The Dark Knight (on Terror)

I’D LIKE TO COME BACK to my film reviews more often, but they are one of the most time-consuming efforts I make, though one of the most satisfying. If I had another few hours in a day, I’d probably keep a wholly separate blog for film, photo, and all things visual. But just as your host is mestizolicious, so is this blog a blend of various elements, from human rights to political engagement to graphic art to people-powered notions to polemic to environmental concern to humor to film review. Anyway, on with it.

For purposes of categorization (and time!) this will be a “Film Overview.” Meaning, I see a film once, talk about it at home without further viewing capability, without having taken notes, without being able to grab stills. This means that my quotes may be off by a word or two as they are paraphrased, but the essence will be accurate as I was making mental notes and connecting the insights I had to specific film elements.

For the other types—especially Review and Full Analysis—I prefer to have a screening copy on hand and the ability to select any still image to illustrate a point. So this will be rather broad and only as detailed as I expect I can make it. For those who are new to UMX, my (formal) training and practice in visual art began in 1988 and I specifically majored in Film/TV at my second school, NYU. A handful of radio reviews that I did for Radio Pacifica can be found here and the written reviews I’ve posted here.

This will be an overview of Batman: The Dark Knight. There are spoilers! So you may want to skip this and bookmark it for later if you haven’t yet seen the film. However, I will do my best regardless to not mention anything gratuitously and only what I need to in making my points.

I realize it’s only fair to begin with a synopsis, but I’d rather quote someone else on that part, because my main interest here is stripping bare the underlying message. So here’s two summaries from imdb.com.

Batman raises the stakes in his war on crime. With the help of Lieutenant Jim Gordon and District Attorney Harvey Dent, Batman sets out to dismantle the remaining criminal organizations that plague the city streets. The partnership proves to be effective, but they soon find themselves prey to a reign of chaos unleashed by a rising criminal mastermind known to the terrified citizens of Gotham as The Joker. Written by Peteagassi

With just one year passed after taking out Ra’s Al Ghul’s plan to have Gotham eliminated and the mysterious disappearance of Dr. Jonathan Crane AKA the Scarecrow, after the city was nearly plundered with his toxins, Bruce Wayne and his vigilante alter-ego the Batman, continue the seemingly-endless effort to bring order to Gotham, with the help of Lt. James Gordon and newly appointed District Attorney Harvey Dent, but a new threat has now emerged into the streets. The Dark Knight faces a rising psychopathic criminal called The Joker, who’s eerie grin, laughter, and inhuman morality makes him more dangerous than what he has yet to unleash. It becomes an agenda to the Batman to stop the mysterious Joker at all cost, knowing that the both of them are in the opposite line. One with no method at all and seeks to see the world plunge into the fire he has yet to lit. One who represents the symbol of hope and uses his own shadow to bring the peace and order he has yet to accomplish on doing. Written by Anonymous

Okay, good. Got that? Porque I’m not even going to work my way up to the heart, I’m going directly between the ribs and yanking it out first. And I’m glad that “Peteagassi” used the phrase “war on crime” because

The Dark Knight is a fun, dark, cinematic delight wrapped around a pro-George W. Bush, pro-P.A.T.R.I.O.T act, anti-left, pro-GWOT, neocon message.

The film trumpets the views that:

a) Terrorists have no reasoning, nor any actual complaint. They simply want to see the world burn.

b) Those who would try to deal with the issue in terms of law and reason are using the wrong tools in dark and terrible time and will lose. [update as a reader reminded me below:] To win, you must “burn the whole forest down.”

c) Wiretapping is necessary to save us from lurking dangers.

d) George W. Bush is a Christ-like figure who is doing the right thing with no current recognition, but this is a sacrifice he has undertaken and will soon be hunted for it.

There are of course, other messages in here. But these are the overriding ones. And of them, I have no doubt. And most of these were hardly subtle, to tell you the truth.

I’m glad to find the poster image above. This was even after I formed my opinions (which was while watching it.) Take another look at it. WELCOME TO A WORLD WITHOUT RULES is important. As is the burning building (kind of…looks like a plane flew into it, eh?)

The “World without rules” fits under part B.

a: “You would have us be reasonable people in cruel times!” screams a major character, who gets badly disfigured because he was a shining example of law and tried to fight crime by the books. This is right in line with the CheneyBush Doctrine, of course, echoed again when Batman (Christian Bale) is trying to squeeze information from a mob boss. “Nobody will give you information. They won’t turn on the joker. They’re afraid of him. You have rules. The Joker doesn’t have any.” It’s the cry of the cop who goes crooked. How can we fight crime if we play by the rules while the criminals don’t have any? It’s the dark, dark, dark protestation of he who foregoes principle and embraces the Means Justify the Ends philosophy.

Multiple times the word “Terrorist” is tied to the Joker (played by Heath Ledger). That part was very blatant. From a barely audible TV droning out news reports in the background eventually finding its way to louder spaces, like directly from character’s mouth. Talk of “giving in” to “terrorist” demands.

The joker also blows up a hospital, and the way the papers float to the earth in the smoky aftermath of the building’s explosion, well. You didn’t have to live in NYC in 2001 to have certain images—played on our TVs over and over and over again—stick in your mind and remind you of exploding office buildings.

The Joker has a suicidal bent—like the extremist Muslim fanatics we are always hearing about—begging the oncoming cycle to mow him down, asking to be killed when at the end, relishing it. He laughs when you belt him. Each and every time.

It’s easy to get caught up here in this character. Not only is the media pushing this Joker aspect due to Heath Ledger’s death, but we do love a good villain. And he’s a good one. You can see the depth of the character’s pain at moments, but there is a fury there, too that leaps out only at moments and wakes you up from the act he puts on, which settles a sort of spell of revulsion and fascination over you.

He is a devil of sorts. He receives his joy from watching you fall, from knowing there is no goodness, from forcing you to choose that Ends Justifies the Means philosophy. He wants self affirmation that all is corrupt and people are terrible and dark inside, when you throw away all the conceits and affectation. He likes to murder because in someone’s last moments, you see who they truly are.

This is the character exploration and filmmaking that captivates. This is the part the movie relishes. This dark, haunted, killer.

“You think the city’s better now?” he leers at the Law through a video screen, caked-up makeup and eyes wild and wide. (Even the parts where he has his victims face the camera and read his notes reminds me of certain actual broadcasts from the Middle East in which US citizens were abducated and put on their knees in a green, gauzy, gray room and made to repeat and speak to the watchers, us.) Then he shoves his maniacal face into the lens. “THIS IS HOW INSANE GOTHAM IS!” And we know that he  personifies the madness into which society is descending.

Some messages speak against the right wing mantras, as outlined. But you will always have multiple messages, some that contradict, in all except the most clunky flicks. I stand by my reading of the broader overreaching and lasting messages.

The Joker begins by pulling off a complicated bank heist. But he doesn’t even really want the money, we learn. He doesn’t have reasons. He unfolds this amazingly complex and successful crime and then gets the loot and burns it. (With the Crooked Asian Weakling Type sitting atop the ten-foot stacks (three? as in three towers?) of money. Burning. Think “centers of finance” think “Towers.”) Because “some people just want to see the world burn.”

At first when we hear the story of his scars we feel for him, feel terribly. A child whose father victimized both his mother and himself. Later, the writer deftly snatches our sympathies away by having the Joker tell a different story of the origins of his scars, this time self-inflicted. You realize that you cannot trust his reasons, that he is just insane, and his revealing of the scar’s origins is a game he plays moments before he disfigures someone else. Now you feel used by him for your sympathies and are set against him even more.

b) Those who would try to deal with the issue in terms of law and reason are using the wrong tools in dark and terrible time and will lose.

I touched on this some already. But it is highlighted in stark example when Batman, desperate to find the Joker turns to wiretapping. The Joker is upending the very order of society by killing scores of cops, judges, lawyers involved in the prosecution of the mob (who has foolishly hired the Joker not knowing he is not a Regular Criminal but insatiable and deranged). Batman uses some technology already developed (ahem) by his friend Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman) to tap into every single cell phone in the city, which then sends out sonar and visually maps and triangulates any person’s presence or voice in a massive ghostly three-dimensional landscape. Lucius protests and insists he must resign if this technology is going to be present.

But he will help this one time. Because it’s THAT important. As I said, the very fabric of their society is crumbling. What? Is Lucius just going to refuse? And let the terrorists win?

So we see the symbol of AT&T/Comcast, etc given the face of THEEEE world’s most benevolent actor (Morgan Freeman) as he kindly and justly agrees Just This One Time to do something horribly unethical and invasive. For the People’s good. We’re even shown that “to reward people” for doing the right thing, Batman programs the room to self-destruct when This One Time is over.

We actually see the ticking time bomb scenario play out not once, but twice! Does torture work? Batman beats the hell out of the Joker, who only seems to enjoy dragging Batman down to his level (terrorists winning) but he does get the information (Torture justified) the first time. The second…well, that’s tooo much of a spoiler. But it involves a “social experiment” in which he pits people’s fear of being killed and distrust of others and self interest against reason and trust and believing in others. And I’d say the ultimate message is that fear and self-interest are not reinforced that time.

c) George W. Bush is a Christ-like figure who is doing the right thing with no current recognition, but this is a sacrifice he has undertaken and will soon be hunted for it.

I know! This is the part where you are like all “Whoa Nez, that’s just out of control. Batman as Pro-P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act? The Dark Knight as Bush? Aren’t you, yanno, reading INto it a little too much or sumfin?” But not really. It’s quite clear. Especially if you follow from a to b to c to d, and the movie really leaves little doubt. Though I do see how it’s easy to focus on the character elements, the wicked good filming of fight scenes (can be hard to do, can be confusing or just disorienting or alternately, not kinetic or surprising enough), the seriously disturbing moments of violence (tag this “that fall won’t even kill me!”) the dark and emotional and convincing acting pieces, or the beautiful soaring and hang-gliding action that batman does with his cape.

Batman—he who fights terrorists with illegal and unethical but important and necessary means—will let someone else be the public hero-who-gives-hope. (He takes the rap for something to preserve the illusion of this hero the city needs in someone else.) Bushatman is the Christ figure, taking the weight on his back for the People. Sacrificing his good name and image and public adoration to Do the Right Thing, the Reviled Thing, but the Thing Necessary to Win and Beat the Terrorist(s). He is the “hero the people need now but that they don’t want now” says the Gary Oldman character, summing it up for us at the end. He will even be hunted for his taking on this weight, he goes on. But oh, how lucky we are to have him being whatever it is we need. Doing the things we deem illegal and wrong in our silly attempts to be reasonable in a cruel time with people so mad they have no reasons for their destructive actions, and only want to see our world burn.