« Desi @ Olympics: The Indian boxing squad :+: Desi @ Olympics: Indian shooting team »

Entertainment

Why so serious: The Dark Knight delves into politics?

By: Santosh :+: Under: Entertainment, Opinion, Politics
On: ⋅ July 31, 2008 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment
Discuss in our off-topic forums

Looks like you are new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Hollywood directors have long been (in)famous for inserting their political leanings into their works of art, some not so subtle, think Oliver Stone, and some far more subtle. Christopher Nolan, falls in the latter, by design or otherwise, with the movie that is poised to be the greatest revenue grosser of all time.

*** Minor spoilers ***

Andrew Klavan in the Wall Street Journal review of the movie draws parallels between the Dark Knight and, of all people, George W. Bush. [WSJ]

While I don’t agree with the justification for suspending civil rights in any situation and brown nosing of the Bush administration that Klavan indulges in - the obvious argument being that Klavan is using a movie to justify real life - it is hard to argue with Klavan’s premise that Nolan’s “The Dark Knight” had the same intent, i.e. per Klavan, Nolan’s Joker represents the mastermind terrorist and the Batman, George W. Bush.

It’s hard to miss once you latch on to the dialog. Alfred Pennyworth (Michael Caine), Bruce Wayne’s butler and adviser, on the Joker:

“some men aren’t looking for anything logical, like money. They can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.”

Any guesses who else this line could apply to?

The Joker holds much relevance in today’s politically charged atmosphere for he represents not only a comic book character but also THE terrorist mastermind. For starters, to say the Joker is mentally unstable would be stating the obvious. A micro-planner to the core, he blows up buildings to create mayhem. He brainwashes a hurt and vulnerable idealist and “turns him to the dark side”. He kidnaps people and kills them with the impunity of a hyperactive child gleefully ripping a doll’s head and then popping it back in. He has the smarts and cunning to unite the mob and turns them into his puppets – he is a criminal, yet superior to them. All said and done, the Joker has the entire city of Gotham trembling to the sound of his name.

The Joker has but one target, the Batman. In some perverse way, he owes his existence to the Batman. The Batman is the cause the Joker lives to fight against, his only purpose in life is to antagonize the Dark Knight and make him look foolish and incompetent in the eyes of the world. Batman is the system (except he isn’t) and the Joker is THE terrorist mastermind using the system as the means of justification for his very existence.

As for the Caped Crusader, besides the fact that Bruce Wayne desires someone else’s girl friend throughout the movie, the Batman also shows enough character flaws and lapses in judgment, which is exactly what makes him human and sets him apart from other comic superheroes. The Batman himself doesn’t fare much better in the “morality” department. The movie title “The Dark Knight” was not picked at random.
Says Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart in the performance of his career) to Bruce Wayne (Christian “Bail” Bale):

“You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.”

As the movie progresses, unable to cope with the Joker, the Batman finds himself increasingly indulging in extra judicial activity. The Batman kidnaps and airlifts a foreign national because, well, the Batman is above the law. He drops a mobster from a balcony in his own unique torture technique in a bid to force him to divulge the whereabouts of the Joker. Starting to sound familiar? Wait. There’s more. With the Joker in captivity, the Batman physically roughs him up in the presence of the hapless cops, to get valuable information from him. As icing on the cake, the Batman wiretaps the phone lines of every single Gotham citizen, something Morgan Freeman’s character of Lucius Fox objects to on grounds of civil rights. I’ve heard various arguments on who the Batman really represents - Dirty Harry or Dirty G.W. Bush. Long before he was famous, Christopher Nolan made “The Memento”. Nolan is notorious for tightly woven scripts and storylines and it’s almost impossible to imagine so many political references “creeping” into any one of Nolan’s movies, even unintentionally. With the dialogs and the subtle political bravado, Nolan’s Batman does represent George W. Bush or some variation of his administration thereof.

With the recent series of bomb blasts in India, this makes Batman’s character as someone dealing with the terrorist, even more relevant to us. With literally every nation in the world, facing some form of terrorist threat, perhaps Nolan meant to signify that when dealing with this 21st century abomination, it is the ends that justify the means. But enough already with the political mumbo-jumbo and back to the masala aspect.

As for the Dark Knight, it is in my opinion, perhaps the best action movie of all time. By the time the movie ends, Bale as the Caped Crusader has made us forget (hopefully forever) the former (atrocious) incarnations of Batman played by Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer and George Clooney. I’m sure you’ve heard this a million times over – Heath Ledger’s Joker character alone is worth the price of admission.

I’ve never liked clowns, no fear factor here, just plain dislike. Raj Kapoor destroyed the cutesy persona of a clown for me with his grating portrayal of a tragic clown in “Mera Naam Joker” and Stephen King ripped the remainder of the clown’s lighter side to shreds with “It”. The late Heath Ledger as Batman’s arch nemesis, The Joker, takes the comical version of Jack Nicholson’s portrayal of the clown, and turns it into something dark, maniacal and just plain evil, a human personification of “It”. Thankfully, The Dark Knight is not a children’s movie for it most certainly would’ve knocked the profession of birthday party clowns into oblivion, so scary has Ledger made the clown.

Posthumous Oscar, perhaps?

Aaron Eckhart’s portrayal of Harvey Dent, with a twist in the latter half of the movie? Par excellence. Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman and Maggie Gyllenhaal, all great actors in their own right, complete the stellar cast of the movie.

Dialogs are seldom wasted. Almost every line carries some significance in the context of the movie. Again you’ve probably been bombarded with reviews that praise the screenplay, fight sequences, chases and graphics, and those reviews do speak the truth. At 2 hours 30 minutes, the movie is a tad longer than expected but who’s complaining.

In the rare case you still haven’t, may I suggest a night at the movies with “The Dark Knight” on the itinerary. The IMax version definitely beats the regular screen. This movie has a darker side to it, so exercise caution with children. And, however caught up you are in the non-stop action sequences, don’t miss the great dialogs and political undercurrents therein.

« Desi @ Olympics: The Indian boxing squad :+: Desi @ Olympics: Indian shooting team »
Discuss in our off-topic forums