The Dark Knight Rises: The Mythology of Our Time

August 1, 2012

I’ve been on a Greek mythology kick this summer.  If the desire to create stories, like those of classical mythology, is universal, what are the myths of today?   I’d argue that superhero stories are the modern equivalent of classical mythology.

They are basic stories and characters that are familiar to almost all of us.  The artist doesn’t invent the characters or their stories, he provides his own twist with his own telling of these familiar stories.  Similarly, Sophocles did not invent the story of Oedipus, Euripedes did not invent the story of Iphigenia, etc… Each play or each telling of an epic poem was like each “re-boot” of the Batman, Spiderman, or Superman sagas — changing the emphasis and minor plot points in order to create a new meaning from a familiar character and story.

Greg has suggested this connection between modern superhero stories and classical mythology by trying to connect current directors and writers with their ancient equivalents.  But I want to take the point even further.  Not only are the modern makers of superhero movies like the playwrights of antiquity, their stories serve the same purpose for us and do so in very similar ways.  Neither the new Batman series nor others attempt to capture realism in their plots.  As real as they make the action and special effects, the plots and characters are obviously unrealistic.  We only accept them because they fit within the genre of a hero story — with their defining flaws, archetype villains, and endurance for suffering and sacrifice.  As ironic and post-modern as we like to think of ourselves, we are as willing to suspend disbelief for hero stories as were the ancients.

In addition, the plots of the Christopher Nolan Batman as well as other superhero sagas are designed to make sense of the world and offer some moral guidance, just as ancient myths did.  (SPOILER ALERT)  The Nolan Batman evokes images of our post 9-11 experience with terror, the need for security, and the price we pay for that need.

In his earlier posts, Greg suggested that the message of Nolan’s Dark Knight is that political and social order may require a lie.  The new movie makes clear that lies have their consequences and are ultimately self-defeating.  And as the earlier Dark Knight films emphasized the need not to be paralyzed by fear, the current movie suggests the opposite danger of being completely without fear.  And in earlier movies we learned that the rich and powerful were fundamentally corrupt, but in the new movie we see that rule by The People is at least as horrifying.  And a final paradox– in previous movies Batman learned that his success requires not trusting others because they are unreliable, but in the current movie we see that success ultimately requires trusting others despite their unreliability.

Perhaps the moral of Nolan’s Batman is also drawn directly from the Greeks.  We know that “Carved into the temple [to Apollo at Delphi] were three phrases: γνῶθι σεαυτόν (gnōthi seautón = “know thyself“) and μηδέν άγαν (mēdén ágan = “nothing in excess”), and Ἑγγύα πάρα δ’ἄτη (eggýa pára d’atē = “make a pledge and mischief is nigh”),[10]   I’m not sure Nolan could have summarized the messages of his Batman trilogy more succinctly.

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Posted by Jay P. Greene

Pass the Popcorn: Favorites of the Aughts

February 26, 2010

(Guest post by Greg Forster)

I know it’s a bit late for Aughts-in-Review type stuff, but here goes.

Note that it says “favorites” rather than “best.” That’s partly because I didn’t get to see all the movies I wanted to, and I don’t want to snub any really good movies that I may have missed; and partly because I wasn’t sure I knew which ones were “best” but I was sure which ones were my favorites.

One man’s opinion. Results not typical. Your mileage may vary.

Comedy (Wit)

Essentially optimistic narrative that generates humor through clever dialogue and/or plot manipulation.

Winner: Chicken Run

There are so many unbelievable lines in this movie I can’t begin to pick a favorite.

Oh, who am I kidding? Of course I have a favorite!

“You mean you never actually flew the plane?”

“Good heavens, no! I’m a chicken! The Royal Air Force doesn’t let chickens behind the controls of a complex aircraft.”

(Although “pushy Americans, always showing up late for every war” comes in a close second, followed by the dialogue at the end about what item, exactly, you would need to start a chicken farm.)

Also Nominated: Amelie

Everyone has a talent; Amelie Poussin’s is practical jokes. Amelie realizes that her calling in life is to use her gift for practical jokes to improve the human condition. (Talk about a candidate for the Al Copeland award!) Fortunately, she’s surrounded by a bunch of severely disfunctional people! Getting duped by Amelie’s clever schemes is just what they need to get their heads on straight. But the tables are turned after Amelie becomes fascinated with a handsome young man and uses a series of practical jokes to attract his affections. A lifelong loner, Amelie abruptly realizes that she’s bought more than she bargained for – the risks and sacrifices of real love are no joke. Is anyone shrewd enough to figure out how to get Amelie’s head on straight?

The first of two foreign films (French, in this case) to make my list. Someday I’ll compile a list called Foreign Films Actually Worth Watching.

Also Nominated: Down with Love

In form, this is a spoof of the old 1960s Rock Hudson/Doris Day sex comedies. But what makes it work so brilliantly is the filmmakers’ ambition – in which they are totally successful – to update the humor in light of subsequent developments in sex relations. Casual sex, and all the comprehensive overturning of traditional roles and expectations accomplished in its name, turned out not to be everything its disciples cracked it up to be. Yet, miserable as we are, nobody wants to go back to the old system, with its demeaning subordination of the female to the male. Can we re-domesticate sex without re-domesticating women? This movie answers with a resounding “yes,” and does so with some of the sharpest wit I’ve seen on the screen.

Comedy (Satire)

Essentially optimistic narrative that uses humor to create a critique of familiar human foibles (and vice versa).

Not sure why, or what this might say about the historical moment we were living through, but satire was the strongest category of the Aughts. All four of these movies are not just exceptional, but are standouts even among the decade’s exceptional movies. I’d put the “also nominateds” in this category ahead of most of the winners in the other categories. (I say this even though the single best movie of the decade wasn’t in this category; after you get past that particular movie, satire is where most of the big standouts are.)

Winner: Barbershop

Barbershop owner Calvin barely manages to ride herd on his feisty retinue of wisecracking barbers. He’s been breaking his back to keep the shop propped up for years, all out of a sense of obligation to the dead father from whom he inherited it. But all that time, he’s been dreaming of scoring big in a series of get-rich-quick schemes, and his irresponsible pursuit of easy riches has finally caught up with him – he doesn’t have the money to keep the shop open any more. As his final day of business unfolds, his madcap barbers (and clients) bicker and lecture each other about what really matters in life. Through all the verbal duelling and tomfoolery, Calvin comes to understand why his father was more interested in running a barbershop than in getting rich.

Obviously this movie has a lot to say about issues that are of particular concern to black Americans. The filmmakers ruffled some feathers – one of the customers says to a barber “You’d better not let Jesse Jackson hear you talking like that” and the barber replies, with relish and gusto, and yet also with very deep seriousness, “F$%# Jesse Jackson!” John Podhoeretz wisely commented that this whole movie, really, is just one long “F$%# Jesse Jackson!” from beginning to end.

But the deepest theme here is really universal – responsibility, courage, honesty and decency are more valuable than any worldly success.

Also Nominated: Lilo & Stitch

The greatest concept for a family movie ever. A genetically engineered alien monster designed in every aspect of his being to maximize his ability to create destruction and chaos meets a typical human child, and it turns out that except for their appearance they’re exactly the same in every possible way. There’s lots of other great satire here – Earth is spared from destruction by an alien armada because the aliens’ environmental bureaucrats believe the mosquito is an endangered species (and just wait until the end when you find out why they think that) – but the heart of this movie is the central insight that people are not naturally civilized. And that is a really funny fact. As if that weren’t subversive enough, the real message of the movie is that families are the only thing that civilize people. And this is a Disney movie!

Bonus points for the big-hearted ending, too. I’m not ashamed to admit I choke up during the climactic speech – exactly twenty words long – in which Stitch explains the basis of his loyalty to Lilo. It’s the only movie on this list that I always choke up at.

Also Nominated: 13 Going on 30

Mistakenly pigeonholed as a “female version of Big,” this is actually the opposite of Big in many ways. In Big, a thirteen-year-old boy who’s miserable and can’t wait to be an adult wakes up one morning to find that he is one. He discovers that the grown-up world is even more messed up than the kid world, and he teaches those around him to find their inner child. Everyone ends up happy because the hero teaches them all not to be so mature, and he’s happiest of all because in the end he gets to go back and be a kid – which, we now know, is oh so much better than being an adult and having lame stuff like obligations and responsibilities.

In 13 Going on 30, a thirteen-year-old girl who’s miserable and can’t wait to be an adult wakes up one morning and finds that she is one. And in this version, she gets to live exactly the life she wants – she’s a world-famous fashion magazine editor with a pro athlete boyfriend, etc. etc. And she discovers that that grown-up world, the world of adults who live in a perpetual adolescent fantasy, is more messed up than the kid world – it’s messed up because it wants perpetual adolescence. She’s miserable as a world famous fashion magazine editor with a pro athlete boyfriend – but her old high school pal who had more serious, more mature – more grown up – plans for himself is now happy and enjoying life.

She teaches the people around her the error of their ways not by helping them to find their inner children but by calling on them to grow the heck up. And the movie ends with her as an adult, living an adult life and happy with it.

Like Barbershop, this movie speaks from within the perspective of a particular segment of the population – in this case, teenage girls and young women. But the deepest theme is again universal; you might say this movie has the same core message, but focused on sex rather than money.

Also Nominated: Millions

A young boy finds a duffel bag full of money that was tossed off a train during a robbery. He tries in vain to find a way to give the money away to charity, but each time he brings the money to a new person, that person’s greed subverts his efforts. Even the professional UN do-gooder turns out to be on the take. He is sustained by visitations from saints, who encourage him not to give up hope and to keep trying to do the right thing. Yet the more he tries to rely on the goodness of those around him, the more deeply he’s disappointed. This whimsical movie won’t be for everyone, but if you’re looking for a movie that affirms the good even in the face of a very clear-eyed and sober reckoning with the dark side of human nature (the director’s previous movie was 28 Days Later, a lighthearted and cheerful flick about how the only thing more evil and repulsive than flesh-eating zombies is humans), this is the one to see.

Comedy (Situational)

Essentially optimistic narrative that derives humor from specific combinations of characters and plotlines.

Winner: Finding Nemo

Good gravy, what is there to say that hasn’t been said a thousand times?

Also Nominated: Return to Me

The only conventional romantic comedy on the list. This movie has many merits – the laugh-out-loud moments are frequent – but the most amazing thing to me is the way it solves the inherent problem of the romantic comedy. Most romantic comedies are mediocre at best because of the contradiction inherent in the form: the leads must be perfect for one another, yet there must be some obstacle preventing them from falling in love (at least fully and without reservation) until the very end. It’s not sufficient to simply keep them apart – if they fall in love but can’t be together for some reason, that’s not a romantic comedy, it’s a drama.

The problem is, almost all of the obstacles you can place between them require one or both of the leads to come across as either stupid or evil. Sometimes they don’t realize they’re perfect for each other, in which case we spend the whole moive watching them not see what is, to us, obvious (i.e. stupid). Most often, one or both of them have an existing “serious” or “committed” relationship. This requires the existing relationship to end in a way that provides emotional closure to clear a path for the happy ending – but this can only occur in one of three ways:

  1. The lead’s current partner is cheating or otherwise exploitative (i.e. the lead is stupid)
  2. The lead’s current partner is heartless enough to dump him/her, even though he/she is obviously a fantastic catch (i.e. the partner is stupid, meaning the lead is stupid for having been with him/her)
  3. The lead dumps the current partner even though the partner is not cheating or otherwise exploitative and doesn’t want the relationship to end (i.e. the lead is evil)

The best romantic comedy ever made, Next Stop Wonderland, brilliantly sidesteps the problem by not having the leads even meet one another until the very end. As we get to know them, separately, we see that they’re perfect for each other and each will be miserable until they meet, and they keep almost meeting but not quite, and then finally they meet, whereupon they fall for each other instantly. But that’s a one-shot deal; once someone has the audacity to make a Next Stop Wonderland, nobody else can make it. So what do you do?

You start the movie by having the male lead’s wife die in a car crash, and the female lead, who has heart disease, recieves her heart as a transplant. Genius. And very well executed.

Also Nominated: Ratatouille

Having already written about the movie’s substance…

It not only has sharp dialogue (consider, for example, the duel of wits between Linguini and Anton Ego in the press conference scene) and great humor (in its context, the moment where Ego is transported back to childhood by his first bite of Remy’s ratatouille is every bit as funny as the “I am your father” line in Toy Story 2), but also philosophical depth (the whole movie is basically Plato’s Ion in cartoon form, with cooking as a proxy for art and creativity generally – as Ego’s climactic monologue makes clear).

I’ll add one new comment. Situational comedy requires implausible situations. This movie embraces that and runs with it all the way. Halfway through the movie, just when you think they can’t cook up anything more outrageous, we find out that in the Ratatouilleverse rats can control people’s actions by yanking their hair. And they’re completely shameless about it. “That’s disturbingly involuntary!” I think that’s part of why this movie succeeds – it has the sheer audacity to set up the situations it wants.

Drama (Tragic)

Essentially anti-optimistic (though not necessarily pessimistic) narrative illuminating the nobility of human struggles against challenges that are too great for merely human capacities to reliably overcome.

Winner: Magnolia

An absolutely unflinching movie (seriously, don’t watch it if there are children anywhere within five hundred miles of your television) about the universal human phenomenon of guilt. Is there any escape from its unbearable burden? Vaclav Havel got down to the crux of the matter in his prison letters – the only thing that makes human beings at all meaningful is the fact that they are morally responsible. But . . . responsible to what? Or whom?

Unsurpassed performances from at least a dozen major stars, including a truly breathtaking performance by Tom Cruise that can stand without shame next to any other acting job ever filmed.

Also Nominated: Garden State

I never feel quite sure I’ve correctly identified what this movie is “about.” But it moves seamlessly between hilarious comedy and profound meditation. I think – but again, I’m never quite sure – that the “point” is that we’ve spent so much time and energy running away from disturbing emotional experiences that we’ve flattened our souls. The main thing that’s keeping us from being emotionally healthy is that we fuss and fret so much about whether we’re emotionally healthy – we’re psychological hypochondriacs. In the end, if man makes his own psychology the point of his life, then there’s no “there” there – just a bottomless void. You can scream into it all you want and never hear an echo. Better to just go home and get on with your life.

Also Nominated: Pieces of April

Yes, having already lavished extremely high praise on Tom Cruise, I’m now going to praise Katie Holmes. But she really is good – and Laura Linney is phenomenal – in this very raw and heartfelt movie about dysfunctional families.

Drama (Epic)

Narrative featuring high-stakes conflicts between titanic characters who evoke or represent transcendent forces.

Winner: The Dark Knight

Movie of the decade. (Duh.)

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: See here, here, here, here, here, and here. Nuff said.

Also Nominated: The Incredibles

Lots of the movies on this list are delightfully subversive, but this one? Forget about it. “When everyone is special…”

Yet it’s not just here for that; in fact, none of them is just here for that. Simply as an epic drama, this movie succeeds – dare I say it – incredibly.

Also Nominated: Casino Royale

Another movie I’ve probably said enough about already.

Category Killers

Movies that don’t fit comfortably into established genres, but that I really like and want to include on the list.

The Passion of the Christ

I know, I know. I understand. I feel you about this, I really do. But I’m sorry, I can’t leave the greatest work of devotional art produced in probably a century (What’s the competition for that title? This? Seriously?) off my list just because of the guy who produced it. Whatever is really in Gibson’s heart, there’s none of that kind of crap up there in the movie. It’s just not there. (My theory is that people like Charles Krauthammer see that kind of crap in the movie because they’re very good at detecting it in people, and they smelled the stench of it on Gibson and interpreted the movie through that lens.)

As a colleague of mine once said, the key to understanding this movie is that it’s not fundamentally a narrative drama, as most movies are, but a work of devotional art that just happens – by coincidence, as it were – to take the form of a movie. It’s much more like “a religious painting in movie form” than it is like a regular movie. The events happening on the screen are not the point. The point is that the experience of seeing this movie reminds the believing audience – a work of devotional art is not designed to create belief in those who lack it but to engage with the belief of those who already have it – of everything they already know and feel about Jesus. And for Christians – here comes the really key point – the events depicted here have a completely different meaning than a similar set of events would have in any other context. If you see the movie without that angle, as most of the critics did, you just aren’t seeing the movie. Of course all the extreme violence and the gore and the focus on his excruciating suffering would be bizarre and possibly pathological if they had no theological meaning. But they do, which is why Christian devotional art has always dwelled at length on them.

Adaptation

Director Spike Jonze at the peak of his career thus far. Nicholas Cage delivers a delightful performance as belagured author Charlie Kaufman, opposite an equally appealing performance by Nicholas Cage as Charlie’s twin brother Donald.

Charlie Kaufman also happens to be the movie’s real-life scriptwriter, a fact you’ll want to know going into the movie. Donald is fictional. But, in keeping with the concept of the movie, the script is officially attributed to “Charlie Kaufman and Donald Kaufman.” And when it won was nominated for an Oscar for best screenplay, the award nomination was duly conveyed upon both authors, making Donald Kaufman the only fictional character ever to win be nominated for an Academy Award.

Update: Oops. The movie did win an Oscar, but not for screenplay (HT Marcus, below). Donald is listed as a nominee, though. He also has his own page on IMDB!

Jonze is notorious for his mind-bending plots, and Adaptation can’t really be adequately explained in fewer than about 800 or 1,000 words. But for our purposes it’s enough to say that this movie delivers plenty of laughs to keep you entertained while it’s in the process of gradually building a truly amazing plot architecture, which (when considered as a whole) asks the question: Why do movies tell stories? And answers it to tremendous effect, merging philosophical depth with a narrative tour de force.

A lot of people didn’t like the ending. I’m with Roger Ebert, who put it succinctly: “If you didn’t like the ending, you didn’t understand the movie. Go back and watch it again until you get it right.”

American Splendor

The “category killer” to end all category killers. Two of Hollywood’s most talented actors (Paul Giamatti and Hope Davis) deliver outstanding performances as Harvey Pekar and Joyce Brabner, whose amazing true story is depicted in the movie. Interspersed with this narrative is documentary footage of interviews with the real Harvey Pekar and Joyce Brabner, who talk to us about the events we’re watching – why they did what they did, how they felt, etc. Is it a documentary or a drama? Call it the only dramentary ever made.

Like Adaptation, American Splendor is about storytelling itself. By inserting interviews with the real-life subjects into the story, the movie invites us to experience the “story” part consciously as a story. It’s a good thing Giamatti and Davis are talented enough to carry this weight; anything short of virtuoso performances on their parts would have turned this whole project into a huge turkey. But they’re up to the challenge, and the result is fascinating.

Like Charlie Kaufman in Adaptation, Harvey Pekar (creator of the comic American Splendor) doesn’t want to tell “stories” because they’re not like life. But unlike Charlie, Harvey succeeds in making his non-stories interesting. This is in large part because Harvey encouters so many interesting people and has a gift for observing them – with characters like this, who needs plot?

Yet . . . a good deal of interesting plot does actually happen to Harvey. (The incredible true story of Harvey and Joyce’s first date is worth the price of admission by itself.) And that’s another layer to the movie – while the real Harvey has made a career out of simply documenting life as he experiences it, the movie picks out only the interesting parts of his life and arranges them in order to artificially create a satisfying story arc with a beginning, middle and ending that work seamlessly. Exactly the opposite of what the real Harvey does!

And yet, the real Harvey doesn’t seem to mind. Unlike Charlie, he’s never given himself airs about what he does and why he does it. He’s too jaundiced to be a prima donna.

Come to think of it – how many biopics have the guts to put the subject himself up on the screen and give him the chance to critique their movie version of his life? Talk about keeping you honest!

Too Soon to Tell

Recently released movies that I feel like I may later look back on as “favorites of the aughts,” but don’t yet feel fully confident including on the list because not enough time has passed to be sure.

Ponyo

UP

Star Trek

Speed Racer

Juno

 

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Posted by Greg Forster

Pass the Popcorn: Where Are They Now?

June 12, 2009

(Guest post by Greg Forster)

Don’t let anyone tell you Pass the Popcorn doesn’t take accountability seriously. Opinion about pop culture is so ephemeral, it’s easy to get away with writing crud because you know nobody will remember it in ten minutes anyway.

So to hold myself to a higher standard, here’s a retrospective of my 2008 movie posts, along with an updated opinion with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight (including home viewing where applicable).

 

Speed Racer

Speed Racer

What I thought last year: Fantastic. Much more than a thrill ride – an exceptionally well constructed and executed melodrama. One of the best movies I’ve seen in years. But I probably won’t enjoy it as much on a small screen.

What I think this year: Boy was I wrong about that last part.

 

Iron Man

Iron Man

What I thought last year: A better-than-just-good movie that could have been great, except the marketing suits wouldn’t allow the movie to be either clearly pro-weapons-makers or clearly anti-weapons-makers, so the central character development around which the whole movie is built is left ambiguous. That and the climactic battle is lame.

What I think this year: The ambiguity isn’t as bad as I had thought – there are some subtleties that I missed. What’s driving Stark’s crisis of conscience is not that making weapons was bad per se, but that his weapons are being abused. So I’ll upgrade the movie from better-than-just-good to really good. But the battle is still lame.

 

Hulk 1

The Hulk

What I thought last year: The last Hulk movie really stank in spite of having been made by one of the few really great moviemakers of the 1990s, and this one doesn’t look any better. The Hulk character is probably unfilmable; the emotional intimacy you get in comics and (to a lesser degree) on TV isn’t available in the movie format, so the character’s dependence on anger probably just can’t be well exploited on film. I’m going to skip it.

What I think this year: No regrets.

 

The Happening

The Happening

What I thought last year: Shyamalan got lazy and his work has gone precipitously downhill. Early reports indicate this doesn’t look like the movie that will turn him around. Skip.

What I think this year: No regrets.

 

Wall E

Wall-E

What I thought last year: It’s an “A” movie about a lonely robot who discovers companionship, wrapped in a “C” movie about the evils of consumerism.

What I think this year: The more I watch it, the easier it gets to ignore the “C” movie.

 

Hancock 3

Hancock

What I thought last year: Boy, it’s fun to remember Will Smith’s early-90s novelty act. And this was a fun movie. But not one I’d feel the need to see again.

What I think this year: Yup.

 

Joker 2

The Dark Knight

What I thought last year: Well, I wrote about it six times (here, here, here, here, here and here) so that gives you an idea of what I thought.

What I think this year: Was six posts really enough?

 

Quantum-Of-Solace

Quantum of Solace

What I thought last year: Fantastic potential. Squandered.

What I think this year: Can’t wait for the next movie. Can wait to buy this one.

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Posted by Greg Forster

Pass the Popcorn: City of the Dark Knight (Issue #3)

August 8, 2008

(Guest post by Greg Forster)

We’re now on our fourth issue of the series and we haven’t said anything yet about Heath Ledger. That was intentional, for three reasons.

First and most important, there’s not much interesting to say, or at least not that I can say. It’s obviously a virtuoso performance, and would have been a career-making breakthrough. Ledger was clearly one of the most talented performers of his generation, and it’s a shame he never reached his potential until the end of his abbreviated career.

Beyond that, what’s to say? If I were in the acting business, I could no doubt analyze the performance and say more about what makes it great. But I lack even the rudamentary ability to do so, and I’m not interested in bluffing.

Second, too much of the chatter about Ledger and this performance is shallow and feels exploitative of his death, and I don’t want to contribute to that.

And third, I think Ledger’s masterpiece contribution is overshadowing other contributions. I don’t want to take away any of the honor Ledger has justly earned, but for this movie to be what it is, a whole lot of people had to turn in top-flight performances.

Back in Issue 1, commenter Captain Napalm mentioned Aaron Eckhart and Gary Oldman – both of whom were indeed outstanding. I’ve just praised Morgan Freeman in Issue 2, and Michael Caine’s contribution shouldn’t be overlooked – one of the most important differences between a good film and a great one is that all the little things are done right, as well as the big ones. Caine and Freeman didn’t get the big drama, but they delivered fantastic little gems – “We burned down the forest” is one of the most memorable moments in the movie. So is “You have no idea.”

Everyone – by which I mean the handful of movie geeks whom I personally know – seems to agree that Christian Bale had essentially nothing to do in this movie. The first movie was about Batman, not the villains, so the villains were (as I mentioned last time) unmemorable. This movie was about the Joker, so Batman was unmemorable. But serving as the Joker’s foil is something. The Joker carries the movie, but he can’t do that if Christian Bale doesn’t act well his part, wherein all honor lies. Imagine this movie with Ledger playing opposite George Clooney – or even Michael Keaton, who I thought did surprisingly well as Tim Burton’s Batman, but would have been totally inappropriate as Chris Nolan’s. (And let’s also acknowledge that “I’m not wearing hockey pants” was well delivered.)

And naturally we should be crediting Chris Nolan. Having done a little amateur acting, I know how much a director contributes to an actor’s performance – or doesn’t. When any six actors, even six really good ones, all deliver a top-notch ensemble performance, it’s as much the director’s work as theirs.

Above all, though, we should be thanking the writers. Think about every scene you remember of Ledger. Isn’t it the brilliant lines as much as the brilliant performance that make this movie so amazing? “When you think about it, I knew your friends better than you did. Would you like to know which of them were cowards?” That’s really brave writing. And of course, all those clever one-liners we’ve been taking notice of in this and previous issues had to come out of somebody’s keyboard before they could come out of Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, etc.

You do know who wrote the movie, don’t you?

Chris Nolan shares the screenplay credit with his brother Jonathan Nolan, and shares the story credit with David Goyer. The Nolan brothers also co-wrote Memento and The Prestige (which came out between Batmans). Goyer has a long track record on comic book movies that includes Blade and co-writing Batman Begins with Chris Nolan, as well as sole story credit on Batman Begins. And of course Frank Miller should get a nod for his influence.

All that said, Ledger did pull off an amazing feat. In addition to what’s on the screen, consider how much prior baggage he had to overcome with the Joker character:

First Appearance!

The Clown Prince of Crime

The Ultimate Psychopath: “Whatever’s in him rattles as it leaves.”

The Outer Edge of Insanity

(Wrong “Joker,” moron!)

A lot of people thought no one could play the Joker after Nicholson, particularly not the star of A Knight’s Tale. Nicholson himself, for one. He said as much, as The Dark Knight was approaching release. I wonder if he repented after he saw the performance.

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Posted by Greg Forster

Pass the Popcorn: City of the Dark Knight (Issue #2)

August 3, 2008

 

(Guest post by Greg Forster)

Okay, and now for something completely different! Today we’re going to talk about Bat Gear.

What was the one thing in The Dark Knight that just didn’t work? So far, everyone I’ve talked to has the same answer, even if you don’t ask them the question – it’s the citywide “sonar.” Lame.

The first time through, it was really obtrusive – for a few minutes. One of the greatest innovations in storytelling in the last ten years is that movie and TV people have learned the value of throwing a lot of story at you and trusting you to keep up; among many other virtues, this means badly done moments in the narrative get left behind more quickly.

The second time through, I didn’t really mind. That was partly because dumb plot elements are always less obtrusive the second time around, because you aren’t being hit with the shock of recognizing their stupidity. This, for example, is why it is possible to watch the Lord of the Rings movies repeatedly without their being spoiled by a bunch of friggin’ elves marching into Helm’s Deep, or the army of the dead effortlessly wiping out the beseiging force at Minas Tirith (which means all those Rohirrim who gave their lives on the Pelannor died for nothing).

But it was also partly because the second time I saw how it was supposed to fit into the movie. Somehow, the first time through, I totally missed the “like a submarine” gag. You remember, when Lucius comes out of the evil corporation’s building in Hong Kong and shows Bruce the sonar readout:

“Sonar? Just like a . . .”

“Like a submarine, Mr. Wayne – just like a submarine.”

It just flew by and I missed it completely. (How am I supposed to catch all these little things when they throw so much at you and expect you to keep up with it all?)

Obviously they were thinking that we would buy the “sonar” because sonar fits with the bat theme. And it’s not a crazy theory. When a plot element fits the theme of the movie, artistic liberties with reality are much less obtrusive (a subject I’ve had occasion to discuss at greater length before).

But it didn’t work. And that got me thinking about the gadgets in this movie. F’rinstance, does the Bat Cycle (apparently to make it seem less fruity they’re telling us to call it a Bat Pod) belong in this movie? I mean, honestly – doesn’t it just look like the suits in the marketing department demanded that they throw in something new that would sell toys? After all, the twelve year old boys of America – who should never be permitted to see this movie under any circumstances whatsoever – are not going to shell out for another Batmobile unless it’s different from the last one.

He’s prob’ly fighting for freedom! Buy all our playsets and toys!

And the skyscraper-assault gadgets (in the Hong Kong scene and again in the assault on Fortress Joker) feel artificial, too.

But that’s not what you’d expect, is it? Gadgets belong in a Batman movie. They’re an integral part of the franchise – even more so than in the James Bond franchise.

Consider the first Batman movie – well, okay, not absolutely the first, but the first one that counts. The Tim Burton one. (The Tim Burton one that counts.) That movie doesn’t get its propers anymore, in large part because we now take for granted so much of what Burton did to define the modern comic book movie. Much of what was radical in Burton’s Batman is now so expected that it’s not even noticed.

It was a much more uneven movie than Nolan’s Batmans are – parts just didn’t work, but parts worked brilliantly. And that movie was just brimming with gadgets. The Batmobile actually did stuff – and no, going really fast and changing the driver position from Standard Seated Position to Lying Down for No Reason Position doesn’t count as doing something. Yes, okay, in the first Nolan movie the Batmobile jumped rooftops. But Burton’s Batmobile did so much more. And Batman himself used gadgets more often and it felt more natural. One of those brilliant moments that really worked was when Batman swooped in, foiled one of the Joker’s plans, and swooped out on one of his flying wires (or something) and the Joker was just so impressed that he didn’t even think about how badly he’d been beaten – he just stood there and asked: “Where does he get those marvellous toys?”

Or consider what must be the best gag ever done in a comic – from the Batman/Planetary crossover.

(If you don’t know what Planetary is . . . well, how are you even alive?)

Anyway, the Planetary crew are in Gotham chasing a man whose mind keeps opening dimensional rifts, and of course they run into Batman, who of course is chasing the same guy. But every time the guy opens a dimensional rift, they shift to an alternate reality where Batman is slightly different:

     

     

HT Planetary. How many can you identify? How many will you admit you can identify? (No fair peeking at the URLs!)

Here’s the gadget gag: Jakita Wagner, a superpowered female hero, is about to throw down with one of the badass Batmans. Then a rift opens and suddenly it’s not a badass Batman, it’s the Adam West Batman from the supercamp sixties TV show. And . . . he would never hit a girl!

So when she rushes him, he avoids compromising his honor by whipping a spray can out of his utility belt and dousing her in the face. (I always suspected the Adam West Batman was really a sucker-punching bastard.) She falls back, clutching her eyes, and Batman drops the can and springs away to chase after the rift-opening guy. As she curses him, we see the can roll into the frame.

The label on the can reads: Bat Female Villain Repellent.

I swear I Googled for probably half an hour looking for that panel, so I could share it with you. I guess you’ll have to buy the crossover instead.

But back to our subject. Gadgets not only belong in Batman, they ought to belong in Chris Nolan’s Batman. After all, this is the first movie version to include Batman’s “Q”, and he’s used to outstanding effect in both movies. What are the most memorable moments in the first movie? Liam Neeson blathering on about destroying Gotham? Dr. Crane attacking people with his fear drug? No, that movie had some of the least interesting villains ever to appear in a comic book movie. (Not a criticism – that movie was about Batman, not about them.) What you remember is: “Oh, the tumbler? You wouldn’t be interested in that.” And: “Just don’t think of me as an idiot.”

And Chris Nolan clearly knows how to get the best out of Morgan Freeman, because he’s used just as well in the new one. That “your plan is to blackmail this person?” speech is priceless.

Come to think of it, in the first movie Batman used a “bat caller” gadget to produce a swarm of bats where he needed it. It was ridiculous, of course – but it fit the theme of the movie, especially in that it was trying to explain why Bruce Wayne chose to dress up like a bat when fighting crime. Being attacked by a swarm of bats would tend to put the fear in you.

So why didn’t the gadets work in this one? The first thought to occur to me was that they were trying to force the citywide sonar to perform an awkward plot function – they wanted to abruptly set up a little mini-debate between Batman and Lucius on the whether it’s OK to spy on the whole city. But frankly, I don’t really think that’s it. I think citywide sonar would have failed even without that scene. (Speaking of which, when I first saw it, I thought that Lucius’s position was “This is wrong, but I’ll do it just this once,” which of course is a contemptable position. But that’s not what he says, as I discovered upon seeing the scene a second time. I think his position is really “This is OK as a one-time deal, but it would be wrong to use it on an ongoing basis.” I’m inclined to think that if it’s OK as a one-time deal, it’s hard to justify throwing it away, especially in a city that seems to attract supervillains like a magnet – but it’s not a contemptable position.)

Maybe – and I’m not sure about this – maybe it’s just that they obviously could have accomplished the same thing with less tampering with reality. Batman could have simply set up a computer to scan all phones for the Joker’s voice. And they could still have worked in the bat/sonar theme by equipping the Batsuit with its own sonar, which he could then have used in the Assault on Fortress Joker scene.

Like I said, I’m not sure. Theories?

(Oh, and I’m still hoping somebody can help me with the tally on Dent’s body count. I’m one cop short.)

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Posted by Greg Forster

Pass the Popcorn: City of the Dark Knight (Issue #1)

July 28, 2008

(Guest post by Greg Forster)

Well, it’s not as good the second time you see it. It’s better!

See here for the premiere installment of the PTP: City of the Dark Knight series. Oh, and: Spoiler alert (duh).

This time I caught a lot more of the “moral hypocrisy” theme being set up earlier in the movie. It’s not as clear when you don’t know yet how significant it’s going to be later. But they’re clearly telegraphing that the restoration of moral order in Gotham is requiring some compromises of the rules – for example, this flew by me the first time, but Dent brings that mass prosecution of criminals knowing full well that he can’t make most of the charges stick. He argues to the mayor that they should go forward with prosecution anyway, because most of the bad guys won’t be able to make bail (Batman, Gordon and Dent having taken away most of their money) and thus will have to sit in the slammer while the cases grind through the system. “Think what you could do with eighteen months of clean streets,” Dent tells the mayor. Wrong? Not necessarily. Politics is the art of the possible. But it’s bending the spirit of the law.

Also, notice that Gordon tells his people to lie to the media about Dent’s disappearance. I did notice this the first time, and I thought about it for all of five seconds or so, and then I had to keep up with the movie. The second time, it stands out more as part of the hypocrisy theme.

Perhaps the most important thing I caught this time around is why Dent blames Gordon and Batman for what happens to Rachel. It’s because Gordon built his Major Crimes Unit by including officers who were under a cloud of suspicion. This is another “moral compromise” narrative. Confronted about it at the beginning of the movie, Gordon first insinuates that when Dent was at Internal Affairs he had been bringing bogus corruption cases against clean cops in order to build his career. (At first I thought this might be a signal from Chris Nolan that the movie is right-wing, because prosecuting innocent people to build a career was always the right’s complaint about Eliot Spitzer. But then I remembered that Rudy Giuliani did the same thing.) However, Gordon seems to concede pretty quickly that his MCU does contain some shady characters. He says something like, “I have to do the best with what I have to work with.”

I also caught that they’re telegraphing from early on that Dent is not all he appears to be, morally speaking. The first time I saw the movie I wanted them to do more to establish Dent’s fall – he seems to go over to the dark side pretty quickly. But now I see that he was never really that good to begin with. That, plus it occurred to me that the “Two Face” Dent is still fighting for justice in his twisted way. He’s hunting down the people he blames for Rachel, subjecting each of them one by one to the judgment of the coin.

And now for something completely different: I noticed this time that the guy on the prisoners’ boat who throws the detonator out the window has a damaged right eye (his right, our left). I got really excited by this. I thought, where else in this movie did we see a black criminal have somthing happen to his eye? That’s right: “I’m going to make this pencil disappear!” So I thought: the Joker’s goal is to corrupt everybody. But what if one of his victims found himself forced to reexamine his life while sitting in the prison hospital, and he became good because of the Joker’s actions – and that same person’s goodness was the reason the Joker’s ferry experiment failed? Layers within layers within layers!

But, alas, I was barking up the wrong tree. Somebody has posted the pencil scene on YouTube, and it’s clearly not the same actor. Oh, well.

One more thing: I found an easy way to remember the mobster’s name, the one I couldn’t remember in my previous post. It’s Moroni – the same name as the angel who allegedly revealed the Book of Mormon to Joseph Smith. How’d that happen? Was the entire Warner Brothers marketing department asleep?

Let me close with a bleg: At the end, Gordon says that Dent’s rampage produced “five people dead, two of them cops.” I count Moroni’s driver, Moroni himself (assuming he died in the car crash), the first of the two crooked cops, and Dent himself. But the other cop won the toss and just got knocked unconscious. So that’s four people, one of them a cop. Whom am I missing? Are we supposed to assume Dent found a way to finish off the second cop despite the toss, just like he found a way with Moroni (assuming that’s what happened)? Is this a goof? Or what?

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Posted by Greg Forster

Pass the Popcorn: City of The Dark Knight (Issue #0)

July 25, 2008

New PTP Mini-Series, Issue #0 – Rare Collector’s Item!

Have you been regressing endogenous variables again?

(Guest post by Greg Forster)

It’s too much.

I mean, too much for one blog post. Last Friday I lightheartedly left a comment on Matt’s PTP entry promising to have my Batman post up by Monday. Surely, I thought, I’d be so juiced after the movie that I’d run straight back to my computer and blog until my fingers bled.

But no, this was a very dense movie. Chris Nolan is ambitious, and the movie vindicates his ambition triumphantly. After the movie, I was unable to talk much about it – because there was too much to digest. And by the time I was ready, I had already forgotten half the thoughts I’d had during and right after the movie. Clearly this is a work that’s going to repay a lot of repeat viewing – a hypothesis I intend to test vigorously, hopefully with plenty of checks for the robustness of the finding (e.g. does the movie repay repeat viewing if the repeat views are in a drive-in? In IMAX? With co-workers? In the afternoon? Does it make a difference if I order a soda with my popcorn? How about what kind of soda I order? I’d better try watching it once with each kind, just to be sure).

At this point I just know that any blogging I do is going to be no more than a pale shadow of what I really thought and felt during the movie. So, to assuage my conscience (and save myself from spending all day working on this post, fretting about what I’m forgetting to include) I’m hereby inagurating a special Pass the Popcorn Mini-Series. I’m posting some of my thoughts now, in anticipation of revisiting the subject later. (Don’t worry, not too often. But we are going to have to find something to write about on Fridays after the summer movie season dies down, and this will help fill the gap.)

Oh, before I forget:

(HT xkcd)

There are already some haters out there, like John Podhoretz in the Weekly Standard, who are offended – nay, outraged – that a comic book movie is getting the kind of praise The Dark Knight is getting. Well, OK, it ain’t Shakespeare, but that’s apples and oranges. Let’s take a similar example – say, a mob movie. Podhoretz never misses an opportunity to share his opinion that The Godfather is the best movie ever made. And I agree that The Godfather deserves to be taken seriously as a great work of art. But it is a mob movie. If The Godfather can be great, why not this?

Unforgivably, Podhoretz works out his anger by spoiling as much of the moive as he can get away with. So don’t read it until after you’ve seen the movie. (Reading the spoilers in this blog entry is of course an entirely different matter.)

It’s readily apparent from Podhoretz’s review what’s really eating him: he loves the old, wild and carefree tradition of superheroes from the Silver Age, recently resurrected so dazzlingly in Iron Man. That tradition got killed off in the 1980s, in large part due to Frank Miller’s amazing work in reinventing Batman, and Podhoretz resents that this type of superhero has crowded his preferences out of the market.

(As an aside, Frank Miller looks to have come way down in the world, artistically speaking; to judge by the preview they ran in front of Dark Knight, Miller’s newest project is to take Will Eisner’s treasure The Spirit and turn it into a porno movie. But all will be forgiven if Holy Terror, Batman! ever actually sees the light of day.)

I sympathize with Podhoretz. One of the best comics ever drawn is Scott McCloud’s ZOT!, which came out when the Dark and Serious school was at its height, as an attempt to rescucitate the wild and carefree hero. (According to McCloud’s introduction, it was especially a reaction against the literally murderous nihilism of Watchmen, which, alas, now looks like it’s finally going to get the movie they’ve been threatening to make of it for decades. Yes, there was a lot of real storytelling genius in Watchmen. That’s what makes it so horrible – to see such genius used to glorify cynicism and murder.)

But while most of the Dark and Serious stuff was crud, let’s face it, most of the Wild and Carefree stuff that preceded it was also crud. ZOT! and the new Iron Man are jewels, but jewels in the rough. So was Miller’s original Dark Knight Returns, and so is the new Dark Knight.

And then there’s the politics. There’s a handy precis of the issues, with links, here if you’re interested. My take: The Dark Knight probably isn’t directly about the war on terror. It’s about things that are universal. (Ever since Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns, Batman has periodically been used to explore these issues – meaning we don’t need to bring in the war on terror to explain why these issues are present in a Batman movie.) But of course if these things are universal then they’re as present in the war on terror as everywhere else, so the application of the movie’s subject matter to the war on terror in the viewer’s mind is perfectly valid. 

Having unburdened myself of these reactions to the reactions to the movie, do I have time left today to say anything about the actual movie? Just briefly.

Warning: Believe with Caution

The Dark Knight seems to be primarily about moral hypocrisy. People are not “basically good.” All human beings are both good and evil. However, it’s not in our nature to admit this about ourselves; we have to pretend that we’re good. And the same hypocrisy manifests at the social level – society, being made up of human beings, is not “basically good” but is both good and evil. However, in order to keep from becoming aware of our own evil, lest we should have to admit the truth about ourselves, we also have to sheild ourselves from other people’s evil. If we admitted that everyone else was not “basically good,” it would be really hard to avoid raising the question about ourselves. And so we have to pretend that everybody is “basically good.”

The Joker is out to expose our hypocrisy. His ultimate goal isn’t to kill, it’s to corrupt. He would say that he isn’t out to corrupt us, but to make us admit to the corruption that’s already there in our hearts. But to “admit” to the courrption in the Joker’s sense is really to surrender to it – to become “corrupt” on a whole different level.

This, incidentally, is why it was such a good decision to give the Joker no backstory (and not just by omission but by the Joker’s deliberate obfuscation about his own past). As Chris Nolan has said (I’m paraphrasing), this Joker isn’t a person, he’s a primal force. My hypothesis: the reason this Joker has to be a primal force and not a person is because he has to stand outside of our hypocrisy. The Joker’s place in the narrative requires him to be, not both good and bad, but all bad. And while the Joker is right that all people are bad, it’s also true that all people are good – therefore the Joker, being all bad, can’t be a person.

On the individual level, the Joker’s mission is manifested in the “one rule” dynamic between Batman and the Joker. As all real Batman fans know, Batman’s one rule is that he doesn’t kill people. The Joker’s goal for the Batman is to induce him to break his one rule – thereby proving that his rule is really a construction of self-righteous hypocrisy.

Here the influence of Miller’s Dark Knight Returns is obvious, although Miller’s Joker is primarily motivated by a desire for mass murder and cares about Batman’s one rule only secondarily:

Late Nite Talk Show Host “Dave”: You’re said to have only killed about six hundred people, Joker. Now don’t take this the wrong way, but I think you’ve been holding out on us.

Pansy Liberal Psychologist: This is a sensitive human being here, Dave. I won’t let you harrass-

Joker: I don’t keep count . . . I’m going to kill everyone in this room.

Dave: Now that’s darn rude.

At the social level, the Joker is out to stop Gotham City’s resurgent belief in justice, embodied (in different ways) by Batman and Harvey Dent. I wish there had been an opportunity to establish more tangibly the positive impact that Dent’s mob cleanup was having on the city; it would have made us feel more urgently the real stakes that the Joker was playing for.

What the heck is this guy’s name again? They said it, like, five times in the movie. You would think I’d remember.

And that leads to the big twist at the end – maybe the best twist I’ve ever seen in a movie: the good guys have to defend hypocrisy. Of course it would be great if society could admit the truth about its own corruption and still strive to uphold justice anyway. But fallen human nature doesn’t work that way.

All my life, I’ve hated those cheesy TV shows where they decide to cover something up because “people need heroes.” Even the Simpsons, when they set out to parody this, couldn’t quite bring themselves to pull the trigger. It’s not done as a parody when Lisa decides not to reveal that Jebediah Springfield was actually a notorious pirate; they play it straight.

But The Dark Knight makes it work. People really do need their heroes, and their heroes really are fallen people. Ergo, people really do need hypocrisy. The reason I buy this in The Dark Knight when I’ve rejected it in all previous incarnations is because The Dark Knight doesn’t try to make it out to be a good thing. It’s wrong that people need hypocrisy – that people need to have heroes before they’ll agree to uphold justice and do good and so forth. It’s ugly and stupid and evil. As Dr. Surridge says in the original V for Vendetta comic (not the dreadful movie version), “There’s something wrong with us.”

Yes, it’s wrong that people need hypocrisy – but since they do need it, it’s not necessarily wrong to supply it.

Hold that thought. More to come. Stay tuned!

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Posted by Greg Forster