Dark Knighted

Hello beautiful,

Those of you who know me can be quite certain, that when I tell you that I started writing this piece well before I saw the movie the Dark Knight, that I did indeed start writing it then (today is Tuesday, July 15, 2008). Having seen a few clips of the movie, some trailers, some TV spots, and an HBO special, I am convinced that I know the plot, and have seen sufficient amounts of acting and directing to make categorical judgments on all of the film maker's choices. I was right (or wrong. Actually I'm writing this paragraph on Tuesday evening before I'm supposed to watch the film this coming Friday). Eat my shorts Lost; watch me play games with time in real life. I will supplement my work with additional information because I intend this to be an actual review.

I will limit the spoilers to the parts of the movie that are available in the trailers, previews, and TV spots, which are numerous.

Let me start with the best part of the movie. Ledger's Joker is exactly the maniac he is supposed to be. Perfect. If I were giving out Oscars, I'd give him one for best supporting actor and if possible best actor (as well). In his masterful portrayal, he allows his character's free spirit to maniacally control his body, his faculties, and his mannerisms. And when Ledger was in the war paint clown make-up, he simply seemed at home. A common theme in superhero movies is: which is the real personality and which is the disguise: who is the superhero really? Batman asked the question in Batman Begins and expounded upon it further in the Dark Knight. But, for a super villain, and for the Joker in particular, there can be no question. He essentially has no identity other than the one in decaying clown make-up. He looked like and probably smelled like a rotten egg and his facial ticks are reminiscent of hungry lizard.

The schizophrenic acting was perfect, stressing different intonations, varying his cadence, laying out several minimally different accents in one continuous chord, and manipulating the pitch and volume of his voice as if each sentence were relaying a carnival of emotions. Speaking of emotions, the Joker would jump from a jokester to a sad clown, to the monster from It all within one sentence. Watch him tell a random party-goer that he reminds him of his father.

Unfortunately for Jack Nicholson, his Joker has to be compared to this great performance, much in the same way that Steven Weber has to be compared to Nicholson's Shining character. It's not to say Nicholson did a bad job. He was silly, he was cooky, he was wild, he was angry, and he was whiny, just like he is at every Lakers game. Burton's adaptation, which was beautiful in its own right mixes Caesar Romero's prankster with a classic mafia don who has no compunction about killing. Of course, Jack, being Jack, he made it a bit more gritty, and Burton being Burton, he gave the joker some artistry. But, essentially, Nicholson was just Jack Nicholson with some neat paint on his face who occasionally did a dance to pretend he was still spry and agile, which he wasn't.

But, then came The Joker in Heath Ledger. It was a veritable clinic of mania. And that is the perfect joker for our time. His voice and mannerisms would vary from Daniel Plainview's megalomaniac, to Hannibal Lecter's snooty carnivore, to orange Alex's violent sexual predator, to Jack Torrance's unbridled fury, to Agent Stansfield's explosive professionalism, and of course, he mixed in some 70's mafia dons to even it all out. And as a result, we get a character who does not want to rule the world, but who wants to utterly deface it and revel in its destruction. He's introduced to us as a serial mass murderer, a serial killer who kills many people each outing just for the joy of bringing terror to the world. (I was having a reasoned and logical debate about what constitutes the greatest form of evil, about whether Lex Luthor from the most recent incantations of Superman, an uber-powerful man, who thinks at least in part, what he is doing good, warding off an alien superhuman, but is really doing a bad thing is worse than the Joker, who presumably knows what he is doing is wrong. You got lots of evil tyrants on the Lex Luthor side and then a bunch of Charles Manson types on the other. Practically, Lex Luthor is more dangerous because his greed, ambition, and subtlety allow him to do more damage in our world, but theoretically, one joker who could achieve Luthor type power could end the world.)

So, under what circumstances can such a person take over, even a crime syndicate, in an organizational capacity? Well, if there are a lot of unemployed criminals looking for a boss, they might just turn to someone they don't understand. On what planet would they follow a guy who was not only crazy, but also wearing face make up? If they are terrified by a guy dressed as a bat, perhaps they could be soothed by a guy dressed as a clown. Sun Tzu makes it very clear; never push your enemy in a corner because when desperate, they are particularly deadly. Even when you win in those situations, it will often be a pyrrhic victory.

(As I was watching this movie, I didn't once remember that this actor, totally immersed in the role was no longer with us. I don't care what James McAvoy says, if you're a great actor, or probably even a good actor, you could take all the commercialization, all of the paparazzi attention, and all the late night wise-cracks, and make people forget that celebrity for the entirety of a movie. McAvoy is famed for vocally refusing to take spots in advertisements because movie goers would not be able differentiate his selling image from his characters. I have an idea that will resolve this for McAvoy... act. Act differently in Wanted than you did in Atonement or Last King of Scotland or Penelope. Or maybe, take that one facial expression of being overwhelmed by a stronger character, and try putting it into being overwhelmed by the sheer power of an Audi or a Prius or whatever foreign-Hollywood douchebags drive.)

But, back to the movie, the post-Joker Gotham was the darkest setting I've seen since Sin City, which was the most atrociously shocking urban sprawl I have ever had the revolting privilege of viewing. Gotham-Chicago, works less well than Gotham-NY, but is still very strongly up to the task.

My favorite part of analyzing The Joker in this movie is trying to characterize his type of criminal activity and villainy. Is he a terrorist? Certainly, he is blowing up people and buildings for a political message of anarchy and opposition to the Batman. Is he a mobster? He sure is, given that he controls the mob and gets them all kinds of money. Is he a serial killer? I would say yes (see above). An assassin? That's kind of his thing. Spree killer? Watch the movie. Arsonist? Sure. Armed robber? Of course. Kidnapper? No question. Turf gangster? No doubt. Pirate? Watch him try to get into an armored car at high speeds. Torturer? Tyrant? Sexual predator? Maybe not, but his intro to Rachel Dawes character certainly ranks among his creepier moments. You name a kind of villainy and this guy seems up to the task.

The Batman has to contend with this, and as we have found out from the Beginning and even more in this film, the Batman is extremely logical, an unmatched adept fighter, with seemingly infinite financial resources and thus access to countless gadgets and information. And, as we know from the commercials and previews, the Batman will have to make a judgment about how evil he must become to rid the world of this potentially ultimate evil. Further, he must determine how many bad things he can do before he himself is not a good person anymore. Theatrics and deception? What about straight up lying, what about bringing about escalation of violence, what about scaring innocent people, what about hurting bad people, what about killing evil people, what about...? Well, you get it. And his answer to that is Harvey Dent, the clean cut prosecutor who uses the laws in the slightly reformed and improved Gotham judicial system to begin punishing the crime lords.

Bale brings a similar intensity to this role that he did in the first, and though his competition outshines him, there is nothing wrong with that. Eckhart is truly excellent in his role as he transforms from a person the viewer and the public believes in to the person the viewer half understands. The others are quite good as well. I was bothered a bit that Katie Holmes (who was notably weak) was simply replaced by the Secretary, but it didn't ruin much for me.

The beginning of the movie is a bit choppy and chaotic as Nolan and his brother try desperately to tell us where we are now, but the plot and the story are otherwise crisp. The dialogue varies from good to great, and almost every one of the soliloquies is valuable, informative, and entertaining. Some of the action was downright spectacular and some of the comedic moments will fill you with tense laughter.

I talked about the Joker more than I should have, but he embodies this most excellent movie. I'm not a big Batman person, so the fact that I think this was one of the best performances I have ever seen is noteworthy. I avoided tour de force or electric or brilliant or genius because they are either over used not the proper word for his performance. But, I recommend the movie to all movie goers as a movie event whether you like Batman, comics, super natural, action, horror, or whatever. See the movie and make your own judgment.

As for the Joker, who I haven't discussed enough: he is a man of simple tastes, but is he a planner? Are the extent of his plans just disruption? His tactics seem genius and lucky, and his strategies are confusing with or without the whole picture. Is he a performance artist setting Gotham as his stage, is he making a socio-economic-political statement, is he trying to capitalize on a vacuum at the higher levels of power, is he making a religious/philosophical insights into the hearts and minds of mankind, or is he just having sadistic and masochistic fun competing against the Batman for sport? It's likely that there are elements of all of these things, but it's also likely that on the first viewing, you will only notice 1 or 2 of them because you will be enraptured by the sparkling brilliance of his cracked shell. What was Nolan thinking when he unleashed Ledger on this extraordinarily well written role? Well, we don't know for sure, but we can only guess that it was all part of the plan.

Sleep well,
Papa Bear

Post Script: I wrote about half the review before seeing the movie, changing two major errors, but refusing to change typographical errors or opinions. I took out one paragraph because my guess was too close to being right. But, the rest was written subsequently. I interspersed today's paragraphs with last Tuesdays to make it more fun for me. Feel free to guess which paragraphs were written before and which were written after. It makes the entry a bit chaotic, but that seems apt given the subject matter.