Review: The Dark Knight, Part III

In our final installment, we will discuss how the antagonist moves those minor characters through thematic and plot-centric choices.

All of these momentous decisions are, of course, generated by the actions of the antagonist, the main instigator of conflict. Many articles, essays, reviews, and adulations have been written and rewritten towards gaining an analytical triangulation on the Joker’s character, and with good reason. I myself, perhaps in a later article, look to be writing a more in depth study about the Joker’s role in changing the landscape in cinematic superhero, and in some cases purely cinematic, history. For now, the Joker can be explained not only as an antagonist to Batman (the protagonist), but also as a representation of the thematic opposites that Batman chooses to crusade against. Though I would be the first to admit that the Joker in “The Dark Knight” is easily one of the most effective villains in recent cinematic memory, to say that he is the greatest cinematic villain of all time is premature, and to say that this representation of the Joker constitutes the greatest example of supervillainy of all time is just plain ludicrous and insulting. Again, more on that at a later date. Suffice it to say that the Joker’s most effective traits as it pertains to this movie is how he fulfills the function of a true villain, which constitutes the roles of both an antagonist (an instigator in the plot of the movie opposed to that of the protagonist) and an impact character (a symbol for themes representing “the wrong way to go,” also known in very rudimentary terms as a “bad guy”). The term villain has been quite overused in recent years and is thrown around with impunity without knowledge of its actual connotation. Now you can impress your friends: a “villain,” by definition, must be both an antagonist (plot function) and a bad guy (thematic function). A character can be just one of these and still not be a villain. Yet everyone, viewer and scholar alike, still seems to confuse and intermix these three terms. What is plain is that the Joker, in these contexts, represents one of the most effective examples of cinematic villainy.

It is plainly obvious what the Joker’s antagonistic role is in terms of plot development: his being given control of a great majority of organized crime in Gotham City leaves this subject pretty self-explanatory. Rather, it is the thematic opposition to the main character, Batman, that sets him apart from other plot-centric villains, such as Hans Gruber from “Die Hard” (or practically any other action movie hero). To explore these implications, one must first determine what the Joker’s stated purpose is to the dynamics of the theme. While it may be easy to label the Joker as “chaos,” this explanation is not quite adequate. The Joker represents many other things too: criminality first comes to mind, along with comparisons to predatory animals. These are good enough to express the Joker’s theme, but how to explain the Joker’s character dynamics? Fortunately, the Nolans made that connection much easier for the audience. Christopher and Johnathan Nolan are artistic film, character movie writers at heart, and as such can’t avoid slipping in self-aware proclamations from their main characters. Alfred pegged Joker’s character to a bullseye when he said that he just “wants to see the world burn.” That, stated, is his main motivation. His secondary motivations come from Joker’s own quotes about himself, when he claims that he is a “dog chasing cars” and a “mad dog.” It is the former proclamation that reveals how he goes about his work, in addition to the why. And ingeniously, this casual statement is a setup to the reason why Joker’s character is allowed to evolve and change throughout the movie, making him a much more potent villain.

Quentin Tarantino said famously in a Charlie Rose interview that he was disappointed that so many filmmakers have forgotten one of the main ingredients of a good story, namely, that it must evolve up until the very end. You should never know the ending of a movie after watching the first five minutes, as is the case with 98% of all movies nowadays (indeed, Tarantino’s movies always kept us guessing until the very end, from “Pulp Fiction” to “Kill Bill” to “Inglorious Basterds,” and this style was the norm for movies in Hollywood’s Golden Age). Because of this unfortunate trend, the movie’s villain becomes little more than an annoying, cloying obstacle that does little more than provide a sideshow distraction until the audience gets back to the plot. Hardly any villain in the last two decades, save most notably for Anthony Hopkins’s Hannibal Lecter, has been given the opportunity to evolve as the story evolves, becoming a true psychological terror. Joker’s “dog chasing cars” philosophy gives him the perfect excuse to morph between each act and develop into a true menace for Batman. Consider the unfolding of Joker’s character, which ironically begins at the end of the previous movie, “Batman Begins,” where he attempted to poison the city’s water supply. He since moved on to stealing money from the mob, just because. He then decides to join the mob to make even more money, then wants to unmask Batman, then wants to “give Gotham a better class of criminal,” and finally moves to destroy the moral fabric of Gotham and prove that the world is just as crazy as he is. He does this by turning Harvey Dent into Two-Face and it’s a wonderfully complex ladder that challenges Batman’s character, and the audience’s, every step of the way

Overall, “The Dark Knight” is a mindbending odyssey through what is sure to be a model for many summer action movies to come. While it’s not as revolutionary as, say, “Star Wars,” its nature suggest an evolutionary step in the presentation of action/adventure and superhero movies. It may not be absolutely perfect, but I will gladly pay $10 to see it again, and that’s all that the filmmakers need to aim for. Excelsior!

Concept: A-

Direction: A-

Acting: A-

Plot: B+

Theme: A+

Character Dynamics: A

Main Character: A-

Final Grade: A-

Review: The Dark Knight, Part II

In part one of the review for “The Dark Knight,” we discussed overall content, initial reaction, and basic plot. Today we will explore character development and how it relates to the overall story.

The story unfolds like a chess game, as both sides capture each other’s pawns and major pieces to finally check the kings, in this case Dent and Batman on one side and Joker on the other. What’s most astounding to me about the story is that so much happens in terms of character development and dynamics that have very little effect on the overall plot. In fact, the ONLY major turning point in the plot, besides the ending, is the capture of Harvey Dent and Rachel Dawes by the Joker’s mob. That’s it. It’s amazing. There are so many action setpieces, so many explosions, so many shootouts, and so many chases in the story that it’s hard to realize that they all have very little to do with the plot. To wit: what did the extended scene in Hong Kong do for the overall plot? Or the deaths of Commissioner Loeb, or the judge? Or the scenes concerning Gotham General Hospital? Those were all major scenes, with major action set pieces. Yet they had little to do with the overall plot. So what was the point? The answer, for those who know me, makes me very happy indeed. It’s all about character development. That’s right ladies and gentlemen, Christopher Nolan just snuck in one humdinger of a Trojan Horse: a $200 million character movie disguised as a summer action superhero franchise movie. And nobody seems to have noticed. It will probably go down in history as one of the greatest audience cons of all time. Bravo, I say.

The real meat of the story, the points that lie beyond the obvious, are in the effects that the main characters, Batman, Dent, and Joker, have on the rest of the characters and on the plot. They are the ones the story revolves around, and what’s important is the ripples they create in the main plot by their actions, which spur the minor characters into action themselves. As any film student knows, drama is conflict, and the very meaningful decisions made by the main characters trickle down and influence the minor characters to the point where they themselves have to make their own moral decisions. Even the plot itself, the war between two opposing sides, has its roots in the themes surrounding the effects these characters have on others. Since the plot itself is so thin, the story becomes about the themes the main characters reveal about the plot. It’s not a story about two sides fighting, or even something more thematic, like “government vs. crime.” No, it goes much deeper than that. It’s at once good vs. evil, order vs. chaos, understanding vs. ignorance, innocence vs. responsibility, strength vs. weakness, and duty vs. feeling, all so wonderfully metasized by the flipping of the scarred coin. Which side will it land on next? That, in itself, becomes the plot: a war of diametric opposites. The main theme, the main message of the movie, is that there’s no such thing as a two-headed coin. And the only main character who realizes this fact is the one main character still standing at the end: the Batman. The minor characters, like in all good character studies, are pawns of the story used to define the ongoing ideological battle between the main characters. But it’s the Batman, the main character, who is able to see all sides of this theme at once and base his choices, the choices of a main character, which by definition carry the film.

The minor characters, though the story revolves around the three main characters, are likewise affected by the choices of the main characters. While in most action-driven summer movies, these minor characters would be little more than superficial personalities built to service the driving action (as in, who gets killed next? Or who’s the lucky ones in the car chase that has absolutely nothing to do with character dynamics or theme?), in “Dark Knight” they are given dimension through their strong moral choices. Since the plot itself is so uncompromisingly broad, the minor characters have relatively major roles (compared to most action movies) to play in the weaving of the overall theme. Supporting characters like Rachel Dawes, Alfred, Lucius Fox, Jim Gordon, and others make momentous moral choices that would practically constitute main character status in most popcorn-chompers. Consider Rachel’s choosing of a life married to Harvey Dent, Alfred’s decision to burn Rachel’s letter, Lucius’s declaration of resignation, and Gordon’s decision to have himself declared dead, not to mention the moral dilemmas that entire crowds of people are challenged with by the antagonist (whereas in most movies this crowd would be little more than cannon-fodder) exposes the incredible thematic depth of Nolan’s work.

In our third and final installment, we will discuss the Joker’s role in the story, and in cinematic villainy in general.

Review: The Dark Knight, Part I

I’m going to begin my odyssey through the ocean of mass entertainment with some reviews of popular films, and hopefully will provide a little more for the imagination than a mere observation of the finished works. To start, I will be commentating on one of the most popular movies of all time, based on one of the most popular fantasy characters of the modern age: Christopher and Johnathan Nolan’s “Batman: The Dark Knight.”

The vast majority of the common moviegoing public remembers “The Dark Knight” as the time when the summer blockbuster became edgier, more self-referential, darker. A good percentage of that audience also remember “Batman Begins” as being the moment when the “comic book” or “superhero” movie got its edge. And there are some who remember when it was Frank Miller’s “Dark Knight Returns” and “Daredevil,” along with Alan Moore’s “Watchmen,” “Swamp Thing,” and “Batman: the Killing Joke” that put the edge in superhero comics way back in the mid-1980s. While I hesitate to call “Dark Knight” a work as influential and genre-blowing as the aforementioned comics, it certainly bears notice as that line in the sand that will influence summer action movies and comic book/superhero films for years to come.

Christopher and Johnathan Nolan, as very established auteurs, have many strong points and few weak ones. Easily my favorite aspect of their filmmaking is that they never treat the audience as stupid. Every scene in “The Dark Knight” is full of plot-centric dialogue that whizzes by at a Flash’s pace, and never pauses to take a breath. The net effect is facilitated by the fact that the audience never feels that the Nolans are trying to outpace them (as some all-too-clever action plots tend to do), and the result is that the pacing keeps up a “not too fast, not too slow” metronome that keeps the audience infinitely glued to their seats. This, and many other qualities, outshine the few weak points in their work, such as a tendency for some characters to be over-philosophical and self-aware, which occasionally distracts from the fantasy.

Taken as a whole, “The Dark Knight” is a thrill ride and philosophical exercise wrapped in a batbox, a celebration for a monumental character in popular Americana that has been long overdue. Indeed, Christopher Nolan’s direction and Johnathan Nolan’s screenplay are helped by the very enthusiastic performances of Christian Bale (Batman) and Aaron Eckhart (Harvey Dent), not to mention the out-of-this-world extravaganza produced by Heath Ledger’s take on the Joker. Like in “Batman Begins,” the supporting character roles are given to an A-list supporting squad, which back the emotional heart of the story up with serious aplomb.

The many strengths of the filmmaking greatly overshadow the few flaws in the overall production, but the flaws are certainly still there. Though I will always have a sentimental spot in my heart for the more fantasy-inspired versions of Batman (perhaps a topic for a later column), I do not count the all-too-realistic account of a fantasy character to be a flaw in the production. Instead, in the intention of being a balanced critic, I will have to resort to nitpicking to find the major weaknesses of the work. These include, but are not limited to, the serious uber-planning required for the Joker’s schemes (seriously, how do they seem to work down to the last inch?), the bloated feeling of Act Three addendum to the addition of Two-Face, the superfluous and relatively unnecessary Hong Kong scene, and the fact that Christian Bale’s Batman voice sounds less the menacing superhero and more like the Batman has a rather severe cold. These problems, while slightly distracting and questionable, are overpowered by the tremendous quality of the rest of the work.

Christopher Nolan’s “Dark Knight” bears little resemblance to any previous “Batman” franchise, and in an almost perfect blend of auteur and franchise filmmaking, combines his own postmodern and almost self-aware cinematic techniques with the touchstones of the Batman franchise to make a film that practically writes the book on adapting comics to film. While it may seem obvious to say that Nolan’s Batman differs from the old Adam West hoary hoedowns of the 1960s (holy alliteration Batman!) in its gritty realism, what will shock some young or casual moviegoers is that this Batman is far more realist than even the gritty Batman comics and animated television show of the early 1990s. Even those Batmans had Batplanes and Mr. Freeze and the Joker’s signature laughing gas, while this new Batman ignores even those fantastical elements to present, presumably, a more “down-to-earth” realism feeling.

“The Dark Knight’s” plot, on the surface at least, feels simple. By the beginning of the film, Batman and police Lieutenant Gordon have all but rounded up the entire Gotham mob and have been preparing a trail of marked bills to catch the remains of the city’s criminal elite. The mob, in defense, decides to go corporate, and starts dealing with a wealthy Hong Kong businessman who can launder their money in and out of the country, free from police interference. Into this setting enters two opposing wild cards: new district attorney Harvey Dent, determined to stop organized crime once and for all in Gotham City, and The Joker, an eccentric thief who has been stealing millions of dollars from mob-controlled banks for no particular reason. Harvey quickly becomes a leader in Batman’s camp, The Joker is hired by the mob to try to stop Dent and the Batman, and away we go. That, in all honesty, is the plot: these two sides battle for control of the city. Of course, the genius points in Nolan’s film reside in the complicated subtleties and subplots, the super-fast pacing, and the symbolic motifs found throughout. Like all astute filmmakers, Christopher Nolan knows that it’s not what the action is that matters; it’s how it unfolds that creates the art. And the art in “The Dark Knight,” most definitively, is the character development through these subplots.

In the next installment, we will further discuss the implications of the individual characters as they relate to the plot of the movie.

Chapter 1

Introductions are easily the most awkward and embarrassing sections of any creative work to write, even if the supposed "creative" work may lean more towards the journalistic or scientific. They often have little to do with the proceeding series of articles, mostly because an introduction is written only when a select few articles are completed, and as any true professional will tell you, the topics of a series of columns can vary wildly due to the writer's hopefully overreactive imagination. And realistically, the introduction has the dubious distinction of being written in a more formative tone, which will surely be contrary to the far more informal and exciting articles that will follow. So there's more confusion for everyone, which is just what you want as a writer whose primary job has to be to hold an audience. Thanks a lot.

Of course, it's obvious what the reader is thinking: "entertain me" (sure to be followed with "...or I'm going to start reading that ____ book or put in the ____ game and not pay the money to read another word"). Well, in the first place, you lose, because you didn't pay any money to read this blog in the first place. But more importantly, introductions are not, for some reason, designed to entertain. I'm not exactly sure why. They're like thesis statements, the kind everyone hands in when writing a scholarly research article or Master's thesis. "In this paper, I will prove that x cannot exist without y, proving the direct correlation of..." at which point anyone not paid to read will have pulled the fire alarm. Again, not intended to entertain. So I'm doing my best to make this as bland and boring as possible, and I hope you will all agree that I have succeeded beyond reproach in that regard.

The title, for those of you interested enough to ask, refers to a philosophy gaining ground in the creative community pertaining to the idea that the so-called "story" format patronized by practically every screen- or stage-writing "how-to" book on the market (who seek to, for example, break a movie down from an art to a science by explaining the EXACT number of pages needed for each act, the precise emotions of every character, etc.). Many professionals have rejected this cookie-cutter story archetype and have instead advocated a more artful approach to storytelling, one designed more around pacing, basically making how a character says a line more important than what he says. It's definitely a newer opinion, but one that has grounding in the films and creative endeavors of yesteryear.

So this is (mostly) what you will find in this blog: reviews and critiques of films, games, television shows, or whatever has even slightly a thing to do with mass media and pop culture. Also, be prepared for the occasional out-of-left-field observations on various marketing strategies that most entertainment companies have but can't figure out why they work. I hope that satisfies. I'm not sure about the correlation, though. And I don't have any tables or statistics. But what I do have is an introduction. And that is something.

I hope you will enjoy.