The Dark Knight
Saw this at a midnight show at my favorite Westside multiplex, the Century City AMC. Serious analysis will have to wait for another day, but here are some thoughts.
I keep thinking about The Godfather. When The Godfather was released in 1972, the gangster movie had been, from the ’20s, a pulp genre, not taken seriously by intelligent filmgoers. (I remember when The Godfather Part II was in theaters in 1974. I was too young to see it, but I had an art teacher who I respected and admired, and he said that he was not planning on seeing it because it was “a gangster movie — worse, a sequel to a gangster movie.” He said the words “gangster movie” the way I might say the words “child molester.”) By finding some universal truths in the genre and applying some compelling, elegant plotting, The Godfather took the gangster movie into the realm of high art, and for my money it and The Godfather Part II are still the two greatest movies ever made.
(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.)
the Gotham City of The Dark Knight feels like a real, recognizable place
And that was one of the things I liked most about the first one- it didn’t feel like an over-designed backlot, most of the time. I looked like a real, decaying American city.
Well, except for the odd suspended monorail thing downtown, which I sort of imagined as being an expensive boondogggle akin to Detroit’s People Mover.
“(I see that certain people, regardless of what this movie is, is 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.)”
I couldn’t agree more! (like this prize-inside I got from my morning breakfast cereal: http://www.thebaboonbellows.com/?p=2142 )
I saw the midnight show too and am still evaluating it in my head.
It’s not a good or great super hero movie.
It’s a good or great movie.
shit, you had candy for breakfast?!
that mistakenly but appropriately anonymous comment was me. i’m sorry, i couldn’t resist.
i haven’t seen the dark knight yet, but i plan to asap.
One of my main problems with Batman Begins is that it presents a very strong origin story that explains his bat fixation better than any other Batman film had done before then, but builds to a confusing, complicated plot with The League of Shadows, Scarecrow, et al. When they implement their evil scheme, which involves contaminating Gotham’s water supply with the fear-inducing agent, then EVAPORATING the water supply, I was a reminded of a line by Homer Simpson: “Of course, it’s so simple! Wait a minute, it’s needlessly complicated!”
I thought of this blog the other day while reading the newly published Zot! The Complete Black and White Collection: in one of his story commentaries, Scott McCloud suggests that in may superhero-type stories, the villain is the protagonist in that he (or she) drives the action, while the hero essentially reacts to what the villain’s doing. I wondered what your thoughts about that would be.
Perhaps after more people have seen The Dark Knight, you should have a discussion about who the film’s protagonist really is.
“Each film is only as good as its villain. Since the heroes and the gimmicks tend to repeat from film to film, only a great villain can transform a good try into a triumph.” – Roger Ebert
Scott McCloud is a great hero of mine.
The villain being the protagonist of pulp genres in general is certainly a truism. That’s why, I think, some of the best, most durable heroes of pulp genre movies are detectives — James Bond, Batman, Marlowe, Clouseau. A detective character gives a narrative something active for the hero to do — “to solve the mystery” — so that he’s not just running around stopping things from happening or cleaning up messes. (That’s why I’m always so disappointed when the detective work in Bond movies is so blisteringly stupid.)
The problem of the bad guy being the protagonist is the reason the Batman franchise imploded — twice. The title character was always being upstaged by the bad guys, and when you put an excellent actor in that mask they can no longer act.
Bruce Wayne is certainly the protagonist of Batman Begins, which was a big part of what made it seem so fresh and interesting. The Dark Knight is pretty clear, even in its promotional materials, about how it has three protagonists with, interlocking, competing agendas.
what do you think of david edelstein’s review?
I think his criticisms are legitimate, but I think the movie works better than he does.
you have made me want to see this movie even more now…
have you ever read “arkham asylum”?
A while back I did. I remember enjoying it.
Cant wait to see this.
Just got back from seeing WALL*E. It a freaking amazing! I was blown away by it.
And Im expecting the same from this one too. 2008 has turned out to be a pretty good year for movies.
Wow that was ridiculously well done, and the art style was so true to the book, yeegads that was good.
i KNOW, i was sad that there isn’t a full version out there.
I haven’t mentioned how much i love these posts.
I can’t wait for your serious analysis of it.
The Schumacher Batman movies — well, let’s just set those aside for the purposes of this discussion
Oh, you missed your opportunity to say “put them on ice”.
I look forward to the day that people no longer look down on comics or anything comics related as subliterate and worthy of condescension.
I hope I live that long.
Well, the trailer for Watchmen, which looks, if nothing else, ridiculously expensive, proudly announces itself as “based on the most acclaimed graphic novel of all time.” Think you can hang on ’til that comes out?
Well, I certainly hope so.
I don’t think that’ll change the view of the public in one mighty swoop, but these movies do seem to be helping.
I hate crowded theaters, so I probably won’t be seeing this for a few weeks, which means I won’t be able to participate in the discussion about your analysis until after everyone else has moved on. But thanks for this spoiler-free post in the meanwhile.
You’re probably tired of “what did you think of…” questions by this point, but I’m really curious to hear your thoughts about Hancock. It wasn’t the greatest movie ever, but my expectations were sufficiently lowered that I was pleasantly surprised. If anything I thought its biggest flaw was that it was too short, which is kind of a shocking thing to say about any movie these days. I think it also deserves some credit for not being an adaptation or sequel– are there any other summer action movies that aren’t? In the last how many years? The last one that comes to mind is The Matrix, but I’m probably forgetting some others. Anyway, I thought it worked on several levels: as a somewhat silly popcorn flick (but nowhere near as silly as Indy 4 or Wanted), as an investigation into the psyche of a reluctant/troubled hero, and as a metaphor about America’s standing in the world (although I haven’t figured out how to fit the big mid-film twist into that framework). Peter Berg has come a long way since The Last Seduction…
(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.)
I had a 100 or so piece puzzle from Alien as a kid, and remember a couple toys for sale as well, back before toys based on R-Rated films were marketed towards grown adults.
That was marvellous! Such a shame there wasn’t more of it.
OMG, I could not agree more with you on Batman Begins, I was sooooo disappointed when I saw it, though I had a suspicion that it had some bad, bad things in it, when I saw the commercials on tv. The only good thing in it is Jonathan Crane and that is because I´m such a fangirl >D. And I did not know that was how gangster movies were seen by filmgoers back then, but I find not it that hard to imagine. Glad it came, because I sincerely love gangster movies and it is a sad thought that they maybe would not have been made if The Godfather had not made people realize that good, believable plot and action can be in a gangster movie too.
I agree almost 100% with all you have written here (though I can`t talk about, like, the other Batman movies and the Silence of the Lambs, since I have not seen them) and it it like you have taken my disordered thoughts and made it into this well written article <3