GDNet at the Movies: The Dark Knight

Batman, created in 1939, has been with us for so long that we feel we know not only the character, but the gallery of villains that surround him. Ardent comic book fans have seen diverse interpretations of iconic rogues like the Joker, the Riddler, the Penguin, Catwoman and Two-Face. The larger public has come to know them through the Adam West tv series and movie, the Tim Burton films (including an amazing performance by Jack Nicholson), and the disastrously campy Joel Schumacher excretions. Spider-man is an enduring pop icon, but the casual fan can't name an opponent that didn't appear in the Sam Raimi movies - nobody knows the Sinister Seven, and most people had never heard of the Green Goblin or Venom before they were played by Willem Dafoe and Topher Grace, respectively. Superman is virtually synonymous, in some perspectives, with pro-Americanism, yet your average American can't name a foe besides Lex Luthor. Everyone can name at least four Batman villains. We feel we know them, know what they're about, understand their origins and pathos and motivations. We don't know the Joker. Not this Joker. The single most exciting thing about the Chris Nolan-helmed Batman series is its reverence without slavishness, its staying true to the essence of the characters and the story while reexamining and reinterpreting them for a contemporary audience, trimming the fat and strengthening the frail. Despite the epic resonance of the Bat-man, his story has collected its ridiculous tchotckes over the years - the implausibility of a jet-setting playboy acting as guardian to a young boy and raising no eyebrows (satirized in the SNL short series, The Ambiguously Gay Duo) being the most notable, but the clearly "comicbook-y" origins of some of his foes is another. Nolan and writer David S. Goyer discard them, creating a lean narrative firmly within the limits of plausibility. (Barely within, but still within.) Let's dispense with the "review" portion of this essay, expeditiously: The Dark Knight is awesome. I had sky-high expectations and was still blown away. There is absolutely no question that you should go see it, even if you're not at all a fan of comic books or superheroes. This is my best film of the summer (all genres) so far, the best superhero movie ever (duh) and an instant classic. See it. Everything that follows presumes that you have seen the film and discusses plot elements quite liberally. If you're a "no spoilers" person, stop reading now. Who is the Joker? Contrary to what you may think, there is no definitive comic book history, and often no given name, with the only constant being that he was disfigured by falling into a vat of chemicals. In fact, the comic book Joker has been portrayed as lying about his own history so much that he is confused as to what actually happens. The Dark Knight strips away the superflous chemical vat and disfigurement, instead leaving a man - batshit insane - with scars on his cheeks, face paint and dyed hair. The matted, disheveled appearance of the Joker, especially as the paint runs and smears, is far more frightening than any pale white ghostly apparition with ruby red lips. Who the Joker was is irrelevant. How he came to be the Joker is irrelevant. He is, an enigma and force of nature, a polarizing entity, an unpredictable and violent storm. And Heath Ledger plays him to perfection. Of the live action Jokers, Ceasar Romero's is a caricature while Jack Nicholson's is a parody. Heath Ledger's, however, is a menace. No gimmicks, no lapel flowers squirting water or acid, no laughing gas or "Joker Serum" - his pockets contain only "knives and lint." Stripped of all applique characterization, Heath Ledger produces a fascinating, unnerving portrait of lucid insanity. Every little tick, every facial twitch, every pause and line repetition suggests a warped mind processing the world around him in the most bizarre yet brilliant fashion possible. This Joker is not so much insane as he is completely amoral and devoid of fear, which makes him impossible to threaten and bold enough to attempt anything. The film - nay, the franchise - revolves around this Joker. His actions reshape the entire world of both films, radically altering Gotham's trajectory and creating uncertainty heading into the future. Unlike the end of Batman Begins, or almost every other superhero movie, you leave the theater not with the excitement and elation of victory, but with a curious mix of tremendous excitement... and doubt. This is brilliant, brilliant writing, and truly taking a chance veering on arthouse with what is ostensibly a big-budget piece of popcorn entertainment. And it works. Every character is shaped, reshaped and sharpened in response to the Joker. Batman's celebrity and unofficial police cooperation are questioned, made suspect, then completely destroyed. Jim Gordon is not only promoted from Lieutenant to Commissioner, but developed from honest, smart cop into a dynamic presence forced to make hard choices and live with the consequences, from faking his own death to catch the Joker to dismantling Batman's nobility to save Harvey Dent's. Harvey Dent. Two-Face. I've spoken before on how films adapted from comic books have the advantage of creating singular, compact and consistent narratives from decades of source material. That advantage is turned into art in this case, discarding the notion of Two-Face as villain per se and instead represent him as a hero, a White Knight not so much fallen as pushed. More importantly, his legend is abbreviated in service of a greater furtherance of the story. Gotham needs the ideal of Harvey Dent perhaps more than it needs the ideal of Batman, though it needs the reality of Batman more than it needs the reality of Harvey Dent's tragic conclusion. Batman's willingness to sacrifice his reputation, to attach his image to acts he considers reprehensible in order to preserve the memory of a pure Harvey Dent and inspire hope in the people of Gotham concludes a fascinating dissertation on the essence and nature of heroism. What is a hero? Is is a big boy scout, an incorruptible individual who always does what is right and saves people not only from the consequences of the actions of others, but from themselves as well? Can a hero have flaws, make mistakes? And if a hero appears to do what's wrong in the short term, in service of a long-term good, is he still a hero? Especially if nobody knows about the long-term good? It's a fascinating discussion because we like the idea of heroes, and we lift people up - often only to be disappointed. I can't help but bring up Rudy Giuliani, who, as District Attorney (!) is credited for helping to clean up New York by prosecuting the heads of New York's Five Families, then improving the city's quality of life as Mayor. However, despite his iconic "performance" during the September 11 tragedy and Time "Person of the Year" award, he is criticized for brutal police tactics, racial insensitivity, errors of judgment on 9-11 (blocking EPA orders for WTC workers to wear respirators - and we know how that turned out) and revelations about his personal life during his presidential campaign. Is he still a hero? Even with allegations that his prosecutions were motivated by political ambition? Rachel Dawes dies, and in symmetry with Batman's cover-up for Harvey Two-Face's murder spree, Alfred burns her letter telling Bruce she would never be with him. The combination of Bruce's certainty that Harvey Dent's success would free him from needing to be the Batman and her death at the Joker's hands (having switched addresses) made him fragile; knowing that Rachel believed he would never be free of the Batman might have had a similar effect on him that her death had on Dent. After all, this is a billionaire who spends his nights scrambling over the city's rooftops and beating the criminal element to a pulp... Which brings us back to Harvey, though. Gotham's White Knight turned so dark (and so easily) because a terrorist, who was holding the city ransom and who had killed several people already, killed his girlfriend? He's that insubstantial? Blaming Gordon is a stretch - the cops behind his and Dawes' abductions may have come from MCU, but this is Gotham; recall that in Batman Begins Gordon despondently asks, "In a city this crooked, who is there to rat to?" Blaming Batman, though? Dent is the one who decided to declare himself to be Batman at the press conference, and he was elated when Gotham PD successfully used his transport to flush out and capture the Joker. This suggests a deeper psychological flaw in Dent, perhaps related to his dual-head coin and notion that he "makes his own luck." In his anguish, he seemed only too ready to let the Joker off the hook and reassign the blame to the unwitting, sometimes coerced pawns. Hmm. This is all the more fascinating because some pawns resisted Joker's push. The two ferries full of Gothamites trying to exit the city center, furnished with detonators wired to blow each other up (supposedly; the Joker could have actually wired the detonators to blow their own ships up), never pushed the button. Even the criminals experienced a humbling humanity that must have infuriated the Joker as his "social experiment" failed, yet the crusader for justice caved so easily? (Admittedly, he'd been disfigured and was in immense pain, but, still.) Ultimately, this was a film preoccupied with the edge, and whether characters chose to step over it and how far. Batman's application of Lucius Fox's cell phone sonar technology to locate the Joker is a gross violation of privacy, an inordinate amount of power to be wielded by one man - and Fox calls him on it in a scene that is also the first time Fox sees Wayne as Batman. The system is destroyed once the Joker is found - echoing the "Field Test" episode from Batman: Gotham Knight, where a bullet deflection system works too well and endangers others - and confirming Fox's faith in Wayne's character and judgment, with Batman stepping over the line but then stepping right back. Joker exists far beyond the edge. Gordon never even flirts with the edge, but never has to. Dent lives on the right side of the edge, but is pushed over and never comes back. Where does the series go next? This is no simple sequel business, where we expect more villains and perhaps a superhero team-up or a classic storyline. What Nolan and Goyer have accomplished here is to take a property with seventy years of history and create a story that is now headed in a fairly unpredictable direction. We know Batman doesn't kill, but all of Gotham views him as a killer and criminal. Will he find redemption? Will he go away for 10 years as in the Frank Miller mini-series Batman: The Dark Knight Returns? Will substitutes emerge, refining on the Batman imitators we see at the beginning - perhaps a Nightwing, skipping Robin because it's a ludicrous concept, or a Batgirl? (Implausible. Improbable, too.) Whatever direction they decide on, one thing is now absolutely certain: It's going to be a helluva ride.