 The Dark Knight (2008) Director-
Christopher Nolan; Starring – Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron
Eckhart, Gary Oldman, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Morgan Freeman; Screenplay –
Jonathan Nolan and Christopher Nolan from a story by Christopher Nolan
and David S. Goyer; rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence; see
trailer here.
 It really all starts with a pencil.
Batman as an entity began with pencils and inks nearly 70 years ago on
the pages of Detective Comics. Bill Finger and Bob Kane’s creation has
undergone a number of changes over the years, in print, television and
film. It is the comic character I cut my teeth on when I first started
collecting comics as a dorky teenager. Though I outgrew the comic book,
the affection for the character has long remained.
A pencil is also at the heart of one of the earliest scenes involving
Heath Ledger as Joker in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight. It is a
scene that shows in a heartbeat that Ledger is not just some clown, the
scene that made me realize Nolan was shooting for something bigger than
just a comic book movie. As the story unfolded, it wound up exceeding
my own exaggerated expectations.
The Dark Knight is a standard comic book battle of good versus evil. On the side of good stands the triumvirate of Batman/Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale), Gotham Police Lieutenant James Gordon and crusading District Attorney Harvey Dent. The three hold an uneasy alliance, born partly out of concern about potential corruption within the city’s government/police establishment. There is also the hurt Wayne carries from Dent’s involvement with Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal), the Assistant D.A. and the woman Wayne loves.
Evil is losing the battle, and the various crimelords of Gotham’s underworld turn to an unknown and unexpected savior in Joker. Joker has made a reputation for himself, ruthlessly robbing mob banks and killing anyone who might stand in his way. But Joker also promises to deliver the one thing the mob needs to be able to return to power: killing Batman.
What director Nolan has done with his brother Jonathan to elevate the film is take the comic book battle and couch it in the context of a serious crime drama. It feels like the Nolans have gone truly old school in taking the story back to its roots, focusing on the “detective” in Detective Comics. Gordon and Batman work through the clues and try to work the system to bring the mob down within the system, utilizing Dent and Dawes along the way. Though there is concern about Joker, all three have the larger prize of bringing down entire criminal organizations in focus.
What they fail to consider is that Joker does not play by anyone’s rules, save his own. As Ledger develops the Joker as a character, the only thing on Joker’s agenda is bringing any and all organizations crashing down. As much as Javier Bardem chilled my blood last year as Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men, Ledger does at least as much with his portrayal of Joker.
So much hype was tied to this movie and Ledger’s performance after his unfortunate death in January from an accidental overdose. Watching him play Joker feels a bit lurid knowing it was the last film he completed before his death. But the praise and talk of posthumous awards for his performance are well earned. Ledger disappears completely into the character and drives so much of the action. He is a force to be reckoned with, as any good villain should be.
What makes the film more successful is the way the other actors around Ledger fit comfortably into their roles, filling them with equal measures of depth and complexity. Aaron Eckhart deserves most of the recognition in this regard. Those familiar with Batman’s Rogue’s Gallery from the comics know Dent’s history and the arc his story takes, becoming the villainous Two Face. Nolan lays all of that out in addition to the Joker’s story and manages to give Dent’s story a fair shake. He is an epically tragic figure, in as much as any comic hero or villain can be, and Eckhart gives it everything he has to try and bring both aspects out in full.
It is also amazing to see Gary Oldman playing the most normal figure in a movie for a change. As much as his career has been defined by playing psychopaths, watching Oldman portray the bedrock of stability that is Gordon is comforting, and he does it well. He gives Gordon just enough character to be sympathetic as the everyman cop who is making the most of the unusual ally he has in Batman. He comes off as genuinely trying to do the right thing in difficult situations. The ones that do not pan out pain him deeply.
Even the small change of replacing Katie Holmes with Maggie Gyllenhaal has a significant effect on the tone of this film. Compared to Holmes’ performanceas Dawes in Batman Begins, Gyllenhaal is a welcome change of pace. She still looks too young to have made it to the ranks of Assistant D.A., but she at least has some weight to her personality in the quiet moments between her and Dent. For what little she has to do with the story, Gyllenhaal makes the most of her time.
As prominently as I have discussed all the other figures in this story, it would seem odd that I have not said a word about the one most central to this story. Bale has grown on me as an actor in this role, though it is arguable that his role as Batman in this story is underwritten compared to the previous chapter. The gravely modulation he affects on his voice to distinguish himself as Batmen from Bruce Wayne does not allow for much variation. As a result, he does not give enough power to the more prominent monologues Batman has. It winds up coming off a little flat.
That said, his time as Bruce Wayne more than makes up for the parts in which the Batman role is lacking. Batman, after all, is just the persona Wayne adopted to intimidate the criminal element. In the reserved moments when Wayne is left to consider his actions, the struggles he goes through in trying to balance the need to protect his city and avenge his parents against his own personal wants and desires are made evident. He becomes vulnerable and that is when Bale as an actor is more compelling.
The scene that makes Bale’s performance for me comes when he and a date run into Dawes and Dent socially for the first time. There is awkwardness between the four of them that feels authentic. As the two couples decide to sit together for dinner, the conversation that unfolds feels a bit adversarial as each party feels out their “replacement”. For all the actors involved, it is a solid piece of work.
Nolan’s screenplay also gets at some of the more interesting aspects of the dichotomy between Batman and Joker. The difference between Batman’s role as a man trying to impose order upon a chaotic underworld and Joker as one who has given in to the chaos completely comes out in a nice exchange when the two meet for the first time.
It is reminiscent in some respects of the scene between Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino in Michael Mann’s Heat, and it is not the only way Heat and Dark Knight parallel each other. Both scenes try to capture how the game between the two figures involved defines them and how incomplete one is without the other. It is some heady stuff for a superhero film.
The two films also share the common trait of length. At two and a half hours, Dark Knight runs longer than one would expect from a summer blockbuster. And even with the extra running time, the film still feels packed to the gills with all the differing subplots. I imagine people who do not care for the movie will choose the word “bloated” as an appropriate adjective to describe it, and I would see where they get that.
But given how superhero films and summer blockbusters tend to skew towards the lowest common denominator, I find it refreshing to see a movie trying to be both something substantial as a crime drama, and enjoyable as a piece of summer escapism. There are action sequences that impress, particularly a chase scene involving a police truck and the Joker’s pursuit vehicle. There is also human drama and character development that goes beyond a weepy flashback or a clichéd idea.
If I have any quibble with the film, it is that Nolan still has not found a good rapport with camerman Wally Pfister to shoot the hand-to-hand fight scenes effectively. The frame is cropped too close in, the action too clustered and confusing to really appreciate the things that are going on. In what may be the only nod I would give to Hellboy II over Dark Knight, Del Toro’s film at least let me see and fully appreciate the ass-kickings being administered in all their widescreen glory.
But that one complaint is far overshadowed by the myriad number of things this film does right. It provides plenty of meat for the fanboys and comic geeks to pour over in terms of translating the characters from the multicolored page to film. It gives the more serious moviegoers some actual plot and mystery to chew on as the many layers of the Joker’s schemes are unveiled. The heroes experience real threats that make you wonder how they will escape the jaws of death. And no one comes out of the film completely clean, which only leaves me hungry for more.
That last makes me sad knowing that Ledger will not be around to be a part of that. As a last role, it is as good as an actor could as for to close out a career. But I would have loved to see his Joker come back up in future films, if Nolan and the rest choose to continue with this franchise. As a film that is about superheroes and so much more, I would like to think Ledger would have wanted another go as Joker.
But even without Ledger, I find myself hoping they get started on the next chapter of Batman’s saga and soon. Suddenly, I am 15 again, having just finished the latest issue of Detective Comics. Waiting for the next chapter to come out, for the story to continue almost seems too much to bear.
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