Favorite reactions to The Dark Knight
As I was walking to my car after the movie last night (that is, 4:00am) most of the 20-something crowd (well honestly, who else is going to go see a movie at 12:45 besides 20-somethings and 40-something nightowl screenwriters? There was a combination of both sitting next to me — a 20-something nightowl screenwriter who actually brought his laptop to work on his spec script while waiting for the movie to begin) were high as kites over the Dark Knight experience. There was one unhappy young lady, however, who seemed utterly baffled by a movie that she saw as a punishing ordeal. “What was that movie even about?” she cried, “What was the point of it all?” as her friends looked at her in bafflement. “What were you expecting?” one of her friends offered. “He didn’t even rescue anyone!” wailed the young lady in reply. The inflection of her remarks indicated to me that, for this woman, the “superhero movie” genre brings with it certain expectations: larger-than-life evil villains determined to destroy the world, incorruptible strongmen who stand for truth, justice, etc, damsels in distress, and a moral stance on the side of absoluted good. And yes, The Dark Knight fails to deliver on all those expectations.
Some critics complain that the plotting is “muddled” or “scattershot” or “herky-jerky.” I disagree. It is certainly complex, with many different plot strands to sort through, but I never found it anything less than absorbing and fleet. (I’m seeing it again tonight, and report more.)
Other critics (sometimes the same as above) and even some fans found the action sequences baffling and incoherent. Again, they are certainly complex, but I had no trouble following the action. Sometimes I thought it could have slowed down a little bit to savor this or that detail, but I wasn’t the guy making the movie.
David Denby, in the New Yorker, laments that “Warner Bros. has continued to drain the poetry, fantasy, and comedy out of Tim Burton’s original conception for Batman“, a criticism that makes me laugh out loud and, quite obviously, misses the point of the whole movie. As though Tim Burton’s “original conception”, with its Prince songs and very bad special effects, was somehow “the genuine article,” a primal document, as though the fifty years of comics that had preceded Tim Burton’s “original conception” don’t count, as though the predecessors that Burton drew on (Frank Miller, Fritz Lang, Ridley Scott for starters) never existed. And don’t get me wrong, Tim Burton’s Batman blew my mind — in 1989.
Every now and then I see someone comparing to The Godfather Part II, which, as I said yesterday, is silly. Comparing it to Heat, however, is perfectly appropriate, except that The Dark Knight covers a lot more ground at a much faster tempo. I also find it to be the less operatic of the two, in spite of having its protagonists be a guy in clown makeup, a guy in a bat suit, and a guy with half a face. The other movie it reminds me of is City Hall, which, frankly, could have used a psychopath in clown makeup and a guy in a bat suit but had to make do with Al Pacino and John Cusack.
Everyone is talking about Heath Ledger’s performance, and I say “good job!” But since few are mentioning Gary Oldman, let me do so here: I think Jim Gordon is one of Gary Oldman’s greatest creations. It’s true that Heath Ledger vanishes into his role, but he’s got the makeup to help him with that — Gary Oldman vanishes into Jim Gordon with nothing but a pair of glasses and a moustache. He was more visible in Dracula, f’r Chrissakes. Oldman has always been a wonderful technician and has often specialized in The Bold Choice (cf Leon, Hannibal,The Fifth Element) but here I don’t see an “actor” anywhere in evidence, just a hard-working, middle-class Gotham City public servant, a man who loves his city and hates the things he has to do to make his family safe.
(Come to think of it, there is a scene that shows Jim Gordon’s daughter. But she looks rather too young, like, 5, to be a credible Batgirl.)