Our Own Private Gotham, by John Ostrander
The newest Batman movie, The Dark Knight, is doing a nice bit of smackdown with all kinds of records, as well it should. It’s taking in money hand over fist. There are even whispers that it could wind up outgrossing Titanic, although I don’t think that will happen myself. The film will probably be up for several Oscars next year including, among others, Best Picture and possibly Best Actor for the late Heath Ledger’s incendiary portrayal of the Joker.
I’ve seen it, I loved it, I was stunned by it like everyone else. Best Batman movie ever. Possibly the best superhero movie ever. What really interests me, however, are the reports on the demographics of just who is going to see this film. It’s not just we comic geeks. It’s not just young males looking for adrenaline and excitement and explosions (although the film also has plenty of those). It’s everybody. Young and old, male and female, all colors, all races. That makes me ask a different question.
What is our reaction to this movie telling us about ourselves?
There’s a zeitgeist going on. You see this every once in a while – a film or a book or some music taps into the national psyche and expresses something that we, as a people, are feeling. I think the response to The Dark Knight shows it’s happening again.
Yes, the pre-opening buzz for the film was really positive. Heath Ledger’s death added a morbid curiosity. It had a terrific PR push. Anticipation was high. The response, however, is phenomenal. It’s doing better than the studio even hoped. So, again, I ask what is going on here?
Exploring this is going to involve talking freely about the film. If you haven’t seen the movie, go see it first. Experience it for yourself. This column will still be here when you’re done. In other words, Spoilers Ahead!
The central driving figure of The Dark Knight is the Joker as embodied by Heath Ledger. Some, including the film’s director Christopher Nolan, have described the Joker as a terrorist or an anarchist but there are political connotations to both those words that I think don’t fit. As Alfred says at one point, “There are some people who just want to see the world burn.”
The Joker is one those, becoming in this film more than even a mere psychopath. He’s an elemental force. He has no origin, no explanation in the film. He’s like Hurricane Katrina. Even Batman seems helpless before him. In a confrontation between the two in a jail cell, none of Batman’s theatrics work. The Joker’s not afraid of the Batman’s menace. Physical violence just gets him excited. He has no pity nor, from the way he uses his own henchmen, any loyalty.
The Joker plans for every eventuality, it seems. His appetite and ability for destruction is enormous. He explodes an entire hospital so that all is left is a gaping crater, eerily – and probably deliberately by the filmmaker – reminiscent of the holes in the ground that followed the attacks of 9/11, that still scar New York City, the original Gotham.
The Joker creates other monsters. He’s responsible for the scarring of Gotham City’s “White Knight,” crusading DA Harvey Dent, and then seduces him, bringing “Two-Face” around to the Joker’s way of thinking, making him another agent of chaos and terror. The Joker does this all with a terrible, maniacal glee. He has a definite worldview – we’re all freaks, deep inside, and he’s going to make us confront it. How far are we – how far is the Batman – willing to go to stop the Joker? What rules will we abandon to be free of the Joker?
According to Jungian psychology, we all have a shadow self, a darker version of ourselves. The Joker, far more than the Batman, is the ultimate expression of that. In this film, we get to confront that shadow self, even vicariously to live through it, to see it expressed in the safe version of a story being told. At least, that’s one way of looking at it, one explanation for the attraction of the film.
I think, however, that we are Gotham and the Joker represents the times we live in. It all seems so chaotic and so out of our control. The war in Iraq, the faltering economy, the price of oil, the fear of foreclosure, the cost of healthcare, the growing environmental disasters, growing religious fanaticism, the threat of terrorism – taken all together, it feels like chaos. It doesn’t matter who gets elected President in November; no one is going to clean all this up any time soon. It’s too big. Maybe it’s never going to get that much better.
That’s how it feels and that’s the Gotham City in this movie. It’s a victory when we don’t blow one another up.
The Batman doesn’t escape, either. He is pummeled physically, psychologically, and emotionally in the film. He cannot save the person for whom he most cares. The only way he sees to defeat the Joker’s plans at the end is to take Two-Face’s crimes – Harvey Dent’s sins – on himself. Doing so cuts Batman off from his allies – the Batsignal is smashed – and makes him a hunted outlaw. He does what he regards as necessary, as right, despite what others will think of him.
Sounds a lot like current American foreign policy.
I doubt, based on interviews given, if that was the director’s intent. I think, however, it is an underlying feeling for a lot – not all – of America and we respond to it in the film. We try to do the honorable thing, the right thing as we understand it, and many others are not going to understand it. Maybe we feel it as individuals; you do what you have to in order to keep a bad situation from getting worse.
In Gotham City, people will now believe that Batman has killed, including some cops. As Dent remarks in the movie’s now most quoted line, “You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” It may make his reputation more effective among the criminals the Batman hunts but it cuts him off from the rest of society. For them, it must make him a monster as much as the Joker is. The hero always pays a price; doing what is right is not easy or simple. Characters like the Batman simply tells us that sacrifice is necessary.
Maybe that’s the film’s final message and the secret of its allure. It tells us, shows us, that the times are hard and dangerous and that fixing them, maybe just surviving them, will cost us something. And that doing it is necessary. It defines our fears, confines them into two and a half hours, and lets us go back into the world encouraging us to do right.
Not bad for a film about a guy who dresses up as a bat to fight crime. Not bad at all.
John Ostrander has been known to write at least his fair share of Batman stories.
There is no doubt that this will be seen as the Summer of Comics Movies. Hollywood seems ready to start cranking out Super-Hero flicks the way it used to roll out movie musicals. Heck, even musicals are making a come back. Personally, I've seen Iron Man, Hellboy 2 and Dark Knight this year. I enjoyed Iron Man the most. It was the most optimistic and fun.Comics will not only be affecting the movies, but I think we will start seeing more and more Publishers, Writers and Artists start treating comics like glorified screenplay proposals. EZ Street is ahead of the game recognizing this trend. Platinum Studios seems to be in the business of trying to acquire the rights to as much intellectual property as it can, as quickly as possible while digging a huge hole of debt. I think the hope is, one of it's properties (like Cowboys and Aliens) will be licensed and make GONZO bucks at the box office. That way Platinum can prove that a comics company can become profitable without ever making profitable comics!
Russ,Most comics aren't that profitable. Licensing is where all the money is.While I agree that Iron Man is more fun that Dark Knight, Dark Knight is a superior movie. Iron Man is cool in a what-if-I had-billions-and-was-brilliant fantasy. Dark Knight makes us wonder exactly how close we are to being the villain, and what it would take to push us there.
I think this makes a lot of sense. In times like this, Batman is an especially attractive hero, I think, because he is a man who is incredibly skilled at fear and violence but knows when and where to draw the line, a quality we keep criticizing our government and ourselves for lacking. Indeed, just as the entire first film focused around the theme of how do you face/deal with your fear, this film had every central character faced with the question "how far will you go?" Gordon, Dent, Batman, even Lucius, Alfred and Rachel, all had to answer this question for themselves and I think that basic question is at the heart of so many of us today.How far do we go to solve our problems? And will we make a sacrifice that will make our lives uncomfortable (or considerably more dangerous, in Bruce's case) in order to serve the bigger picture, the greater good?I think this film also speaks to a cynicism that has been re-emerging in the U.S. (or perhaps it never left) that the true heroes are unsung. We're more willing to believe stories about a hero who saves the world but is hated or misunderstood by humanity than stories about a hero is who bright and shining, saves the day AND gets praised for it. We wish Superman were in the world, but deep down we relate more to Batman.Just my two cents. Excellent post.
Excellent post–there's a lot about this film that is definitely a reflection of this moment, and watched in a different decade with different economic and political circumstances would have a very different effect.I think one thing that we need to be careful of, though, is seeing the Dark Knight world as a reflection of our own, with essentially the same rules–it's not. Our world has a lot more ambiguity, a lot more unknowns, and right vs. wrong has a lot more wrenches thrown into it than even this movie did. My husband said it better than I am saying it:What I hadn't realized the film had done to me, was that it had taken me out of my world, where I read scores of foreign newspapers and accounts from watchdog groups to try to develop a sense of what's right and what's wrong. This film then dropped me squarely into another world, which tangentially resembled mine enough that I could get my moral bearings somewhat – but had taken out all the light grey area and replaced it with dark grey. Not a huge difference, but big enough.For the two and a half hours I was in that theatre, I would have given up any of my rights to catch the Joker. I would have gladly submitted myself to that cell phone 3d-mappy thing. I'd allow myself to be wiretapped. I'd probably stand up and sing God Bless Gotham, even though I'm a Buddhist and I don't believe in "God" proper. I'd let them put religion back into public schools, if only to help the kids make some sense out of this awful, awful world. For the two and a half hours I spent watching this movie, I was a victim of desperation.(http://awesomedbycomics.blogspot.com/2008/07/dark…)
Warning: Here's a Dark Knight Spoiler, whether you've seen the movie or not. There's a plot point I didn't get in The Dark Knight and it's at the CLIMAX of the movie. The Joker has threatened to blow up bridges and tunnels; he claims to have planted numerous bombs. We see cops searching the bridges and tunnels. The people are in a panic, terrified of hidden bombs. SO some of the good people of Gotham decide to evacuate the city and some of their most dangerous criminals by using two ferries. We are AVOIDING the explosives that the Joker has claimed to have placed on bridges and tunnels by using the Ferry System, yes? And yet, NOBODY thinks of checking either Ferry for explosives until the boats are full of passengers and in the middle of the harbor! Nobody. Not the World's Greatest Detective, Batman. Not Commissioner Gordon. Not any of the Cops on either Ferry before departure. And we aren't talking about little packages of easily concealed plastic explosive or gelignite; these are GIANT CARTOONY BARRELS of explosives with gift packages on top. The city is in a PANIC about explosives and nobody thinks to glance around in either ferry for them! It just makes NO sense, unless Scarecrow has filled the water main with the Elixir of Stupid.How does the Joker find any loyal followers to plant those explosives when he's willing to cavalierly kill his own men left and right, surgically implant explosives inside them and burn stacks of money? What is the incentive to being a follower of the Joker? Heath Ledger gives a creepy performance. He's good. He waggles his tongue like Louden Wainwright III singing "Dead Skunk". But I don't think it's Oscar worthy. Partly because the script has Ledger hitting the same dramatic notes again and again and again. "Do you want to know how I got these scars?" Again? No, but I'm sure you'll tell us, Joker.I liked The Dark Knight. A lot of stuff "blow'd up good, blow'd up real good!" It was fun as long as you are willing to turn off your brain a bit. But that doesn't make for the best superhero movie ever. It didn't even make for the best superhero movie of this Summer.
Similarly, when we're informed that explosives have been planted at one or more hospitals, why weren't police dispatched to protect/move Harvey? Okay, perhaps he wasn't the top priority when protecting the city, but to be the lowest priority?
Priority – Gotham General. Harvey Dent was in Gotham General.
I thought about both points about not checking the Ferry System or the Joker finding followers to create all the chaos. The plot hole is even worse than not checking the either Ferry, just how did the explosives get put on unnoticed in the first place? And how many henchmen were actually left at this point to do so? I also might have missed something in another scene – After the Joker set the mob's money on fire, were all the mob members there restrained? What stopped them then or later from killing the Joker?
Russ hit something here that I think actually goes deeper than a missed plot point. This movie did capture the vibe of 'how far would you go' and the ferry scene was the perfect example of humanity. You have a ferry full of criminals vs. a ferry full of honest citizens. Who will pull the trigger first and it goes back and forth back and forth until the gung-ho we gotta get them before they get us citizen can't pull the trigger and the criminal who demands the trigger tosses it out the window. The moral of that as I walked away from my local cinema is that maybe we shouldn't be so cynical and judgemental. Preconceived notions were thrown out the window with the trigger. Sometimes the honest citizen can be the villian and the hardened criminal can be the hero.But in terms of what Batman went through in the film was literally, to take a quote from John a 'We take what is given' situation. By the end of the film because of the Joker's machinations Batman is left with one choice for an honorable man sacrifice your reputation for the betterment of your community. What I took away from that is that you sacrifice something in order to achieve your goals. For Batman it was his reputation so Gotham still had hope, and each of us has sacrificed something in our lives to make our world around us a little better. Why it appeals to us and resonates is that it puts the difficult choices we have to make on a daily basis like 'do I need gas or groceries?' and dresses them up as superheroes with cool gadgets and a sweet ride.
I understand the accolades for Mr. Ledger's acting, but why haven't the praises been just as great (if not greter) for the writer of the script? It was the content, not the delivery, of the lines that made the movie as chilling as it was.