The Long, Dark, Good Knight
I quite liked The Dark Knight.
Christopher Nolan and his collaborators quite carefully walked the line, as others have already noticed, between a classic movie cop drama and a comic book. This is inherently the strength and the weakness of the work. The mere effort to combine the two, combined with the degree of filmmaking skill involved, makes this film not only enjoyable, but somewhat important.
However, the schizophrenia of the effort is also what keeps this film from being a masterpiece on any level.
I am going to avoid spoilers in this review. Thing is, it’s hard to imagine that any more than 10% of the audience for this film don’t know the biggest “spoiler” is coming before walking into the theater. How it comes is, it would seem, the only surprise.
Anyway…
What Nolan is clearly reaching for is a Godfather-esque effort. You can feel all the corrections of his first film… all the improvements by spending more freely… all the “stuff we would have done differently.” And almost all of them are, indeed, improvements. Maggie Gyllenhaal in for Katie Holmes was a step up, though in the context of the two films, switching actresses was unfortunate. Either one appearing in both would have been better. And eliminating Wayne Manor and The Batcave for a penthouse and array of basement hideouts is a daring, odd, and nearly unspoken call.
Still, it speaks to Nolan’s agenda. This is not a Batman movie… this is a 2008 version of The Untouchables with The Batman as Elliot Ness, The Joker as Al Capone, much better toys, and, it seems, a topper.
Great.
But the topper is a bit unwieldy, in that it makes the film too long to sustain by pushing beyond the main story – DePalma and Mamet’s The Untouchables was 119 minutes – and too short to do the second push of Nolan’s thematic idea real justice at 152 minutes. Unlike many long films, the problem with The Dark Knight is that it is too short.
The movie works really well – however pitch black and undeniably inappropriate for any kid who isn’t over 12 or playing Grand Theft Auto with mom & dad’s blessing – in delivering The Joker’s mayhem in the first 100 minutes or so. (Actual timings were impossible as, for the third time in my career, my camera-free Blackberry, aka my movie watch, was disallowed from the screening.
Ledger is terrific, though the Oscar talk is pretty goofy… something I am convinced he would agree with were he alive. Ledger’s embrace of sheer mayhem and recklessness in playing The Joker makes for a perfect counterbalance for the sphincter-tight self-seriousness of The Batman, as played by Christian Bale.
But that is not where Nolan & Co are really heading. For all the magnificent IMAX landscapes and cool action sequences (this film is destined to provoke many discussions of who Nolan was stealing from, who he topped, and who he fell short of), Nolan’s real interest is in the bigger moral question that goes well beyond The Batman and The Joker. Faced with chaos, how will the civilians act? Who is willing to break rules and what is the cost of breaking them or nor breaking them? How close is any society from anarchy?
When it is limited to the two central costumed figures, it is pure Untouchables. “I have become what I beheld” translates quite directly to Joker’s “You complete me,” which also harkens back to Tom Burton’s controversial choice to have his Joker’s origin come down to “I made you… and you made me.” Moreover, The Joker suggests directly that they, as a pair, are nature in the Garden of Gotham, the immovable object and the unstoppable force.
But the “extra part” of the movie, the topper, is not about them, it’s about about collateral damage… real humans in a real city with real ambitions to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
And that is where it feels like Nolan is forced – by time – to restrain himself. For the first time in the movie, characters have to explain themselves, over and over and over again. (Well, one in particular.) Strong ideas don’t seem as clear and complete as they do earlier in the film. And the keynote of the last part of the film is delivered by a character we really don’t know (though the actor will be familiar to everyone), while other grace notes are offered in montage.
I wanted that movie that Nolan was chasing. I really wanted that movie. But as is the nature of the dramatic arts, there is a mystical and undeniable gut feeling when you know that even the best film has come to its natural end. And in The Dark Knight, this occurs more than half an hour before the picture actually ends… maybe an hour… before the issue of collateral damage.
With $50 million and 45 minutes more to paint in – a second film containing about 45 minutes of this one – Nolan surely could have delivered his Godfather. He would have the time to more completely explore the powerful issues of how civilians and police and criminals and yes, even costumed folks, behave when they are in the midst of what feels like unstoppable anarchy. He would have the time to really give a proper middle to the story that is there to push past The Joker’s story. And most importantly, he would have had a bit more time to deal with Bruce Wayne and The Batman trying to come up with the right answer to it all.
From a purely business angle, this film will absolutely be limited by its content. Word of mouth about the personal and realistic violence of the film will keep women and younger kids out of the theater after opening weekend and waiting for DVD. And the length of the movie will cost a screening a day on opening weekend… more in big multis where four or five screenings a day will be lost. Obviously, there will still be plenty of room for a massive opening weekend gross. But the pre-word-of-mouth opportunity will be lessened. And no matter how good the film, the darkness will be a factor.
Had this been two 110 minute films, the box office for both would have been nearly identical, doubling the total revenue while increasing costs by roughly a third. A win all around.
But… The Dark Knight is what it is. And that’s still quite good… and explosively good for the base that is busting, waiting for this film.
There may be a director’s cut someday with the 30 minutes that was apparently in a cut as recently as two months ago. Maybe it will speak to these issues. Maybe not.
But The Dark Knight is a terrific film. And though it is an effort to be a retro, high quality crime drama in a cape and cowl, in looking back, it is looking forward and breaking new ground. It is the first big studio comic book movie since the pre-Superman: The Movie era to try to make more of less, while at the same time offering all the more that studios think they need to deliver.
It is fascinating that this is coming from the same studio in the same summer as The Wachowski’s latest groundbreaker. I believe that The Wachowskis got caught up in their Matrix sequels with an idea they didn’t completely know they were caught up in, with each of their three films arguing a step in the evolution of Neo, each episode closer tied to spirituality than the next. (Kubrick’s way of fixing this was to keep re-shooting endlessly… but the puzzle of Eyes Wide Shut still kept that masterpiece audience unfriendly.) The packaging of the central idea in the first Matrix film was so neat and the packaging in the second and third film so uncertain – you have to work hard for it – that it provoked rather than seduced audiences. Likewise, with Speed Racer, they busted the genre brilliantly, but potential audiences never got the real central idea – family, however structured, is everything and subsuming the personal for those you love is an honor, not a burden – and were distracted exclusively by the racing effects.
And here we have Christopher Nolan saying that you can do a straight drama with guys in wild costumes and live by most of the rules of straight drama. It is the skill and convention of Nolan’s action sequences that will keep audiences close to home as he breaks new ground.
Nolan is working with the same crayon box as The Coen Bros, bouncing from Blood Simple to Miller’s Crossing to No Country For Old Men. The Dark Knight is big time philosophy… which should get unanimous raves, since critics who don’t like to think too much will be able to understand it. (Some, like Peter Travers, will just want to be quoted and will hyperbolize as much as they can to win the quoting wars.) But still, it deserves some unanimity of support and appreciation. It must be hailed for both its ambitions and execution.
The Dark Knight fails to reach the highest level of the form – not the comic book form, the movie form – because it ultimately has to cut away from its ambitions and blow some stuff up real good. If Nolan had the opportunity to have a more even balance between explosions and ideas, it could have been that masterpiece that was prayed for.
A spoiler review will follow in a few days to discuss the many sequences and ideas worth discussing in depth. I’m going to see the film again before writing that one.
“The Dark Knight fails to reach the highest level of the form – not the comic book form, the movie form – because it ultimately has to cut away from its ambitions and blow some stuff up real good. If Nolan had the opportunity to have a more even balance between explosions and ideas, it could have been that masterpiece that was prayed for.”
That’s really interesting. I felt exactly the same way about “Hancock” when I stepped out of the theater (though Hancock probably didn’t hold the same degree of potential as Batman did).
If Hancock had been made as a movie about a superhero rather than as a superhero movie it could have been so much more than it was. But in the end it had to rear in its philosophical side to conform to the confines of the genre.
Sort of like a guy giving up on finding the woman of his dreams and settling for the boring but nice and conveniently available chick because his parents are pressuring him for some grandkids.
I believe it’s worth noting that the substition of Wayne Manor for a penthouse was something seen in 1970’s Batman comics and that a 13-issue miniseries,”Batman: The Long Halloween” (1996-1997,)the story which provides the primary inspiration for this film, introduces The Untouchables pastiche ( w/ Nolan’s film switching out that story’s primary antagonist, a serial killer called “Holiday”, for The Joker).
Not to take anything from the talented and ambitious Nolan, but the more I read about this film the more it appears as if a great deal of invention that he is being credited with are mostly wisely sampled elements of some of the more progressive stories in Batman’s 70-year history.
I have seen critics with good, valid points, trying each to either prove The Dark Knight is a masterpiece, or to try and debunk that notion. You know what? You´re both wrong. Only time, and of course personal tastes of each moviegoer, can be the true judge of the merits or non-merits of that label. The rest is basically educated guesses. But still, you so far all seem to agree it´s a helluva film, and isn´t that pretty damn great already?
Poland always seems to want to champion (or at least get excited about) films that ultimately no one cares about down the line (Phantom of the Opera, Dreamgirls, Hancock, Lars and the Real Girl). But when it comes to a film with solid positive buzz and lots of excitement from the public, he simply has to make it clear what is “wrong” with the movie.
Even his first line in this article, “I quite liked The Dark Knight” suggests either that he definitely has some issues with it and/or that he’s “surprised” that he liked it. The word “quite” seems to say, “Wow, I actually found it less problematic than I expected.”
I also like how he feels the need to sweep the Ledger buzz under the rug right off the bat, deeming it “goofy.” This coming from the guy who actually felt and hoped, however brief, that a dark horse Best Picture nod for Lars & the Real Girl was even remotely plausible.
By the way, Hancock was not misunderstood by the real critics. And the ending was not well-deserved if you paid close attention. Sometimes pundits need to know their limits.
I find it interesting that most reviews discuss the notion of whether or not The Dark Knight deserves “classic” or “masterpiece” status.
Firstly, those titles really cannot be taken seriously without the passage of time to reflect.
Secondly, shouldn’t a film critic review a film inside his own bubble and entirely from his own perspective?
Obviously it is impossible to ignore the hype surrounding the film, but I just find it interesting how a clearly good or great film is critiqued because it is not perfect.
Why does it have to be perfect? It is what it is.
Comparing it to The Godfather is futile because they are such different films from different eras, and even if Nolan comes out and says this is his Godfather, it is still only signifying that it is the film he is most proud of, and is what he intended to make and achieve, whether we like it or not.
Sorry to ramble but a fair portion of that review seemed to be too pointed towards the hype and hoopla surrounding the film, and not the film itself.
http://dreams-of-a-nobody.blogspot.com/
Interesting review, but it is trying to hard to be different. Not to mention I have a tough time respecting a professional critic if they refer to “Tom Burton” instead of Tim Burton. The man is one of the most well known and famous directors in the world, it’s like refering to Alfred Hithcock as “Alan”.
Still typos happen, so I kept reading and had to come across him actually giving Speed Racer some kind of credit, and didn’t even do that well. A movie doesn’t get credit for having a theme, all movies have themes however poorly executed. Audiences got the point, what they didn’t like was the whole concept and the execution, it was too childish and glitzy, if we were all preteens who got off on glitz then we would have enjoyed it, but because we aren’t we didn’t. Thats like saying Ed Wood’s movies hearts are in the right place, so get past the fact that they aren’t any good.
Hi. Don’t mean to jump on the political correctness stump, but I must say I find it a little insulting that you say women won’t see this after opening weekend because of the violence. The majority of my girl friends are incredibly excited about this movie and having multiple viewings, and they don’t scare easily. Your comment draws up the image of women’s ‘delicacy’ being offended. I know that’s probably not what you meant, but I wanted to warn you that when you say something like that, you’re going to offend a few people. If you say ‘some people’ won’t come back, fine, no harm done. Say WOMEN won’t come back, and whoops.
As a review, I rather like it, and I think you made some good points. If you want some advice (my roommate is a critic), always check people’s names before you spell them. And use spell check. And try to keep it brief, you repeated yourself in a few places. Other than that, good job.