The Dark Knight

I would not go so far as to say that The Dark Knight is as good as The Godfather, partly because that would be a silly, unhelpful thing to say, and partly because it’s rather too much for me to absorb in a single viewing and then address coherently. What I will say is that The Dark Knight shows that, in the same way The Godfather found its place in the canon by taking itself seriously, by addressing its anti-heroes as real, complex human beings, by bringing to its pulp roots a genuine, classical sense of drama and plotting, it is possible to elevate the “comic-book movie” genre to high art as well. And if a comic-book movie as good as The Godfather is going to ever be made, there’s an excellent chance it will be a Batman movie, and The Dark Knight points the way.

(The Silence of the Lambs also comes to mind as a pulp genre narrative elevated to high art — and there are many points of comparison between it and The Dark Knight, but I don’t want to spoil it for you.)

The Tim Burton Batman movies, no question, blew my mind. They are grand and operatic and weird and dark and very, very cool. The Schumacher Batman movies — well, let’s just set those aside for the purposes of this discussion. Batman Begins was a whole different ball game, a comic-book movie with a complex plot and a dark, gritty vision. But there was still a little too much of something in there — it was still a little too operatic, occasionally even a little silly. It wanted to take itself very seriously but it was still hampered by what was “expected” of a comic-book movie — grand characters with evil schemes, ludicrous action sequences and over-the-top plot points (Batman calling the bats of Gotham City to his aid comes to mind).

The Dark Knight is a whole giant step beyond. It’s a serious crime drama that happens to feature well-known comic-book characters, in the same way Casino Royale is a sophisticated espionage thriller about a complex figure whose name happens to be James Bond. It’s not Batman Begins Again or Batman: Bigger, Faster, Louder. It doesn’t even feel like a sequel. It’s a crime narrative unto itself, one that draws on the Batman ethos for its pop-culture resonance but exists solely on its own terms.

The Batman comics have, occasionally, achieved the seriousness and complexity of plot that The Dark Knight has, and the best of the stories have also succeeded in being wicked cool, but The Dark Knight takes Batman into a whole new realm of thoughtful consideration. It doesn’t merely work as “a comic-book adaptation,” it works as a movie. A knowledge of the Batman world might help someone navigate the hugely complex narrative that unfolds in The Dark Knight, but is unnecessary to enjoy it as a movie. I’ve read Batman comics and thrilled to the notion of Gotham City as a grand, dark imagining, but the Gotham City of The Dark Knight feels like a real, recognizable place, not a symbol but an actual city, a place worth thinking about and saving. Frank Miller may have made Batman “adult,” but The Dark Knight makes Batman actually grow up.

(I see that certain people, regardless of what this movie is, are still marketing it to kids, with happy-meal toys featuring the Joker with his scarred, hideous face. I wish they wouldn’t do that. I have nothing against movie-based toys, my house is littered with them, but The Dark Knight is not a movie for children in any regard and should not be marketed as such.)