The Dark Knight

Dark Knight is a philosophical-horror film directed and produced by Christopher Nolan, and is part of a Batman mini-series. I'd say that the joker, chillingly played by Heath Ledger, is one of the most horrifying villains in cinematic history. However it's also very interesting to see how the other characters respond and deal with the Joker and his swathe of destruction. Overall you could say Dark Knight is a modern philosophical thought experiment. The film is enthralling not because Nihilism is attractive but because truth is mesmerising, Dark Knight brilliantly and accurately expresses a number of world-views and how we respond to them.





The Story 

Batman (& Bruce Wayne), Gotham police lieutenant James Gordon, district attorney Harvey Dent and the Mayor form an unofficial coalition to "clean up the streets" and break Gotham's Mafia gangs. It involves convicting them on the basis of their money laundering. Into this story plunges the Joker like a perverted deus ex machina.  A wounded mob underling asks the Joker; "Criminals in this town used to believe in things, honour respect, look at you what do you believe in?" To which he responds: "I believe what doesn't kill you simply makes you stranger." Batman can't stop the Joker's violent antics and in the end the Joker puts him into an impossible bind; the 'noble' district attorney or the girl (Rachel Dawes). As Gordon says at the end of the movie, Gotham needs a hero, who is not just stronger than the Joker, but more noble.

How do you fight a nihilistic villain?

The Joker is held by the Police and threatened with violence (but not death through torture, Batman's one rule) by Batman.  Usually in this scenario, the antagonist desires to live or values something the protagonist can threaten.
Batman: "I have one rule."

The Joker: "Then you'll have to break that rule, because the only sensible way to live in this world is without rules."

Batman: "Where are they [Dent & Rachel]?"

The Joker (laughing): "You have nothing, nothing to threaten me with."

Nihilism cannot be defeated without supernatural intervention.  Batman isn't a Superman, he's Bruce Wayne with lots of money and martial arts training. He represents the best Western Culture has to fight evil but against the Joker, he is powerless.

If we are just the product of chance, then the Joker is our hero!

One of the core assumptions of secular naturalism, is that the observable world is, in the final measure of things, a product of chance. We are the product of random mutations and the world around us has only the appearance of order. Philosophically the Joker is the moral expression of this idea. "See" he says to Batman, "I'm not a monster, I'm just ahead of the curve." Later he describes himself as an "agent of chaos".

Authentic worldviews 

The Dark Knight is successful because it's generally authentic.  It realistically portrays several world-views, for example the desperate and superficial governance of the ruling elite (thing of the Wayne's coktail party) or the dark freedom of Nihilism. For example the scenes where the Joker burns the money and turns the gun on himself as he taunts Harvey Dent on his hospital bed.

Justice demands a hero, should he be just?

Batman's "rule" is to not kill the joker, you could also extend it to those not directly involved in the fray. Does this make him just? Wayne is criticised for his 'all seeing eye machine', as an unjust measure for a hero to use despite it's original purpose in tracking down the Joker. In the hollow conclusion, Harvey Dent is held up to be the hero fit for public consumption because even a fake hero needed to be perceived as righteous.

Are villains and heroes really just the same?

Joker: "I don't want to kill you, what would I do without you? .. No, you complete me!" At one point as the Joker and Batman fight on the edge of a high-rise construction site, the Joker is caught upside down by a rope looped around his ankle but the camera slowly turns as he speaks until he's facing the audience right way up.

Everyone's bad

The Bible describes people like sheep, lead by a shepherd. However the Joker comments that "when the chips are down these civilised people, they'll eat each other." The innocent crowds Batman works to protect are turned in an hour by the Joker into people that'll do anything to preserve themselves and their nearest and dearest.

Everyone's good

Nolan in an enigmatic twist has us the audience caught in an "aw shucks, triumph of the human spirit moment" when the people on both boats (civilians in one and criminals in the other) turn out to be nice folk and don't detonate each other's explosives. It's almost as though Nolan's throwing in a humanist world as either sop for our consciences or as an ironic nod to political correctness.

The Joker as the 'Prince of this world'

In many ways the Joker is the Prince of the world, that old liar the Serpent. (A theme of the film is the Joker's false stories about his facial scars.) Like CS Lewis' diabolical Westron from Voyage to Venus, he offers death and destruction as a legitimate path to freedom. He doesn't dress up his diabolical schemes with silly demands for money or a Kingdom. When Satan tempts Jesus, he isn't seeking the throne of heaven per say, it's beyond his grasp forever, instead he wishes to tear the Son down to his own dark despairing level.

The Dark Knight is a tragedy

Hollywood generally leaves tragedy as a genre to the non-mainstream cinema. However Dark Knight finishes as a tragedy, the villain, while thwarted, remains undefeated just moved off-screen, the one noble character Gordon is left humiliated before his family and lying to the public about Batman as the hero himself runs into the darkness unthanked and hunted.

[Screenshots © 2010 Warner Brothers.]

Mad Men, Spin and Hype

Mad Men is a nihilistic show specialising in representing the edge of social and cultural change through the lens of an Advertising agency during the 1960s.  Apparently millions are spent every episode getting costumes and props exactly right. It's centered around the tragic excess of Don Draper, a self made executive and creative genius.  Mad Men is also part of a larger but looser contemporary genre of shows and movies centered on a protagonist who is the anti-hero, an up market Philip Marlow.

One of the themes of the show is the use of spin, both professionally as the ad agencies sell products and personally as characters attempt to make and keep particular personas.  Today we wince at the blatant self-promotion and the kitsch of Hollywood hype but it's sister is the slicker New York 1960's Mad Men version. And I think while we'd frown on the spin doctors from The Hollowmen and generally disdain Hollywood style self-promotion, those of us who deal regularly with intangibles are prone to spin. A farmer points to his field or a nurse to their patient but how do politicians, academics, Generals, managers and ministers quantify what they do let alone present their particular solution as more favorable than another?

This isn't to say ideas, stratagems, feelings and conversations aren't valuable, they are, because they shape where and why the ditches should be dug and the fire preserved. However I think those of use who deal in intangibles need to be continually aware of the dangers of misusing promotion, of buying into a society that is often unconscious of the way culture works, the way a city nurtures people, animals and ideas together.

Winter's Bone [Spoiler Alert]

While this story of a young woman's defence of her family is tough, set among the rural poor of The Ozarks in southern Missouri, it's not an example of Miserablism! It's a thriller and very gritty in places but it's not gratuitous and the story arc is very satisfying.  The heroine, Ree Dolly, has to find her father so he can appear in court and so they won't loose the house which he put up as bond.  However the dad brews Meth in an illegal lab and is mixed up with the family of the local big man, Thump Milton. So it's difficult for Ree to untangle the story and confront the crime family. A striking moment occurs when Ree's uncle saves her and "stands for her" to take vicariously whatever consequences the Milton clan might dish out.  I like the way this movie weaves story with daily life.  Having a daughter also made me think about the dynamics of the father-daughter relationship, Ree's resilience and the formation of her character in such a gloomy context.

Treme [some spoilers] - post apocalyptic?

From the creators of The Wire, comes Treme set three months after Hurricane Katrina nearly destroyed New Orleans (with many of the same actors, a few surprisingly cast against type).  As in The Wire some of the sexual allusions are difficult to cope with but there is less violence. Similar to Generation Kill, it's a shorter series and like Generation Kill (second invasion of Iraq) more of a snapshot of a significant period (post Katrina) rather than an extended exploration of a location (the city of Baltimore).

Again the central device is following several loosely connected stories that, while quite different, explore similar themes. One of the themes seems to be living in a post-apocalyptic landscape (patrolling National Guard units, the abandoned cars, the broken houses and damaged societal fabric): who survives, who thrives and who succumbs.  On the one hand, Jeanette the restaurant owning chef is defeated by the broken city, closing up and leaving for New York on the other hand Davis the musician thrives, partly because of his joie de vivre, and willingness to embrace the chaos of the broken city.

I wonder where David Simon will go next? The Wire so powerfully explored the broken dynamics of institutions.  While Generation Kill and Treme were great snapshots of important periods in recent American history, the first serious the second relatively more lighthearted.  Strangely I also like each of the show's inconsistencies (although Generation Kill was the least like this, in this regard).  For example in The Wire a few of the subplots were boring and fairly immaterial narratively or thematically. It's the same in Treme, for example the professor Creighton's lectures are cringingly [sp] lightweight given the pathos of his particular story.  But I like this because it's emblematic of our fallen condition, a funny mixture banal normality and intensity and beauty.

True Grit [Spoiler Alert]

I think my last film review was also a Coen brothers movie, No Country for Old Men, a well-crafted modern western with supernatural overtones and a disappointing conclusion.  True Grit  a remake and an old school western is played very straight by the Coen brothers.  The dialogue is great and the cinematography doesn't get in the way of the story, no peculiar Coen twists.

Mattie's father is killed by a criminal, Sam Chaney who disappears into Indian territory.  Mattie (Elizabeth Marvel) after collecting her father's body to send back East sets out to get revenge by hiring Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) without being precocious in the process. Mattie and heavy-drinking Cogburn set out with the bouffont LaBoeuf (Matt Damon) in tow.  There are some some funny moments of rivalry between Cogburn and LaBoeuf and it's great watching Bridges play the grizzled and canny Cogburn.   However Cogburn gets drunk on a stash of whiskey and Mattie is captured by Sam Chaney's gang.  In the final battle Cogburn and LaBoeuf rescue Mattie and she shoots Chaney.  Unfortunately she stumbles and falls into a snake bit and is bitten before being rescued.  In a brutal but strangely poignant scene Cogburn makes a desperate trip to a nearby outpost in order to save Mattie.


Mattie survives and then there is an awkward montage showing Mattie as an old maid trying to track Cogburn down and then visiting his grave, the closing shot of the movie.  Now admittedly this isn't as horrible as the conclusion to No Country for Old Men but it's so emotionally incongruent with the rest of the film, lacking the rest of the film's pathos and even cinematic quality.  Perhaps the end of story is meant to show that revenge has a sour aftertaste but I expected higher stakes, Cogburn dying as he carried Mattie to the outpost.

Now I appreciate the fact that the Coen brothers played it straight and they are undoubtedly aware of some this world's deeper patterns, aware of the emotional power they can produce cinemantically.  However they inhabit a strange moral universe, it's as though they are aware of a metaphysical world around them but they don't want to commit to direction, they don't want to give a clear verdict.  Why can't they let Cogburn make a sacrifice, why is he and LaBoeuf pulled suddenly from the story and is this really how revenge works?  Again I'm left admiring the story but shaking my head.

Dorian Grey [*spoiler alert*]

The story of Dorian Grey is very compelling, Oscar Wilde was able to capture using magic realism something important about the brokenness of our condition.  The film I think was carried along more by the force of the story then it's cinematic quality.  The movie was quite clumsy in showing Dorian's debased embracing of hedonism, lots of skin and some gore.  I thought a subtler and wider exploration of Dorian's descent into evil would have conveyed the original story more effectively. (Imagine something like The Last Supper meets Remains of the Day!)  Amy and I enjoyed watching it together because we like the story and the film brings out the main elements of the original but weren't entirely satisfied.  I was struck by the closing scene. In the empty mansion, Henry bitterly views the now intact and youthful portrait of Dorian Grey.  You can imagine the portrait sitting in Henry's attic, a permeant reminder to Henry and his family, a sort of psychic scar of the way evil, although now destroyed, had consumed Dorian.

Generation Kill

As a bit of escapist relaxation I've been watching Generation Kill a HBO miniseries about the recent invasion of Iraq. It follows an embedded reporter for Rolling Stone magazine.  He's riding with a Marine reconnoissance battalion for the first forty days of the invasion.  Written and produced by David Simon and Ed Burns (can they put a foot wrong?) who also did The Wire, it's non-pretentious, clear cinema.  Askewing the larger political issues surrounding the invasion it focuses on the Marine institution as it fights its way through Iraq and into Baghdad.  I liked the way the series exposed the way leadership worked in the battalion.  The importance of morale, the survival of incompetence and the way personality permeates even the heat of battle.  It's almost as Burns and Simon are saying life is about bigger things then you can understand, small human interactions and institutional systems, unless you die you can't step outside that three-way vortex.

'The Book of Eli'

David from 'David and Margaret At the Movies' describes this movie as an "ultra-right-wing The Road."  I'll let the viewers at home make up their own mind, it certainly felt like a moralistic Mad Max.  David is also right in that for post-apocalyptic film, the Road sets a new benchmark of despairing beauty and realism which cinematically The book of Eli fails to meet. (Did anyone else feel Denzel Washington was reprising his role in Man on Fire?  ) My brother and I enjoyed it because we are  aficionados of anything post-apocalyptic, fans of classics like the Postman, 12 Monkeys Mad Max and Reign of Fire.  Interestingly Eli is a sort of violent Augustine, preserving the faith amid the ruins of the Roman American Empire.  The movie reflects a sort of broad American evangelicalism, revering the Bible and inclined to moralism.  However I kept wondering what if the movie had been funded by the Sydney Anglicans.  Roving preachers along the ruined Hume Highway!

'State of Play' A review

State of Play is a classic political thriller, Woodward-and-Bernstein-style, of an investigation into government-corporate shenanigans. Cal (Russel Crowe) is a crusty, traditional, senior reporter and Bella (Rachel McAdams) is the new kid who writes a blog for the paper. On the whole well filmed, with good dialogue and a quick pace. Helen Mirren has a great supporting role as an editor and I also think helicopters have become a modern visual symbol for "the-powers-that-be." Because it's a political thriller about sinister military-industrial complex there were several unrelated shots of helicopters hovering menacingly or floating like large black steel wasps above the city. They sometimes do that at Ridley but that's another story for another post. State of Play is also about the struggle between old and new media represented by Cal and Bella as they follow leads and chase the story. Nowadays we hear lots about online networks and the importance of cyberspace. True, but State of Play also brought out the importance of human contacts, eyeballing someone and meeting people in physical locations. I think it's important to realize our networks and day to day activity are a mix of human and cyber. Intriguingly in Sate of Play, the old media wins and the story is broken on the front page of the newspaper and not Bella's blog. 

Gran Torino [*Spoiler alert*]

Gran Torino directed by and starring Clint Eastwood. It's almost as though Clint Eastwood like the hero is flowering late in life, although Million Dollar Baby while having excellent production values was ideologically depressing. Coming from Tasmania I remember the Hmong community at Salamanca Market and I remember a quilt Mum and Dad bought featuring the story of their escape from Communist persecution in South East Asia. I spotted a similar one inside one of the Hmong houses during Gran Torino. I also enjoyed the fact Walt Kowalski was a Korean War veteran; a war overshadowed by the Second World War but with it's effects still lingering in a way the Vietnam War doesn't. Although Kowalski is a racist grump, his verve in approaching life, fixing things, staying in shape and being observant are impressive character traits that I'd like to have at 78. The themes of justice, retribution and vicarious sacrifice were handled well, much better then most of the culliod nonsense churned out by our cultural handlers. Kowalski's sacrifice made me think of Romans 5. "For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." It was also wonderful to see a Priest on the big screen who wasn't a pedophile, gay or doubting his faith, but had good things to say and a major role in the film.

I think great films magnify their flaws, mediocre films overwhelm you with jazz and jilter. Gran Torino is a film about death, a theme Eastwood has been exploring for some time. Perhaps he senses keenly his own mortality because the film is bookended by funerals and through it all Kowalski is a dying man, coughing up blood, a man preparing himself for the end. And that is its flaw. Eastwood is seeking order and meaning in the approach to death, yet shys from really grappling with consequences of meaningless and death. This is a director in the midst of a shallow culture really thinking about what matters but hesitating just before the edge of real potency. I hope Eastwood meets his maker soaked in the Savior's blood.

'No Country for Old Men'

I was recently sobered by watching the very well produced No Country for Old Men. The movie is very trim, no wasted setup scenes, no replays and very controlled cinematography. A gnarly ex-cop says to Tommy Lee Jone's character that "this country is hard on people." It's true both the landscape and it's inhabitants are unforgiving and unsentimental. Yet there was also something beautiful in the washed out desertscapes and laconic demeanour's of the characters.

Sadly at the film's violent core was a message of meaninglessness. The villain lives undefeated, resourceful to the end. Tommy Lee Jones plays one of the two protagonists, a nearly retired sheriff who is searching for meaning. He reads the papers in astonishment at the horror people inflict on each other and tries to make sense of the crimes he investigates. At the beginning of the movie it's his voice narrating and so therefore he provides us with a sort of commentary, a way of making sense of the story. The other protagonist finds two million dollars at the site of a gang shoot out in the middle of the desert, keeps it and is pursued relentlessly by the villain. At the end of the film Tommy Lee Jone's character narrates a dream he had of his father riding past him in the snow, carrying a horn of fire. His father simply rides past, leaving him and us with nothing, no moral framework to make sense of the movie's events.

It's interesting to compare No Country for Old Men with the similar film; A Simple Plan, which also about the unexpected discovery of a large amount of money. However, A Simple Plan while also a depressing film in many ways, has a clear moral, about the value of honesty and the dark complexity of cover-ups. I guess there are places for both types of movies, ones which have a clear moral and ones that reveal the moral bankruptcy of the modern secular worldview.