Knight".
posted by Master of None at 7:25 AM
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