Dave's Raves 
Labyrinth Ledger
by David Garcia
Web site content © David Garcia

The Dark Knight
 

In probably the lowest key role of his entire career, Gary Oldman plays James Gordon.  The only truly incorruptible cop in Gotham.  An honest family man, it is Jim Gordon, who walks the dirty streets of Gotham surrounded by a corrupt system that breeds dishonesty, who suggests, more than anyone else, that there’s something in Gotham worth saving.  No institution is more corrupt than the police force.  Even Gordon’s hand picked major crimes unit, supposedly the best cops on the force, is stocked with men and woman who have all been investigated by internal affairs.  Aside from Jim Gordon, there’s no such thing as an honest cop.  The best you can hope for is one less corrupt than the others.  

Each of these characters is given a moment to shine in The Dark Knight.  Each of them have some effect on Batman, and none of them have small roles.  Every single one is integral to the movie.

Then there are the three main characters.  Its hard to discern lead from supporting characters when discussing this trio.  All three of them stand at the center of the film, and the actions of all three determine the fate of the entire city of Gotham.

Aaron Eckhart plays Harvey Dent, Gotham’s “white knight” district attorney.  Dent is the crusader Batman cannot be.  A man out in the open, daring anyone to come after him.  Dent’s pride is as great as his need to see justice done, and the two combined lead to an epic fall. Comic book fans know what will happen to Harvey Dent, but Eckhart plays him with such conviction and power that his eventual fate takes on the tone of Shakespearean tragedy.

There can be no doubt that Christian Bale is the best Batman ever put on screen.  Adam West is laughable.  Michael Keaton came close.  Val Kilmer excelled at playing the dark Batman, but failed to play playboy Bruce Wayne.  George Clooney played an excellent millionaire playboy,  but failed to embody Batman.  Christian Bale hits all the right notes. 










 

If you are a comic book fan, you’ve seen some variation of the following headline:  

“Biff! Pow! – Comic Books Grow up!”

In fact, you’ve seen some iteration of that insulting, patronizing phrase hundreds of times since the fabled year 1986 when the big two of “grown up” comic books, Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, and The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller hit stands.  (Of course, this ignores the presence of Spiegelman’s Maus, of all of R. Crumb’s work, Love and Rockets by Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez, and a score of other great works).  

The headline above is the sort of intellectual lazy writing that comes from someone who has no sense of the source material, or of the richness of the comic book medium. It comes from people who think “comic book” means Archie and Garfield and nothing else.  

The bad news is, with the advent of The Dark Knight, the sequel to Batman Begins, you can expect to see a whole lot more of these headlines.  

The good news is, its comic book movies and not comic books that have finally grown up.  (Again, this of course discounts American Splendor, A History of Violence, Ghost World, Akira,  and a host of other movies most people don’t realize had their genesis in comic books.) 

The Dark Knight, however, need not be labeled a “comic book movie.”  It is, pure and simply, a movie.  It’s a grand crime epic, as good as any crime movie conceived by Coppola, Scorsese, or Mann.   It’s a two and a half hour masterpiece that just happens to be about a guy in a Bat suit, in the same way that the Godfather II just happens to be about the Mafia.  

There is a rich, dark quality to the movie that permeates every scene, every shot.  Even in the daylight, the buildings are dark.  Parties are dominated by black clothes.  The most colorful character is the garishly clad Joker, who, in every way strikes a dissonant, chaotic chord.  His bright green hair and purple outfit don’t belong to the movie’s palate, and that is exactly the point. Even in appearance, it is clear that the Joker is not normal.

The movie is anchored by four key supporting roles.  Maggie Gyllenhaal as Rachel Dawes has probably the fewest lines. She represents hope.  She is Bruce Wayne’s hope for a future without Batman.  She is Harvey Dent’s hope for a future as well. And as one of the youngest characters in the movie, she is also Gotham City’s hope.  Young and principled, she’s the representation of a new era free of the corruption that has so long plagued the city.

The other three all represent some facet of the past.  They are the old guard, but all three are noble, untouched by the corruption of their city.

The first is Alfred Pennyworth, the Wayne family butler, and the man who, given that Bruce Wayne’s parents died when he was a child, raised Bruce Wayne.  Its rarely acknowledged, but its easily inferred that at least part of Bruce Wayne’s desire for justice and his strong moral code must have come from the butler that raised him. Michael Caine is wonderful for Alfred.  Like the court jester who is the only person that can tell the king the truth, Alfred is the only person allowed to be tart and sarcastic with Bruce Wayne.  He’s the man who can call him on his foolishness, and admonish him towards doing the right thing, but for all his disapproval, its also Alfred who continues to push Bruce Wayne to be the Batman he needs to be.  Several times in the film, including one very crucial moment, its Alfred who inspires Bruce Wayne to keep fighting.  The advice of Alfred is what sustains Batman, who himself is meant to be an inspiration to Gotham.

Morgan Freeman plays Lucius Fox, Bruce Wayne’s other conscience.  Its Lucius who crucially takes a moral stand designed to reign in Batman.  One of the fundamental problems of a vigilante is the slippery slope of law breaking.  Once you break one law, its easy to break them all.  Only a person with well defined boundaries can continue to act outside the law, and its Fox who brings Batman back from the brink the moment before he completely steps over the edge. It is never made explicit how much Fox knows about his employer’s secret life.  Clearly, he knows something, but they never quite come out and say what he knows.  And that is as it should be.

 

Bale can play Bruce Wayne, the tormented boy who lost his parents and who cannot stop seeking justice for that tragedy.  He can play the terrifying Batman, the dark avenger who seems less a man in a suit and more an unstoppable warrior.  And he can also play the frivolous playboy Bruce Wayne, the persona he’s had to adopt to keep anyone from guessing that such a shallow man could ever be the salvation of Gotham city.  

Then, of course, there is the late Heath Ledger as the Joker.  A lot has been said about his performance.  He’s virtually been awarded an Oscar.  Everyone has talked about the brilliance of his acting.   Since the movie has begun to built buzz, his accolades have reached hyperbolic levels. ...If anything, the praise is understated.  

If you didn’t know that it was Heath Ledger under the smudged white paint, you wouldn’t know it was an actor.  You would think that the Joker had come to life and was playing himself.  Ledger completely vanishes into the role, to create a villain as terrifying as anything ever seen on screen.  There is no doubt that the Joker is a madman, but Ledger is able to make his madness seductive in its terror.  You begin to understand, even empathize with the Joker through his shifting origin story.  You begin to see the twisted logic behind his actions, and yet, you never forget that you are looking into the black rimmed eyes of the devil. It is a terrifying work of genius, and Ledger deserves all the praise he has received and more.

There’s another character in the movie, one not played by an actor.  That character is Gotham City.  The movie is full of details.  Notice how often the skyline figures into the movie. More than once, Batman is perched on a rooftop, overlooking the city, or someone sits in front of an enormous window (Gotham City apparently has no buildings that do not contain full size windows), looking out.  The Joker also frequently looks up at Gotham, a madman caught in the streets, but still looking up into the Gotham skyline.  Try counting the number of times a camera swoops over the entire city, taking it in, you’ll soon find yourself doing nothing else.  

It is not Batman that the Joker is after.  It is Gotham, and Batman isn’t trying to stop the Joker.  He’s trying to save Gotham, and Gotham suffers tremendously.  A hospital is blown up, and the camera lingers on the devastation.   It is as heart breaking as the death of a “real” character.   The war between Batman and the Joker is the war for Gotham, and in the end, it is not any one character that is saved, it is the entire city.   





 

Web site content © David Garcia

Given such strong performances, the plot may seem like an after thought, but far from it.  The plot is an amazingly twisted (and yet always understandable) maze of double crosses, fake outs, and amazing action pieces.  The plot concerns worried gang leaders hiring the Joker, an “agent of chaos” to deal with their bat problem.    

In the movie No Country For Old Men, criminals hire a man named Anton Chigurh to collect their money, but Chigurh is the embodiment of evil, and the introduction of such an elemental force destroys the entire fabric of the culture.  The same is true of the Joker, who describes himself as an avatar of chaos.  Like a tornado or an earthquake, the Joker cannot be controlled, and cannot be predicted.  He does what he will do, regardless of the consequences.  Even the gangsters who hired him quickly come to regret their decision.  

Also of note in the plot is the notion of Batman's and the Joker’s effect on the population.  Early on, we see Batman imitators who use methods more extreme than their hero.  Their use of guns suggests that they’ve crossed the line that Batman so carefully toes.   Also at work is the way the Joker turns ordinary people into gun-toting killers, willing to kill a slimy lawyer to preserve the greater good.  A heart wrenching scene aboard a ferry filled with prisoners suggests the terrifying effect of the Joker, as well as the redemptive qualities of Batman.  

The action scenes are top notch, and told in a clear fashion.  There are no shaky cameras or indistinct action here.  And the action is BIG, from the exploding hospital to an eighteen wheeler turning end over end.   

The movie does have one significant misstep.  Early on in the movie, Batman leaves the confines of Gotham city and goes to Hong Kong. This slows down the movie’s momentum, and though the sequence is important to the plot in two ways, it remains jarring and somewhat incongruous with the rest of the plot. But that digression is short lived and does absolutely nothing to take away from the brilliance of the rest of the film.     ^-EOS-