I'm not a professional but one thing I do know is that film critics can no longer be trusted to give a thorough opinion when dismissal is their main frame of reference. When a movie such as The dark Knight comes along it's worthy of discussion.
So much is inversted in the storyline and themes that simply dismissing it as popcorn entertainment condescends it's considerable achievements.
Armond White is a film critic for New York press, one that is widely respected as well as detested. He's a polarising figure for sure, as someone who champions films like The Black Dalia yet reduced this to mere insignificance. Here is his review and below i'll share my thoughts and contrast the two. It was a great movie why not talk about it?
KNIGHT TO REMEMBER
Christopher Nolan panders to hip, nihilistic tendencies, forgetting that superheroes are also meant to inspire hope.
By Armond White
The Dark Knight
Directed by Christopher Nolan
Every generation has a right to its own Batman. Every generation also has the right—no, obligation—to question a pop-entertainment that diminishes universal ideas of good, evil, social purpose and pleasure. And Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, is a highly questionable pop enterprise. Forty-two-year-old movie lovers can’t tell 21-year-old movie lovers why; 21 can only know by getting to be 42. But I’ll try.
After announcing his new comics interpretation with 2005’s oppressively grim Batman Begins, Nolan continues the intellectual squalor popularized in his pseudo-existential hit Memento. Appealing to adolescent jadedness and boredom, Nolan revamps millionaire Bruce Wayne’s transformation into the crime-fighter Batman (played by indie-zombie Christian Bale), by making him a twisted icon, what the kids call “sick.” The Dark Knight is not an adventure movie with a driven protagonist; it’s a goddamn psychodrama in which Batman/Bruce Wayne’s neuroses compete with two alter-egos: Gotham City’s law-and-order District Attorney, Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), and master criminal The Joker (Heath Ledger)—all three personifying the contemporary distrust of virtue.
We’re way beyond film noir here. The Dark Knight has no black-and-white moral shading. Everything is dark, the tone glibly nihilistic (hip) due to The Joker’s rampage that brings Gotham City to its knees—exhausting the D.A. and nearly wearing-out Batman’s arsenal of expensive gizmos. Nolan isn’t interested in providing James Bond–style gadgetry for its own ingenious wonder; rather, these crime battle accoutrements evoke Zodiac-style “process” (part of the futility and dread exemplified by the constantly outwitted police). This pessimism links Batman to our post-9/11 anxiety by escalating the violence quotient, evoking terrorist threat and urban helplessness. And though the film’s violence is hard, loud and constant, it is never realistic—it fabricates disaster simply to tease millennial death wish and psychosis.
Watching psychic volleys between Batman, Dent and The Joker (there’s even a love quadrangle that includes Maggie Gyllenhaal’s slouchy Assistant D.A., Rachel Dawes) is as fraught and unpleasurable as There Will Be Blood with bat wings. This sociological bloodsport shouldn’t be acceptable to any thinking generation.
There hasn’t been so much pressure to like a Batman movie since street vendors were selling bootleg Batman T-shirts in 1989. If blurbs like “The Dark Knight creates a place where good and evil—expected to do battle—decide instead to get it on and dance” sound desperate, it’s due to the awful tendency to convert criticism into ad copy—constantly pandering to Hollywood’s teen demographic. This not only revamps ideas of escapist entertainment; like Nolan, it corrupts them.
Remember how Tim Burton’s 1989 interpretation of the comics superhero wasn’t quite good enough? Yet Burton attempted something dazzling: a balance of scary/satirical mood (which he nearly perfected in the 1992 Batman Returns) that gave substance to a pop-culture totem, enhancing it without sacrificing its delight. Burton didn’t need to repeat the tongue-in-cheek 1960s TV series; being romantically in touch with Catwoman, Bruce Wayne and The Penguin’s loneliness was richer. Burton’s pop-geek specialty is to humorously explicate childhood nightmare. But Nolan’s The Dark Knight has one note: gloom. For Nolan, making Batman somber is the same as making it serious. This is not a triumph of comics culture commanding the mainstream: It’s giving in to bleakness. Ever since Frank Miller’s 1986 graphic-novel reinvention, The Dark Knight Returns, pop consumers have rejected traditional moral verities as corny. That might be the ultimate capitalist deception.
A bleak Batman entraps us in a commercial mechanism, not art. There’s none of Burton’s satirical detachment from the crime-and-punishment theme. In Nolan’s view, crime is never punished or expunged. (“I am an agent of chaos!” boasts The Joker.) The generation of consumers who swallow this pessimistic sentiment can’t see past the product to its debased morality. Instead, their excitement about The Dark Knight’s dread (that teenage thrall with subversion) inspires their fealty to product.
Ironically, Nolan’s aggressive style won’t be slagged “manipulative” because it doesn’t require viewers to feel those discredited virtues, “hope” and “faith.” Like Hellboy II, this kind of sci-fi or horror or comics-whatever obviates morality. It trashes belief systems and encourages childish fantasies of absurd macho potency and fabulous grotesqueries. That’s how Nolan could take the fun out of Batman and still be acclaimed hip. As in Memento, Nolan shows rudimentary craft; his zeitgeist filmmaking—morose, obsessive, fussily executed yet emotionally unsatisfying—will only impress anyone who hasn’t seen De Palma’s genuinely, politically serious crime-fighter movie, The Black Dahlia.
Aaron Eckhart’s cop role in The Black Dahlia humanized the complexity of crime and morality. But as Harvey Dent, sorrow transforms him into the vengeful Two-Face, another Armageddon freak in Nolan’s sideshow. The idea is that Dent proves heroism is improbable or unlikely in this life. Dent says, “You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become a villain.” What kind of crap is that to teach our children, or swallow ourselves? Such illogic sums up hipster nihilism, just like Herzog’s Encounters at the End of the World. Putting that crap in a Batman movie panders to the naiveté of those who have not outgrown the moral simplifications of old comics but relish cynicism as smartness. That’s the point of The Joker telling Batman, “You complete me.” Tim Burton might have ridiculed that Jerry Maguire canard, but Nolan means it—his hero is as sick as his villain.
Man’s struggle to be good isn’t news. The difficulty only scares children—which was the original, sophisticated point of Jack Nicholson’s ’89 Joker. Nicholson’s disfigurement abstracted psychosis, being sufficiently hideous without confusing our sympathy. Ledger’s Joker (sweaty clown’s make-up to cover his Black Dahlia–style facial scar) descends from the serial killer clichés of Hannibal Lecter and Anton Chigurh—fashionable icons of modern irrational fear. The Joker’s escalation of urban chaos and destruction is accompanied by booming sound effects and sirens—to spook excitable kids. Ledger’s already-overrated performance consists of a Ratso Rizzo voice and lots of lip-licking. But how great of an actor was Ledger to accept this trite material in the first place?
Unlike Nicholson’s multileveled characterization, Ledger reduces The Joker to one-note ham-acting and trite symbolism. If you fell for the evil-versus-evil antagonism of There Will Be Blood, then The Dark Knight should be the movie of your wretched dreams. Nolan’s unvaried direction drives home the depressing similarities between Batman and his nemeses. Nolan’s single trick is to torment viewers with relentless action montages; distracting ellipses that create narrative frustration and paranoia. Delayed resolution. Fake tension. Such effects used to be called cheap. Cheap like The Joker’s psychobabble: “Madness, as you know, is like gravity—all it takes is a little push.” The Dark Knight is the sentinel of our cultural abyss. All it takes is a push.
The Dark Knight.
By Acapedit.
My jaw dropped on the floor.
The Dark Knight is the one comic book movie that redefines how comic book movies are made. This is what brass balls filmmaking is all about. Wildly ambitious, dark, preocupied with alot on it's mind. It succeeds brilliantly because the weighty thematic elements work in perfect unision with the popcorn munching requirements.
Lemme just say that I am not a fanboy geek. I could give a shit about the adolecent preoccupations of that audience. I take joy dissecting the film thematically by examining it's plot and character. The acting, sight and sound to me inform what it's about. I'm the first to admit i've never been crazy about Christopher Nolan, but he stepped up his A gam here. I liked The Prestige and I found Batman Begins too ponderous and boring to be satisfying. Safe to say that here the proceedings fire on all cylinders, as anything i've seen done with Batman is being reevaluated. The Dark Knight is the most ambitious movie of it's kind since The Empire Strikes Back, and it plays like a fully formed creation instead of fragments by commitee becasue Nolan was allowed to make it uncompromising. First thing he's done right? the screenplay (cowriten with his brother) is layered with thematic weight, framing the characters in an universe that doesn't transcend them, instead embraces them. This is unlike what Tim Burton did in his movies. Nolan wisely (and without irony) represents the Batman mythos seriously. Every character represents sides of the same agenda. The chips drop and consequences ensure.
Remember when you first saw the Empire Strikes Back and once Luke lost his hand all bets where off? this is THAT Batman movie. There's a level of uncertainty and an undercurrent of dread that's palpable as you see every character put in circunstances beyond their control. Only fate determines the outcome. This emotional investment of theme and character, chance and fate succeeds partly because the acting is so superb and because the direction is so confidently executed. In the first film Batman's need for justice was his sole motivator, here the results have dire consequences beyond his control as the odds stack up against him. The preocupation with justice and it's moral implications pepper the film with a complexity uncommon for this type of film. The dissertation on the nature of good and evil is what anchors the movie. Mistaking bleakness for thematic emptyness is invalid. Film critics often submit to cynicism because they prejudice the joy an immersive experience like The Dark Knight provides. You need your brain as well as your eyes here, because it's an incredibly immersive movie. Don't you think it's uncommon seeing somthing this complex in what's essentially a cash machine?
I find it subversive that a commercial entity designed soley to make money comproses a platform to discuss such weighty issues. The city and it's citizens evoke post 9/11 panic. When the joker instills anarchy onto Gotham the results are exactly how a city in panic reacts to an uncontrollable force. I find it subversive that a commercial entity designed soley to make money comprise a platform to discuss such weighty issues.
Second thing Nolan got right: The conception of The Joker.
Heath ledger creates a performance so inedible that an undercurrent of sadness is all but inevitable knowing such a gifted performer is no longer here. Every expression feels organic, rather than prerehearsed. Ledger nails every gesture, every weird tick for this maximum impact. What makes the character so memorable is that he has no identifyable agenda, he's simply a symbol of anarchy. He enjoys driving the city to it's knees. Joker's determination to expose Batman as a fraud presents a psychological component of uncommon gravity for this sort of film. While Jack Nicholson played it for fun, Ledger makes him off the handle terryfying. One of the things the reviewer above got wrong is calling it a "ham" and one note, mistaking purpose of character for nihilism. If you appreciate good acting then you will see that a great actor disappears into the role and that's exactly what Heath accomplishes. Rather than go the usual route of taunts and antagonisms, Joker outlines his dilemma and the reasons for them. Credit Nolan and his brother for writing intelligent dialogue.
Nolan's direction.
The impressive thing about Nolan's confident direction is how all the plot theads manage to run parallel to advance the story, instead of stopping and starting. This is one 2 1/2 hour movie that never falters because the narrative elements are precisely in their right place. Kudos to the editor, I envy you.
The visuals.
This is by far the most visually impressive Batman movie since Batman Returns. Lemme pause for a minute to pick up my jaw from the floor. Nolan shot the spectacular action sequences in IMAX and the results are outstanding. Michael Mann is a frame of reference evident in the opening heist that launches the movie. Gotham city is less gloomy than the first but in return has more gained more clarity and is better intergrated into the story. Gone are the awkward fight scenes from begins, here everything is dynamic, perfectly realized. Nolan's DP Waly Psister deserves an Oscar nomination for his work, as his lighting scheme is incredibly intricate without resorting to the typical artifice. It FEELS like it should. Worthy of mention is the scene where Joker exits the hospital. I fucking peed my pants almost. The action scenes evolve in a coherent manner and are visually dynamic, yet theu never upstage the characters and this allows us to be absorbed into the story rather than be distracted.
As for Batman? well that's the least interesting element of the movie. He does get to do more detective work this time around and his resolution is terrific, I was surprised at how screentime Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckard) had. His character is arguably the most prominent to the story. Two face is a grisly creation and certainly very cool indeed. Katie Holmes? Gillenhaal is an improvement but not hot enough to warrant the extremes Harvey Dent would later go to. In fact this was the weakest link in an otherwise flawless film, I just didn't think their relationship had enough gravity to warrant the preceeding shitstorm. Rachel is a thankless role and more designed to move the story along, the other is The Joker's resolution. The stakes where so high that...it was all forgotten in favor of Harvey Dent's character arc. I hear reports that Nolan shot scenes for the third film that would complete Joker's arc but that's just a rumor.
Parting thoughts.
Nolan has crafted an epic where every action has a reaction, and everyone's fked to some degree. Every character at one point stands to lose everything. Towards the end Batman makes the ultimate sacrifice for the greater good, his choice resonates and is true to character. The Batman mythos all but demystified. The end barelly allows hope to peek though because when all is done, the chips fall where they may.
The Dark Knight is the best comic book movie ever attempted. Nolan has crafted an intense and unrelenting ride. That it deserves further discussion is a sign of it's merits. Superbly realized and without peer, comic book films reach a zenith to a level of art with The Dark Knight. Along with Children of Men, It may very well may be one of the decade's crowning achievements.
A masterpiece.
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